My Birthday Weekend

 My birthday was on Friday, and it was pretty uneventful. Alice stayed home from school because her tummy was hurting. It was hurting her at school the day before as well. She's also had the sniffles and a minor cough since Tuesday. We decided it was going to be a relax and movie day. We started with "Frozen" which we had to watch on DVD since we cancelled Disney+. And then again with "The Incredibles 2". While watching that one, we got out one of her crafts from her birthday she got from a friend. It's foil art. Even I enjoyed doing that with her. It came with these foam pictures that you tear a little section of paper off at a time to reveal a sticky black foam and then you take a piece of colorful foil and stick on. The foil peels right off the sheet onto the sticky foam. Then there are 6 backgrounds that you can stick the foam pieces to when finished decorating them. We worked on one together until she got the hang of it and then started doing it on her own. I helped here and there when needed. Sometimes when peeling off the white paper off the sticky foam we would accidentally peel off some of the sticky foam. I ended up grabbing a glue stick and gluing on small pieces where the foam wasn't sticky anymore. It was a fun craft to do. She also watched two Barbie movies, "Twelve Dancing Princesses" and "The Princess and the Pauper". 

This is the first one she did.

Curtis had thought about taking half a day off of work but decided not to since he was so busy that week, which was fine because Alice stayed home anyway. We wouldn't have been able to go anywhere during the day. We did however go out for an early dinner just the two of us to Applebee's. The main reason I wanted to go there again after having just been there for Alice's baptism, is because I really wanted to have the Sizzling Butter Pecan Blondie for dessert. I ate very little that day to make sure I would have room. I ended up ordering the Blackened Cajun Salmon with mashed potatoes and garlic green beans. It was all really good, especially the salmon. I have now had that salmon 3 times and it's been really good each time, unlike their grilled chicken that I had the last time we were there. I asked our server if they did anything for birthdays. They said they usually do the brownie bite that comes with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for birthdays, but I said I really wanted the pecan blondie. We said we would just pay for it, but she went to ask the manager, and the manager said they would give it to me, no charge! Yay!

I don't know why I was scrunching my nose. It's not the best picture but wanted to show my dessert. It comes out on a sizzling hot pan

This picture was better, but you can't see the dessert.

We thought about going to the movie theater afterwards but there wasn't anything playing that we were super excited to pay that much to see. We opted to go back home and watch a movie at home, which was the newest version of "Little Women". Curtis gave me that movie a couple years ago I think and I still hadn't watched it. It has Emma Watson (from Harry Potter), Florence Pugh (from Black Widow), Laura Dern (from Jurassic Park), and Timothee Chalamet (from Wonka). Those are the faces I recognized. It was a good movie, but it could get a little confusing because it flashes from past to present throughout the movie. I still want to get the 1994 version also. Curtis was also disappointed that the flowers he had ordered and were to be delivered, did not show up. It turned out that he accidentally put the delivery date as February 17th instead of January. Oops! He was able to get it fixed to have it delivered on Saturday. It came with one balloon when he had ordered three. So, they messed up on that and had to refund him a little money. But I got them and they're beautiful lilies and roses. They were all closed up when I got them but now they are opening up.

To make my birthday more fun I had wanted to invite our friends, the McShane's over to eat dinner and play games. They were busy on Friday and so we were planning on Saturday evening. It now depended on how Alice was feeling also. Alice never threw up and her stomach was feeling better on Saturday. She still had the sniffles though but was overall feeling good enough. 

I started the day with waking up early to take Jack to the temple for baptisms. The youth group had scheduled to go that morning at 10am but he and some others couldn't make it because they are all part of a singing group called Choral Fusion, which Jack just joined this month. They had practice at 9am so they went to the temple at 8am. I hung out in the parking lot to wait for them to be finished. Immediately after, I drove Jack over to a church for his practice and dropped him off. Their practice went until 12:00. After picking him up he went straight to another friend's house to do some filming for a school project for their band final. 

The girls and I tried to go over to Pasco to attend a free Planetarium event at the college, but we got there a few minutes late and it was full. They will have another one in February that we'll try to attend. Since we couldn't do that the girls asked if I would take them to Costco for a hotdog. So, we braved the crowds on a Saturday so they could get a hotdog and we bought a few items as well. We drove around for a little bit before finding a place to park. It was busy!

Curtis went to the store to get food for our dinner with the McShane's. He got the chicken thighs all prepped and marinating when I talked to ShaRae and they asked if we could move it to Sunday. So, we did! It just gave the meat more time to soak up the delicious flavors before cooking them the next day. The kids just did their own things that evening while Curtis and I played Bananagrams and watched "Runaway Bride".  

Sunday after church the girls were so excited for me to open gifts and I wanted to do gift opening with just the family anyway. They made a treasure hunt for me to do to find their gift, which ended in Milo's crate downstairs. The gift bag had a necklace that Charlotte made for me and a bracelet that Alice made for me. Alice also gave me the foil picture that she and I worked on together (she let me choose from 3 different ones). I chose that one because we did it together. Besides the flower bouquet, Curtis got me a new purse that's a little bigger than the one I have. I needed a bigger one but I didn't want it too big. He also got me a 1000 piece puzzle of the tree of life. That one is going to be difficult with all of those colors but it will be fun. He also gave me some dark chocolate and a game called YamSlam. It's just like Yahtzee but easier. There's nothing to write down and you can actually earn points multiple times for the same thing. Like you can get a full house more than once. To keep points, you get a chip that has the number on it. At the end you add up all of the chip numbers to see who wins. And there's multiple ways to get bonus points also. We got the girls to play with us the first round and then Jack the second round. It's meant for 1 to 4 players. It was fun! I asked Garrett if he would make up some brownies for my birthday dessert, so he did while we were playing. After the 2nd game, I went to choir practice. Then came home and got ready for the McShane's to come join us. 

We ate smoked (and marinated) boneless chicken thighs, baked diced potatoes, croissant rolls and salad. The potatoes got a little over cooked so some of them were a little too black to eat but some were good. We last minute baked what we had left of tater tots and potato wedges from the freezer as back up. It was a good dinner still even with the potatoes being a bit over cooked. After we ate, we pulled out some games. The girls left to play with their friends downstairs while the rest of us play a couple of rounds of Disney Apples to Apples and then Chameleon. This was the first time for me to play Chameleon. It was fun and Garrett really enjoyed it also. He's the one that picked out Apple to Apples as well. We took a little break during games to eat some brownies and ice cream for dessert. Curtis bought a bunch of toppings too for those who wanted a banana split. He might have been the only one that did that much. I only got a picture of him because his ice cream looked so pretty and colorful.

 

They had to sing to me before opening gifts so we made a tiny donut hole stack that were left over from Curtis class at church and stuck some candles in it. That was good enough for me.

His pretty ice cream sundae with brownie.

I wish we would have gotten a group picture of all of us, but I was too busy in the moment of playing to get one. It was a great evening, and we had lots of laughs. I love their family and I'm so glad they came over to help me celebrate my birthday!