Happy Birthday, Double A

Quick commercial break before the post.  Today I created a glossary of nicknames and things I use on the blog that you may or may not know.  I will put links in posts for those nicknames so you can always click on them and read about anything you might not remember.  Please let me know what else I can add to the glossary, because I know I've forgotten stuff!  Now...on to the post!

Today is Double A's birthday!  (see that underline under Double A?  That leads you to the glossary!)  I can't believe she is 17 today.  Just like last year I couldn't believe she was 16, and 7 years ago I couldn't believe she was 10, and 10 years ago I couldn't believe she was 7....you get the idea.  I'm so proud of the young woman she is becoming.  She has the sweetest personality and she makes me smile on a regular basis.   A couple of weekends ago was her spring play.  She's a drama nerd like me!  Which makes me sooooo happy.  Her costume for the play involved a really bright, fun yellow skirt.   It was sunshiney just like her.  I mean, look at this face, how could it not make you smile?

She was such a sweet, happy baby.  How can you not smile at that face?

OK, these aren't yellow, but they are sunshiney.  I like them.  They are bright and fun.

I love these, but I'm not so sure about the cross detail.  Which is weird...you'd think I'd like the cross, right?  And I do, but just not on these shoes for some reason.

 

Oh, I forgot to mention that all of the shoes are flats because Double A is not a fan of heels.  Silly niecey-poo!  I would like to have a cute pair of yellow ballet flats for summer.

 

These are to much.  Pick one and go with it.  I would pick the laces because I love that bright yellow.

You knew the baby shoes were coming, right?  Baby Double A could have totally rocked any of these.  Any kid who can pull off a red and white striped, off the shoulder Elmo shirt, can make these adorable shoes look fierce!

Happy Birthday, Double A!  Like I said on Facebook, I love you to the moon, stars, pond, and back!

Whew!

Today was a VERY busy day.  Double A, The Bean, The VH, Flower, Pippi, Tink, and Laughter were all here for Holidays!  Holidays is the tradition we started when DJ was 4 (she's 19 now), and try to do at least once a year, where we celebrate a bunch of holidays in one day because I'm usually not home for most of them.  So today we did:

Easter.  Each kid gets to dye 6 eggs, then we send them off on an errand and I hide the eggs (obviously it's too cold for the bunny to come do it).

 

Thanksgiving.  We eat Thanksgiving dinner, but very pared down.

We celebrate birthdays.  Each person gets a cupcake.  We've started doing only 1 candle for each, because between 7 kids and 4 adults, it would have been something like 304 candles.  11 are easier to light and blow out...

 

4th of July.  We got outside and do sparklers and smoke bombs.  There isn't always snow like this year, so this time we got to toss the smoke bombs in the snow and watch the results. 

Halloween.  We do face paint and the kids trick-or-treat around the house.

St. Patrick's Day.  We do a treasure hunt with clues to follow to find the Leprechaun's lost gold (gold wrapped chocolate).

Are you exhausted reading about it?  Because it's exhausting doing it!

 

We then all wore our matching owl pjs to the movie.  Because I am a dorky aunt who makes her nieces do stuff like that.

 

The movie was Moana, and it was a lot of fun.

Finally, today is Shoetopia's 4th blogiversary!  I think this shoe is hilarious and adorable.

Everyone is supposed to be spending the night, but sadly Pippi had a horrible headache all day and decided she wanted to go home after the movie, and Tink decided to go with her.  The VH has family stuff tomorrow so she couldn't say over.  I still have 4 kiddos sleeping over, though.

Speaking of kiddos, all of my nieces are amazing, but can I take a minute to brag on Double A and The Bean?  They still love to do Holidays, but they are also great with helping with the younger kids.  They're great with kids in general, and love hanging out with their cousins.  They are patient and kind and loving, and it makes my heart happy to watch them.  But now my happy heart and I are going to bed.

Deer

There is a group of deer that wanders in and around the parents' yard:

This is from the front porch.  Yes, the neighbors have a caboose.

This is the back porch.

And this is the backyard.  Aren't they sweet?  I don't have to live here, so I love seeing them and watching them.  Mom and Dad do have to live here, so they are less enamored with the deer pooping in the yard and eating everything.

Obviously tonight's shoes shall be deer themed:

 

Why does this shoe have a hood ornament?

These are actually pretty sweet, but I would have to have a very specific occasion for which to wear them.

 

Awwww.  I love these.  Still can't think of where I would wear them, though.

But wherever it is, the PB could also go.

Yay, deer AND Christmas!  Or not, but they kind of look Christmas-y to me.

What is even happening here?  These make the hood ornament shoe look sane.  I...like the color...?

Much better.  I couldn't leave you with the insanity above.

Today was awesome.  The auntie, seester, Double A, Bean, Flower, and Laughter came over for a crafternoon.  The seester and I crocheted, Double A painted rocks, and everyone else kind of rotated around through various crafts.  It was a lot of fun.  The auntie and seester went home before it got dark, but Double A and the Bean just left and Laughter and Flower are having a sleepover.  Not a bad way to spend the 5th Day of Christmas, if I do say so myself.

Adventures in Hair Dye

Double A helped The Bean and me dye our hair with blue kool-aid tonight.  The Bean did the ends of her hair, and I did a little bit of the underside of mine.  Mom took a picture of us lying on the dining room floor with our hair in cups to send to the hubby, who was understandably confused.  So I now have sort-of blue hair.  I tried to take a picture of it but you can't really see the color.  Maybe tomorrow if the sun comes out I can go outside and get a better picture.  Anyhoo, I was trying to decide what to do for tonight's post.  I've already done kool-aid shoes, and you're probably sick of me posting blue shoes, and the other variations I tried didn't produce anything.  I did look up blue shoes yet again and came across this:

I like them.  They're different and interesting.  These led to the following pair:

These are Badgely Mischka, so we're not going to talk about how much they probably cost, but they come in a bunch of different colors:

I think I've probably posted the blue version already, but hey, they match my hair!  Sort of.

So far we're going in reverse rainbow order.

I couldn't find yellow or orange so had to skip straight to red.  But, now I have Christmas colors next to each other!

 

And back to turquoise.  This might be closer to the color of my hair.  How do I know, it's on the back of my head.

I've slowed down on the sugar shock, but I'm still going.  I only made one thing yesterday and today.  Yesterday Mom and I made up a recipe using some of the ingredients leftover from other things, and today I made peanut butter cups that are quite yummy.  So that's 8 kinds of cookies/candy/whatever so far.  I might need a 12 step program.

Frosty

The Brother works late on Tuesday, which means that Double A and The Bean stay until 9:00.  After dinner the parents and Double A watched NCIS while The Bean and I snuggled up in bed and watched Netflix on my kindle. (Oh, Double A also made cookies.  Yummy chocolate cookies.  Cookies we call Cow Patties because they look like a cow flew over.  She's awesome, as her name implies.)  We ended up watching The Legend of Frosty the Snowman, which is a Frosty movie from 2005 that neither of us had ever seen.  It was weird.  It had some cute moments, but it was really odd.  We both prefer the earlier Frostier movies.  But the snuggling and hanging out time was awesome, so I will not complain.  Tonight's shoes are Frosty-inspired:

I wasn't searching specifically for Zazzle, but these are all Zazzle, and are the first 3 pairs I found.  I like them. 

That snowman is just so happy!

I love these.  I know you are shocked.

Hypothetical question:  Would it be wrong to leave a spouse to stay in Montana and snuggle with nieces?  Asking for a friend... 😁😋

Theatre Shoes

Pippi and Tink came over after school today.  They, Double A, and The Bean went over to the theater to help me, Dad, and the brother decorate the Christmas tree, which was a lot of fun, even if the girls were all total goofballs.  Actually, the goofballyness of them was why it was fun, because they all crack me up, which I totally needed after today.

Didn't they do a nice job?  For tonight's post I looked up "Llano shoes," because that is the name of the parents' theater.  Llano is the Spanish word for Plains.  Except for the 2nd pair, I couldn't tell you what the connection is, but I just picked some that I liked from the results.

 

I think I would like these better without the gold accents (which are the Gucci symbol, so they're not going away), but otherwise I think these are adorable. 

The nieces need these for work!

Adorable.  Love the colors.

I actually like these, although I don't think I could pull them off.

I'm not sure what's going on with the pattern on the bow, but otherwise this is cute.

Also adorable.  Also love the colors.

So there you have.  Llano Theatre shoes.  Who knew?

Strange

A quick entry tonight because once again I got caught up and almost forgot to post.  Today I am thankful for family.  I know, I sound like a broken record, but it's because I am home and spending time with them and trying to enjoy every minute.  Today involved a lot of prep for tomorrow, but I did also get to go for a walk with my dad, look through some old pictures with my mom, hung out with my brother a bit, and go to the movie with The Bean and Double A, so that was all lovely.  They movie was Dr. Strange, and that is the theme for tonight's shoes.  Actually, it's only one pair, from three different angles, but it's a pair that definitely committed to a theme:

Scenes from the movie, but drawn like a comic book.  Even the shape is strange, which I appreciate, because again, commitment to theme.  Double A and The Bean (as I've said before) are giant marvel fans, so they were excited about the movie.  I enjoyed it quite a lot, actually, despite knowing next to nothing about this part of the Marvel universe.  But now I must go to bed so I can get up in the morning and finishing preparations for The Big Day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My 30 Days of Thankfulness are kind of going by the wayside, not because I lack things for which to be thankful, but because I'm having such a nice time at home that I keep getting sidetracked and forgetting to post.  Like yesterday, I hung out with the parents, Double A, and the Bean, and then the girls had a sleepover, and I was in bed before I realized I hadn't posted.  Which is silly because we wore awesome pjs that would have made for a great post:

As I said on Facebook yesterday, yes, I AM that auntie who forces her nieces to wear matching pjs with her.  Here is a slightly different view:

This is fro tonight, and see that awesome sock peaking out from my pjs?

Yep.  Totally owl thanksgiving socks!  It's quite the fabulous theme I have going on.  I actually feel slightly guilty for posting all of this cute owl stuff where the Pinterest Friend can't see it, when she isn't here to participate.  But really, it's her own fault for getting me obsessed with owls in the first. place. 😋  Speaking of the PF, she sent me this recently:

 

Flip flop turkey!  Hilarious and adorable.  Which brings me to the earrings I wore today for Thanksgiving:

Ridiculous(ly adorable) turkey earrings.

Today I am thankful for so many things:  time with family, good friends, yummy food, silly accessories, the list could go on an on.  Rather than keep you (or me) up any later, though, I will just show one more picture, which is of our first Thanksgiving meal of the day:

The girls decided they wanted a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving this year, so we had this around 11:30 and regular Thanksgiving tonight.  Good times.  And Good Night.  I hope your day was filled with blessings.