Birthdays

The Friday before our snow adventure was Sky's 10th birthday. It was a big deal to me because I can hardly believe my little baby is in the double-digit birthdays now. We had a little sleepover for her, with three of her best friends, Hannah, Jamie, and Leslie-Grace. George bought her Dance Dance Revolution for Wii and I made strawberry margarita cupcakes. The girls watched Nancy Drew, did press-on nail manicures, and stayed up pretty late.
Saturday was Super Saturday, which our youth were in charge of. We had to do a nice, slightly more formal, dinner and dance. We had lights rigged up from the ceiling (George made a PVC canopy for lights) and snowflakes on the wall. We tried to do a blue-and-white theme for winter. Things got a little hairy, with trying to make enough spaghetti for 150 ravenous young people. McDonalds gave us the runaround on donating orange Hi-C drink as they'd done in the past, so we had to purchase and make pink lemonade from a mix at the last minute. It was a crazy day, but luckily, we don't have to host any other Super Saturdays this year.
Last Saturday, the 24th, Dad and Diane and Rose and Randy came over to visit us. They brought birthday presents for Sky and Bart, and little gifts for Drake and Lucy, too. Drake is having a hard time understanding why it can't be his birthday, too. Christmas really messed him up this year. He thinks whenever anyone else gets presents, he should get some, too.
We just hung out, watched Home Alone, played Dance Dance Revolution, and played with the kids. Dad and Uncle Randy went out and brought Chinese back for dinner. Skylar had told Dad she wanted to go to the Olive Garden. Bart wanted McDonalds or Waffle House.
Monday the 26th was Bart's 7th birthday. I had a little bit of a hard time with this one, too. I cannot believe Bart is already seven. My little baby boy. It seems like just yesterday he was saying "New Buwn" for New Bern. And talking our ears off about Thomas the Tank Engine. Now he's reading books on his own and talking our ears off about Star Wars.
Monday after I dropped the kids off at school, I picked up a dozen doughnuts and 50 doughnut holes at Dunkin Donuts, across the river. Drake, Lucy, and I took the doughnut holes and pretzels to Bart's class for a treat after lunch. Then we brought Bart home early. Drake and I went out to buy Bart's birthday present and pick up fried chicken from Bojangles (he had said he wanted fried chicken). I arranged the dozen doughnuts into a doughnut pyramid and put seven wavy candles on the top layer. It was pretty clever, if I do say so myself. After Skylar got home from dance class, we sang Happy Birthday to Bart and chowed down on the doughnuts. Even Lucy ate some tiny little bites.
Tuesday Mom and Mimi came to visit and watched the Little Ones while I got an hour's nap. Wow. It's amazing how happy I get over a nap these days. We ordered pizza, and Bart and I went to karate. It was great because Bart finally earned his junior yellow belt!!!!
He's been working on it forever, and he finally earned it. He doesn't have much motivation to practice, otherwise he'd probably have gotten it before now. He's pretty good and he has a lot of potential if he'd just focus. George and I told him he could get a Wii Star Wars lightsaber dueling game when he earned it. So yesterday, George and Bart picked out Star Wars the Force Unleashed for Wii.
Tonight was a video game night. When George got home, we sent the three older children outside to play for awhile. I was working on making Bart's R2D2 cake for his bowling party tomorrow. He said he wanted a bowling party for his birthday, so we're going to this cool bowling alley/mini golf/g0-kart place in Cape Carteret. We're inviting only Mack, Taylor, and Kaleb Weekes, plus parents and siblings. So there will actually be a lot of people, even though only three of Bart's friends will be coming. I really hope they'll have a good time...and I really hope this R2D2 cake I'm making turns out OK.
Wish me luck.