A Marvelous Weekend!

Olivia turned 6 years old on Friday!! My goodness is that possible?? We had a marvelous weekend. On Friday she enjoyed a special birthday snack time at school and got to wear a cowgirl hat all day (something her teacher does for the birthday girl/boy), and on Saturday we had a long, exhausting but fun day as it was the day of her dance recital. Olivia and I had to be there (UNF in Jax) by 11:30, and after they had their dress rehearsal, we had an extended break until we had to be back at 4:30 to be ready for the recital at 5:30. We ate lunch with one of Olivia's classmate's Kennison (Olivia said while looking at her dance pictures last night, "Kennison is my best dance friend!")and her sweet momma, Kendra. The girls played on the playground at Chickfila, and we were there long enough for some other kid to throw up in one of the tunnels, the workers to clean it up, and for the girls to go back on the playground after it had been cleaned and aired out!! OK, yeah, so that was just a little gross, but we were desperate. Kendra and I were actually able to enjoy some adult conversation (thank you Lord for kind, Christian friends) and the girls had a good time, too! Carrie Beth, David and Jonathan rode to Kingsland Saturday afternoon and then rode down to UNF with Stan and Benjamin for the recital. All of them were such tremendously good sports as it was a very long evening full of lots of little/big girls dancing on stage, and Olivia decided since this was her last dance recital that she wanted to stick it out 'till the bitter end. We got to watch the big, big girls do their finale dance which included rain on the stage! Pretty neat! We were all much relieved to make it to McDonalds afterwards where we enjoyed a late night supper before heading home. We got back to the house, got the kids in bed eventually and then Carrie Beth and I began assembling Olivia's birthday cake. Carrie Beth made the cake (all natural ingredients) and we stacked it all up so that it would sort of resemble a castle. Then we added the construction paper turrets and straws with construction paper flags, grass, and doors/windows. It was all Carrie Beth's idea as she had seen this cake on someone's website (We won't go into how the blogger who wrote about creating this cake totally acted like a 7 year old could make this cake--umm, no.) I loved the outcome, and Olivia was ecstatic. Was it sheer perfection? No, but it was sure cute and made with TONS of love! :) Plus it tasted fabulous! Sunday morning we all enjoyed worshipping together at SMUMC and then we came home to make lunch (homemade chicken nuggets, organic oven fries, and salad). The favorite of the meal was the Alexia spicy sweet potato fries. Oh my goodness gracious they were good! Then Grammy and Papa came for the birthday celebration time. We had yummy cake and Olivia opened gift after gift and she was overwhelmed by it all! Although she loved each one, the gift she was most thrilled about was her roller skates! She has been skating all over the house ever since she opened them. This morning after she got dressed for school, she didn't put on her crocs, she put on her rollerskates and skated to the breakfast table! :) Pretty funny. We played a rousing game of Pony-Opoly last night which Grammy and Papa gave her, and we've had so much fun with the Toobers and Zots given to us by Aunt Carrie Beth, Uncle Brad and David and Jonathan. I think Uncle Stan has enjoyed those as much as the kids--see the pic of his guitar? :) One of the silly gifts Olivia received from us was a dress-up blond wig. Olivia likes playing dress-up, and we knew she would think this was fun. I have plans for this wig. Our friends, the John Ryan family, took a picture of everybody in their family wearing John's glasses--they're huge and a bit outdated (he regularly wears only contacts), but anyway, these pictures are hysterical with everybody sporting these enormous glasses--even the little babies and toddlers. So yep. This summer...get ready Adams family. Everybody's getting their mugshot with this wig on. Everybody from Dad to baby Titus. Should be terminally cute, as Dad says. :) OK, so back to this weekend. I meant also to mention that at the end of last week we received a huge box from Nonny and Cocky. Mom and Dad, thanks for all of the wonderful, generous gifts!! Benjamin even got a little treat to unwrap and your sweet things you sent for me were such treats! Olivia has loved the doll whom she has named Faith. Faith eats most meals with us now and holds hands with us when we pray. Thanks for thinking of us, and we know you both would've loved to have been here this weekend for all the special moments, but we understand it just couldn't happen this go round. We're proud of all you're doing in ministry! It was a really fun weekend, and as you can see in some of the pics below, I was a little punchy by Sunday evening and I had a face-making session with the camera that kind of expressed my loopiness. I am a facemaker--it's something I've always enjoyed. Is it totally goofy and maybe a bit immature? Sure. I can admit that. Am I proud when I catch Olivia secretly making silly faces at herself in her bathroom mirror? Absolutely! :) Thank you Lord, for the little silly joys like facemaking and for the humongous joys like a spectacular weekend celebrating with family.