"Golden Birthday---my a$$!"...

....is what I imagine Mariah might have thought to herself once or twice this weekend. If she were only focusing on the negative, she might have brooded over the fact that:

1. Only 2 out of 20 kids from her class came to her party

2. The special present that Mommy & Daddy got her is delayed in the mail so she won't get till Monday or Tuesday

3. She requested chocolate cake but I forgot to tell Jesse when he went to pick it up, so she got strawberry shortcake instead (the OPPOSITE of a chocolate cake)

4. Then this happened to the cake:

:o( Poor Mariah.


If she looked on the bright side (and I think she did), she would at least be happy that:


1) All her family came to her party, AND her fabulous teacher who she loves
2) She got a lot of awesome presents

3) Even though her birthday is over, she gets to look forward to that special gift coming in the mail this week
4) When we had our small celebration on her actual birthday, a very special guest made an appearance:

5) We were able to save the cake! Since I had put all 24 candles in it, they acted as a buffer between the cake and the toaster oven. So I simply did some creative maneuvering w/ the frosting, and all was right again.



In other news, I finished this over the weekend:



the colors in the pictures don't do it justice....it's the most beautiful blue/green/teal color ever. and I LOVE the brown with it.

And lastly, as if I haven't mentioned them enough recently, I had to share some photos I took over the weekend of my girls:

And I did some gardening too (just a bit, and then I got tired and quit).

I moved my 2 azeala bushes over, and planted one of my potted hydrangeas in their place. I would love to have this whole planter filled with hydrangeas, but whenever I've tried to grow them on this side of the house, they rebel, and they die. But there's a 3 foot space on the end there where the sun hits for a good part of the day, so I dug out all the old soil and put in new, and we'll see how it goes. (And that's my Jasmine on the left that I'm training to climb):


P.S.: I have absolutely no idea why the first part of this post is all underlined....I've spent 1/2 hr trying to fix it but I can't. ??