If this is 40...

The celebrations started clear back in February with a very fun and relaxing trip to Cancun with these lovely ladies! Six of the 10 of us who went are welcoming the Big 4-0 this year. That completely justifies a trip to a warm, tropical place, especially when it's grey and cold at home. The party started on the plane and didn't end til we got home to an ice storm in DC. It was such a fabulous weekend!

 



When the mimosas start pouring at 9am it's tough to keep everyone

together for a group shot of all 10!

Blue skies, blue water, white sand... bliss!

Really fun group that was celebrating the Big 3-0 in style!

 

After recovering from Cancun I had another 2 months until my birthday. I'd alternate between thinking "I've totally got this! I'm going to rock 40!" and "Dear God, I'm going to lay in bed all day with the covers over my head". It's not so much the number that is the issue. It's just how ridiculously fast time is flying by. How is it possible that I've lived half of my life already? And if these last 40 years have gone by this fast, the next will be here, like... tomorrow. That's the part where I start to hyperventilate. I just need it all to slow down.

 

I'd been dropping hints to Brad for over a year about what I wanted for my 40th. Okay, no hints, I just told him and everyone I knew (to make sure he'd do it!) that I wanted a surprise party. I LOVE surprises! They are kind of my love language. I gave him a list of names and told him to pick a date and send out invites but make sure I know nothing about when he was having it. He started talking about dates in July and I tried REALLY hard not to be annoyed and just be "appreciative" that he was trying. Regardless, he put it together (with some help from a few great friends!) before my birthday and truly surprised me. And the icing on the cake was that our dear friends, Shawn and Theresa, drove all the way from Ohio for just one night so that they could

celebrate with me!

 

Theresa brought a box full of photo booth stuff and managed to get pictures of everyone!

Cancun girls

Cadence hamming it up

Love this girl!

This one cracks me up! Theresa's arm looks like Cadence is holding the beer!

Some of my oldest friends (not old, oldest!)

 

A couple of weeks later I rounded out my birthday celebration with some good friends from my old hood. Miss seeing them everyday and was so happy to have them join me!

 

Theresa managed to get in one more surprise for me!

She sent two of my favorite things to work... cupcakes and

Adam Levine!

It was a great couple of months celebrating with family and friends, old and new. I have to say that if this is 40, it ain't so bad!

Birthday week

The end of April through mid-May I used to a bit sorry for Brad.  My birthday, our anniversary, then Mother's Day, usually within two weeks... you can imagine it was a bit overwhelming for him to cover all of those!  Then, Cadence came home with her birthday smack dab in the middle of it all.  You can guess what takes priority over all of those now!

My baby is four years old.  I'm not sure when this happened.  She is very excited to be closer to the coveted "5 years old" when she will be allowed to have sleepovers like her sisters.  She is already counting down the days until then!  In the meantime, though, she has had a blast with her friends!  Birthday celebrations at preschool, a party at the park with her friends, and then a joint birthday breakfast celebration at my parents house for both of us.  It rounded out the week well!

Cadence is not an "easy" child.  She pushes and pulls and strives for independence when she is still so young.  She is observant and literal and will call you out to prove her point.  In the hustle and bustle of our busy lives all of us moms throw some lipstick on in the car, right?  The other day Cadence wanted to take her play make-up with us and put it on in the car.  I told her that we don't put make-up on in the car.  She responded "You do.".  Why, yes.  Yes I do.  Busted!  Cadence was annoying her sisters.  I said "Cadence" in my best 'You had better stop now or else there will be consequences' voice.  She continued and I said "Cadence, I told you to stop."  She replied "No you didn't.  You said 'Cadence'."  with perfect inflection and all. 

While she may not be "easy" she is truly one of the funniest kids that I have ever met!  She cracks us up on a daily basis.  She loves babies and coloring and playdoh.  She loves group hugs and being a clown.  Cadence brings so much joy into all of our lives.  It's so hard to believe that she has only been with us for 2 1/2 years.  She has certainly filled us all with more love than we ever imagined!

Happy birthday, Cadence!

Party in the park

Making a wish

Busting into her new year!

Happy birthday to us!

Laurel turns 8

Laurel was 7 going on 17.  Now she is 8 going on 18.  My sweet, precocious girl celebrated her 8th birthday in November.  I have acutely felt her growing up this year.  She wants to be older.  She wants to grow up.  Despite all of my threats and bribes to try and keep her "my little girl", she forges ahead into "tween-hood" too early. 

Last week she built a fairy house out of papers, put a little bed in it and a sign that read "Fairies welcome".  We then stood outside in the dark in 40 degree winds to set up house complete with a button path.  Due to my extreme dislike of cold, this is something that I might normally balk at and try to talk her into waiting until the next morning.  But here was the "little" in my girl coming out and I was grabbing every second of it, even while freezing my buns off!  (It was so cold that I didn't even get pictures!)  When the paper house was pounded by wind during the night she requested something sturdier to build a new one.  I've offered her at least 3 boxes, but it seems the "big" has moved back in and she has gone back to focusing on perfecting her outfits and singing tween-ish songs.  I know it's all part of the process of growing up.  Give them wings, blah, blah, blah...  Roots is what I want to focus on at the moment! 

While this part has been hard,  Laurel still loves me more than a googol every night at bedtime and she did asked for a doll for her birthday.  She does well in school and loves to hang out with her friends.  Laurel looks up to Sierra and continues to smother Cadence with love (much to Cadence's dismay at times).  While she is growing up a bit too fast for my taste, I feel like such a lucky mom to be the person who gets to watch her do it!

Laurel had begged for a Jasmine outfit when we were in Disney world.  I refused to pay the Disney world price for it but found a great deal online when we got home.  We gave it to Laurel as an early birthday present so that she could wear it for Halloween.  Ever since she got "Lizzy" last year she has wanted another American Girl doll to be friends with Lizzy.  So we now have Emma who keeps Lizzy company while Laurel is at school. 

We didn't do a big party (although Laurel is still planning for one!) but went on a girls' weekend to DC.  A friend of mine has a daughter named Laurel who was born just a few weeks after our Laurel.  Spur of the moment we decided to take them to DC for the weekend.  Sierra and Cadence spent the weekend with grandparents and cousins. It was wonderful to be able to spend so much one on one time with my middle child.  "Laurel squared" enjoyed ice skating, swimming at the hotel, art museums, and climbing on statues.  We even got to check off one of my bucket list items: eating at DC cupcakes in Georgetown!  So glad that I got to do this with my mature, sweet, loving 8 year old whom I love more than a googol!

Seeing her early birthday present

Our "bust into your new year" was more of a sleepwalking amble

She wanted black and hot pink cupcakes for her class

We welcome Emma to our home

Einstein was Laurel's favorite things in DC

Ice skating topped her list though!  I saw more determination in Laurel in 4 hours of skating that I think I have ever seen!

DC Cupcakes!

National Museum of Women in the Arts was a gorgeous place

The "Laurels" decided to sit down and really appraise this slightly disturbing painting

Climbing on statues never gets old

Sierra's 10th birthday party

Sierra remained fairly undecided on the theme for her birthday party but had mentioned from the beginning that she wanted "Coraline" invitations.  Throughout the month before her party she also talked about swimming, watching "Coraline", painting with buttons.  So, we did it all! 

She started off only inviting three girls and then (as always) it evolved to about nine.  A few girls road the bus home after school and the others were dropped of early.  I figured having it on a Friday, when they had gotten up early, would lend itself to an earlier bedtime!  The girls spent a couple of hours swimming (again, wear them out for bedtime), had pizza, and then set up to paint.  I had planned to hot glue the buttons onto the paintings and had been envisioning the girls using a few buttons throughout their project.  Wrong!  Give them props and they will use them!  I spent a LONG time that evening gluing them on.  The paintings were all unique and beautiful, though, just like each of the girls.  We had cake and ice cream and then the girls settled in to watch the movie. 

I had overestimated my abilities to handle the party by myself.  Luckily, Alyssa's mom, Lynn, hung around to keep me company and take one of the girls home after the movie.  Little did she know that she would be my right hand at the party!  I was so thankful she was there to help out (and she's not bad company either!).  Brad came home around 8pm to a houseful of girls and promptly went out to cut the grass... after 12 hours of work.  Just four of the girls spent the night which as a nice amount.  Bedtime wasn't too terribly late and Sierra had a great birthday party.  A few of them even swam the next morning!  Due to the school budget cuts the teachers are in need of lots of items for their classroom.  Sierra decided to collect school supplies for her party this year.  She was able to drop off three large bags of supplies the next week!

Girls just want to have fun!

Sierra's Coraline "Welcome Home" cake

Blank canvases

Hard at work

Fabulous artists

Finished products

The silly pose!

Such fun girls!  Happy birthday Sierra!

Our first double digiter

My baby girl turned 10 this week.  Look at that... it's two digits!  How did this happen?!  This means that teens are right around the corner, college is around the block, marriage and babies are... oh my.  How did this happen?  Ok, I'll move past my shock to focus on the celebration.

Sierra woke up at my parents house to the traditional "Bust into your new year".  Sadly I missed that since I was at work (not to worry, though, Laurel did another one).  I struggled throughout the week trying to decide what, if anything, I would do for a birthday celebration at school.  Now that 5th grade has moved up to middle school a lot of the things that used to be fun now have the potential to be life altering embarrassment for Sierra.  So I tread lightly to balance what the little girl inside of her still hopes for and what the tween to come worries about.  After much deliberation at 3am with my co-workers I settled on taking honeybuns up to the school office and having the secretary deliver them to her homeroom class to distribute to her friends.  It was a big hit and she did appreciate my effort!  Much to my delight, she invited me to lunch next week.

Due to after school activities we had pizza and cinnasticks with candles to make a wish, of course.  The day after her birthday she got her request for chili.  Because what else would you request on an 85 degree day?  Brad and I both being home from work we enjoyed a family birthday dinner with cheesecake to top off the celebration.  (I'm not completely slacking... I will actually bake a cake for her birthday party!)  She opened her gifts and then Laurel coordinated balloon games for the girls and me.  We ran, fell down, bumped into each other, and laughed, then did it all again!  It was a great reminder for me that, although she is double digits and growing up way too fast, Sierra is still a kid who likes to have fun. 

Laurel's "Bust through" set up complete with candy

Here she goes!

Rock girls rule

Cadence agrees... I think!

Shiloh does not

Cheesecake cake, although the kids were more excited about the sugar letters

Make a wish

Cadence's 3rd birthday

Exactly two weeks ago we celebrated Cadence's 3rd birthday!  As every parent says at every birthday... I can't believe she's that old!  Where has the time gone?  Cadence has been with us now for more than half of her life.  She is spirited, bold, independent, hilarious, determined, and kind.  She loves to put on a show.  Laugh at something she does and prepare to see it at least 13 more times!  We are so blessed that she found her way to our home.  Happy birthday Sweet Girl!

She vacillated between Elmo, Dora, & Minnie Mouse for her birthday cake.  At the 11th hour we settled on making Elmo cupcakes, using Minnie Mouse plates, and giving Dora stickers to our friends at the party.  Cadence had four sweet little girls over to help celebrate her day.  All five of the families have three kids and between us all there is only one boy out of the 15!  Isn't that crazy?

Cupcakes and playtime made for fun time for the kids and an easy party for this mama!

That evening Brad, Sierra, Laurel, Cadence and I went to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner and enjoyed their delicious fried ice cream for dessert.  We came home and Cadence opened her gifts from us.  Her favorite that she spent the rest of the evening on - her new scooter!  She was so excited to get to hang with the big dawgs (aka her scooter riding sisters!).



We had two professional photographers at the party.  Between the two of them I'm not sure why we couldn't get one shot of all of the girls smiling! (Just kidding Brook and Megan!)

The Birthday Girl

Ann playing air guitar?

And Blair serenading everyone!

Happy birthday to you!

Sierra  helping Cadence ham it up at the restaurant.  As if she needs any help!

One of Cadence's favorite things - Group Hug

Posing girls

She's on a roll!

I LOVE this girl