Just Another Awesome Kiddo

I am blessed in my life to know some truly amazing kids (a term that can apply to any number of people, aged 0-30).  My nieces and nephew, of course, are amazing, awesome, astounding, and another a word that won't come to me at the moment.  Tonight's post, though, is about a kiddo from St. Someone's.  I've written about her before, and I love this kid.  I should probably give her a nickname instead of always calling her "this kid." I'm going to go with Sunshine, since she fills me life with brightness, and she's got great, sunny blonde hair.  Anyway, her grandma (another amazing person) was one of the people at my birthday party on Saturday, and Sunshine sent me a present via Grandma:

Sunshine, with the help of Little Sister Sunshine, wrote me a book!  And a darn good book it is.  What's it about, you ask?  Well, all you have to do is read the summary she wrote on the back:

 
Yep.  She wrote a summary.  And a really cute book.  It had plot, a problem to be solved, resolution, and a whole lot of adorable animal characters who baked a lot and got really tired.

And that's not all.   She even made her own tissue paper to go in the gift bag.

See?  It says, "I am soft and cushiony."  I love that kid.  And her baby sister.  And their grandma.  It's a love fest, and all three of them helped to make my birthday that much more special.  In honor of the bear and chipmunk characters in the book, here are some bear and chipmunk shoes:

Baby bear shoes!  Love them.  Would love to make a pair of the crocheted ones.

This last pair is almost over the top cute.  Dang.  I love the water shoes with the tiny chipmunk, though.  Very sweet.

The book was definitely one of my favorite presents and made me super happy.

Cards

Every holiday I am continually amazed at how many fun shoe cards exist in the world.  This birthday was no different with these 2 gems:

This one is from the auntie, and how true is it?  Men have boring shoes for the most part, or maybe I just think they're boring because I'm not a man?  I have a friend transitioning from female to male who is so excited he gets to wear wingtips.  So maybe I'm just projecting and some men love shoes as much as I do.

 

This is possibly my favorite card ever.  It made me laugh a lot.  I have slutty shoes.  Some people refer to them as CFM shoes (if you need it explained, you're not ready to know what it stands for).  Some people think any shoe with a heel over 2 inches is a slutty shoe.  It's probably a matter of perspective.  I thought about making the rest of this post about slutty shoes, but decided to go in a more wholesome direction.

Shoe cards are awesome.  Thank you to those of you who have given them to me over the years for everything from Christmas to birthday to wedding showers.  Keep em coming!  Oh, and wear those slutty shoes with pride.

Birthday Party

The hubby threw me a birthday BBQ in our backyard last night.  There were 23 people total, which is pretty much perfect more me.  The hubby, who is a massive, flaming extrovert, doesn't think it's a party unless there are at least 50 people.  The hubby is crazy.  As I said, the number of people was pretty much perfect, and I had a really nice time.  I'm really grateful for the people who came and helped me celebrate.  SKD wasn't able to come, but she was there in spirit.  She gave me a gift card for DSW for my birthday, which means I got to go shopping!

Turquoise!  They aren't very tall, but they do have a bit of a wedge heel, and I really love the color.  I had a multi-colored dress, and I went in looking for yellow wedges, but do you think I could find any?   Of course not.  Black, brown, and nude out the wazoo, but yellow?  Nope.  I found 2 pairs of yellow pumps I liked, but that wouldn't have been a good choice for a backyard party, and neither of them were terribly comfortable.  Anyway, I went with the turquoise, and I think they are really fun.  Let's look at more turquoise sandals, shall we?

 

I find it amazing how colors appear in pictures.  These were all labeled as turquoise, but many of them look green to me.  Also, lots of these have that damn thing between the toes, but since I'm just coveting and not buying, it doesn't matter; my toes will remain unassaulted.

Thank you, SKD for my fabulous party shoes!  And thank you to all of you who came last night to help me celebrate, you are the bestest.

Brownies

I've been doing some baking experimenting.  The hubby often craves something sweet, but since he's diabetic he no longer eats sugar or flour.  Sugar free frozen yogurt is a good option sometimes, but it jacks up his tummy, so it's not good on a regular basis.  The other night I decided to try and bake something with what we had in the house.  The result was sugar-free, gluten-free, vegan brownies.  Or, "soulless brownies," as the hubby calls them.  The first batch was OK, but the 2nd batch that I made last night is actually pretty good.  I used bananas, almond milk, natural peanut butter, cocoa powder, oatmeal, quinoa flour (quinoa flour is one of the few alternative carbs we've found that doesn't screw up his blood sugar), and a little bit of Splenda.  Like I said, they're actually pretty good, and the hubby decided they are so good he no longer has to call them soulless.  Go me and the health food!  Here are some shoes in honor of my tiny kitchen accomplishment.

My brownies didn't have shoes on them.  Or frosting.  But these are adorable.

Vintage brown shoes from the 50s.  With an apron and some pearls and wearing these shoes I can whip up a batch of brownies in no time!

I'd like these better with a different heel.  These would be brownies with caramel.

Oooh, brown velvet!  Fun.

More brown velvet and bows.  Apparently I'm enjoying a theme tonight.

I love riding boots right now.  I'm not sure how I feel about gray and brown together, but I won't hold that against the boots.

And just because they're adorable, and the PB needs something for when we bake brownies someday. 

Ugh, I feel crappy today.  Allergies are kicking my patootie, but my stomach has been weird all day and I keep having sweats/chills and I'm all achy.  I think it's time to go to bed.

Beatles and the BFF

The birthday continues!  My awesome BFF sent me Beatles stuff to celebrate, and now I share it with you:

I shall now never drink out of anything else.

A new key chain! Yes I will take it out of the plastic, but I like the way it's packaged, so I'm leaving it for now.

Now yay for more Beatles shoes!.

I'd wear any of these, but the red ones are my favorite, followed by the colorful ones.  If only I had any artistic ability whatsoever I could make my own Beatles tennis shoes.

I love the Beatles.  I love the BFF.  I love Beatles BFF birthdays.  It's a love fest.

More Birthday

I tried to post yesterday, but our internet was wonky and I couldn't do it.  I wanted to show you the awesome shoes my parents gave me for my birthday:

I opened these first and wore them on my birthday.  I've gotten a little addicted to this orangey coral color lately.

These were second and wow to the brightness!  Actually, these arrived on Thursday, addressed to the hubby (who was still in Mom's address book from Christmas).  She sent me a text to let me know the package was coming, but they arrived before I got the text and could tell the hubby, so he opened the box.  I think his exact words were, "why did we get weird ass shoes in the mail?"  He actually liked them once I put them on yesterday, so he is now forgiven for insulting the shoes.  Are they crazy?  Yep!   But they're also awesome.

I also didn't show you the calendar shoe from my birthday:

It's actually pretty fun.  Usually the weekend ones are some kind of crazy that I'm forced to look at for 2 days, but I was pleasantly surprised for my birthday.

Speaking of birthday (and I'm going to drag this out for as long as possible), SDK took me out for sushi yesterday to celebrate, and then we went and wandered around DSW for awhile.  Neither of us bought anything, but we enjoyed looking and trying on.

Tomorrow, gifts from the BFF!

The Big 4-0

Today is my birthday, at least for another half hour or so.  It was a very nice day, starting with breakfast in bed from the hubby, 2 new pairs of shoes from my parents (I'll show you tomorrow), and then an outing with the hubby and puppies to Amador County to have a picnic and a walk.  It was a gorgeous day, even if it did gum up my eyes and clog up my sinuses (which is actually my fault since I've stopped getting my shots and taking most of my allergy meds because it's all so frickin' expensive).  But let's talk about shoes instead. I thought about finding a pair for each year of my life, but that seemed extreme, so we'll just go with every 5 years.

1975.  I'm an adorable newborn-8 1/2 month old.  Here are some awesome pansy shoes for my mama.

1980.  I started Kindergarten, despite almost not being able to tie my own shoes.  Being the saucy child that I was, I told the teacher at Kindergarten roundup that it didn't matter because I would just wear my buckle shoes.  Those are some crazy colorful shoes up there, and I was a blonde 5 year old.

1985.  I'm in 4th and 5th grade, slightly less blonde, and have been wearing glasses for several years.  In 5th grade I got bifocals, oh joy.  These shoes are still bright, but slightly less crazy and more geometrical.

1990.  Love the embroidered shoes.  No idea really what kind of shoes I myself was wearing.  I was in 9th and 10th grades and had a perm so I could have big, 90s hair.  My glasses were stylishly huge, and I'm wearing my dad's jacket from the 60s or 70s.

flower

1995.  I've been out of school since 1993, but still living at home, doing daycare for a family in my hometown.  I looooooved those babies (still do, even if they are all old now).  I chopped my hair off, and had been wearing contacts for about 3 years.

2000.  Love the red hounds tooth!  In January I moved to Plano, TX to live with my auntie, after graduating from college in December of 1999.  I learned to drive in traffic, got my first real jobs, and apparently posed in the shrubs in front of my bedroom windows.  Oh, and Double A was born in May, big sister DJ was 3.

2005.  2 years into seminary, and I headed off to internship, which sucked, so we shall not speak of it.  But, the year started with my spending 3 weeks on Oahu with the BSF.  She was doing her internship in Honolulu and I got to do my cross-cultural experience.  It was awesome.  The Bean was born in 2003, so I was up to 3 nieces.

2010. Stripey and strappy shoes.  Can't go wrong there.  I finished my first call in March and moved back to CA in July.  The nephew and Laughter were born. I met the man who would become the hubby. The couch is close to not holding all of us.

2015.  The shoes are crazy, but I actually really like them.  I am on-leave from call and my life is more complicated than in 2010, but way less complicated than 2014.   The only picture I have of myself so far this year is with this adorable young miss from St. Someone.

This post took way too long because the internet kept going out.  It's no longer my birthday, and I must go to bed because I am old.