Toast 2 Mom

Pop Stars!

Cheeks had a Pop-Star birthday party over the weekend! It was totally radical!! :)

A Non-Sleepover Sleepover Party

Coincidentally for Natalie's 6th birthday party, which had a "Frozen" theme happened to also be a snow day for school. How ironic, eh? A weird occurence down here in Texas - but happened anyway.

For her birthday party, Miss Cheekers had a non-sleepover sleepover party. Her friends arrived in jammies. We did some sticker and glue crafts, ate lots of snacks, played games, had pizza and cookies and ice cream. At the end, the girls cuddled up for a movie with their blankets and stuffed animals. Then right at bedtime, the parents came to pick up their girls and everyone slept soundly in their own beds - ta da!  I think it was a success. 

Here are some photos from the evening of wild girls.

Just Riding a....Unicorn!??!

The girls have been invited to some pretty spectacular birthday parties since we moved down to Texas. But, I don't know.... can  you beat riding a rainbow colored unicorn?! I think not! It's been a wild Friday night!

Holiday

We had a great weekend. Yesterday was Daddio's birthday party. We had around 45 people over for a rib party. We lucked out with the most gorgeous weather this weekend - sunny and in the upper 60s. Leading up to it was a lot of prep work - in which my girls were great helpers - cleaning up, putting together the napkins and saucing the ribs. 

Today we enjoyed the holiday off school. We began with a new little tradition of sorts that Daddio has started with the girls....walking to the donut shop. We live in a golf course neighborhood. If you diagnal your way through the neighborhood, in just over a mile walk, we end up at the local donut shop. Daddio figures, hey, if the girls want to hike for a donut, he'll buy the donut. I have missed out on the donut hikes. So today the girls lead the way for our donut hike. 

This afternoon we had a few errands to run. It was so nice, we couldn't just go home. So we went to a park nearby that we have never been to before. We weren't the only ones with this idea today. It was a gorgeous January day. 

38 Special

All these years and today I found out that turning 38 really is special! :) Today is my birthday - and what a great day it has been!

In a lot of ways, it was a very typical Thursday - but with a lot of extra special-ness all piled on top. 

I woke up and went to tennis. I started some lessons over the summer. Thursdays are my days with the intermediate ladies group. They are tough, and I really enjoy it! Miss Cheekers is amazing and sits at a picnic table for an hour just coloring and singing and doing her Cheeky thing while I play. 

After tennis we headed to the gym for Natalie's gymnastics class. Knowing I would indulge in goodies today, I went for an extra run during her class. The weather was so nice outside today. I ran three miles and enjoyed a truly fall feeling day. 

Then my gal and I raced over to the elementary school to have lunch with Sydney. What a treat to have a birthday lunch with my best gals!

I sold some cookies today - so even better to make some money on my birthday. So after lunch, I had to do some business stuff and house-tasks in preparation for some company we have coming into town this weekend for the Formula One race. 

Our babysittr arrived at 5:00. The Hubby and I had dinner plans at a super tasty sushi restaurant. Turns out we got some extra quality time because traffic was quite heavy in town, and we ended up being over 30 minutes late to our reservations. No worries. It was excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed a get dressed up, dinner date with my Hubs. A special gift in itself. 

After dinner, we went over to this outdoor shopping area and went into a few stores to browse for some early Christmas shopping. I picked up a  few things - success!

And now it's alsmost the end of the day, and I've just been going through all of the correspondence I've received all day via emails and text messages and Facebook messages. I am feeling the love!!

I was born in Illinois. I then went to college in Indiana. Then I moved to Nebraska for about eight years and have been in Texas for four years. I told Hubby at dinner that I heard from so many people today, from all chapters/states and stages of my life. How special is that.

I was curious to know who I heard from the most. I found it interesting to reflect on each of my chapters. And being a list-making nerd that I am, I broke down my stages into three groups - Bloomington, Indy/Omaha and Austin. Then I put a tally for all the people I heard from. And not predictable at all, it was actually extremely even among each of those groups. That surprised me - in a really good way. It told me I've made strong connections throughout each of my paths in life - pretty cool!

So with that, I'll end with the only pictures I took today. I was sweaty. It was taken at lunch at the grade school. But I did manage to get a couple photos with my best gifts. 

Thanks to all for making 38 Special! 

Good Witch Bad Witch - The Party

Lots and lots and lots of party photos...

A bit of a rainy day - but still a lot of wicked fun!

Bewitching Sisters

Today was the Good Witch Bad Witch b-day party. Not enough time to post all the party pics right now I'll do that tomorrow. But here's a good start! It was a great party though!