Birthdays and more.....

you know how you do special things for your kids as they grow up,

creating traditions,making memories

never expecting it to come back to you......

but incredibly happy when it does?

that's how it's been with me lately.

you see, birthdays are a BIG deal around here.

HUGE!

always a theme, decorating, favorite foods, fun stuff to do.....

and last week,  my AMAZING girls gave me an

INCREDIBLE birthday!

it all started with the decorations for

an ocean themed party.

(cause we love going to the beach:)

 they gathered shells and other beachy stuff around the house,

bought some cool stuff at the party store,

including these awesome blue glasses.

i wish i had better photos to share because it was 

soooooo BEAUTIFUL!

we always put pics of the birthday girl or boy around as part

of the decorations......

and they did that for me:)

rather than wrapping a black gift box,

Jordan wrote a quote about beach life on the box with a paint pen.

yep, yep, yep.....i have some creative girls

and Taylor gets such JOY out of decorating everything possible.

we went to the beach to look for shells, watched a few movies,

munched on caramel corn, had chili pasta for dinner (YUM)

and even took a whack at Herman, the Turtle Pinata:)

(Taylor busted him open:)

FUN times!!!!!

for the cake, i knew i was in for a treat.

they worked on it alot, so i knew it would be delicious!

and that it would include my FAVORITE Orange Cake.

well.......take a look at my cake.

 no wonder they worked so hard!!!!!

they used my orange cake and then vanilla to use for the 

red, blue and purple layers.

my Rainbow cake.

pretty AMAZING, don't ya think?

and since my iphone is old (an original)

and has about had it,

my husband gave me a gift card to get the new iphone 5 when it comes out.

and oh my gosh,

my girls gave me the most amazing gifts!

(i am so blessed!!!)

it was kinda a Junk Gypsy birthday.

(love everything they sell/show:)

love my new JG bag and crochet shrug.

(sorry the photo is not so clear:)

trust me, it's really pretty.

my girls can SHOP!

now, since i feel kinda silly that this whole blog post has been all about me,

here are a few things for YOU!

what a super cool, easy idea.

tie cinnamoon sticks around a candle.

the scent as the candle warms the cinnamon sticks is SOOOOO wonderful!

and i thought this was cute.....

kinda like a reminder that there are simple, amazing things in the world,

even on our darkest days.

XOXOXOXO

Suzanne