The Weekend of Birthdays

Double the birthdays, double the fun (and double the food)!  My #34 celebration started early on Saturday morning, with Eliza getting up to decorate the house.  She worked on it for an hour, putting up streamers, making me a sign and separate birthday note (which read "Happy Birthday, Mom.  A+ on your work you do for us.  I hope you like the note.  Bye."), and personalizing napkins on the table.  She was so excited and proud of herself that she insisted on walking me around to admire everything at 7:00.  It was precious.

I kept trying to go back to bed, but it just wasn't working.  At about 7:30, someone violated the ceasefire between the hostile nations of the Republic of Luke and the Kingdom of Jack, and fearing that one of them might not survive until breakfast, I got up and decided it was time to go out for doughnuts.

Cat had a soccer scrimmage later in the morning, so Ben took the kids to the scrimmage while I enjoyed some quiet time at home.  I read, ran on the treadmill, and got myself ready for (the rest of) the day.  Ben ended up taking the kids out to do some things after the scrimmage, so I found myself with even more time on my hands, so... I cleaned.  And then I read some more.

When Ben and the kids came home, they brought Unbelievably Delicious Raspberry Rolls From Shirley's Bakery - mmmm!  Then Cat baked me a really yummy chocolate birthday cake, Ben made amazing curry chicken, and Suz and her family joined us for dinner and dessert and presents and games.  I felt so loved with all of my kind and thoughtful gifts and cards, including beautiful flowers from Suz and The Chocolate Triumvirate (Fererro Rocher, Lindt truffles, and a Toblerone bar) from Ben and the kids and my Visiting Teacher.  That night we also tried a new game: hide and seek in the dark.  It was surprisingly dark in the house when we closed all the blinds, turned off the lights, and unplugged the nightlights.  (Bonus: you have to have all the floors clear before you can play this game, so if you need an excuse to clean the whole house, this is the perfect game.)  It took 20 minutes to get through the first round, which was fun and exciting for all of us except Jack, who didn't like that it was so dark and kept turning the lights on.  Everyone found good hiding spots, but Suz won after staying tucked away in a corner of our bedroom closet.

We had another party the next day to celebrate Ben's birthday!  This time we played Bananagrams and Guesstures (the latter being hotly contested, but the girls came out victorious) and Suz made delicious entirely-from-scratch lasagna and cake.  It took Ben two tries to blow out all of his imaginary candles, but he is getting older.  That's the way it goes.

Cat worked hard on her grid!  She didn't realize that not all of the
touching letters had to form words.  Kudos to her.