St. Patty's Day Zoo

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! I don't normally get all that excited about st. patrick's day, but today was a little different. We celebrated my birthday tonight since we wouldn't get a chance tomorrow, when my actual birthday is. First thing this morning our house became similar to a zoo...no joke. My sister dropped off her three kids at 8:30 this morning. I tried using my two niece's as a type of surprise for Maddy, but she guessed right away what her surprise was. She loves to play with them! We had one more surprise visitor and that's Maddy's cousin Aria. We had a total of five kids and it became very overwhelming at first. The ages were: 8 months, 22 months, 2.5 yrs, 7 yrs, and 10 yrs. We played inside, took naps, then we took the herd outside.

After a full day of playing we rushed out the door to get my birthday celebration started. My favorite place to eat is Olive Garden, so every year my mom and step dad take me out to eat for a yummy dinner. With this being Saint Patrick's Day we had to dress in green. I was very surprised more people did not wear green today...I guess I'm just a festive person. In a perfect world I would have gotten pictures of Maddy in her cute outfit and then some of me and her before we left, but that's just not how things turned out. I almost forgot to even put her in her cute outfit and we ended up changing in the truck. I didn't get her hair brushed or fixed at all, but surprisingly it wasn't a total wreck lol. Me and Maddy both ordered the same thing. She changes what she eats at Olive Garden and tonight she wanted chicken alfredo, which is what I had also. My mom made my cake, as she does every year, and I loved it. I am a huge fan of hearts and of coarse Maddy is my world so she has to incorporate both of those into my cakes, per my request lol. This year she spent time gathering pictures and sizing them and pasting them on a piece of paper and then took it to a local cake decorating shop and had them turn it into an edible image. It is filled with pictures of Maddy and I just absolutely love it. I almost missed a special part of my cake because I was too busy looking at all the pictures. She made Maddy's hand print from fondant and put it on the top of my cake and one cake said Happy birthday mommy and the other said happy birthday heather. I absoloutely loved it and of coarse it tasted soooo good. All my working out just went down the drain because it was so good but that's ok lol. I am turning 29 this year, so I am going to enjoy this last year in my 20's even though it has just been one more stressful year for me. Here are more pictures...I'm definitely a picture person hehe.

The last photo you can see Maddy's "mad" face. She really was mad here because it was past 9:00 p.m. and she is always in bed by 7:30 p.m. even on the weekend, plus she seriously played so hard today with all the kids in our house that she had no time to sit down. Soon after the last picture was taken I put her to bed. I let her finish watching the last part of her Bob Easter movie on my phone and then we cuddled/rocked for a while. When she got to her bed she was out in a flash, which is not like her at all. She normally will lay in her bed and just talk to herself for a while before falling asleep. Today was very chaotic and nothing went as planned, but all in all it was a good day. I have to say a special thank you to my mom because she made it all happen and everything turned out really good in the end :)