Birthday Weekend, Part I

It's been almost 3 weeks since Lauren's birthday and I'm just getting around to doing a post about all the celebratin'. And let me tell you, we partied. With a huge presentation and business trip sandwiched in between, however, I've learned that taking a little extra time to document the special occasions in our lives is sometimes inevitable. My desire really was to edit a couple hundred pics and get the post up pronto, but you know what? It simply wasn't possible, and that's a-ok. You gotta roll with life sometimes, and life's been plenty busy these days. On her actual birthday, Friday the 13th (which just so happened to be a very lucky day, by the way), Norm's parents flew in from New Jersey for the weekend and we went straight to dinner at Red Robin. A hot fudge sundae, a balloon, and a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday by the wait staff, and our girl was on cloud nine. On Saturday night, the celebration included Norm and my parents, and took place at the mother of all birthday locales. Appropriate attire was on display (ballet bun remaining from morning class optional). We were ushered into the private party room and the festivities began in earnest. I'll tell you what, Lauren loves being the center of attention. On this night, she more than deserved it. She was treated like royalty by the staff at Farrell's, and even had her own personal staffer tend to her every whim, whether it be playing numerous games of tic tac toe, or dancing like there was no tomorrow. Meet Morgan, the phenomenal staffer who enthralled our birthday girl (and kept up with her amazing level of energy, no problem). I'm seriously in negotiations to potentially add her as a new sitter/nanny for Lauren. Yes, she was that good. All that singing and dancing tuckered our girl out. We took her home and put her straight to bed in order to rest up for the following day's extravaganza. Stay tuned ................