A Tolkien Twelfth Birthday

Today my sweet Shortcake turns twelve. In my mind she's been twelve for the past year! My two big girls are so close that sometimes I think of them as twins. (They are only 18 months apart.) 

~Decorations~

She requested a Tolkien birthday, not just a Hobbit birthday or a Lord of the Rings birthday because there are so many stories of Tolkien's that she loves. Roverandom is one that was published after his death although it was originally written in 1925. Tales from the Perilous Realm was just published in 2008 but again, it's a collection of previously published stories. So, to incorporate all her favorite stories, I made this decoration for the wall. 

It's brown paper colored to look like the Tolkien books she loves. I used the Tree of Gondor and the Riders of Rohan symbols as the bookends. The happy birthday banner written in Elvish font was left over from The Professor's 13th birthday along with the Gandalf staff which has been hanging out in our garage since then. We also put up some Tolkien quotes. Some that she'd heard of and others she hadn't.

We hung some greenery, The One Ring and used her presents as table decorations along with Tolkien books. Her main decorations were the edible kind and a surprise when she woke up. 

A fun, Hobbitish breakfast with scrambled eggs, pumpkin spice waffles, scones, sausages and coffee in the teapot. Everyone, even Dad before he had to leave for work, sat down to enjoy a breakfast feast. 

~Games~

After breakfast, we played a few rounds of Baggins Bingo. Did you know that Tolkien's original name for Frodo was Bingo?

"Interesting to note is that in early drafts of The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo Baggins’ name is “Bingo Baggins”, and his relationship to Bilbo changes numerous times over the course of these drafts." ~ from Tolkien-Online.com

I'm going to try to get this uploaded for others to use but it's not going to happen today, so more on it later. 

You can read more about Tolkien names here:

The Ten Funniest Hobbit Names

We also had some fun reading some "did you knows" about Tolkien and taking a quiz to prove to ourselves just how much we didn't know!

Oh, and if you haven't taken this quiz to find out what kind of Middle-Earth character you'd be, then by all means, go have some fun. We've got 3 Hobbits (Cupcake didn't take the quiz, I'm just calling her a hobbit because she's short and adorable), 3 Elves and one Wizard in this family. I won't tell you who the wizard is because his ego can't stand much more boosting. :)

~A Gift~

Most of the packages you see on the table above are little things that her brothers and sisters made for her with some special items from us. This one little gift though came from Grammie and just delighted her. It's an open book charm for her bracelet with a quote from The Fellowship of the Ring engraved on it.

~The Cake~

"Looks awesome!" according to the birthday girl. She was very specific about what she wanted. A hobbit hole cake with frosting... NO COCONUT! She hates coconut.

The handpainted bookmark you see below was my inspiration for decorating the cake. I liked the idea of a blue door because it was a complimentary color to the green of the grass. And then I was thrilled to find out that in the original story, Tolkien told his children that the color of Bilbo's door was blue. When he changed it in a later retelling, his son corrected him and he made a note of it. Although, it appears he decided to go with his revision in the final draft. The little pebbles and rocks are called Choco Rocks and they are edible. My kids were delighted!

We are still celebrating and waiting for Dad to come home. Cupcake just took a 2 hour nap (what a great gift!) so I'm posting this now because I have the chance.