How fabulous is my friend Tanja?

I received my birthday present from my friend Tanja today. I'm surprised the woman even remembered my birthday - much less got around to getting me a present. Tanja is the proud mom of two (teething!) six-month old twin boys, a 6 year old son, a 7 year old son, and a 10 year old son. Yes, for those of you who may be slow with the math today that adds up to F.I.V.E sons!!! Yes, the woman is busy. But not only is she busy but she has just proven herself to be beyond fabulous. She lives in Kansas with her happy family and I actually haven't seen her in like almost nine years but she still pays very close attention to me. She emailed me earlier this week that she sent out my birthday present so I kept checking my mail anxiously waiting to see what I received because she was being a little mysterious about the whole thing. Today when I got home from work I checked my mail and among the pieces of mail was something from Strawberry Tea Room - my favorite Tea Room that happens to be not too far from Gainesville. I was thinking, "That's weird, I'm sure that has to do with my birthday but I don't ever recall giving Strawberry Tea Room my birthday information before." I go inside and open the envelope and it's a gift certificate for me to the Tea Room from Tanja!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Are you kidding me?!? That is so unbelieveably sweet of her to pay that much attention to me! :-) So, thank you Tanja! You are fabulous!!!!!

First day of art class

Today was Libby's first day of art class! In case I've never mentioned it before :-) the little girl LOVES art and anything having to do with art. She is constantly drawing, coloring, painting, etc. So, she is now enrolled in an art class every Thursday afternoon. She was very excited about today being the first class. It starts an hour after I pick her up from school so my original plan was to go across the street from school to the park so that she could play for about an hour but it rained all day today so we didn't get to go to the park...instead we decided to go to Starbucks. :-) Her art class went well and she is looking forward to next week's lesson.

Today was also report card day! Libby loves report card day! :-) Somehow her P.E. grade dropped from an E to an E- but other than that she had a wonderful report card! :-) Libby participates in the Pizza Hut Book It program...if she reads 20 minutes a day for the month she gets a certificate for a free pizza each month. Since today was report card day and she did so well on it I took her to Pizza Hut to get her pizza since she is on a "pizza is my favorite food" kick. :-)

Happy birthday to me!

Today started my "27th" birthday festivities! :-) My friends and I were meeting at the tea room at 11:00am. We always go to English tea rooms and that is wonderful but for something a little different I chose for us to go to a Chinese tea service today. It in no way compares to the English tea service but it's not that bad. Mostly I just wanted everyone to have that experience and then we could get back to our usual English tea rooms! :-) I enjoyed today very much. We had our food and tea and Kristina brought a cake (from Publix...my favorite!) and my friends sang Happy Birthday to me! :-) Then, one of the workers at the restaurant saw that it was my birthday and he played music over the karaoke machine and the entire restaurant sang Happy Birthday to me! It was hilarious (and embarrassing!)! :-) It was a great time!

Our ski trip

We got back today and had a great trip to Tennessee with Ryan's parents! They have a house in Dandridge, TN and we drove up Thursday night. We left at about 7:30pm Thursday night and drove all night and got there at 4:50am Friday morning. It was T-W-O degrees. That is freaking cold! Friday late afternoon we decided to go over to Ober Gatlinburg which is about 35 minutes away from their house and we did some snow skiing. Yes, I said snow skiing. Not quite as easy as I thought it would be! :-) I had trouble stopping but I found an easy solution for that...just fall! So, I'd start skiing and when I'd start to lose control I'd just fall right on my butt and that would take care of that! :-) We decided to go back Saturday and we went snow tubing for about two hours and that was so fun! After snow tubing we went skiing again. Yesterday since it was our last day visiting there we went back snow skiing for about five hours. It was so much fun. It was such a great trip...I'm so glad that we went with them for the holiday weekend!

Libby's birthday party

Libby's Candyland birthday party was yesterday and it went really well - although it didn't start out that way! So, I knew all along that I wanted Publix to bake Libby's cake and ice it and then I would decorate it. I went on Thursday night after work and ordered the cake and told them how I wanted them to ice the cake green with lavender trim and told them that I'd be there to pick it up Friday at 7:00pm. I get there...and there is NO CAKE! The girl looked everywhere with no luck. She finally found the order form from the night before...in the wrong basket so the cake was never made. I considered coming across the counter and digging my nails into the girl's jugular but I didn't. I smiled and asked, "How can you fix this?" She said that she wasn't experienced at deocorating and I told her that she didn't have to be...I was decorating the cake. I just needed an iced cake from them (I love Publix cakes...a birthday isn't complete for me unless there is a Publix cake involved). :-) She breathed a sigh of relief when I told her I only needed a blank cake. She said it would take a couple of hours because of the process and she asked if I could come back at 9:00pm. I agreed and Libby and I went home. I went back at 9:00 and the cake was finished - and she reduced the cake price by half and the manager told her to tell me that they were giving me a free container of ice cream, as well. Woo hoo!! :-) Once I got home with the cake Libby helped me put together the favor bags that were packed with sick amounts of candy. :-)

Saturday morning I woke up and got ready and then started decorating the birthday cake. It didn't turn out quite like I had intended...the cake was much smaller than I thought it was going to be but oh well. It was still cute. I got the cake finished right as Karen and Wyatt arrived at our apartment. I needed to go to the park early to set everything up and Ryan had to work Saturday morning so Karen and Wyatt came over to sit with Libby and then brought her to the park in time for the party. I get to the park a few minutes after 9:00am (for the 10:30am party) and both of the pavillions were already taken!!! AAAhhhh!!! That's the entire reason why I planned a 10:30am party! One guy was there reserving one pavillion for a birthday party that was going to start at 2:00pm. At the other pavillion were some people who were doing a free organized work out at the park that morning. I talked to the guy in charge of the group and asked if I could have the pavillion and he agreed. Whew! That was close! :-) I started getting everything set up and I worked as fast as I could for the next hour and 15 minutes getting everything set up for the party. One table had the cake, drinks, etc, another table was set up to make snowflakes because of Snowflake Lake in the game of Candyland. Another table was set up to make candy necklaces, another table was set up to play the game of Candyland, another table was set up to color Candyland pictures and one table was set up to just sit at. Every table had candy on the table and the "sitting table" had containers of candy in addition to candy all down the center of the table. There were 10 kids there and everyone had a really great time. They all got along very well, especially considering that some of them didn't know each other. They participated at all of the activities and then it was cake time!!!!! After cake it was time for Libby to open her presents and as usual she got just way too much stuff! :-) When the presents were all opened the children ran over to play on the playground at the park and the parents chatted at the pavillion. It was great getting to finally sit down and relax and chat with them. They all even pitched it towards the end and helped me get everything cleaned up which was just super great! :-) Clean up was a snap with so many people pitching in to help! :-) Libby had a great time playing with her friends and I had a great time chatting with the parents. It was great. After the party was over I asked Libby if she enjoyed it and she said that it was her best birthday party ever! :-) Woo hoo! :-)

Libby's best friend Madison came home with us after the party to spend the night with Libby. They had a lot of fun playing all afternoon. The only time I was able to get them to stop playing was when it was time for dinner and then they were right back at it. They had a great night. This morning they were right back at it bright and early and they played until Madison's dad came to pick her up at 11:00am this morning.

Whew, Libby's birthday is over and it was great. But now you know what that means...FOURTEEN DAYS UNTIL MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)

National Champions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a game! I was holding my breath until the last two minutes of the game...it was so close! But the Florida Gators are now the National Champions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We beat Oklahoma 24-14 and victory is definitely sweet! This National Champ thing doesn't seem to ever get old! :-)

Gooooo Gators!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, two things...

Ok, so if you read my blog before Tuesday night at 9:45pm EST and you tried to click on the link to see the pictures from Libby's birthday that are on flickr then you know that it didn't work. :-) I finally figured out what was wrong (it was very simple - but it was the last thing I thought of to look at!!). Soooooo, you can now click on the link in my email from Libby's birthday and see the pictures from yesterday. If you click on the link it will take you to all of the pictures but they are still out of order. However, if you click on the right side (the set that says Libby's 7th birthday) then you can see the photos there in the order that they were taken with their descriptions. That's as good as it's going to get. :-)

So, last night Ryan went upstairs to go to bed about five minutes ahead of me. I was finishing up picking up some stuff, turning things off, etc. After a few minutes he said, “We need you up here!” I started running up the stairs because I knew it had something to do with Libby. He said that she was walking in to the bathroom as he was walking upstairs to go into our room. He said after about five minutes he started wondering what was going on because she is never in the bathroom that long. So, he walked over to the door and was going to kneel down and see if he could see under the door (which the door is too low so he wouldn’t have been able to see under the door) because he thought maybe she went to sleep on the bathroom floor or that she was in the tub asleep. That by itself was enough to make me laugh uncontrollably. Then he said that since he couldn’t see under the door he stood up and started to open the door a bit (she wasn’t responding to him saying her name) and just then Libby opened the door and she was standing there yawning, stretching, and BUTT NAKED!!!! He quickly shut the door and that’s when he called me. I opened the door to go inside the bathroom with her and she’s sitting there completely naked. I look over and all of the clothes that she was wearing are now crumpled up in the trash and she’s just sitting there twirling her feet!! I said, “Libby, honey, are you confused?” and she shook her head yes. I told her that it was the middle of the night, she was going potty, and we just needed to get her dressed so that she could go back to bed. After she was back in bed I went into my room and I told Ryan about her sitting there naked with her pj’s in the trash and we couldn’t stop laughing. Whew, that was so funny!!! It was the middle of the night and little Libby was butt naked, in the bathroom, with her clothes in the trash. It doesn’t get much funnier than that! :-)

Libby's 7th birthday!

Today sweet Libby turned 7 and I think she had a great birthday. She told me that it was her best birthday ever. :-) I woke her up by singing Happy Birthday to her this morning. It was sort of business as usual as she got ready for school and had her breakfast but after breakfast I gave her a little gift to open...some lip gloss (which is always a huge hit with Libby!). We went to school and I volunteered and at recess (which is just before lunch) we went outside and took the cupcakes that we brought and her whole class sang Happy Birthday to her and they all shared her birthday cupcakes. After school she wanted to play at the park for a little while so we did that since it was her day to decide our schedule. After the park she was ready to come home and play with her Barbie Dreamhouse so that is what we did. Ryan got home at about 4:30 - just as I was putting the finishing touches on Libby's cake. We ate dinner (cheese pizza - per Libby's request) and then had cake and ice cream. When we were finished eating it was time for Libby to open her gifts. She opened a couple of gifts that had been sent to her and then she started opening the gifts from me and Ryan. We were very evil in the way that we planned this. I got her the art easel and art supplies (paint, painting pad, paint brushes, dry erase markers for the dry erase board that is on one side of her art easel and colored chalk for the chalkboard on the other side of her art easel). Well, I wrapped all the supplies separately and brought all of that downstairs for her to open but when she came downstairs for dinner I went upstairs and moved the art easel from my bedroom (where it was being hidden) in to her room. So she opened all of her presents downstairs and she was a very good sport about receiving erasers and having no idea why she was getting them. So, she opened the chalk, paint, paint brushes, art pad, etc, and I told her that we were all finished and we should go up in to her room and start painting/drawing, etc. She was excited about that so I ran upstairs ahead of her and she walked in to her room and saw her biggest present sitting there waiting her her! :-) She unwrapped the easel and started jumping up and down and gave me a giant bear hug. :-) She was very happy (and a lot less confused about the random dry erase markers, chalk, and erasers!) :-) I've posted some pictures to flickr but they are all out of order. I know that I should have organized them but it's late, I'm beat, and I just really wanted to get them posted so that I can go to bed! :-) Once you click on the link the pictures from school are obviously the first ones taken today and then after those five pictures then just go to page 2 and work your way back to page 1. The pictures from tonight are on flickr exactly in reverse order from how they were taken so if you start at page 2 and work your way back to page 1 then you'll see the pictures in the order that she opened things, etc. :-) Sorry about the mess but at least they are out there! :-) http://www.flickr.com/photos/14165538@N05/ Let me know if you have any trouble with the flickr pictures! Take care and good night!

Last day of being six years old!

Here is the last picture ever taken of Libby as a six year old! I know I've said this before but I really can't believe how quickly my baby girl is growing up! She is very excited about her birthday tomorrow but I sort of think I may be a little more excited...but hey, I'm always jacked up about birthdays! :-) We stopped by the grocery store tonight to get some cupcakes for her class for tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to bake her a small cake for us to have after dinner. Since it's her birthday she gets to pick what we are having for dinner and she wants pizza so Ryan volunteered to pick up pizza on his way home from work tomorrow. After dinner and birthday cake then she'll get to open her birthday presents (which is the art easel that I found at Toys R Us for half-price just before Christmas!).

Good night my sweet six year old! In the morning I'll be going in to kiss a seven year old!

Getting ready for Libby's birthday!!!

If you can believe it, Libby will be turning SEVEN YEARS OLD in just four little days. That definitely blows my mind! She has been planning her birthday party since July (she is sooooo my daughter when it comes to planning things early!!) and she decided in July that she wants a Candyland birthday party. I was very excited about this theme for her because that meant that I had a lot more creativity than I usually have for her birthday parties. She usually picks a character theme (Barbie, Strawberry Shortcake, Hello Kitty, etc) and that is where most of the money is spent! But, with the Candyland theme I have been able to pick up things that were just solid bright colors and I've picked up as many different colors as I could find. It's wonderful because solid colored items (tablecloths, napkins, plates, etc) are much cheaper than anything else. The decorations have been easy...candy, candy, candy!!! I will be putting some candy in glass jars for centerpieces on each table and at the end of the party I have to make sure to make everyone take some home because I definitely don't need to be bringing all of that candy back home with us!! :-) I also found some paper lanters today in Michaels for $1 each. I wrapped them in cellophane, twisted the ends, and voila...candy decorations that can be hung! How cool! :-)

The invitations that we printed turned out very cute...at least I think they are very cute! :-) I simply printed them on colored paper and mailed then in a different colored envelope to go along with the mix of solid colors.

We sent out her invitations in mid-December so that she could invite a few friends from her class and we had to get them out before winter break so we have some reminder cards to send out on Monday when she goes back to school since the inviations went out a couple of weeks ago.

So, the invitations and reminder cards are done, decorations are done, and the favor bags (more candy!!) are done. All that is left is her cake. I'm going to leave the baking of the cake up to Publix but I'll be the one decorating the cake. I'm decorating the cake with inspiration from the gameboard of Candyland. I'm excited to see how it turns out - but also a little nervous! :-) My only worry about the party is that someone may go into a sugar-induced coma because of all of the candy! :-) Her party is January 10th so I'll post another blog probably Monday night since that is her birthday and then I'll post one after the party and let everyone know if it was a success. :-)