My Birthday

Today is my birthday.  Birthdays look very different as a grown-up.  We still go to work, do chores, take care of kids - life just goes on.  An occasional party will happen, but rarely do grown ups throw parties for other grown ups.  Taylor and Emma have been asking about my party.  They've been asking if I'll have cake.  I told them I don't know.  Maybe just ice cream then?  I don't know.  Candy?  I don't know.  All of these things are possible, but I didn't want to tell them yes, and then them be disappointed because we didn't have any.  I'm not expecting them.  Not because my husband isn't thoughtful - he really is-but because I'm the one who usually does those things.

Anyway...I overheard Taylor asking Will this morning, "Why doesn't Mommy get a cake or ice cream, or candy?"  Will told her that they would see.  I love how sweet that was.  Taylor, wanting me to feel special on my special day.

The girls had preschool this morning and my plan was to clean house while they were gone.  I decided, "Hey, its my birthday!" and went garage saleing instead.  It was the perfect garage saleing day.  I got all of this for $15.45!

This is the piece I'm going to talk about.

This was described as a "moving sale".  The garage was filled with treasures for my kids.  I went inside expecting the same.  Instead I was blasted by memories of my grandma.  Everything I saw was something she had, or similar to something she had.  When my grandma passed away and my grandpa remarried, the new lady got rid of all my grandma's stuff.  Really, with no warning at all.  We had picked out a few things to take, but had we known she was giving it ALL to a thrift store, we would have taken more.  Anyway, because of that I was tempted to buy everything in this sale.  Dishes, clocks, footstools, etc.  I left with a handful of linens, aprons, a plastic NOEL sign, and these plastic light up carolers. 

As I was paying, the lady, who was probably my mom's age, said, "I want you to know, these carolers greeted me, my entire life, on the front porch of my grandma's house at Christmas."  Her voice was filled with deep sentiment.  I told her I could tell, that's what drew me to it.  I told her about my grandma and how I wanted to buy everything.  She gave me a discount and said she was glad it was going to a good home. 

Taylor and Emma saw every thing that I bought and Emma said, "you bought yourself a lot of birthday presents."

Yes, I did.

Tangled Birthday Party

 A few weekends ago we celebrated the girls' fourth birthday by having a "Tangled" party.  In case you are unfamiliar, that is the new Disney movie based on Rapunzel.

There are tons of marketed items for this very event, but being on a limited budget, I chose to make the items myself.  I did splurge on Tangled napkins.  I scoured the internet for ideas and found quite a few that were inexpensive and very doable for a non-crafty person like me.

 This is Rapunzel's tower cake that I made.  Most websites used cupcakes or doughnuts, but we used ding dongs.  Will screwed a dowel rod into a piece of plywood to hold them in place.  It sure is nice having a handy husband.  I have to give him credit, the ding dongs were his idea, too.

 These are the "royal flags" with the "golden royal sun" that was displayed in the movie.  I just drew these free hand and stapled them to some ribbon.

A funny joke in the movie is that Flynn's nose is never right on the wanted poster, so we played "pin the nose on Flynn".  Taylor cried for quite a while because she didn't put it where she wanted it.  Everyone kept telling me to let her try again, but being the mean mom that I am, I didn't.  What would that have taught her?



We concluded the party by watching Tangled and eating pizza.  Most of their friends were there (we missed you, Max and Lincoln) and a few family members were able to come.  All in all, it was a very nice party.  These girls are incredibly blessed by the many people who love them, and we all are blessed by these girls as well.  I can't believe they are four years old - the time truly does fly.  We love you, Emma and Taylor!