This morning I woke up to the sound of Tilly walking down the hall happily singing to herself, "happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me…" I got up laughing. 

This girl of ours is full of joy and sunlight and I'm so so happy to be celebrating five years with her today. 

I stayed up last night and sewed her a tent.

 

I didn't have a pattern or even a plan, I'd just seen one made of gingham selling locally for $160 that was pretty and crazy priced, so when I saw gingham on sale a while back I bought some. 

I had an old hula hoop which the last tenants left behind and there we have it. 

Basically it's a long rectangle with a sleeve at the top which I threaded cotton tape through and gathered up tightly. The top bit, the different fabric, is there because when I held it up it didn't look long enough. It happens that when the hoop is tied in at the join it all looks very deliberate. I'm not actually that clever.

 

I sewed on pieces of tape that tie up and hold up the hoop.

In the photo above I demonstrate my incredible skillful sewing, so skillful that I managed to accidentally sew the ends of the tapes holding the hoop in, while tacking on the outside lace. I am that talented. And given it was quite late, was also too lazy to unpick the tape out and re-sew the seam. Just snipped it off. As you can see. 

 

Ah, whatever.

She loves it.

It was a fun day of special visitors, craft, cake and homemade pizza for dinner in front of a movie. 

 

 

This five year old is an awesome kid, a little bit deaf, incredibly noisy, best friends with her big brother, dedicated to all her friends, besotted with expressive dance, and frighteningly adventurous. She is apparently engaged to be married to the next door neighbour (he's 5) and when she grows up she wants to be a ballet teacher, a firefighter and a farmer. 

Happy birthday beautiful girl. I hope all your wishes come true.

xxx