Karianna's Family Birthday Party

We had Karianna's family birthday party tonight, and we invited the Lautenschlagers over to enjoy it with us.  As is normal for Karianna, she was so excited about every single thing she opened-the degree of getting goofy.  I just love watching her open gifts, and it honestly gets fun-er as she gets older, which I am not if that's how it's supposed to be, but it is right now!

I have been holding on to about half the things we got her for her birthday since her cousins party nearly two weeks ago.  We gave her the most desired item on her list:  vaseline.  Karianna goes through vaseline like no other-she puts it on every 10 minutes of her day and she keeps it tucked in her pocket all the time....if she has no pockets, she tucks it in the waistband of her pants and kind of freaks out if it gets misplaced (which is rare).  Therefore, getting a new little tub of it PLUS 3 lipsmackers was probably all she needed for her birthday.  Regardless, we also got her some earrings, the new Barbie movie, a new super-cute outfit, and the main gift that we should have gotten last year but couldn't because of finances:  scriptures and a scripture case/markers.  She loved it, and has read through a good chunk of Genesis already, completely intrigued with how the world was created and those early days of the Earth...Jared has been living it up, talking to her about various verses, drawing diagrams on the chalkboard.... it's awesome!  She told him she had already marked a ton of scriptures with her marking pencils, and I could see Jared's face fall, and I'm sure he wanted to tell her she really shouldn't do that unless she had a reason...but then she started explaining why she was marking and talking through the chapters, and it was instantly obvious she knew what she was doing. Fun stuff!

The Lautenschlagers made her day.  She racked up 30 dollars between them all as well as a few cute gifts, including a gold necklace that she loves.  We rarely have people over to our house-its small and we have no chairs at our table right now and it's just not super conducive to hosting things.  However, we were glad to have Jared's family over with us, it made for a special night for Karianna.

At Karianna's request, we had cinnamon rolls and ice cream for her birthday treat, which turned out SO yummy-it reminds me how nice it is to go off the cupcake norm and do something different.  Karianna doesn't really like cupcakes either, so this was a nice change.  Before we knew it, it was 9:30 and we needed to start getting kids to bed.  We said bye to everyone and sent them on their way.

The only ONLY 2 downsides to the entire night:

1. We spent most of the day cleaning, which needed to be done anyway, but I always like to have things especially clean when the Lautenschlagers come over because, well-this is their house!  That's a little bit of pressure, even though I never feel they are judgemental at all.  I didn't need everything to be perfect, and I was really pleased with how much we got done.  The only thing we didn't really get to was our own bedroom and bathroom.  Jared got the nail on the head the other day-we spend so much time and energy cleaning everything else in the house, especially kid messes, that we rarely have time/energy/desire to clean our own room after all that is said and done.  That was true today by far. No big deal, we just planned to keep our door closed.  So OF COURSE a kid just had to go into our room for whatever reason, turn on the light and leave our door wide open....and David just had to walk down the hall at the right moment to use the bathroom and glanced in.  Insert red, embarrassed face here.  Sigh.  I was feeling so good about the house I was presenting....
2. The second downside came after everyone was in bed and I just realized how much my body was hurting.  I came home from church earlier that day before we started cleaning already tired and worn out.  I couldn't hear out of either ear properly, I had to keep leaning over because of soar pelvic muscles, and I had to alternate between cleaning something and sitting down.  I slipped on the clean floor a few times-nothing major, but it really really hurt and caused pelvic movement that shouldn't be happening.  I pressed on though, and Jared completely stepped up, doing all the really rough jobs that he knew I wouldn't be able to handle, but would try to handle if it wasn't done by someone else.  So while the entire night was great for Karianna, and while I really did have fun....I was in pain afterward and it was all I could do to alternate between cold/warm compresses, take some tylenol, and try to relax.  

Funny thing is-I'd do it all again to make a special night for Karianna.  Happy Birthday ONE day early!  Here's the photo stream....