Happy Birthday to Me!

I will admit it without shame. I love my birthday! I have always loved it. I'm not much for getting unexpected gifts, but I love to receive gifts on my birthday, Mother's Day, and Christmas. I am also not coy about sharing my age. I am 59 years old as of today. And proud of every year. I think aging is a huge accomplishment. Especially when you think of all of the experiences, challenges, and opportunities that make up a year of our lives.

This year to celebrate, I chose a party at Peter Piper Pizza. It was held yesterday at lunch. I chose this option for two reasons; 1) the grandkids would love it, and 2) I finally got to play some games and win some tickets myself!

Dan and I got there early to order the pizza. He bought 100 tokens and I started playing. My goal was to win as many tickets as I could and then distribute them among the three older grandkids. Woo-hoo! By the time they had arrived I had won 350 tickets. They were so excited.

Skye gave me a birthday card that she had signed herself with a picture of me drawn on the back. Thunder gave me a cave that Batman hides in (I slipped it back into his mom's purse when the party was over) and Sunny gave me a yellow #2 pencil (un-sharpened) a Hello Kitty ring, and a dime. Awww, what great gifts that hey all picked out themselves!

Jessica baked my favorite - Angel Food Cake. We had a marvelous time!

I still have several freebie and discount email "gifts" that have arrived this month. So far, the only one we've used is the free burger at Red Robin. I have the rest of them stacked up and ready to use this week.

All in all, 59 is fantastic!

Thanking Skye for her flattering drawing of me

Sunny, Skye, Storm, Thunder 

Helping me blow out the candles

Storm wants to play with Thunder, he knows those slots mean something!

Gramps and Sunny winning a race

Skye "letting" Daddy win

Thunder and Skye

Sunny and Storm

Me with three out of my four babies,

I miss you, JD!

Yes, I'm Behind...

I haven't posted since before Halloween! Goodness gracious, I wish I could give you a good reason why, but I can't.

Today will be the first of my catching up posts. Halloween was such fun this year. We went over to Jessica and Adam's house for trick-or-treating. They live in a great family neighborhood. Tons of kids. Tons of parents out with the kids. Lots of houses decorated to the hilt with scary or funny costumed characters in attendance. The kids got a lot of candy (even Storm!) and they looked very cute in their costumes.

Here's a peek:

Storm chose a Mutant Ninja Turtle costume (haha)

Storm's 1st Halloween

Cowboy, Turtle, and Super Girl patiently waiting to go trick-or-treating 

Let's go already!!

Katie, Thunder, and Sunny at one of the decorated homes

Wow! Great haul for his first time out

58!

 I turned 58 years old this past Sunday. Katie had us over for dinner. She and Jessica surprised me with the kids in these terrific shirts!

What a great gift! Katie, Jessica, and Gabe provided a great meal of enchiladas, homemade salsa, and Spanish rice - yummy! Katie baked a cake with purple frosting (purple is my favorite color); and the cake itself was rainbow colored - it was so pretty!

On Saturday we went down to Mesa to see Zach and Skye. After playing for a while at their apartment, we headed out to lunch at Portillo's. We'd never been there before. The food was good and the atmosphere was such fun. As we ate lunch, Skye directed us to all hold hands and then she proceeded to lead us in a round of the Happy Birthday song in my honor. Awww, that's the kind of thing that just melts my heart.

Here's a few more photos from my special day(s):

Gramps, Skye, Grammy

Thunder thought Gramps needed a trim before dinner

He also thought it was time to take Gramps' temperature

Love the purple frosting!

I managed to blow out the candles - quite a feat at my age, haha

See those vibrant colors - beautiful!

I love the way Sunny and Thunder are both holding on to Storm

Yesterday was the first day of school in Jessica's district and she had to go in to teach her AP class so Storm came over to spend a few hours with Thunder and me. Here's some bonus pictures of the boys watching Frozen.

Watching Frozen

Almost ready to laugh!

Family

Sunny and Thunder spent the weekend with us over the 4th of July. We watched a fireworks show on Friday night, had donuts for breakfast on Saturday morning, and had some special guests on Saturday afternoon. We had invited my folks over for dinner and swimming on Saturday, and Zach and Skye were able to come also. It is so much fun for me to watch the cousins together! I was having so much fun that I only took two photos...

Thunder, Sunny, Skye 

Huggin' Cousins

Duke was so exhausted on Sunday, he grabbed a nap in the guest room

Yesterday when the kids were over, I was rocking Sunny in the rocking chair and she told me that when she's 10, she'll be too big for me to hold. I told her that Grammy's can always hold their grandchildren - no matter how big they get. She was very skeptical, but accepted that. Then I told her that Mommy's can always hold their kids no matter how big they get. She did not believe that at all. But I told her it's true and that I can still hold each one of my kids (including her mommy) on my lap.

When Katie arrived to pick them up, Sunny told her what I said and then added that she wanted to see Mommy sit on my lap. Off we headed to the family room where Katie plopped down in my lap. For extra measure, Sunny and Thunder piled on too, so I had Dan take a picture. Now Sunny believes... however I do think that the next time Tio JD and Tio Zach come over, she's gonna want them to sit on my lap too! 

Thunder on Sunny

Sunny on Katie

Katie on me!

Meanwhile, Back in Arizona...

If you're a news junkie like I am, you must be feeling pretty overwhelmed these days as I am. So to take our minds off of all the strife and trouble in our world, I thought I'd share photos of recent happenings in my little world:

Storm & Grammy as he turns 24 hours old!

6/7/14: Thunder, Dan, & Gabe at Sunny's dance recital. I'm not sure what look Thunder's going for in this photo!

Gabe, Thunder, Katie

We provided the traditional flowers after the show

It was very bright out and hard to get her to look at the camera

A close-up of her required make up for the recital - she loved it!

This is a sampler I stitched for one of Katie's friends.

I love how it turned out, but it sure took longer than I  anticipated!

Roberta (Abuela) & Sunny at 5th BD party

My nephew Matt & my mom, JoAnne (Gigi)

Me & the BD girl - I think everyone wore the crown but her!

Blowing out the candles

Thunder 

Grammy Summer Camp

Dan & I found this Lincoln Log set at a yard sale.

When we got it home, there was only one piece missing!

It took me 45 minutes to put it together, guess I'm out of practice.

Thunder brought his horses to play in the fort.

I'm not sure what Sunny was doing!

Jessica got Sunny a neat sewing toy for her BD. You stitch the outfits on the doll. She loves to stitch, and did a great job!

We're getting her ready for cross-stitching!

At cooking class we made Root Beer Floats.

When we were finished, Dan & Thunder loved them, but Sunny said the soda was "too spicy" and didn't drink hers!

Me & the kids taking a cool break in the pool

Storm (our cousin Bev sent him this cap - he'll grow into it!) 

Jessica got this idea from Pinterest... it's so cute!

Gramps & Storm

Grammy stealing a kiss

I can't wait to see if he keeps his strawberry blond hair!