Happy Birthday Julie!

Yesterday was Julie's 13th birthday. Now we have two teenagers! Right now our children's ages are: Olivia--15, Julie--13, Clay--11, Leah--6, and Sam--4. We are done with children's birthdays until January.

We had a most wonderful day yesterday. We spent the entire day together as a family, and stayed home all day until we went out to dinner. It was both relaxing and fun, and I think Julie had a great day.

I surprised Julie with a Snow Cone theme for her birthday table. The centerpiece was a snow cone machine, and I decorated the rest of the table with colorful snow cone cups, straws, and snow cone syrup.

the table

the snow cone machine

Everyone wanted to eat a snow cone as soon as they saw the table, but I made them wait until after breakfast! Julie requested blueberry pancakes, and I made them with blueberries freshly picked from our blueberry bushes just minutes before mixing them in. Delicious!

After breakfast, we moved on to present opening! Julie received gifts and cards from our immediate and extended family. Leah and Sam helped her open her gifts, and we were all delighted by her excitement.

the gift chair

Julie, happily opening her gifts

After all of the gifts were opened and admired, everyone was ready to try out the snow cone machine. So we moved the party outside to our back porch, and we stayed out there the rest of the day. All of the children quickly learned how to operate the snow cone machine! They enjoyed snow cones flavored with cherry, blue raspberry, watermelon, green apple, and grape syrup. They made me one with coke! Sam loved the snow cones. He ate at least 10 snow cones! In addition to my coke snow cone, I also tried a green apple. It really was tasty.

The birthday girl enjoying one of many snow cones

Clay

Leah

We let the birthday child choose the activities for the day, and Julie chose to stay home and play games and swim. So that is what we did. We all played games in the pool, getting out periodically to enjoy another snow cone. We came inside briefly for lunch and birthday cake. Julie doesn't really care for traditional birthday cake, so I made her a fruit pizza.

the birthday cake with 13 candles

We headed back outside after our yummy cake. It was board game time. First we played Cranium, sitting on the back porch (and eating snow cones the entire time), and then we played Guesstures--while in the pool. At first all players stayed in the pool while playing, but Sam and Leah kept splashing too near the cards (imagine that!). So the person who was doing the charades had to stand outside the pool while the guessers stayed in the water. It was so much fun! After a couple of rounds of play, we decided to use only the high point cards which made the game even more hilarious.

Clay, acting out his cards

Julie, enjoying the pool

Around 5:00, we all came inside to get ready to go out for supper. Julie requested that we eat at Atlanta Bread. When we arrived there, a sign on the door read that they were closed for the night due to a small fire. So we needed a plan B, but Julie could not decide where she wanted to eat. While she was thinking about it, I took her to Hobby Lobby so she could buy some knitting needles with her birthday money. After much, much deliberation, she finally decided on Kyoto's! Yummy!

All of the children posing outside of the restaurant.

Sam thinks that the blue sailboat shirt and navy shorts make a cute outfit. In fact, he has worn this outfit for 3 days straight! I am washing it today!

To wrap up Julie's 13th birthday celebration, this morning I took her to get a pedicure. I got one too, and it was the first pedicure for both of us. We enjoyed our relaxing time together, and we both have pretty pink toenails!