Number 7

Today our Olive turned 7. Amazing. 

While I love making birthday crafts for all my loved ones, making birthday craft for my kids is extra-special. 

As always, I made Olive a scrapbook of the past year, made from a vintage kids' book. As I stuck the 7's on the front, I thought "is this right? Can she really be 7 already??" It was almost surreal. I've written about the ritual of these books here and here, so I won't repeat myself. I'll just say that these books are treasures in our family, and I feel (I hope!) that as the kids get older, the books will be even more treasured.

But the favourite books of the day were the 2 new Ottoline books. If you have an avid reader around the 6-7 years mark, you may be interested to check them out. Olive has been obsessed with Ottoline since Pearl bought Ottoline and the Yellow Cat for her. Olive estimates she's read the book "about a hundred times". She could be right.

Even this morning, with crumpets and honey or jam on offer for a birthday breakfast treat, Ottoline Goes to School took priority.

Olive's propensity for reading also inspired another of her gifts: a quilted reading cushion.

When Oski was in utero, I made him a baby quilt, which now has pride of place on his bed. Olive's always been a bit miffed that she doesn't have a quilt of her own, and I had thought of making her one for her birthday, but her inclination for reading for hours before bed each night made me think that a special, quilted, reading-in-bed pillow might be better. 

I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. Olive seemed pretty chuffed with it as well. In addition to being a sweet reading cushion, she and Oscar decided it also made an excellent space-travel chair.

I also crocheted her a little toadstool, for use in fairy-gardens and other creative pursuits. 

But probably my favourite gift we gave to Olive this morning was something that was made for her by someone else. 

This super-sweet personalised O.M.R bangle was hand-made for Olive by the super-talented Gab of RedPeg, who I have already raved about here. The little round seedpod-like ball is a bell, so Olive now tinkles when she moves. The other charm is imprinted with the skin of a seed pod, and stamped with Olive's initials.  As Olive says, "it's sort of about me". She loves it, of course.

And what else is a gift for but to fill a heart with love and joy? Our work here is done. Happy birthday baby girl.