Our Week - The One with a School Dance and a Lot of Birthday Celebrations for Brian and Olivia

This week was a busy one, and I have a lot to share, so let’s dive right in, y’all!

Monday, February 16

Monday, the kids were off for the holiday, so the three of us slept in.  Brian did have to work, but he worked from home, so he ended up being there with us all day, too.

I spent the morning organizing my pictures from the weekend since I hadn’t finished that, and then I worked on my blog post for Tuesday, quickly realizing I had a long way to go.  I didn’t want to sit at a computer all day while the kids were off, so I pushed the blog post to Wednesday instead.

After lunch, I went for a walk, and it was sunny and warm and soooo wonderful.  We had round one of false spring last week and it was amazing while it lasted!

When I got home, I showered and got ready, and the kids and I headed out to run some errands.  Olivia had a couple of Target gift cards that she’d gotten for her birthday, so she wanted to go there and do some browsing.  She ended up picking out two different packs of slime (man, I wish that craze would die down, haha) and she also grabbed some Ariana Grande perfume from Ulta.  My girl is obsessed with all things beauty right now.  Jacob ended up spending some of his money on a Lego set, and everyone left happy. 

Brian’s birthday was Friday, but I had to be at the school all evening, so we decided to celebrate him Monday since we were all home.  The kids and I grabbed some Crumbl cookies for our celebration, and then we headed home.

We had a few minutes before it was time to go to dinner, so I got a few things done in my office and I started prepping for Tuesday.

Brian wanted to eat dinner at a local Mexican restaurant near our house that we love, so we went there around 5:30 to beat the crowd.  That place is known to get very busy, and we didn’t want to wait.

Dinner was soooo delicious.  I got a rice bowl with beef because it has a little bit of everything in it – cheese, guac, pico de gallo, beans, corn, etc. – and of course, B and I splurged on some Monday evening margs.  They had the entrance decorated for Valentine’s Day, so we had to snap some pictures there on the way in and out, too.

When we got home, Brian opened his gifts, and then we sang happy birthday and enjoyed our Crumbl cookies.  We were all so full from Mex that nobody was able to eat their entire cookie, so we packed them away to enjoy the next day.  We also had to catch a glimpse of the sunset...

Once all that was done, we all sat down to finish The Truman Show and the kids loved it.  It’s so fun showing them all these old movies that I loved when I was a kid!

After they went to bed, Brian and I ended the night with another episode of The Girlfriend, and then we went to bed to get ready for the week ahead!

 

Tuesday, February 17

Tuesday morning, I hit the ground running because I had lots to do.  After dropping the kids at school, I headed to Walmart to grab groceries, and then I went home to put everything away.  I had just enough time to enjoy a cup of tea before I had to leave again to meet with my therapist. 

When I got home, I finally finished my blog post for Wednesday (the one that was supposed to have been for Tuesday) and that took the rest of the day.  So. Many. Pictures. To. Edit.

After school, we met up with Brian, and Jacob jumped in his car to go straight to the golf course since he had a match.  While the boys were golfing, I got Olivia home to do homework, and then I dropped her off at dance.

When I got home, I headed out into the warm sunshine, and I got in 2.41 miles before heading home to get in a 10-minute arms workout.  After my workout, I got showered and into pajamas, and then I got started on dinner. 

The boys picked up Olivia from dance on their way home, and then we all sat down together to have fettucine alfredo, steamed broccoli, and garlic cheese bread.  Jacob told us all about his match, and Olivia told us how dance went.  He’d gotten a couple of double bogeys and two triple bogeys, so it wasn’t his best match, but he had fun!  And Olivia has started working on the routines for her recital in May and she is over the moon!

By the time dinner was over, it was pretty late, so we all cleaned the kitchen, the kids got showered and ready for bed, and then they went to bed around nine.  Brian and I had just enough time to watch the last episode of The Girlfriend before going to bed, and WHEW, ya’ll, that was quite an ending.  We both loved it.

 

Wednesday, February 18

Wednesday morning, I drove the kids to school and then I headed home for an hour to work on some blog housekeeping + emails before I had to turn around and go back to the school / church for Ash Wednesday Mass.  I met my Momma, Mama Cass, and my two aunts there, and the five of us sat together behind all the kids at the children’s school Mass.  I always used to sit with my kids during those school Masses, and I just still can’t believe that they’re both in the older kids Mass now.  This is the first year I haven’t had one of them in the children’s Mass, and it makes me so sad.  I could go to their middle school / high school Mass, but the MS/HS are both so huge now that the kids take up the entire church (and our church is HUGE), so I just go with my family to the children’s Mass instead.

Children’s Mass is always a treat because it’s always the sweetest thing to hear the kids’ angelic voices singing the hymns and reading the first and second readings.  And the priests always have a special homily directed at the kids, which is always so sweet.  This year, the Bishop of our Diocese ended up being in town, so he did the Mass, and he made the homily very interactive, asking the kids all kinds of questions.  They all had the sweetest answers, and it was just the best thing.

After Mass, we asked our resource officer to snap a picture of our group, and I love it so much.  <3

I stopped by the library on the way home and my friend, Jeannine, helped me pick out a few AR books for Olivia to try.  My girl is picky about books, but when she finally finds one she likes, she devours it.  Jeannine gave me three books for her to try, and sure enough, the one she thought Olivia would like the most ended up being the one Olivia selected.  And she read the entire 300-page book in just 24 hours!

When I got home, I started my blog post for Friday and then I spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on blog reading.  I was nearly two weeks behind, so that took the rest of my time before I had to leave to pick up the kids from school.

On the way home, Jacob’s old piano teacher was in front of us, and when we stopped at a red light, he took off his helmet and talked to the kids for a couple of minutes.  They always love getting to see him!

When we got home, the kids did homework and I finished the book I was reading.  Brian got home from work and took Olivia to dance so I could have dinner ready early since he had a tennis match. 

Since it was Ash Wednesday, we were abstaining from meat, so I made grilled cheese sandwiches, and we had some chips, Greek yogurt (for protein), and fruit with them.

Brian left for his tennis match shortly after dinner, and I got the kitchen cleaned up and went for another walk.

After that, I got showered and into pajamas, and then Jacob got showered.  Brian’s tennis match ran long, which meant he wasn’t able to pick up Olivia, so I headed out in my pajamas to grab her.  We ended up getting home before him, and she got showered and ready for bed.

After the kids were in bed, Brian and I started working our way through our backlog of Saturday Night Live episodes.  We were still on the Christmas episode, so we had a lot of catching up to do.

 

Thursday, February 19

Thursday morning, I felt exhausted all morning.  I didn’t have anywhere to be, so I intended to get a lot of stuff done, but I was so tired that I ended up working on my blog post for Friday and then taking a 45-minute nap.  I was worried I was coming down with something, but I think it was just the dreary weather.

After my nap, I felt refreshed once my grogginess went away, and I got to work finishing my blog post for Friday, doing a load of laundry, catching up on emails, sending some last-minute text messages and emails about the school dance, and a few other odds and ends.

I had zero gas, so I stopped by the gas station and then by UPS to drop some Amazon returns on the way to get the kids, and then I read my book in the car line while I waited for the kids to come out.

We saw Jacob’s piano teacher again Thursday, so the kids got to talk to him on the way home again.  He plays guitar and he used to teach guitar lessons in addition to piano lessons, so he was thrilled to hear that Olivia is now taking guitar lessons.

The kids had music lessons after school, and I sat in with Olivia.  She worked some more on The Fate of Ophelia by Taylor Swift, and while she can play the whole thing now, she doesn’t have the tempo down just yet, so she’s working on playing it faster.

After lessons, Brian picked up Jacob and they headed to the driving range to hit some balls, and Olivia and I went home.  What is normally a seven-ish minute drive home ended up being 40 minutes due to road construction.  The road construction has been ongoing for 3-4 years at this point, so we’re used to dealing with closed lanes, but we’ve never had to wait longer than 5-10 minutes. 

It turned out that the flagger wasn’t doing a great job of letting the lanes take turns – he let the southbound lane go way too long and then he barely let our northbound lane go at all, so that’s why we ended up being stuck for so long.

By the time we got home, it was much later than anticipated, so I grabbed a cup of tea and did my quiet time faster than usual.  The boys got home right after that (I had warned them to take a different route home, and it’s a good thing they did, because according to our neighbors, traffic was still backed up well after 7 PM), and I headed out for my walk.  It was warm and sunny on Thursday, and it was just so lovely.  I definitely have spring fever at this point, and I am so ready for the cold to go away once and for all!

When I got home, the kids went outside for a bit to get some fresh air, and I got showered and then Brian and I made breakfast for dinner.  Once the kitchen was cleaned up, I opened some packages that had arrived, and the kids got showered and ready for bed.  We all prepped for Friday, and then we watched a few trailers for upcoming movies with the kids.

The kids got into bed a little earlier than usual and Brian and I watched some more Saturday Night Live before going to bed.

 

Friday, February 20

Friday morning, I dropped the kids at school and then I had to stop by the school office to grab a few things for the school dance.  The theme was “Lights, Camera, Action” (movie premiere) so we borrowed some red carpets from Olivia’s old kindergarten teacher and she had them waiting for me in the office.  I also had to grab a key to the school and the checks for the DJ and the photo booth company.

When I got home, I had quite a list, so I tackled as many tasks from that as I could:

 

-       Catching up on emails

-       Fixing a couple of blog typos

-       Starting my blog post for Monday

-       Starting my blog post for Tuesday

-       Catching up on blog reading

-       Putting away a few things I’d ordered

-       Organizing Easter stuff that I purchased

-       Getting everything packed and ready for the dance

-       Meditating

 

Friday was also Dave Matthews Band summer tour ticket day, so I settled in at my desk mid-morning to be ready for that.  Getting concert tickets these days is quite an ordeal, so I put on my patience pants and got ready.  I went in to look at the Alpharetta show just to familiarize myself with the system again so I’d be ready when tickets for the Orange Beach show went on sale an hour later.  We always go to the Alpharetta/Atlanta show, but this year we have something scheduled on that date, so we’re going to have to travel pretty far to see them, which isn’t ideal. 

I watched tickets for that show for 45 minutes and nothing great ever popped up, so I didn’t have high hopes for getting tickets to the show we wanted to go to either.

I got in the queue for the Orange Beach show at quarter till which is the earliest you can get in, and when ticket sales officially opened, I had 500 people in front of me which isn’t bad at all… usually, I have thousands in front of me.  Brian went in at the same time, and he was way further back in line than I was. 

I finally got in a few minutes after tickets went on sale, and there was nothing good left.  I kept watching, and after a few minutes of waiting, I saw two seats pop up in the FRONT ROW (behind the pit), and somehow, miraculously, I was able to snag them!!!!  So, we are now the proud owners of front row seats for the Orange Beach show. 

I’ve been so disappointed that we can’t go to the Alpharetta/Atlanta show since that’s the one I have gone to every year since 2002 (plus a few in addition to those that we traveled to), but getting front row seats for Orange Beach definitely lessened the disappointment!

I grabbed the kids from school right when they got out, and then I zipped home to drop them, eat a quick (insanely early) dinner, freshen up, load the car, and then head straight back to the school to meet my friend, Shaun, who was DJing for us.

We both arrived at 4:30 and I helped him haul all his equipment into the auditorium.  I got him to snap a picture of me with his backpack that I carried in because I knew that Jacob would love it.  How cute is that?  So perfect for Super Mario Brothers fans!

While he set up, I worked on making a “song requests” sign and we chatted.  We’ve known each other for 25 years, but we don’t see each other often, so it’s always nice catching up.  Usually, I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off before the dances, getting everything set up, but this year, we outsourced everything, so I had nothing to do but roll out the two red carpets and lay out the cutie little movie themed bracelets that we’d picked up for the kids.

The school lunch company made all the food, and they did popcorn, giant pretzels, nachos and cheese, and slushies to keep with the “Lights, Camera, Action” movie premiere theme.  They had an old-fashioned popcorn cart and cutie little popcorn bags and it was perfect (although verrrryyyy messy – haha).  And y’all, my silly self didn’t take a single picture of the food or decor… I’m so sad I forgot because it was perfect!

This year, for the first time, instead of making a balloon arch and setting up our own backdrop, we hired a photo booth company, so they came at 5:45 to set that up.  It was soooo nice not having to do the balloon arch this year!  Those things are exhausting.  Haha.

Bianca, my favorite co-chair, arrived around 6, and she and I immediately went over to test out the photo booth!  It was awesome!  They provided the backdrop, and each session took three photos.  All three photos printed out together on a single 4x6 photo print that had the event name and the school logo, so it made for the perfect memento from the dance.  And the photo booth also allowed you to punch in your phone number so you could receive a digital copy + a GIF of all three of your pictures.  It was truly the cutest thing, and it added an extra layer of fun to the night. 

And yes, yes, Bianca and I had way too much fun with it… we did three sessions, you know, to test it out, and yes, I’m going to post all the pictures here.  Haha.

The photo booth was the most expensive part of the whole night, but it was worth every single penny.  I highly recommend hiring a company to do that if you’re planning any kind of event.  And if you’re local, and you want the contact information for the company we used let me know!  They were fantastic, easy to work with, and they customize every backdrop and photo printout to match your theme, décor, and colors!  We highly recommend them.  And the parents were grateful for it, too.

The Daddy Daughter Dance and the Mother Son Dance are for Pre-K3 – 5th grade kids only, so this was the first year that our last little baby had aged out.  So bittersweet.  Instead, Brian took both kids to Chipotle for dinner and then went back home to watch Jurassic Park while I volunteered at the dance.

Since the dance is for the little kids, we always have to block off the stage because they are known to try to get up there to make song requests, or dance, or try to jump off the stage (LOL), so I always sit at the front of the stage to deter them from getting up there.  I always take the song requests from the kids and text them to Shaun, so this year, I was glad I’d thought to make a song requests sign because that kept every single kid off the stage.  Not one kid tried to get up there this year because they all saw my sign and knew to come to me to make requests.  I do not have high hopes for the boys at the Mother Son Dance in March, though, because they’re even wilder than the girls.  Lol.

Since this was the Daddy Daughter Dance, the song requests were flowing all night long and we heard a lot of Taylor Swift, which y’all know I didn’t mind at all.  <3  The DJ even played the song for my word of the year – Opalite.  ;o)

About ten minutes before the dance was over, I put away my song requests sign and went to stand by Shaun so the girls would stop requesting songs.  We had a backlog that he wouldn’t even be able to get to (seriously, those girls requested songs all night long) so it was time to step away.

When 8 PM rolled around, we still had a line for the photo booth (it was SO popular), so Shaun ended up playing for ten extra minutes while Bianca ushered the remaining people through the photo booth.  At 8:10, we flicked on the lights, and we began the cleanup process while everyone left.

We rarely have much to clean up – usually it’s just a few stray cups and crumbs here and there – but that popcorn had been a HIT and it was all over every single surface of the whole auditorium.  We all grabbed brooms and swept everything up, and we got all the food and dishes put away. 

We managed to get out of there just a little bit before 9 PM and then I headed home where Brian and the kids were finishing up Jurassic Park.  I got in my pjs, washed my face, grabbed a snack, and then joined them on the couch.  Then after the movie was over the kids went to bed. 

It was pretty late by the time the kids got in bed, but Brian and I made Manhattans to celebrate since it was his actual birthday (and we wanted to test out that new bar mat), and we watched the newest episode of Shrinking followed by some more of SNL. 

Saturday, February 21

Saturday morning, I was lazy.  We woke up to torrential rain, and I just didn’t feel like doing much.  I made waffles for breakfast, and then I honestly couldn’t tell you what exactly I did for the rest of the morning.  Haha.  I hung out in my office for a bit, and I did have to text a couple of people with info from the dance to wrap everything up, but other than that, I spent a little time on my computer and some time reading. 

B and the kids and I all ate lunch together and then there was a break in the rain, so I was able to go out for a walk.  It was 70 degrees and the humidity from the rain was hanging in the air, so I was hot and sweaty by the time I got home.  It felt great, though.

Later in the afternoon, I got showered and ready for the day, and then we headed to a restaurant to meet my father-in-law, my sisters-in-law, and one of our nephews to celebrate Brian’s and Olivia’s birthdays with them.  On the way there, we swung by our church so we could get something to my Momma as she was walking into Mass. 

After dinner, we headed back to my father-in-law's house, we had cookie cake, and Brian and Olivia opened their gifts.

We got home around 8:30 and the kids wanted to start Jurassic Park 2 (much to my dismay – LOL), so I read my book on the couch while they watched.  We didn’t get through the whole movie, though, because we had started it so late. 

When the kids went to bed, Brian and I made Manhattans (yes, again), and then we watched some more of our backlog of Saturday Night Live before going to bed.

 

Sunday, February 22

Sunday was a typical Sunday – sleeping in, cinnamon rolls for breakfast, online sermon, and Sunday prep (planner for the week ahead, transferring photos from my phone to my computer, etc.).

My phone and computer decided they didn’t want to play nicely together, so the pictures were a struggle that wasted a bunch of my time, so late in the morning, I decided to pivot, and Olivia and I did her birthday interview since her birthday is tomorrow.

We went to my mother-in-law’s and step-father-in-law's house for lunch to celebrate Brian and Olivia, and then Brian headed to a tennis match while the kids and I swung by Dairy Queen to pick up an Oreo Blizzard cake for her birthday celebration with my parents later in the evening – so. many. birthday. celebrations. 

When we got home, the kids and I hit the ground running.  They had to shower and prep everything for the week ahead, and I had a lot of work to catch up on since I was completely unproductive Saturday and then had issues Sunday morning with my technology. 

I managed to wash two loads of laundry, I got all my photos organized, I finished my blog post for Monday, I worked on this blog post, I made my to do list for Monday (which was loooong), I did my quiet time, I got the towels folded and put away, and I got the clean dishes put away that were drying.

Brian got home from his match and got showered and then we left to go to my parents’ house to celebrate Olivia’s birthday. 

We had spaghetti and salad and bread (her dinner selection!) and then the DQ Blizzard cake for dessert. 

When we got home, I watered the plants, finished sorting dirty laundry into piles, got the kids into bed, and Brian and I ended the weekend with some more SNL and a shoulder and neck rub for me because my issues have gotten out of control yet again thanks to this new retainer.  Sigh.

Happy Tuesday, y’all!