The end of Birthday season

March represents a bit of a Birthday season in our family. My sister Lauren's Birthday is on March 22nd, and mine is just a week later on the 30th. Our parents kinda planned that, believe it or not. And it probably seemed like a good idea until we were in grade school, each wanting our own separate, unique party. That's a lot of planning, cake and children to cram into a two-week stretch! Eventually as we got older and stopped being so selfish ;) we would settle for each inviting one or two special friends over for a slumber party instead of a full-blown-extravaganza. I'm sure Mom and Dad were relieved. :)

This year, Lauren came up with a clever way for us to celebrate. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but my niece and nephew have serious food allergies, making it next to impossible for Lauren and Rich to go out to eat anywhere. (Which in more recent years became our way of celebrating - the Birthday girl would choose the restaurant and we'd all go out to dinner.) So Lauren suggested that we all pick up carryout from the place of our choice then meet at her house and eat together! That way we'd get to enjoy whatever meal we wanted...plus no one had to cook! And then Lauren could fix allergy-friendly meals for the kiddos. It worked so well for Lauren's Birthday that we did it again the next week for mine. We also played some games together, which was really fun. We used to be big game-players but it's a little harder to do that with small children around. But Livvie played some little computer games and Jack watched videos while we were playing and it worked REALLY well! We had a great time. Here are some photos from the special occasions!

Lauren's Birthday Party

We gave Lauren a surprise for her Birthday. It was a gift certificate to a tattoo parlor (totally not her thing!) that Jeremy had won in a raffle at work. It was hilarious watching her open it...she was reading it carefully, looking for a punchline! We could hardly keep a straight face, but once Jeremy suggested that "we thought you could tattoo the kids names on your back," we both busted up laughing and confessed that it was a joke and gave her the REAL present. She looked relieved!

Me and Livvie - She was so cute, thanking everyone for her Mommy's presents. *hehe*

Me and my sweetie

Me with something else that was sweet. Dang I ate like a hellion these past two weeks! You'd be so ashamed of me! *eek*

All the girls! Sure wish I would have worn something that matched them better! ;) Me, Mom, Lauren and Olivia.

We played Pictionary, one of our all-time favorite games. "Back in the day," we played Girls VS Guys all the time, and the ladies always dominated. Well, I'm pleased to report that nothing has changed, we STILL rocked their world. They didn't know what hit 'em. :) And just wait until Livvie can join our forces. We'll be unstoppable. *hehe*

In between rounds, we took turns showing Livvie how to draw stuff. The Lion is mine (it's made from a number 5), the dog is Jeremy's, and the lawnmower is my Dad's. (Livvie drew the grass. *hehe*)

And here is Livvie showing us that she can write Jack's name!

My Birthday Party

My Birthday loot! (with wrapping eaturing two of my favorite things - penguins and dogs!)

Livvie wrote this! Not bad for 3 years old, I'd say. :)

Lauren and Rich got me a gift certificate to 2P's! SO exciting! (I've already put my order in. *hehe*) Because it's a website, the certificate was just something you printed out, but Lauren and Livvie decorated it up and made it quite appropriately scrappy! Cute, huh? (Mom and Dad gave me some yummy smelling candles and CASH! Yay, I love cash. *haha* Most of it's already gone thanks to Michael's. I'll post pictures of those goodies later!)

Me and Jackaroo. Is he the cutest mop-top you've ever seen or what?

Our dog-nephew Peter. He's the sweetest little guy! (He's a Jack Russell Terrier and he is the best "kids-dog" that I've ever seen. He LOVES Livvie and Jack and is always very gentle with them.)

My game of choice for my party was Balderdash. If you've never played it, you need to go get it! But just a warning, your set won't come with the groovy animal game pieces you see here. I added those. Cause I'm cool like that. :) (We didn't finish the game, but I was leading when we quit so I think I won! *hehe*)

And I should mention that my sweet hubby got me an Epson color printer/scanner combination! So now I can scan pictures onto my laptop...and print out special sizes of photos! I'm very excited. :)