End of my birthday/getting ready for Valentine's Day!

I had the last of my birthday celebrations yesterday. :-( Ryan and I met up with his parents for lunch at a restaurant in High Springs. After lunch with them we headed back home for a relaxing afternoon at home. It was a fun week of birthday celebrations for me!

Last weekend I decorated for Valentine's Day! I wanted to do it earlier but since I was having the jewelry party at my house last weekend I thought I'd hold off until everyone left so I put out my Valentine's decorations last Sunday. I love Valentine's Day...I love the reds and pinks and I LOVE the hearts (I'm always a sucker for hearts...especially silver hearts!). Here is our entry table:

On the table is the cute little topiary I made last Sunday. I think it is adorable!!

My beautiful roses that I got for my birthday started to sag on the stems so I cut the stems off and floated the roses in a heart-shaped glass bowl so my beautiful birthday roses have taken on a second life as a Valentine's decoration!

Another nice birthday!

Tuesday was my special day and Libby and Ryan made sure to spoil me. :-) I'm the first one up in the house every morning and as I went about my morning of letting the dogs outside, feeding the cats, getting ready for work, getting Libby up and ready for school I found birthday cards all over the house. :-) Ryan got up and made me breakfast (I haven't had breakfast before leaving for work in YEARS! Usually I just have a granola bar once I'm at work). I went to work and my co-workers brought me in a chocolate fudge cake, a plant, and 52 ounces of chocolate candy for my candy dish on my desk. They know me so well! :-) A little later in the morning a beautiful bouquet of roses arrived from my beautiful husband. :-) At home that night Ryan made me a very delicious dinner and after dinner we had birthday cake and I opened my presents. It was a great day!

My surprise birthday celebration!

On Saturday I hosted a jewelry party at my house. Many of my friends came to the show and we had fun. Debs, Karen, Jan and I had plans on going to dinner at my favorite Mexican restaurant after the jewelry show so after everyone left the jewelry party we headed out to the restaurant. We got there and it was crowded so we had to wait. Debs said it was pretty packed inside (which was true) so we waited outside for a while. But it was cold last night and we all started to freeze (I didn't even have a jacket on!) so Debs finally suggested that we go inside to wait. We walk inside, made our way through the crowd waiting up near the front door and I look up and saw more of my friends standing around and they said, "Surprise!" :-) We still had to wait a few minutes for our table and once we finally had a table we sat and they decorated it for my birthday fiesta. :-) It was a fun dinner with some very wonderful friends. It was a wonderful surprise and I'm so thankful to have each and every one of my friends! :-)

9th Birthday Party

Today we finally had Miss Libby's 9th birthday party! What started out as what I thought was going to be just a few kids coming over to celebrate with Libby turned into 10 kids being at the party. But that's not too bad because they always seem to entertain themselves. Here are some (ok...a lot) of pictures from her party today.

Here is the birthday girl with the banner that I made for her in her party colors

On the front door we had a kitty sign (Libby wanted a kitty themed party) and a Wipe Your Paws mat
Here is the centerpiece that I made. It was time consuming and I have several burns on my fingertips from the hot glue but Libby aboslutely loved them so that made it all worth it!
Her friends started to arrive


Last year when it was time for Libby to open her presents everyone was jumping in her face at the same time and shoving gifts at her. So, this year I had them play Pass The Kitty (hot potato).
Everyone sat in a circle with their gifts in front of them. When the music stopped whoever had the kitty would then give Libby their present. That made it a little more calm for Libby opening her gifts and gave me an opportunity to take a picture of Libby, her friend, and the gift they were giving her. Here are Libby and Molly:
Libby and Gabby
Libby and Riley
Libby and Alexa
Libby and Avery
Libby and Maddy
Libby and Tommy
Libby and Camryn
Libby and Leighton
Libby and Aunt Debs
Libby and Aunt Karen
After the party was over Libby's friend Maddy stayed to spend the night and the two of them just finally fell asleep so I'm now headed there myself! It's been a long busy day for me and I only had 3 hours of sleep last night so I'm ready for bed!

9 Years Old!!

I watched my little girl fall asleep last night as an 8 year old and this morning I watched her wake up as a 9 year old! I can't believe it was NINE years ago when I first saw her beautiful face! I've enjoyed every minute of being her mommy!

Last night I made cupcakes for her to take in to her class today so they could all celebrate with her. Today I got off of work at noon and picked Libby up from school (and she told me that one of the boys in her class said to tell me that my cupcakes are epic) :-) and Libby and I quickly headed to the movies. She has been wanting to see Tangled for a few weeks so we finally made it there today to see it. She enjoyed the movie and once we were out of the movie we headed to Build-A-Bear for Libby to make a new friend. After she made her new bear we headed home to hang out for a while waiting for Ryan to get home.

After Ryan got home we had dinner - which the menu was Libby's choice so we had a gourmet dinner of chicken nuggets, mac & cheese, and mashed potatoes. :-) Once we were finished with dinner Libby opened up her presents and then we had cake and ice cream. We had a mini cake tonight for her birthday and her big cake will be at her party next weekend.
She finished off the night playing Mariokart Wii with Ryan in between getting several phone calls and reading all of the birthday texts and emails that came in today for her. She really enjoyed her special day and now she can't wait for her kitty cat party next Saturday!
Please excuse my pj's...I wasn't planning on being IN the pictures! :-)
I think from the size of her smile that this was her favorite present of the night!

Last Day of Being 8 Years Old & A Recap of the Last 8 Birthdays

I absolutely can't believe that today was Libby's last day of being 8 years old! When she wakes up in the morning she will be NINE YEARS OLD!!! Where does the time go? I have always taken pictures of her on the night before her birthday so that I have pictures of her on the last night that she was a certain age. Here are a couple of the pictures from tonight...her last night of being 8 years old!

Yes, she is wearing a clothes pin that she wrote "Birthday Girl" on...I think she's a little excited about her birthday! ;-)

Here is my little birthday girl over her last eight birthdays - and tomorrow I can add a picture from her 9th birthday!!
2002

2003...1st birthday

2004...2nd birthday
Libby and Aunt Cindy
2005...3rd birthday

And here I am with my little cutie at 9:37am...three years to the minute after she was born (how SWEET is that little face of hers???)
2006...4th birthday
Here we are at 9:37am - exactly four years to the minute after my little cutie was born Here she is later in the day hamming it up for the camera
2007...5th birthday

2008...6th birthday
Celebrating at Disney

See the Mickey Mouse shaped confetti still in her hair?
And here she is at her party Aren't the three of us just a cute little family? :-)
2009...7th birthday

2010...8th birthday
And even though you can't see Libby's face this is one of my favorite pictures...aren't they just too sweet?