Isabelle was adorable at cousin C’s party, she slept beautifully right up to the third hip hip horray as the formalities started late in the evening. Though she did toss around a bit, first covering her head and exposing her feet and then getting too hot and throwing the covers off. Apparently at one point she also woke up, looked at Jesse and then pulled the covers over her face and went back to sleep.

C is a member of the university choir, at a guess 70 - 80% of the guests were choir members, or at least it sounded that way. Have you ever heard Happy Birthday sung by a large choir? It was just magical.

Once the usual birthday singing and formalities were done the choir sang again, doing a stunning rendition of a song I had not heard before so I can’t tell you it’s name. I was trying to pat Isabelle back to sleep at the time and I had my back to them, but it was so beautiful that I was very surprised to turn around and find they were all still seated at their tables and not standing together on the other side of the room. It seemed to me to be a wonderful 21st gift for a musician, such beautiful singing especially for her.

There were two or three more songs as the evening went on which involved the entire choir clapping as well as singing and Isabelle gave up trying to get back to sleep. She migrated to Jesse’s knee just in time for pavlova and chocolate cake.