my and america's birthdays

In order to confuse you I added some additional photos to the preceding post. Enjoy.

A week of things to celebrate--John and my 7th anniversary on monday, my birthday thursday, america's birthday today. I can hear the local fireworks show as I type this as a matter of fact. One of these days we'll have to go view them but we have to wait until the kids are able to stay up this late first. I think they'd get more out of it that way.

We rarely go out to restaurants with the kids, thus we rarely go out to restaurants at all. But on thursday John had two mid-morning appointments with contractors scheduled at our house so he wasn't going to the office right away so I suggested we all go out for breakfast. This is something we've never done and to mark the occasion we went somewhere truly special--IHOP. It turned out to be a nice time actually. The food was okay, the kids were very hungry, and thus they were very interested in eating which is always nice but not always the case at mealtimes. The huge pancakes topped with gobs of fruit and whipped cream were a big hit with the girls. Later that day Erin proudly proclaimed IHOP as her favorite restaurant EVER. I think the folks at Zagat need to be informed.

That afternoon John announced that we'd be going out to dinner too. Twice in one day--totally unheard of. Brad and Shadzi were joining us and my friend Trish just happened to be in town and she was available too. John chose the local japanese hibachi place which we always enjoy and the girls had never seen. The good part about that place is the cooking is pretty entertaining for the kids, the bad part is the duration of the meal. But I brought along some distractions for them and they enjoyed themselves and ate very well again.

Kate was very interested in the cooking.

Allison was very interested in the ice cream for dessert.

This morning we headed to the community center (again this year) for the pancake breakfast and other family festivities they have going on. The senior citizen center orchestra started setting up but Kate and Allison didn't wait for the music to get on the dance floor and start moving. They were the only ones dancing and they got lots of adoring looks and laughs from all around.

Then it was time for some "face painting on my arm" (which made me wonder where they'd gotten that idea). And with my girls all looking like tattooed sailors we joined the kids' parade around the neighboring park. Then finally a sing-along back at the center.

And a photo-op with Uncle Sam.

Then this afternoon we went to Grandma and Poppy's house for more celebrating, including the best peach pie I can remember, topped with candles for me. It's been a busy and fun week and it's become apparent that "partying like it's my birthday" was easier before having so many of them.