The Season of the Eternal Birthday

If you haven't heard yet, Liam turned 7 this year. The official kick off of his birthday party started in late October and it seemed to never end. I do recall the birthing experience of this child and it lasted a while, but it was hours not weeks. However, now at age 7 we had a month of birthday fun including 3 parties and many gifts. (Sorry if he is behind on your thank you card, he is catching up). Thanks to all that made his birthday month a joy. It was fun, but I'm kind of glad it is all over. Here are some highlights:

Blowing out candles at the 2nd family birthday party.

Showing off one of his great gifts. He wants his name included to this poster some day.

Oh yes, the friend party!The reason I'm probably tired is that we saved the best (most work) for last. We invited 8 little first grade boys over for 3 hours of fun. It was just cold enough with just a dusting of snow, so that would equal cold, muddy boys. So we kept it inside. We started the party with Liam's requests of "board games" and Madlibs. Pictionary went okay, but we lost them at Outburst. No one liked the Madlibs but Liam. I ended up going upstairs and dragging down every bin of Lego's I could find. This entertained them for a half hour. I chose to have them decorate cupcakes (check off another half hour) and then they played a rousing game of hide and seek for the last half hour or so. I really wanted to count, but they wouldn't let me. I was thinking 1,000,000 was a good round number to count up to. The important things were that Liam was happy and they all left with a sugar rush. I guess it was a successful party.

Thanks again for anyone that helped make the the month of the birthday fun!!

Brag Time

I just have to brag about my husband and how great he is. Yesterday he took the day off just to burn some vacation time. I had to go to a teaching conference for most of the day. He had told me that he was just going to play video games all day and have a me day. He would try to get to the honey do list. However, while I was gone he ran a bunch of errands and picked up the house. And to make my day brighter he bought me a rose and left it in my car. So when I was done with my training I had a nice rose and beautiful card waiting for me for no reason. That's why I married him :)

Happy Birthday Liam

Happy 7th Birthday Liam!!

Today is Liam's birthday! We celebrated by making it a birthday day for the family. It started with homemade caramel rolls for breakfast. Then Ryan and Liam got to open the cards they had gotten (thanks to everyone that sent one) and Liam got to open a family gift. We bought a Wii Fit game for the entire family's birthdays. We have been looking for one for a while because that is what we were buying for our June birthday people. So we got it and gave it for 2008 birthdays. So the rest of the day was spent in p.j.'s playing video games, watching football and eating. I made Stromboli for Ryan's birthday dinner also. Overall a great stay at home birthday kind of day.

Don't worry Liam is still going to have a "family" party next week and a friend party the following week. We'll do the big hoopla then, but it was nice to have a quiet day.

Happy Birthday Ryan

Happy Birthday Ryan!!

Ryan's birthday was yesterday and we had a fun day! First we went to a potluck for people adopting/adopted from the Philippines. We ate some good food, met new people, and watched some Filipino folk dancing. Ryan and Lance also played a game of basketball with some guys. It took up the first part of our day.

Then in the evening we went to dinner and a show with a bunch of friends. We were going to meet at a local chain restaurant, but the wait was at 80 minutes already when we got there. So, we ended up at a kind of fast food restaurant. But hey we had quick service and it was quieter. Then we raced downtown (we talked too much at the restaurant and left late) to go to the theater to see Wicked. It was packed, the tickets were impossible to get (unless your my resourceful friend Ann!) The show was amazing! I loved the storyline, the costumes and the singing was wonderful. Ryan (the birthday boy) enjoyed it also, but liked Spamalot better. Wicked ranks way up there in my favorite shows.

So, Ryan's birthday was filled with cultural events. Probably not the day he would choose, but he had a great time anyway.

We do live in a winter wonderland

This is what we woke up to this morning.

I knew the post that I put up on Wed. was too good to be true. It started with a big wind/rain storm yesterday. The wind was so strong that it blew our yard waste container about 50 ft. and then flipped it over. This is why we need weather people in MN, we never know what is going to happen here.

Wordless Wednesday- with words

Gas prices in our area- $1.99 a gallon
Average Temperature the past few days-
around 70 degrees!

I'm not complaining about either, just surprised!

Tag, are you it?

My blogging friend sent me this tag and I thought I would pass it on.
The rules: Remove 1 question from the list below, and add your own personal question to make it a total of 20 questions. Tag 8 people, list them out at the end of this post. Notify them in their chat box that he/she has been tagged. Whoever does the tag will have blessings from all.

1. At what age do/did you (wish to) marry? at 26 (so last year right?)
2. What color do you like most? PINK- I'm such a girlie girl that way
3. If you can have a superpower, what would it be? I would be invisible like Violet in the Incredibles
4. If you can travel anywhere in the world, where would you want to go? Anywhere away from MN, really Italy would be very cool
5. Which part of you do you hate the most? the fat I insist on carrying around
6. When you get sad, what do you do? I don't get sad, I just get mad at someone else
7. What book are you reading now? Little House in the Big Woods
8. If you win $1 million, what would you do with the money? Pay off debt, oh you meant something fun? Travel!!
9. What did you love the most about last year (2007)? Materialistic, but I love my new minivan
10. How did you get your name? My parents were going to name me June but changed their minds at the last minute due to an actress' popularity named Julie
11. What is the moment you regret most? I regret losing touch with many people I've met over the years
12. What type of person do you hate the most? I dislike people that talk and have never investigated or researched or lived what they are talking about
13. What is your greatest asset? my family of course, no monetary value
14. If you had one wish, what would you wish for? I would like to live on an island with just my family, but we would be visited by friends and have the Internet
15. How did you celebrate the New Year? Same as every year, to bed at 10pm, just another day
16. What tv show do you watch that you are embarrassed to tell people about? America's Next Top Model
17. It’s 2008. What are you looking forward to this year? meeting our new children
18. Anything in your life that you wish weren’t so awful? I should knock on wood because all is good right now
19. What’s the shallowest thing you intend to do this year? Ryan said, highlighting my hair every few months is shallow
20. What’s the meaning of life? To raise my kids so that they can become better people than we are

Now the fun part...I get to tag. Of course I have to tag Amy because she would tag me. I will also tag Michelle because I know you just don't enough to do during the day with homeschooling three kids and everything:) I'm going to tag Mel because I want to read her answers. Renee (even though you are out of town) as punishment because you still owe me that recipe. Now that Patricia is blogging again, I can find out what you are thinking also. I can only do 5 because it took me almost a week to get my questions up and everyone else I know has already been tagged.