Sophie's birthday went exactly according to her plan.

It was a wonderful day.

She was determined to wring every last drop of enjoyment from her day, so she stayed awake till midnight, forcing us to play Cranium with her, until she finally collapsed into bed.

I love her so much.

The pictures ...

Bobby cooking the pancakes which Queen Sophie had ordered for breakfast.
Sophie eating said pancakes.
Opening a book, a present from Steve. He also gave her this book.
Emily helping her put on the earrings which she'd given her. They are magnetic - a compromise, as we don't feel she's quite ready for pierced ears.
Big brother helping her inflate her space hopper.
Space hopper race!
Mom tries too. Pity about that clothes horse in the way.
You can see Bobby is being left behind.
Girls skating.
You can definitely see each of our personalities when we are on the ice. Sophie, for instance, tends to be a bit of a maniac. So does Bobby. He and Sophie take the most risks, and improve the most each time we go. Stephen is probably as competent as Bobby is, but is far more cautious. Emily is somewhere in the middle, and I am over-cautious. There are no pictures of Bobby skating because the ice rink we went to is very sticky about picture-taking - in order for Bobs to take any, he had to fill out this huge form, and state exactly who he'd be taking pictures of. It seemed like too much bother for me to go through the process as well, so he took all the skating pictures. And we weren't strictly speaking even supposed to use a camera with a telephoto lens. Seems like total overkill to me, I must say.
Me on the ice, looking happy.
Sisters together, on the way to lunch after skating
Family shot, same place
Family badminton game. (Bobby and I gave her a badminton/volleyball set).
Candles. Sadly we didn't manage to document the bit where she set the end of her hair on fire while blowing out the candles. (No harm done, just a nasty smell of burnt hair).

So, a happy day, though I did find myself getting teary several times ...