Birthday Central

We had a busy birthday week at this house.

My birthday was last Tuesday. I wasn’t thrilled about turning 35, but I got over it . . . mostly. Nate stayed home long enough to make breakfast and get the kids off to school. After that, it was pretty much a normal day. I did get lots of phone calls and email messages from my family and friends. That made me happy. Nate and the kids gave me some fun presents and we went to Burger Bar for dinner and milkshakes. It was a nice day.

Emily turned seven on Friday. She had come home from school with a fever and a headache on Thursday, and I was a little afraid she would be sick on her birthday. Luckily she woke up feeling fine. She had a great day at school. She took donuts for her birthday treat and all of her classmates made birthday cards that her teacher bound together in a cute little book. She got to open her presents as soon as she got home. Her favorite was a new watch from Grandma Reatha that has different colored bands and faces so she can match her outfit. (I’m pretty thrilled about having something else to slow down her morning routine.) The rest of the day was full of lots of family fun. Emily wanted to have a campout in our back yard. She chose hotdogs and corn on the cob for dinner (kind of funny since up until three weeks ago she HATED hotdogs). After dinner, we played some croquet in the back yard and then Nate set up a TV and DVD player in the tent so we could watch Annie (Emily’s pick) before going to sleep. It was great fun.

Elise turned five on Sunday. Other than getting dry erase marker all over her brand new dress and having all the frosting melt off the sides of her cake (both of which caused me a lot of stress but didn’t bother her in the least), it was a fabulous day. We let her open her presents before church and the kids spent much of the rest of the day playing with them. She’s wanted Bendaroos ever since she saw the commercials in California, so we got her a big box of Wikki Stix (close enough). She liked them, but Grandma Reatha was the winner again by giving her a mermaid doll that changes colors in different temperatures of water. She played with it all day. Since it was the Sabbath, we kept things pretty low key. We had a yummy dinner of chicken roll ups, played a few hands of Go Fish, and watched a movie (mostly just the kids watched since Nate and I have reached our Charlie and the Chocolate Factory limit for the year). Elise wanted to go swimming for her birthday activity so we went to the pool on Monday. The weather cooperated and we had a great time. We put Abby in the floatie swimsuit for the first time and she loved it. She was swimming all over the pool. The big news of the day was that Elise was finally brave enough to jump off the diving board . . . twice. Hurray!

I picked the flip flop cake because I thought it would be cute and easy. Turns out that I was wrong on both counts. Oh well. Better luck next year.

I must say that I give two big thumbs up for small family birthday parties. Two years ago we decided to opt out of the rat race of celebrating birthdays with our extended family. It was getting a little out of control with three or four birthdays a month. Not everybody was happy with our decision, but it was one of the best choices we have made. We love being able to focus on our kids and what they want to do and we certainly don’t miss the hassle of trying to work around everyone else’s holiday weekend plans (since we were inconsiderate enough to be born around a national holiday). There is no stress about coordinating schedules or cleaning the house or getting the yard ready. We can just relax and make fun memories with our little family. We highly recommend it.

Tip of the day: Murphy’s Oil Soap is apparently the only thing that will get “washable” dry erase marker out of clothes . . . or at least mostly out. I tried seven other home remedies before stumbling across that one. Thank everything for Google searches!