Happy Birthday Shannon Cha Cha Cha

Believe it or not, we finally actually celebrated a birthday on it's real day. Shannon just had her 13th birthday. We now officially have 4 teenagers in our house. WOW!! For her birthday we had our first picnic of the year. We had green grass (tablecloth, and blue sky(blue crate paper)..........and it was even sunny (yellow pinata)!!! The flowers were blooming just for her special day. It was a perfect day for a picnic. Jumpy and his other ladybug friends even came out to join us (red balloons). We had Hoggie sandwiches, watermelon and fruit salad, chips, and soda. The kids all ate their food while we all had pleasant conversation and wiggled to the tunes of the Beach boys in the background. We had so much fun--we really can't wait for summer now, to have an outside picnic, and go to the ocean again.
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After dinner, Shannon opened her gifts. Shannon is easy to please, and she loved all her gifts. Possibly the Twix candy bars was her favorite, seeing as she nearly ate the whole bag in one day. I warned her about being a teenager now....she wouldn't want all that chocolate to go straight to her hips.......lol. Then we had a fun time of TRYING to break the Pinata. I did too good of job at my gluing........they couldn't break it open. They did manage to make a whole heck of alot of dents in it though. After everyone had a turn, I ended up just ripping it open for them. We let them have 3 pieces each, and the rest went in a big bowl. The plan is that every night after they get their homework done, they get to choose 2 pieces each. I know--bribery! (Hey, whatever works!)
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Then we went back to the dining room for the cake. We sung Happy Birthday to her (adding on the Cha Cha Cha part at the end--that got a big smile from her!). She blew out all the candle, and we were all happy to know that there are no boyfriends to be had....all the candles went out!
It was a great night....and they were all sugared out. Shannon and I stayed up together and played her new game of Mancala a few times and watched her new DVD "Holes" together. What fun!