Birthday Week

Today we started celebrating Nadia's birthday. The celebrations will continue on Thursday (her party) and Saturday (her actual birthday). Technically I gave her one gift early this past weekend, her own email address. She has been emailing with Susie (her cousin) for the past several months, and I decided she could have her own account (to which I know the password, naturally) when she turned nine. That was a gift that she loved and didn't cost me a penny. Similarly she knows that when she turns nine her bedtime will shift from 8:30 to 9:00. She has been begging for that to start early as well, but I've been holding off on that one. In part because I am generally with the kids from somewhere between 6-7am and 8:30pm almost every day so although I love them to pieces I am not super excited about that time being expanded. I am thinking I might tell her she can stay up but needs to stay in her room, partially because often times Paul is watching something that is not appropriate for kids. Considering he often is up before 3AM, we can't expect him to stay up later at night just

so he can watch something after the kids are down.

We'll be serving pizza at her birthday party, but she asked if we could also go to Friendly's for her birthday. We could have gone on Saturday night, but I had a $10 off coupon that was expiring tomorrow so we opted to go out tonight instead. We were using a gift card, but we like to stretch out the gift cards by using coupons with them. Paul came home early (5pm) so that we could have dinner at 6pm (very late for our kiddos). I had a hair appointment at 7pm (in the same mall as Friendly's). I was a few minutes late as we weren't leaving Friendly's until 7:00, but it worked out perfectly. It had been three months since I had a haircut. Paul took the kids to Toys R Us while I got my haircut. Nadia used a $3 coupon plus some of her own money plus the $9 we gave her for her birthday to buy a Beauty and the Beast Barbie doll that looks like the character from the newer movie. Oliver used some money from Valentine's Day that he hadn't spent yet plus a $3 coupon to buy a pool toy. Nadia was given

a balloon and a crown at the store in honor of her birthday. I also got her string cheese at Walmart today. I only buy string cheese for Oliver and Nadia's birthdays. This week I will also be buying a gallon of chocolate milk and donuts for our breakfast on Saturday (two more birthday traditions we have).

This week is the beginning of lots of camps, classes, and lessons over the next two months. This week is painting and drawing "camp" from 10-1 at the Children's Museum M-F. Today they did some papier-mache and also another stained glass project. Oliver and I hung out at the playground until the rain interfered with those plans. Tomorrow night they begin Kidzway Camp at our church from 6:00-8:30pm the next four nights (which is partially why we went to Friendly's tonight). Nadia was very disappointed that it was rainy and we couldn't swim at our pool this afternoon, but I was happy to have some time at home. Next week the kids will have tennis and swimming lessons in the morning and a sports camp at a church in the evening. Never a dull moment this summer! I'm trying to work on the paperwork to submit to the school district for next school year and also do some research into a possible trip to Niagara Falls in September.