Happy 17th Birthday, Ellie!

Yesterday was Ellie's 17th birthday! I'm not quite sure how 17 years have gone by, but the calendar doesn't lie! I try to forget about the fact that she's a junior this year and ignore all the college brochures that have been coming in the mail for months. She isn't quite sure what she wants to study in college. It seems like every couple of weeks the focus shifts and she gets excited about a new field, but that's all part of the fun of the exploration process. :)

How I like to think of Ellie...our very own Cindy Lou Who<3

Ellie has definitely been the person in our family that has adjusted best to life under the quarantine. Her high school did not miss a beat and had only one day off before starting online classes and learning. Ellie is an introvert and is enjoying spending time at home and having her "classroom" in my bedroom. She's been spending some virtual time with friends. Of course, it helps that she has lots of built in close friends with an older sister, a sister-in-law and almost sister-in-law that she adores.

Having fun with blue lipstick at Liz's bachelorette shower:)
Ellie even loves hanging out with her sister-in-laws sisters!

Kate and Luke surprised Ellie with homemade gifts as soon as she woke up. Some of Ellie's Godfamily stopped by to drop off a gift of her favorite candy in the morning.  It was a sweet way to start her day.

It was nice to be able to have a little family celebration to make Ellie feel special. Ellie requested game day food for her birthday meal, specifically meatball sliders, coconut chicken bites, homemade mac and cheese, and tater tots. Thankfully I had most of the ingredients I needed, and got most of what I had missing at the grocery store. The store I went to was completely out of tater tots, but  I had forgotten a family size package that Jay had bought and put in our extra freezer in the cellar a couple of weeks ago! God provided even before we knew we needed it!

We had a family dinner with my parents. We missed having all of our extended family, but such is life in quarantine!

Ellie chose a poke cake. This recipe is one of her favorites, and Ellie is partial to Independence Day so she loves the red and blue jello. Ellie loves to bake...she might get that from her mom;)...and wanted to make her own cake. It came out great! It was also good practice because Ellie recently got a job at a special order bakery! She was supposed to start in March, but because of all the craziness in the world, that's been pushed off to mid April. My guess is that her start day won't end up being until sometime in May. #coronavirus

The joys of siblings

Jon reminded Ellie that this was revenge since she blew out his candles in February lol

One of my favorite pics! Kate's 3rd birthday and Ellie blew out her candles lol!
Kate was SO mad that, when she was turning 4, she told Ellie she couldn't come to her party!

I have to admit I haven't been on my game lately and my ability to multitask has been MIA. In my focus to try and make sure the kids would have special Easter baskets, Ellie's birthday snuck up on me. And since Amazon Prime isn't working the way it usually does, we had to tell her about her gifts last night instead of showing her!

Just Dance has been a frequent form of entertainment and exercise for all of the girls so I got Just Dance 2016 and Just Dance 2018. I actually got those from Walmart and paid extra to have the 2018 disc arrive by her birthday so she would have at least one gift to open aaaaannnndddd....it didn't! I was a little frustrated...and will be sending an email momentarily to have them refund me for the expedited shipping! (Sarah and the younger kids were especially disappointed because they had looked over the songs on the disc and found Beep, Beep I'm a Sheep completely hilarious! They had really been looking forward to trying it out!)

I also ordered her two new games I thought she would like. One is Spy Alley and the other is the Goat Lords Game. In the Spy Game, each player has to pick a spy from different countries and I can already hear Ellie's goofy siblings pretending to talk in accents as they play. Hopefully, they will provide some fun entertainment for Ellie once they come in next week!

We all played Jackbox Games to end the night. Andrew found out about Jackbox a couple of years ago. You download the game packs...there a several to choose from!..onto your computer and then hook it up to your tv with an hdmi cord. Everyone needs an electronic device to join in...phone, ipad, tablet, computer. Most of the games are really fun and the older kids have gotten a lot of fun out of it...especially during the quarantine. Even Kate and Luke like to play some of the games. I do recommend always using the family filter so that no awkward questions come up!

It was a fun night and I think Ellie enjoyed the special attention!

sister love