Happy Birthday Sean!

Sean's birthday was actually last Wednesday but we had the family celebration yesterday.  Sean gets so excited about everything so he couldn't wait to get the party started!  Dinner was chosen by the birthday boy and he picked hamburgers and fries (he always does).  Then we had an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins (a birthday tradition in our family).

Sean's cake had trick candles so every time he blew them out they would light up again!  He tried really hard to blow them out!

After cake, Sean opened his presents.  He got lots of clothes and superhero action figures (which he plays with for hours) from Grandma and Grandpa, Marilyn, and me.  As he opened presents, he seemed to get more and more distressed.  For weeks he has been telling us that he wanted a bike (with gears) for his birthday.  He thought it would be too expensive so he told all of us to go in together and get it as a "family gift."  Because he was opening presents from us, he thought he wasn't going to get a bike.  But his Mom and Dad came through!

When my brother-in-law brought it in, the look on Sean's face was absolutely priceless!  He went from disappointment to extreme joy in about ten seconds!

He immediately took it outside to try it out and practice "changing gears."  I asked him if he had a good birthday and he said he was so happy because he had lots of new toys to play with, new outfits to wear to school next week, and a new bike!  Happy Birthday Sean!  We sure do love you!

Note:  I am so glad that Sean still likes to play with superhero action figures!  I sometimes wish we could go back to the days when all Tashena wanted was Barbies!

Happy Birthday Tashena!

My family is extremely close.  There are only eight of us and we all live near each other (I live the farthest away).  My niece and nephew are a very special part of our family and we love them so much!  When either one of them has a birthday, it is cause for celebration!  Tashena's 14th birthday was actually last Tuesday but we celebrated it yesterday.

Tashena chose spaghetti for her birthday dinner and then we had this amazing ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins (a birthday tradition).

Then she opened her presents.  Every time I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she would always tell me socks.  She even showed me the specific socks she wanted:  Nike Elite Crew socks!  They are pretty expensive and I couldn't find them anywhere!  One night I went to five different stores!  I could find other Nike socks but not the specific ones she wanted.  I was quite frustrated but I decided to try a few stores after school on Friday and I found some at Famous Footwear!  Even better, they were on clearance and they had a buy one get one half price sale on all socks.  I bought every single pair they had.  The expression on her face when she opened the box made the entire hassle worth it!  Do you remember wanting some super trendy thing when you were a teenager?

My Mom and Dad got her some movies.  She made a list for us and we had a hard time finding these as well!  You would think that all of the stores would have lots of copies of a popular movie like Divergent.  Nope!  We were actually able to find all three that she wanted Friday night!

Her parents gave her a purple (her favorite color) iPod nano and Marilyn gave her an iTunes gift card.  She was absolutely thrilled and began downloading music immediately!

Sean used his own money to buy her some nail polish.  We all thought that was adorable.  After presents, her one request was that we play a game called shanghai rummy.  This is a crazy card game that takes several hours to play and it is kill or be killed!  We love it and play it on every holiday!  My brother in law won.  It was a really fun day but I can't believe that Tashena is 14!