Birthday Wrap Up

Whew. We made it through all the Emma birthday celebrations.

We started with a family party last Tuesday.

Thursday (her actual birthday), we spend hours at AT&T getting her a cell phone and switching around everyone's phones (Mark and I actually upgraded and then passed our old phones down the line).  Then I was too tired to make the ribs I had planned on for dinner, so we ended up going out for dinner at the last minute. Bad idea, since it was Valentine's Day and there were crazy wait times. We ended up at Five Guys for burgers and fries, followed up with Yogurtland (red velvet frozen yogurt = heaven).

Friday night was the sleepover. 7 girls invited. 2 RSVP'd. 2 showed up. We bought way too much pizza and snacks, but Emma still had a great time. The girls went to the park for a while, had some boy drama, and called for me to pick them up. Then we all went to the mall (first the girls had to borrow outfits from Emma) and the girls went to Claire's to spend a gift card, while Mark and I sat at Barnes and Noble and relaxed. Then it was time to go back to the house, put on pj's, and watch movies. Mark and I retired to the bedroom at that time and let the girl's take over the living room.  They went to bed at a reasonable time and woke up early enough Saturday to eat donuts and watch a movie. Then a quick craft and it was time for them to go home.

 

It was great seeing my daughter so happy with her friends, and seeing how much she is changing and growing up. Bittersweet indeed.

Here's to a great year on this earth baby girl! We love you.

P.S. Can I just talk about pipe cleaners for a minute? I shopped at the grocery store all last minute with no particular theme in mind. I ended up going with "neon" as the theme after spotting that super cute cake in the bakery, plus Emma is all into neon colors. Next, I walked around looking for ways to decorate on the cheap. I ended up with neon balloon (looked more pastel when blown up) for $1.99, a bag of neon pipe cleaners for $1.89, and some neon mini poster boards for $3.89. Score!

Basically, I spent $8 to make decorations for both parties. I just moved them from the kitchen to the dining room. I used the poster board to make the flag banner and the pipe cleaners to make the circle banners. I had Emma and my mom help, and they were super, duper easy to make. And I'm all about simple these days!