How Many Birthdays can You Pack into One Week?

Last week was a busy one at our house. Somehow I managed over the years to give birth to three children during the same week. Yikes. So, on Monday we celebrated one daughter's birthday and then celebrated a son's (and step-daughter's) birthday on Friday and then on Sunday celebrated their youngest sister's birthday.
We actually spent three days celebrating her birthday. We had to have a party on Friday with all of her friends and then some of her girlfriends spent the night. All told there were about 20 kids in attendance, so we had a full house.
She decided to use a murder mystery theme for her party each person's invitation was on a "WANTED" poster. Making the invitations was a lot of fun, since each person's invitation was customer made and included a picture and description of them, along with a detailed explanation of why they were wanted. She turned our home into a giant CLUE game board and each room became one of the rooms in the game. My bedroom became the Conservatory, the kitchen remained the Kitchen, the upstairs living room became the Library, etc. Her friends helped put together all the clues and then they divided up into teams and all went on their merry way to begin solving the Whodunit game. There were some clueless kids on ocassion, because some of the clues hadn't been put together or weren't really clear, but overall the game was a hit and they all had a good time.
After most of the guests went home, the girls stayed up and talked until all hours of the morning. However, the guest of honor made her way to my bedroom and proceeded to curl up on the bed and sleep because it was too noisy with her friends.
The next morning we had a mother/daughter date planned for the day. Our date took us to an art exhibit at Brigham Young University. They have an exhibit of the works of Carl Heinrich Bloch, a master painter from Denmark. His works included several altar pieces of the life of Christ and many other smaller pieces. The art was truly breathtaking and so beautiful. She and I both were impressed by the works of this man. His gift truly was magnificent. The museum also had another exhibit by the French painter James Tissot. Several of his watercolors of the Life of Christ were on display and I was so impressed by the detail and effort he imparted to each picture. Both exhibits are well worth seeing and are free, but you would have to hurry to see the latter one as it will be gone after January 9th and you have to make reservations for the Bloch exhibit. We had a great time going through the museum and then we bought tickets to see Legend of the Guardians: The Owl of Ga'hoole. We got to see it in 3D. I am amazed every time I see a 3D movie. The details are so cool. Each owl was very lifelike and you could almost feel the wind as they were in flight. It was a fun flick. We went window shopping and ate lunch before the movie started, and took photos in a booth at the mall. Of course, I didn't figure out where to look at the camera until it had taken all three picture. DUH! Oh well, they turned out nicely anyway. We did some shopping for the holidays and then headed home.
All told, it was a great day and it was wonderful to spend some time with my daughter and make memories. I realized that I should be doing more of this with the rest of her siblings too.
On Sunday, it was her actual birthday and I had promised her older sister that I would make her a birthday cake and we would celebrate her birthday on Sunday too, so we made two birthday cakes and both girls blew out candles and we gave the youngest the rest of her gifts and took the traditional in front of the door pictures of the birthday person with their parents.
While we didn't get to have cake with our son, I did call him and wished him a "Happy Birthday". He's in the middle of moving from one state to another and will be here soon to visit.
Having children is a blessing and spending time with them is one of the greatest gifts a mom can give. I look forward to doing this again with the rest of my children. I may have just started another tradition.

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning and Autumn Tea

Today started out as a normal humdrum day, except that it is the day I made plans to get up early and go vote before work (mission accomplished). But then, I approached my car and tucked neatly into the window on the driver's side was a little note. Thankfully the wind was not blowing and I managed to retrieve the note and much to my surprise it was from my "Sammy". Just a little note to tell me that "I Rock!!" and then when I came to work, someone who must know my yen for Blueberry muffins left one of them on my desk. It may be Monday, but it is an awesome Monday, Monday, So Good to Me (Thank you, Mama Cass). What a wonderful way to start my day. Thank you, I am forever blessed.
This past weekend we held our Semi-annual Hammer Moms Tea Party. This one was quite well attended and was a great success. We opted for Root Beer Floats or Apple Juice instead of tea, as most of the children don't care for tea, and our local Walmart no longer carries our favorite flavor.
What's up with that anyway. I have never figured out why they remove my favorite flavor and replace it with an impostor that never measures up. Oh well, c'est la vie.
Back to the tea party. We always make way too many goodies and so we had plenty for everyone. I always do some research before our teas to see if I can find something out of the ordinary to make for treats. This time I found two recipes: High Tea Lemon Cookies and Chocolate Dipped Ritz Treats.
The Lemon Cookies were reminiscent of Scottish Shortbread with lemon Frosting. They were melt in your mouth good and while Faye and I really enjoyed them, our little ones decided they preferred Valentine Cut-up Cookies with a less lemony flavor.
The Ritz treats were made by taking Peanut Butter flavored butter-cream frosting and spreading in on a Ritz cracker and placing another Ritz on top to form a sandwich. This was in turn dipped in melted Chocolate Bark to which we added Peanut butter chips. Once they had been dipped and placed on waxed paper, they were decorated with sprinkles and reminded us of Twix Candy Bars sans caramel. I am sure they will make a repeat performance again at future parties, especially since my youngest liked them so much.
We also experimented with making Grilled Cheese sandwiches by dressing them up and adding some spice to them. We used Pumpernickel bread or Whole wheat and and used a combination of Pepper Jack and Provolone cheese or Provolone and Colby Jack cheese. Under normal conditions, I tend to be the only one who likes Pumpernickel Bread, but as a grilled cheese with the two types of cheese it was a great hit.
With all of the company headed home and the grown kids playing and visiting with each other, I headed to my room and put on an old movie to watch with the grand kids. I even got little Miss Jordan to snuggle with me and we had a great time watching an old movie. She then wanted to watch "Thomas the Tank" and was quite engaged until Mom and Dad were ready to head home.
Now to start planning for our Spring Tea. Let the sleuthing begin.