Celebrating Six

I feel like I have been away for so long; like we haven't really talked. It's so hard to know where to begin.

As usual, life has been a whirlwind and I've been doing my best to just try to stay on my feet.  I closed the Etsy shop this week to try to catch my breath and concentrate on my family (and my messy, messy apartment) for a bit. Maybe not the best "business move" to close the shop a week and a half before Christmas, but my main business obligation is to that of myself and my family. So, to all of you late shoppers I give you my apologies but in return I keep my sanity!

They get their attitude from their father... Fine, it's me!

The girls turned six this week. Yes, SIX! That means that some of you folks have been hanging out here with me for over SIX YEARS NOW! Sorry about the caps, I just can't flippin' believe it. Many days I struggle with the fact that somehow along the way I stopped being a 20-something year old girl messing up my life and became a grown ass woman- let alone the idea that I have kids and that they are now six and in school and having concerts and such. It's so weird. Will I still feel this way when they're turning 20? When do I start to feel like a real grown up instead of this surreal feeling like I'm still a dumb teenager stuck in this aging body?

We had a party planned for Sunday and then the phone call came on Friday: Addi has a fever and you need to come and get her.  Boy was she heart broken when she missed out on building gingerbread houses that day. However, it was no match for the devastation that set in when the party had to be cancelled due to a case of strep throat. Ouch. These are the tough parts of parenting I hate. How do you tell Lili (who ISN'T sick) that her party is being cancelled because her sister is? How do you tell Addi that even though she doesn't feel good and only wants her mommy that mommy has a craft sale and can't stay home with her and not feel like a giant asshole? Ugh.


But you know what? It all turned out okay. Lili brought home supplies for her sister to make her own gingerbread house. Brian stepped up and made the day home sick tons of fun for the girls and I don't think they even missed me. And though there wasn't a party, we still gave the girls one of their presents early.  We have been very blessed this year with how well Brian's businesses are doing and were able to splurge and get the girls some gently used iPads.  Needless to say, they were a huge hit and no one even missed the party.

Yesterday was officially their day and we continued the tradition of allowing the birthday girls to "be the boss" on their birthday. They opened their other present at 6:30 am and were pretty excited about their new rolling suitcases. They ate cereal ON THE COUCH which was sadly what they wanted for their "special breakfast". We had McDonald's for supper before attending their first ever school concert only to come home and eat cake right before bed. I broke down and did a store bought cake this year since we weren't doing the party- with the girls' blessing of course. As the bosses, they chose to sleep in our beds, so we let them. They were pretty excited and probably didn't fall asleep until 9:30!

They took it VERY seriously as you can see!

Addi got the owl  

Lili got the ladybug

All in all it was a good day.  We finished with my favorite part- a great big snuggle and talking about the 6 reasons I love them in celebration of the 6 years I've been blessed to be their mom. They drive me to drinking some days, but boy, am I one blessed mama!