Birthday Weekend-Part One

This weekend we celebrated part 1 of the kids birthdays.  Their good friends and our neighbors are leaving today for a 3 week trip to Canada (where they're from), so we wanted the kids to be able to celebrate with them before they left.

Ellie had a sleepover on Friday night with her friend.  We went to Dollar Tree and picked out little goodies for their goody bags, got a red box, then went to PetCo. to pick out her guinea pig.  She's been asking for one for months.  I had always said, "maybe for your birthday?"  Now I had to pay up.  So she and her friend picked out Sweetie the guinea pig.

As far as guinea pigs go she's really nice.  Very calm and doesn't make much noise.  The other one we picked up in the pet store squeaked rather loudly and was very "freaked out" and trying to claw everyone.  Sweetie was much nicer and calmer.  So we brought her home.  I had already bought a nice starter cage set a few weeks ago when they were on sale so we were ready to go.

We had a little scare the next day though.  Ellie was having some kind of allergic reaction to something that was making her skin red and itchy.  It was happening after she touched Sweetie.  Uh oh... I was worried she was allergic to her.  What a nightmare that would have been.  We started thinking what else it could be and came up with the idea that maybe it was the Timothy Hay we bought to feed her.  I googled Timothy hay allergies and found that lots of people are allergic to it.  So we cleaned it out of her cage and bought some Orchard grass instead.  So far so good!

I forgot to take a pic before it was partially eaten...

Saturday morning I made the kids cinnamon roll pancakes which I had found on pinterest.  They were awesome!!  A little sweet, I might put a little less filling in each one next time, but they were really good!!  We hadn't done an official "cake" for Ellie, so we put the candles in the pancakes!

Saturday afternoon was Logan's turn.  He invited 2 friends over.  Stuart took them to Austin's Park and Pizza for the evening then they came back home for a sleepover.  This time I did get a  cookie cake from Sams.  I didn't order it in advance though and they only had 2 available.  They were both decorated with pink icing.  Ooops!  So I had them write on it in blue then came home and scraped off the pink and added purple.  Logan likes purple and I had some on hand so it all worked out.

Here he is blowing out his 11 candles!

The next morning (after they had stayed up until 2am) Logan had requested a big Texas donut from Round Rock Donuts.  It's huge, but can I say that the 3 boys and Ellie ate the whole thing.  Good thing I had also bought some kolaches!

Logan with the donut for scale.  On a side note can I just say that 11-year olds get really crazy late at night when they are over tired!
The next day when we went to get the new grass for Sweetie I noticed a sign saying that it was day 2 of PetCo's Reptile Rally.  They had all their reptiles 1/2 off and by chance had this awesome bearded dragon starter kit that normally sells for $179 for $99.  I knew I had to act quickly.  My PetCo was out of stock of both, so they called and found a tank and a beardie at another store.  Logan wasn't with me, just Ellie, so I quickly decided to surprise him and go get them.

When I got home with the surprises Logan was ecstatic!

Meet Spike!  He' so tiny and cute!

Ellie and Spike.

Logan and Spike.

A Spike close-up.

Finally we ended the weekend at Stuart's sister Becky's house for dinner and a swim in their pool.  Here's Ellie posing in the complete outfit Becky got her for her birthday.  Shoes, hat, purse and dress.  Totally adorable!