My incredibly beautiful friend Jill has taught me the joy of celebrating birthdays BIG! After London's party, we started the week of celebration….since her actual birthday wasn't until the end of the week. I took lots of shots of our week of fun and as time permits, I'll post them so you can walk the week with us! My new phone has a fast shutter speed feature so you can hold the picture button and take lots of pictures in a row. I love it….
Happy start of birthday week, my fun loving little nugget. You absolutely delight me!
A few weekends ago we celebrated my sweet, darling girls 4th birthday with a donut themed party! We had a fun morning watching Caden and Elizabeth run in race to finish their last mile of the Mercedes Marathon, then we rushed to the opposite side of town for our donut decorating party. Turns out, the family that owns this shop goes to our church. Their son is kind of like the MC of all the birthday parties. He is currently in college to be a children's minister, so he was perfectly fun and loving with the kids!
We came to the party a bit early and there was this cute group of college kids there hanging out. London was being very friendly with them and as we unwrapped all the party goodies, she made sure to go give her new friends some goodies too! It was so cute watching her 'take care of them'!
The party was loosely 'prince and princess' themed... which meant every girl dressed up as a princess and all the boys just came as is! :) I love girls so much! They are ALL ABOUT being a princess!
There was MUCH donut icing...
And some sugar drunk faces that grew more frequent as the party went on... :)
There was the beauty of NO CONCERN WHATSOEVER about stuffing 10 donuts in your face! (Oh to be young!)
And the most handsome fella in all the land dotingly by her side all day! Goodness sake, I love this boy.
Charley was the most patient temporary tattoo artist ever. God bless her heart for bearing the job of listening to 10 kids scream 'but IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII wanted that oneeeeeeeeeeee.'
There was a fun game of kid charades..
The volunteers were plentiful.....
And they had the greatest time ever!!
There was a little sister in attendance that was SO CUTE, I'm surprised her momma made it home with her! She had us all wrapped around her little icing covered finger and could've easily snuck home with any one of us!
Then, there was cake. Donut cake. Stacked 24 donuts tall and surrounded by a sea of donut holes. You can't even imagine the sugar high that was about to storm in like a hurricane of energy.
Happy Birthday to you, Darling!
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She opened fabulous gifts! She got some really fun toys and these past few weeks have been a blast playing with everything together!
Gorgeous cousins who embrace the princess life with the same enthusiasm as we do are the best kind of cousin!
There's another of our favorite cousins that is much less interested in princess nonsense.
We had such a fun time at the party and I was so glad to get to spend some time with the girls in London's class (and knox, lucas, and the 3 cousins, but that's an unspoken at this point!) They were sweet girls with equally as lovely moms! I'm a big cheerleader for ladies.. i love some lady friends so it was great to get to know them better!
The day ended with the family back at our house... parents laid on couches in partial sugar comas and London and the twins running around burning off their recently ingested energy reserve. Then, like an accidental genius, I asked Lauren to taste some wine that I couldn't tell if I liked. She said she would if I had a glass with her... a few bottles of wine later, we had thrown together a delicious dinner and kicked it lazy style for a few hours of fabulous family quality time. Man. I love my brother and his woman. They are so much fun to be around!
At one point, I stood up and caught a reflection in my bedroom window that I don't think I'll ever forget. The girls were sitting on my bed gabbing away while Lizzy braided London's hair. It was the most precious thing in the whole world to me. I couldn't be any more thankful for us all growing up together. There's just nothing like family and I'm eternally grateful both London and I know, no matter what, our family is there... all in... always.
The blogger app is finally FREE so now I can blog from my phone!! HIP HIP HOORAY!!!
Happy Valentine's Day!!
I bought Lu a few goodies and she was so thrilled over it all! She was using the sweetest manners, so I told her how happy it makes me when she speaks so sweetly. She responded, "My good manners are my valentimes gift for you, mommy!'
I'll take it!
Have a lovely, gushy, rose colored day!! We love you!
Well, Birmingham is still operating under full blown weather fear mongering again today! I don't blame any of our schools, because our last ice storm was totally unexpected and seriously stressful, but at some point, Momma needs to work for a living again! Thankfully, 90% of our business can be done via the internet, so working from home is no big deal, I just need to be in the office if I'm working. I'm not a great 'work at home' type.
School was closed again today and it ended up just being a rather cold, rainy day. We actually did great today though! London watched a few minutes of TV this morning, then moseyed off and played with her toys for a few HOURS! I got a ton knocked out! Then, when that wore off, we packed lunch and headed to the library... always a kid favorite. We stayed for a long time because the library does all of this fun stuff during the day. London did crafts, made new friends, played with puppets, ipad'ed it for a while, then we sat down and read together for a long while.... which made my heart so warm and happy! Snuggled in a corner reading silly books with my best girl all tucked in my side. I was soaking in every second. Bonus is the free wifi, so while she was playing, happy as a lark, I was still semi-productive!! It turned out to be a great day for both of us!
I snuck in a little Chronicles of Narnia during my lunch break. I could get used to this scene. Reading a real book, wearing fabulous, stretchy yoga pants and tennis shoes. YES PLEASE.
Then London decided to go all brainiac on us.... pencil in ear and everything!
(My favorite!)
We came home with a few movies.. one of which was a claymation cartoon (from the guys who made Shaun the Sheep) about a group of chickens trying to bust out of the coop so they could avoid getting sent to the 'chicken factory'. London was horrified, screamed 'But Mom, I LOVE CHICKENS!!' at the end of the movie, then she immediately declared that she was not eating chicken any more and that I need to go throw all of ours away. This conversation has been going all day and now includes this... 'I will not ever kill or eat deer or chicken. Call Unc (Barry) and tell him, Mom.'
One day at the library learning and I've got a full blown activist on my hands! :)
Well, December of 2013 brought me into my thirty second year of life. Thirty two. When I was a kid, I thought 32 might as well be dead! :)
I won't lie. I was pretty down the week of my bday. I, like everyone else on earth, caught the 3 week junk and I felt pretty awful all month. I had just come back from a trip that was nice but exhausting... I also kicked my back out of whack for the umpteenth time this year and was struggling with that. Back pain is so obnoxious! This is actually the start of a really weird/scary series of health events but I'm just going to skip over all of that because I don't want to relive it again! I've got a group of girls and momma praying over a healthy body for 2014 and I'm so excited to see what a new year will bring!
Anyway, I was in a funk that I just couldn't kick. The day before my birthday, I got a call from the greatest girl alive asking if I could meet her for lunch. I wish everyone had Lauren at their fingertips like I do. She is a cure all for whatever ails you! We sat down at our table and I asked if I could just let go and talk. I just had a full on therapy session with her until I talked my way back into a good mood! She brought me a container of mini sprinkle cupcakes because she's fabulous and we ended our lunch with me squeezing the life out of her. I love this woman so very much. She is as trusted of a friend as I have ever known. I left that day excited for what was to come and overwhelmed with thanks for my amazing family.
The actual day of my birthday was fabulous! I woke to lots of sweet birthday texts and had an earful of calls on our way to work! London's school Christmas program was this day so that was a major highlight also! (I'll get back to that!) Jill had asked if she could keep London while I taught spin and then I could come eat dinner with them afterwards. I always have a strict 'no presents' rule with Jill but she breaks the rules every year. After school, we headed to their house to switch out kids and they threw me a little pre-dinner party. They are the sweetest, most fun people alive. My lawd. I don't know what I'd do without the Thomas'!
I left to head to my spin class and called Momma on the way to boo hoo over how wonderful Jill is. She had already made the grandest deal ever over my day and I couldn't get over having a friend that cared for us so much! She is one of a kind and I'm so thankful God put her in our life.
Anyway, I taught my class and headed back to Jill's for dinner. I walked in the door and my whole small group and a few other friends jumped out from behind the doors screaming 'SURPRISE!!!' ... and I ball cried again!
Jill fixed my very favorite dinner. Holy Cow it was good, then I got to unwrap my sweet presents! One friend gave me a bag full of her favorite goodies from one of our favorite out of town grocery stores so it's been fun trying out all this new food! The rest of the girls all pitched in and gave me a MAJOR gift card to one of the swankiest spas here in town! I was FLOORED.Two weeks later, I spent almost an entire day getting pampered from head to toe and am still putting words to my gratitude for this group of people who love on us like crazy!
That weekend we went out on the town and splurged on all the things we had been wanting to do but were too poor to do them! We ate fabulous food and drank ridiculous drinks and went all over town hopping in and out of places we had wanted to visit. It was such a fun night!
At the end of the day, my 32nd birthday was the best I've ever had! I'm surrounded by caring, thoughtful people and I'm so excited to spend this year filling all of THEIR love tanks full! Thank you all for making this such an exciting, happy season of life for me! I love you more than I could ever say!
