Wednesday, January 19, 2011

pause from wedding festivities - to celebrate a birthday

My sister, Becky (you've seen her in other posts!!) and my nephew, Matt arrived on Thursday evening before the wedding festivities were to begin. They must really love us because they had driven to Birmingham at Christmas (12 hours each way) and then they drove back just a mere two weeks later for the wedding. Thursday was a special day because it was Matt's 24th birthday. Becky had mentioned to me earlier in the week that Matt had never - not once - not ever - celebrated his birthday with family other than his parents. Well, those of you that know me know that sentence put my butt in gear. Birthdays are a big stinkin' deal at our house. Thank goodness, I had already scheduled a day of vacation for Thursday so that I could get ready for the rehearsal dinner (you know - running all over town buying flowers for centerpieces and candy for the candy bar and of course, I HAD to have a pedicure and I even got a manicure). A wonderful friend, Donna, had already planned to bring dinner to us that night. Why have I never thought to do that for someone? What an incredible gift!! So, I looked on the Publix website and found a dinosaur cake (yes, he is 24 but he has always loved dinosaurs and we had missed 23 birthdays). I picked up the cake and here he is. Isn't it so cute? As I loaded cake and party plates and napkins and yes, they even had plastic dinosaurs at the grocery store . . .as I loaded all of this onto the conveyor belt thing at the cashier . . .she said, "Oh you are having a birthday party. Who is having a birthday?" I said, "My nephew is coming from Texas and it is his birthday." She said, "Oh . . ..(here it comes . . ..) how old is he?" I looked up and made eye contact with her and said, "Today is his 24th birthday." You should have seen her face. I'm chuckling as I type this!! So . . .this cute dinosaur cake was in the middle of the table when Becky and Matt arrived.

Every birthday celebration has to have balloons. Don't you agree? I LOVE balloons. They are happy. They make me happy.


For some reason, it is an Elliott tradition that as soon as you are "old" enough, you can light your own candles. My kids have been lighting their candles for far too many years . .probably before it was safe. Anyway, Matt is not an Elliott but he was at the Elliott house so he could light his own candles!!

Can you see the plastic dinosaurs all around the table? They provided great stress relief all weekend. We all played with them.


We are singing Happy birthday to Matt . . .he has a funny look on his face. Could it be that we were off key? VERY good possibility. But he looks pleased!!!

Yes, he's 24. Yes, he is blowing out candles on a green dinosaur cake. Yes, there are plastic dinosaurs and colorful balloons. Yes, I hope this is a good memory for him!! Happy birthday to you, Matt. You are a great nephew and I'm so glad that we could celebrate with you!

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