birthdays – Page 4 – Lindsey P. Brackett

What a week for this early in the year! A winter storm buried us under seven inches of beautiful powdery snow and has now kept us out of school for six days. We had a great time sledding down the “holy moly big hill” as a FB friend dubbed it and then this weekend braved the roads (all main ones were fine) to head to Augusta for Hailey’s 5th birthday party ala Hannah Montana. On Sunday, we hung out at Marmie’s with the Beeson clan and that picture in front of the fireplace–looks just like all the times my siblings and cousins and I were lined up for the yearly photo. I’ll have to find one, figure out how to scan it, and post that. Up top are all the Payne siblings in the snow that’s still hanging out in E-town, and the handsome guy on the bottom is my nephew Colton who leaves with his mama this week to head back West. He’ll be so big next time we get to see him! Marmie corralled Amelia in the playpen even though I told her we prefer our babies free range, but Millie Moo didn’t seem to mind after all. We’ve had a great week 2 and hope you have too.

There’s no reason. Really there’s not. No reason at all that birthday parties for kiddos should be so stressful.

Seriously, all kids really want to do is play and eat ~~cake~~ frosting, and open presents.

So that’s what we did. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love a well-planned event of celebration that involves such craziness as water slides or spa treatments or bouncy houses.

But I can’t handle all that stress. Or work. And by checking account can’t handle all those deductions.

So this year the rule is sweet and simple. Yet, somehow I was still a little stressed. It’s hard to put it all together when the baby is fussy and the birthday girl wants to play with all the bubbles before the guests arrive and the cake slides over in the car and the icing gets stuck to the side of the box.

But overall, it was less stressful than last year when the entire pitcher of lemonade spilled in the car after Joshua hit the brakes to avoid a suicidal squirrel on our way to the park to have a party in the rain.

Here’s some pics of all the fun: