Busy Birthday Week

We celebrated Grace's birthday last weekend with the family and this weekend with her friends. She really enjoyed her birthday this year. She was counting down the days until her birthday and excited about her two parties.

We went to the pumpkin farm on Sunday morning with Julie's sister and our nephew. Grace was pretty happy to have them come with us too. We got there a little bit earlier this year and we timed everything perfectly. We got there around 9:45 and looked at the pig and her babies (piglets) and then over to the barn to see the baby chicks. Then we went straight out to the hay ride out to the field to pick out our pumpkins. There was no wait and the wagon wasn't crowded. When we came back from the field we washed the pumpkins and headed over to the pony rides and then the jumpy thing. Then we went inside to buy other stuff and pay and leave. That took us almost exactly two hours.

Then we were able to get home in time to get ready for the family party later in the day. We got all the cooking done but hardly any cleaning. So everyone had food to eat but the house wasn't all that. What else is new; we've never been great housekeepers and it showed. But everyone had a good time and the food was pretty good as usual.

After the party the Bears played the Packers and actually won! Unfortunately I was a little sleepy and missed the part where the actually won. I had to watch it on NFL Replay on NFL Network. Griese looked like a veteran (I realize he is) which is what we've needed for a long time.

Most of the week with my Mom here was pretty much a normal week. We didn't have much time to do anything other than our usual busy schedule. Neither Julie or I had much time to run to the grocery store either so we ate out a lot this week. We did go over to the in-laws on Thursday and had a home cooked meal and then on Friday I made dinner, but mostly we ate out which gets tiring after a while.

Julie took the day off on Friday and her and my Mom went shopping up in Kenosha at the outlet mall. I think they had a really good time. Then we all met at the movie theater to see The Game Plan. This movie is great! It's family friendly, hilarious and heartwarming all together in one movie. All of us liked it. I think everyone would like this movie - it is very good!

Today was the kids party and we went to Build-a-Bear down in Vernon Hills. We kept the invite list short because it's not free to go there, but overall it's much better than renting out a place to hold your party. You get a place to have your party - although you can't have the traditional party including a room to have food, cake and open presents. But we accomplished basically the same thing by having the beginning of our party in the food court at the mall. This way we had our food - but we didn't quite have enough time to open presents. So we had our lunch and then headed over to the store. They have this thing down to a science I'll tell you that. We were in and out of there in under an hour with ten 5 year olds (alright, eight 5 year olds and two 6 year olds I think.) But everyone had a great time and we opened the presents as soon as we got home. A couple of her friends got to stay at our house after the party and helped open presents too.

So we would definitely go to Build-a-Bear again. The cost is good and they all had a fun time. But probably from now on we'll keep her parties low key to save even more money - like almost free. Especially since we want to have a second child at some point.

I forgot to mention that Tuesday was the village board meeting. I have some notes to post but I will do that tomorrow as it's late now. There wasn't any yelling and it seemed to go quite smoothly.