It Has Come to This

Today, I hosted a birthday party for a stuffed animal.


In a year when NEITHER of my own {human} children have had a birthday party, our very not-alive-stuffed-pretend owl HAS.

Lilly helped me make the cake...chocolate chip with chocolate-chocolate chip frosting.

And pink cursive lettering.

Because Penny LOVES pink cursive lettering.

Lilly wanted an owl cake, but it seemed a little awkward.



Last year, I rocked the kids' birthday parties by hosting them in the SAME MONTH as their actual birthdays. I summited the Mt. Everest of the Mom-world.

But the tide quickly turned this year when the merriment of a December calendar with no breathing room sent me into a panic and I talked Lilly into having a summer/combined half-birthday party with Jackson.

Well, May came and went or there was no partying at our house.

Everyone with school age children and a pulse knows that May is the secret killer of parents. It seems all innocent and cheerful, like end-of-the-year school parties and recitals and field days and teacher appreciation days and graduations and team parties and programs and writer's cafes and nonsense upon nonsense.

So obviously, a 9 year-old birthday party could not be squeezed in to the month of Grand Finales/Time Suckers.

Really, there is no good reason to not have a birthday party for the only 2 kids in your care. Luckily, they are super-flexible while I buy myself time to figure out something before they go to school in August.

{At this point, birthday party attendees started to wonder how Penny was going to blow out the candles without so much as a mouth.}

There is really no explanation for how I ended up making a layer cake for an inanimate owl and inviting neighbors to celebrate.

But it's nice to honor the quietest and least-needy member of our family.

And I do love her.

About 2 years ago, Lilly came down rubbing her eyes, saying that Penny wouldn't let her sleep with all the "whooing."

Mercy.


Other than that, we're working diligently toward our goal of 70 hours of pool time each week.

Don't worry, Lilly snarfed down many, many, many fruits and vegetables before I handed her an entire bag of Cheetos.

We're also keeping the Sonic in bidness.



Jackson found happiness in a cup when he ordered a chocolate Coke today. {He, of course, was washing down bushels full of whole grains and legumes with this concoction.}

And speaking of birthdays...the quads are a week old: