Birthdays and Curling Iron Wishes

Our daughter just celebrated her 11th birthday with a house full of squealing, giggling young ladies.

There was only one thing on her birthday wish list: A CURLING IRON.

I shudder as I type those words because I remember the year that I got my very first curling iron. It was powder blue with a skinny barrel. From that moment forward, I was in charge of my own hair destiny. No more pig tails from Mom.  What ensued was a three year run of late eighties, early nineties bangs.

The formula for my Junior High bangs:
Two rows of curls going up
one row of curls going down
Tease them together
Hairspray until they moved as one unit.
Hairspray again for good measure.

I put my mother through endless torture. She had to look at those ridiculous bangs, and shake her head as I told her, "Mom, all the girls are wearing them like this!"

If she were alive, she'd be laughing right now, telling me that my chickens are about to come home to roost.

HA!

OK, now that I have voiced my worries about this scary gift, I can move on with this post:


Since our daughter's birthday is very near to Christmas, it's always a challenge to transform the house from Christmas decorations to birthday decorations, but I make a valiant attempt.

I made tissue paper flowers, and I forgot how fun and easy they are to make.

Since we had a color theme going on, I decided to buy only turquoise candy and gum for the party favors.

This year, we ate pizza, and decorated Gingerbread houses.

At the last minute, our son decided he wanted to try his hand at ginger bread house making, too.  But he refused to sit at a table full of girls. He had to draw the line somewhere.

It can be pretty overwhelming if you aren't used to the sounds of tweenaged girls, but big brother made it through....

...with only one minor photo bombing incident.

Our kids are growing up so fast! Where does the time go?

Thanking God that big 80's bangs aren't in style at the moment,

Nell