Birthday cake BTUs

Well another birthday has come and gone. I've discovered that once you have kids, your birthdays are more enjoyable for them then they are for you! My girls loved making and giving me cards and gifts. I think their favorite part of the day was helping Daddy make my birthday cake. Katelyn got to help stir up the cake mix and help frost the cake (the girls wanted purple frosting, and red and blue mixed together are supposed to make purple, but this turned out a little more gray then purple - still tasted good!):



Alyssa got to add the sprinkles:



Then Daddy, Katelyn and Alyssa got to add 35 candles -- it takes awhile to add so many candles! And once those babies were lit, the heat was pretty impressive.



Katelyn gave me several cards with 35 written all over them (I really appreciated those!) Mike and the girls got me a very nice pair of diamond flower earings. Mom and Dad Lich sent me a new outfit and season 3 of Bones. Elaine gave me a sweater. I received lots of birthday cards and wishes and of course all the birthday lunches. Those aren't even done yet, I still have a few more scheduled throughout the month - I figure I might as well celebrate the whole month of February!

Bree sent me a personal heart rate monitor for my birthday. We are training to run a 10K in Seattle at the end of March, so this gift is really appropriate and super cool! In fact, I have to try to run 4 miles today, so it will get a really good test run. I still don't understand my friends' love for running, but I have committed to seeing this goal completed and perhaps when I finish that I will see the light. Right now I still think a person shouldn't run unless someone is chasing them. Nevertheless, I have been training and I have been taking Kita on my "long" runs on Saturday. She has been trying to kill me! Its my fault she isn't well trained on a leash, so I've kept taking her hoping she will get better. She hasn't thus far so we got a pincher collar from a friend of mine and we will see how she does today. Hopefully no more darting in front of me to smell whatever is on the other side, etc.

Katelyn had her sleepover with Holden. The kids did great. They played the wii pretty much the entire time. They took a break for dinner and another break to make cookies then we coaxed them away from the TV for bed. They woke up, ate breakfast and started playing on the wii again taking short breaks to get dressed and wii play continued until Holden had to go home. Katelyn had a great time and now wants to invite almost every child in her class over for a sleepover. I think 5 is a little young for that (she and Holden are a little different, they have been friends since birth practically and over at each others houses ALOT, so I thought they would be comfortable staying over). I told her we could start with playdates. So I will see how long it takes her to figure out how to make that happen! She is one determined kid when she wants something.

Most of you know that Katelyn has been in gymnastics since she was two and a half. In the last year she has really improved. I watched her at her last practice and I was pretty impressed! I guess the teachers were too because they tested her for the more advanced gymnastics class. Right now she is in recreational gymnastics where anyone can join, but the place has an invitation only gymnastics class where they start preparing the kids for competition and meets. So Katelyn was officially invited to their "pre-team" class. The only problem with that class is instead of being an hour long it is two hours! We barely have time to get home, eat and get homework done as it is, I'm not sure how we will do it on two hour gym nights. And I'm not sure we want to go the competitive gymnastics route with her, but if she enjoys it then I'm not going to stop her. She said she wanted to give it a try, so we will let her do a trial class next week and if she likes it we will put her in the class starting in March. She also has soccer starting in March! Heaven help me when Alyssa starts to get involved in activities as well - we will need to divide and conquer at that point.

Alyssa is doing fine. Her eye has healed from the surgery and we think it was successful, she doesn't close it nearly as often as she used to so we believe it does not drift up as much. Her eye doctor said it still pulls up but not as noticeably (I think that means that unless you are an expert like she is and looking for it really closely, you can't tell).

Alyssa was super excited about valentines day and giving her friends the valentines fruit roll-ups she picked out for them. Katelyn picked out boxes of candy hearts for her friends. Both girls had their Valentines parties at their schools and came home with alot of treats.

I'm sure there are several things I've missed in this update since it has been so long since I posted, but thats all I can think of. Now I have to go watch Dora the Explorer with my two year old. Hope everyone has a great day!