Birthday Surprises

Tomorrow is Savannah's birthday.  

Look what we got her!

Isn't it stunningly beautiful???  I seriously cannot stop looking at this thing, it's so gorgeous!

Not only is it pretty, it's also an acoustic-electric guitar which means it's fitted with a magnetic pickup so you can plug it into an amp and not need a mic.  (That just made me sound super guitar smart, but I'm not.  I just spent a lot of time with the guy at the store.)  It also has a built in tuner.  Holy crap, she's going to love it!

I'm so excited I can hardly stand it.  

And I'm ridiculously BAD at keeping secrets.  

AND I have to wait till tomorrow night to give it to her because Craig is in Birmingham.  
Blah...

Don't tell, k?  Thank goodness she never reads my blog.  :)

High Five for Friday

Best Birthday Treat:

Vanilla Bean Cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory

Best Birthday Presents:

sparkles from Emma

the last piece of the set, from my mom

Best Birthday Surprise on my MAC:

You know when you click on Google, there's always something they're celebrating?  I saw this on Monday and thought, "Oh yay!  Something else's birthday is today, too."  And then I hovered my mouse over it to see what Google was celebrating, and guess what it was...it was MY birthday.  Google knows when my birthday is!  I'm not sure if that's a happy thing or something to be concerned about, but either way it was fun to see Google spelled out in birthday cakes because of me.  It's nice to feel significant.  :)

Best Way to Celebrate Birthday Week:
Monday:  Institute in the morning, lunch and pedicures with a friend, and then choir from 9-11 that night...perfect day!  <3
Tuesday:  Jammies all day catching up on Top Chef and Oprah's Life Class episodes that I've missed.
Wednesday:  Lunch with Craig and Savannah to celebrate her new driving freedom.
Thursday:  Lunch with Amy!
Friday:  Lunch with Karryn
Tomorrow:  Much needed hair appointment 

Best Validation of the Week:
The lady at Market Street saw my necklace this week and commented on how pretty it was.  I said thank you and told her it was a birthday present.  And then Emma chimed in about how she had given it to me because I always steal hers and now I have my own.  I guess because we sounded a little like we were bickering, the cashier said, "You must be SISTERS!"  Emma and I both laughed and I said, "Oh, that's so nice.  I'm actually her mom."  And the cashier turned to Emma and said, "Honey, you have really good genes."  
Hooray!  It's nice to still be mistaken for a teenager at 43.  

There have been way too many treats and way too many lunches this week, and not enough gym, but it was an awesome, super fun week of total spoilage.  I haven't cooked or cleaned a thing, but it's still gotten done.  And now, thanks to the new driver in our home, half my carpooling responsibilities have been taken away, too.  

Thanks so much, sweet family and friends, for making me feel like a princess this week!

Throwback Thursday

It's birthday week here, so throwback birthday pictures seemed appropriate.  

When I was growing up, my parents were very close friends with our next door neighbors, Bob and Virginia.  They were a nice couple about the same age as my parents with a son about my age (who was insufferable!)  Virginia made the best desserts in the world and she officially assigned herself to make all of my birthday cakes from the day she met me.

She was a brash, vulgar, loud woman from New York, but she adored my family and we had a special bond.  She spoke for me, and plowed over people who got in my way, and defended me at the bus stop.  I loved her.  

All of her cakes were pretty extravagant.  And she was usually very good at picking my favorite colors and decorating with little things that were representative of my personality.  Once she made the top of the cake look like stables with horses everywhere and I got to keep the horses after we ate the cake.  And then another one looked like a record player (record player = what we used in the 70s to listen to music, before cassette tapes, before CDs and waaay before iTunes)...only it was covered in purple frosting, which was my favorite color, and which my mother hated.  But Virginia snuck and made me a purple cake anyway.  I loved that woman. 

I'm not sure whose personality this cake represented because I've never liked chocolate, I had never seen snow at this point in my life, and I had certainly never expressed an interest in skiing.  But, it was still a pretty amazing cake and extremely thoughtful of her to go to so much effort.  I totally remember those little candy rocks on the top.  So yummy.

Today, my birthday tastes are a little more sophisticated...vanilla bean cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory and not a single plastic horse on the top.  But I love remembering those amazing childhood birthday cakes and how lucky I was to have had such a sweet, generous neighbor who was super talented with frosting.

Sweet 16

Next week, Flowering Buttercup turns 16.  This year she asked for a party.  She's had parties before, but she wanted a BIG PARTY this time...the kind with invitations and intentional activities, and 15 girls.  I'm not great at that.  It stresses me out like crazy to be in charge of things, especially parties.   Right after she mentioned the word party I started trying to talk her out of it.  I offered her shopping, money, dinner out, a trip to Hawaii (I only offered that when I was pretty sure she wasn't going to bite at anything.)  But unfortunately for me, when Flowering Buttercup gets an idea in her head, she's pretty determined to make sure it happens.  So, on Friday, I finally gave in and started preparing for this party.  Because, after all, they only turn 16 once, right?

Here's what happens when you have really good intentions, pray really hard, and call all your friends, neighbors and family for help...

After consulting Pinterest, I made a long list of everything I needed.  And then I dragged my friend, Amy, to every store within 15 miles of Allen looking for all things PINK!  She's such a trooper!! 

Spell Girl and June stayed home from the football game with me on Friday night and helped me put up decorations.  It looked like a pink Flowering Buttercup shrine when we were done.  

We dug through all the old picture boxes upstairs and found so many cute ones that we couldn't just limit our decorations to the mantle.  The girls taped all these up in the kitchen, too.  I LOVE this!  And so did FB.  We're definitely continuing this tradition for all future birthdays.  

PINK treats! 

Did you even know that there were so many pink things??? 

Table for manicures

Since we had so many treats, FB wanted a few healthy food options, so I tried to pick things that were easy to make and didn't require an oven.  There's a fruit, yogurt and granola trifle back there.

The CAKE!!  This turned out so much better than I expected.  And it wasn't even super hard either.  Now all the kids want one just like it for their birthdays, too!

Be careful when you blow the candles out, though, because the girls standing on the other side of the table got showered with sprinkles!

Here's what the inside looked like...PINK and white!

FB has some really cute friends.  They're silly and loud and totally dramatic, but they're really good girls. 

This whole party came together without tears, frustration, or yelling.  That alone was a huge miracle.  I am so grateful for all the hands who helped make this happen.  I could NOT have pulled this off without them.  I am especially grateful to the Scout Master and the other kids for setting aside their entire weekend to make this an amazing birthday for Flowering Buttercup.  The memories that we will all have after the last two days of preparing will last so much longer than that shopping trip I had in mind.  I'm glad Flowering Buttercup always stands firm in what she wants. 

And I'm so glad she had a great day!

The Last Day of School

I officially LOVE the last day of school.  It has been a completely insane two weeks packed with craziness, so we couldn't have a quiet ending.  
 
10:00 Temple (last two hours of quiet before summer officially starts) 


12:30 Savannah had a half day at school, so I took her to lunch at Free Birds.   

I had this minus the chicken and the sour cream

1:00 Shopping for Emma's birthday party.

3:00 Kids home from school!

5:00  Dropped Savannah and Megan off at two different End of the Year swim parties.


6:00  Emma's party! (Mall Scavenger Hunt/Late Over)


It's the funniest thing to be in a car full of almost-11 year olds.  They want to listen to music, but they don't stop talking long enough to hear it.  We listened to Justin Bieber until three of the girls confessed that they don't actually like him.  Then we listened to Sean Kingston, but I think I was the only one who could hear him, and I don't actually like him.  


Then they talked about how hot Taylor Lautner is...

And then I heard this conversation...

10 year old:  "You know that guy R**** A*****??"

11 year old:  "Ewwwww....yes!  He's creepy!"

10 year old:  "I know!  He tried to put his arm around me at school yesterday!"

The whole van:  "EEEEWWWWW!"

Once we got to the mall, we split into 2 teams to hunt for our scavenger stuff.  I had my doubts about how this activity was going to go, but we had SO much fun!

Here's what we had to find:
a paperclip
a hanger
3 business cards
tissue paper
green eyeshadow (we got 10 bonus points because we were WEARING it)
a french fry (guess who got talked into asking someone in the food court for that one??)
a straw
a ketchup packet
a map of the mall
a brochure
a receipt
a stranger's signature
a piece of tape
a sale tag
a clearance tag

We had one hour and we could only collect one item from each store.  Totally fun!  The people we bothered were SO nice.  (Apparently everyone is happy it's finally summer!)   
Oh, and my team WON!!  

GREEN EYE SHADOW!

my team was very focused and serious

meeting in the food court after the scavenger hunt

8:30  Cupcakes, jammies and presents at home.

10:00  All of Emma's guests left and I went to pick up the other two girls. 

11:00  Home...sitting down...sleeping in tomorrow...