Elyse's 4th Birthday Celebration

December 26-27, 2008

	December 26 is Elyse's birthday, and they gave her a ribbon and wished her happy birthday, but she understood that her birthday party was going to be on the 27th. We found her playing happily with her "baby".
The family's good friend Carrie brought Elyse a gift of some furnishings for her doll house, and even got down in the floor and played with her.
	Meanwhile Rod and Jeff work on a gift that will not be finished until some time after her birthday - a rock horse. We had fun working on it with sabresaw and router, and it should be nice.
The day of the celebration has come and the Princess is ready! Mom has prepared a wonderful table of refreshments and made a beautiful princess birthday cake. Dad has grilled hamburgers for the occasion.

The family has gathered for the celebration.

The kids gather at the patio table.

The birthday girl has a special princess table.

Darla had set up a string game where each person had to follow their string to a reward. Of course all the strings crossed, so they got all tangled up with each other in the process.

It's approaching the time to light the four candles on Elyse's fancy princess birthday cake.

The family is gathered, the ice cream is out. Let's light the candles!

The candles are lit! Elyse and Jordan seem mesmerized by the process.

The princess seems to be warming her hands over the candles. But not for long!

Elyse gets ready to blow out the candles. The cake and ice cream didn't last much longer.

After cake and ice cream, its time for gifts.

Cousin Caleb and sister Jordan stand by to hand gifts to Elyse, and Mom helps from behind.

Elyse enjoys a new pair of slippers. She was appreciative and gracious with thank yous, besides being really cute.

This would seem to be a good time to get a picture of both sets of grandparents with the kids, but we realized that we were pushing our luck with kids who had been photographed as much as these have over the past couple of days.

Jeff gives Elyse a preview of a future gift of the rock horse that is under construction. I enjoyed the time spent with Jeff working on it and look forward to seeing the finished product.

From the party we said our goodbyes and headed out toward Destin, Fl.