Winter Birthdays

We have three winter birthdays all within 2 weeks of each other - not bragging, just complaining ;) - Ellie, me and Aubree. And this year both Ellie and Aubree had birthday parties with friends. And guess what? I am not a party planner. At all. I get really stressed about all the little details AND the big picture. During all this planning I read the book "Heaven is Here" by Stephanie Clark Nielsen and it helped to remind me that everything that was stressing me out was actually a blessing. Ellie and Aubree are both alive to celebrate another birthday. I am alive and healthy enough to plan and carry out birthday parties for them. (Last year we all went through the flu during our birthday season.) Aaron has a job, so we can pay for presents and parties. Not to mention, these are parties I'm planning. PARTIES. Not PTO fundraisers or funerals or church lessons, but parties. So, really it shouldn't be that stressful. (But I still had to remind myself of that at least once a day for about three weeks.) Here are some pictures:

 This was Ellie's cake for our own family celebration. A cute little round ball… or is it?

 Surprise! Piñata cake!

Her birthday party was a cake decorating party. I made the aprons for each of the girls and a cake for each of them to decorate and take home.  The girls all had a lot of fun with the decorating - some of those cakes have more icing than cake.

Next came my birthday:
Aaron and the girls usually make me breakfast in bed for my birthday, but this year they decided to clean the entire downstairs (kitchen, dining, family rooms) before I came down in the morning. Such a great birthday surprise! It really got my day off to a great start. (In all my slobby childhood years I never dreamed that I would appreciate a clean house for my birthday. I'm becoming my mom. ha ha!)

Aubree and I had a cozy indoor picnic (notice the space heater behind us) for lunch. 

 Yummy Japanese take-out for dinner. 

And we ended the night with a few episodes of The Cosby Show. It was such a wonderful, low-key, happy birthday!

And last but not least, 

 This silly girl celebrated her GOLDEN birthday on February 5th!

 We had a tea party with a beautiful new (used) mismatched tea set. We had some cute finger foods and the girls made fascinators (the huge, fancy headbands). This party was especially stressful because there was a big storm on the day of the party. Oh the joys of winter birthdays! So, I cancelled the party, rescheduled the party, then switched it back (looking back it's doesn't seem like a big deal, but at the time I was a wreck.) Only one of her original guests was able to make it, but luckily school was canceled so we invited some neighbor friends over that normally would have been at school. In the end I'm glad it worked out the way it did. We had a wonderful time with some friends that we don't get to see very often.

And the night before Aubree's birthday the girls decided they really wanted to cut their hair. It was Aubree's first hair cut. *sniff* They look super cute, but I miss their long hair.