"my sista's birthday extravaganza!"

Happy Birthday Donna!
My sister and I are very similar alot of the time. If we wait around for someone to "make us feel special" on our birthdays..................we will still be waiting and probably be disappointed! So we decided to do a "girls night" for hers this year! With no kids or husbands! It fell on the week of spring break so we just tagged it onto the last weekend. We decided to go up to Portland and stay the night at the Marriott on the Willamette River with a view!
So we booked it! Her family was gone anyways and I was still on vacation.........
So off we go! She was definately the Princess!

So to make her feel "special"..........I went all out. Made us goodies bags. Bought wine. Got pink princess decorations for the hotel room! A tiara and a magic wand. Birthday banner.Even decorated the water bottles. Everything I would want to feel "special" if it was my birthday! Got her a "D" initial wine glass and fun gifts.

I packed it all up with us!

And I special ordered her a cake. Lemon...........yum!

I bought cute plates etc....................but the cake didn't ever make it to a plate. We just ate it with forks............hahahahahahaa..............

So we worked our way up north. We were both excited to get away and just chill. Relax. Have some time to ourselves that we didn't have to do anything! We stopped in Salem and ate at this yummy restaurant in downtown. After we spotted a cute little boutique and bought jewelry and Donna treated herself to a new pair of jeans (silvers)!

Had to stop at the Wilsonville goodwill. (after we found it!)

Finally we made it to Portland (a few stops later). We were ready for our jammies. Wine. Wifi. and magazines. Seriously.....................who goes to Portland to stay in a hotel............and STAYS IN? We do!

Our plan was to order room service and drink wine and just visit.

Oh........and eat cake. And surf on our laptops.........and read magazines. I hung the birthday banner up.............and realized on our way home.............I forgot to take it down!

When she booked the room she said it was cheaper to book the "romance package". ha! It included a bottle of champagne. Free parking and free breakfast! So funny and we joked about it all night. Is that why they looked at us kinda weird when we checked in? And I remembered to take the KNOME! He is still naked tho.............

We got OJ for our champagne for mimosas!

The Princess is in the building!

And everyone will be proud that the KNOME participated in the shinnaneghens!

The cake was really good.

We can so easily entertain each other! We stayed in all night and laughed and ate and were silly!

Our view off our "spacious" balcony.

This was my "date" for the night! Magazines. Laptop.Blankie. Snacks. Lots of pillows! Yes please!

I think Princess Donna enjoyed herself! Perfect birthday!

We debated about going down to the bar in the hotel............but decided jammies and lounging sounded better~!

We slept in. Ordered room service for breakfast and finally left the hotel around 12:00 noon. So to finish off our "experience" we talked about going to get VooDoo doughnuts down by Burnside. I've been there and know they are just glorified doughnuts. Donna wanted to check it out and we had already promised to bring our kids/families some home. Of coarse the line was long! But we decided to park and brave it. Of coarse it started POURING down rain. And was cold! We sacrificed an HOUR in line in the rain for doughnuts. Was kinda fun tho watching people and we were all waiting for the same thing. And Donna was nice and gave her umbrella to a homeless kid that was using cardboard to stay dry.

It was a fun birthday extravaganza! And great sisterly bonding time! And the knome was happy to attend the party. See..................I'm not a totally bad knome-mommy!

We had invited some others but we had no takers.............................and they missed out! so we decided this should be a semi-annual event. Or birthdays? or just when we need to get away?????

"family fun day!"

Well we had a fun Saturday afternoon! We went to a Harlem Globetrotter game at the Rose Garden in Portland! Family fun day! LeRoy has a cold and wasn't feeling very good, but he was a good sport and went anyways. (I wanted to dilly dally in Portland after the game but we came straight home cause he is a sicky).We had great seats and the kids really enjoyed the show. And it's a show. LeRoy and I have both been as kids (probably about Tylers age). It's a lot more refined than back in the day. More "show-involve-the-crowd" than basektball. They played an entire game. But lots of shinnaneghans.

I got the tickets for a great price at the auction/fundraiser for my nephew Drake's trip to D.C.

I loved to look over at Tyler and see him so into the action and laughing. At one time they were dancing to hip hop music and breakdancing and I asked Tyler is he had those moves? He laughed and said "ummmmm.....no".........

Globetrotters win! (like they don't always win? ha!)

After the game the kids got to meet on of the players. Dizzy. He was awesome. They got his autograph and got pictures with him.

Nicole thought he was cute!

Fun day spent with the family. LeRoy and I enjoyed the show too. Wish we could do family days like this on a more regular basis! But I will take what I can get.

They got their tickets autographed.

"crafty-crafts......."

This year for the holidays I wanted to make fun, creative, thougtful gifts. Here are some of the ones I finished and the gifts were appreciated and were fun to make.
I made these cute "reindeer" for the guys (over 21 got beer!) and families with kids got root beer! Was so easy and cute and everyone loved them.

I found this idea online (Pinterest of course!) and loved it. You take a deck of regular playing cards. I found these fab ones at Micheals for $1 a deck!

You punch 2 holes and put 1" metal binder rings thru them. Basically you decide
WHO you want to cherish and tell them how much you love them and print "52" nice things and put them in a "book". So inexpensive (approx $4 each total), but time consuming and so thoughtful.

This is the one I made for hubby. He actually got a little teary-eyed when he opened it and read it. He was surprised because he saw me endlessly working on 2 for my sisters. Was hard to find the time to get his made when he wasn't around. I loved giving these. I would LOVE to receive a gift like this.................

So I made both of my sisters one too. I think they were surprised and loved them. Some of the things I put were funny, some serious, some thoughful, some inside jokes. Surprisingly it wasn't hard to come up with 52 things! You really have to like the person you are making this for or it may be difficult to find that many nice things to say! (and about 3 days before Christmas I was upset w my little sis and didn't have her book finished so it was hard to say nice things.................I had to get over it and finish her book! It all ended well.) I need to make one for my mommy! :)

I put this as the front page inside the cover on both of theirs.

These are a few pages from Donna's book..........

A few pages from KayDee's book................

And speaking of ideas from Pinterest................I decided I dress cute enough I should take pics of some of the cute outfits I wear daily like the fab ideas that are on that website. Pinterest ain't got nothin' on me! (and if I get in a rut and "don't have anything to wear" I can look back and see that I have plenty of cute clothes. I probably just need to get the laundry caught up!

These are just a few outfits I rememebered to take pics of after I took them off!

I'm currently obsessed with boots and scarves..........(and funny I just noticed that almost every single pair of jeans are Silver's. except this pair of blingy LA Idols.)

I need a walk in closet! I should be a personal shopper for people. Put together cute looks on a budget. I have those skills!