Skating into Her Next Year

Our almost Christmas baby celebrated another year! Her brothers spent more than an hour the night before preparing decorations . . . snowflakes, a life-sized snowman, all kinds of cute wintery scenes to tape along the hallway. The nice thing about this birthday child, is she does not wake up at the crack of dawn ready to birthday. In fact, Buck had her requested breakfast of cinnamon roll pancakes and bacon (cooked by Brennen), completed before she ever had her birthday song sung! She asked us to consider not singing to her in her room first thing (as per 14 years of tradition for everyone under the age of 14), so we compromised and "whisper" sang the song instead :) We're pretty funny!

First gift of the morning, a Toby Mac cd from her sis!

Requested lunch of calzones at Old Chicago . . . yummy!

Then off to the skating rink! They've never skated outdoors before. The weather was warm-ish. In the morning there was some light snow. By the time we were on the busy oval of ice about 30 minutes, the rain started to fall. We slowly got soaked! Finally, they called in the Zamboni to clean the ice. By then it was POURING, so we decided to put away our skates and head home for cake and gifts :) But, G$ showed a lot of improvement. The girls were fairly confident, except Gab was having some fit issues with her skates. It was fun that Buck had the first birthday off (since the first day of birth) to spend with us!

B is ready to go!

Wow, looking fancy on the ice!

Happy skating smile!

Selfie Time!

She wanted a chocolate cake. I usually make their cakes or at least the girls do ;) However, Buck decided we had enough going on and she really wanted the 7-layer chocolate wowza from the Costco bakery. I added sprinkles to make it look homemade, lol!

After cake (and the birthday song at regular volume :), C opened her gifts. She was very excited about a trio of sweaters from Grandma J and some pretty new hair accessories. From mom and dad, she got . . . books! Surprise, surprise :)  But she asked for them :) The boys gave C a crochet kit depicting characters from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Look out world, her skills are heading to a new level . . . knit and crochet!

A little more entertainment . . . Buck's phone required an upgrade and the contract time allowed for such, so he got a new phone and this VR gadget came along as a free gift. The kids were pretty excited to gift it a try . . . perhaps one particular child more than the others :)

Caelan's birthday dinner request . . . Traeger smoked chickens, asparagus, kiwi, Texas Toast, and French fries (they look like elephant ears . . . I guess when Buck got the cake, he noticed that these were marked down to like $2 a bag . . . so he bought eight bags!!) Overall, I think she had a special and happy 14th birthday :)