Birthday Shenanigans

I love to celebrate any occasion.  Give me a reason to celebrate and I'm all over it.  When it comes to birthdays, one day is never enough time to do everything I like to do to make a family member feel special and adored, and in the case of my own birthday it's never enough time to do all that I want to do to celebrate the year past and the year ahead.  If I had it my way, birthday celebrations would last the entire month, but alas I can't really get away with that.  Scott has laughed in the past at my ability to spread out my birthday over multiple days; I'm lucky to get away with a "birthday weekend" or "birthday week" full of fun.

This year, my birthday celebrations actually began a week and a half ago when my stepdad offered me free pavilion seats at the Jimmy Buffet concert.  He offered a pair of tickets that he was planning on selling to me as an early birthday present and I jumped on the opportunity to go to see the man whose songs I know by heart but whom I've never seen live.  On short notice we couldn't get a babysitter so Scott happily stayed home with the kiddos and I took my close friend Bobbi.

The most fun part of this concert was that my little brother Seth and youngest sister Amanda were also at the concert, as well as my stepdad Gene and my Uncle Todd.  We had a BLAST singing all of the Buffet songs and wishing we were somewhere in the Carribean.  Now if only Jimmy had sang "Happy Birthday" to me from the stage...haha, just kidding.

My birthday celebrations continued when my friend Elysia came to town this week, stayed with us Monday into Tuesday and surprised me with a bracelet and candle for my birthday.  It was so nice of her to give me the unexpected gifts--I love the thoughtfulness involved!

Yesterday as a special birthday treat to myself I went out for a manicure and pedicure at my very favorite spa near my house.  If you live in this area and ever want a really good pedicure, I would highly recommend the Spa at Yellow Creek.  My pedis ALWAYS last 3 weeks when I get them done there!

Today the fun continued as I treated Jaden, Sienna and I to my favorite subs (Jimmy Johns!) after I got my new license (much better photo than the last time, woohoo!).  Then tonight when Scott got home from work he gave me a gift from his mom and we started my birthday weekend off with a bang by heading out to a new frozen yogurt shop across town--Menchies.

If you don't have one nearby, you should seriously look into opening your own franchise.  You would make some serious money from treat lovers like myself!  You fill your own cup with your desired amount of yogurt and I think they had about 15 flavors.  Then there are about 30 (maybe even more!) toppings to choose from.  I picked chocolate and vanilla swirl and topped it with MnMs and pecans (yeah, the diet took a pause today).  The ratio of toppings to yogurt in my cup was at about 2:1 haha!

After we helped Jaden and Sienna make up their cups and then made our own, we put them on the scale and paid by weight.  It was so fun making our own sundaes!  The idea to charge by weight is genius since everyone has such a good time concocting yogurt flavor and topping combinations.

Bristol was feeling a little left out so we even dipped her paci into some of the melting yogurt and let her have a tiny taste...

Needless to say, we all loved it.  I'm so glad I've been saving up the chance to go to Menchies for part of my birthday celebration!

Tonight we let our yogurt digest while driving up to Scott's most recent project:

This is the first of several buildings of 4-level homes in Chagrin Falls.  So pretty!

Then we came home and started mixing up some of these ingredients.  Can you tell what we're making in lieu of a traditional birthday cake??

Cakepops!  Tonight Jaden and Sienna helped me to get them started and I'll put the final touches on them in the morning before the real celebrating begins with a trip to the lakehouse and a boat ride to Put-In-Bay.  Let the birthday shenanigans continue!