Friday morning, around 9.20am Emily called, she was en route to come visit with us and keep Aves out of our hair so Amber and I could sort some party stuff out.

Putting labels on water bottles, bubbles bottles, party bags and a whole ream of baking…

Averie’s birthday cake (and 2 trial ones!)

chocolate cupcakes, strawberry cupcakes, vanilla cupcakes,

chocolate frosting and vanilla frosting,

all followed by a dinner, an impromptu viewing of Easy A (which is a cute film by the way!) before bedtime!

Saturday was pre-party day, we got up early, packed up all the birthday stuff and headed up in to C.R to drop the gear off at the venue. The entire trip there and back I managed to knit – I’d brought a WIP (‘work in progress’ for those heathens among you!) and was determined to finish it before I got home (which, I did in fact do!).

At the venue, we sorted out tables, chairs, set up the party table (wait til you see this table!), did table cloths, centre pieces, confetti and a few other little bits’n’bobs. We weren’t the only people there, there was a high school kid painting her mural on the wall and her friend who provided us with music from his ipod – it was freaky, it was like listening to my own ipod – which, kinda brought me comfort that I’m not out of touch with the ‘cool’ just yet!

We finished up at 3pm and headed to Texas Roadhouse for lunch – it was delicious! I, as usual (I hate being predictable, but when it’s good, it’s bloody good, right?!) had the pork chop (YUM!) before we lumbered (yes, after a Texas Roadhouse, everyone lumbers!) back to Van Horne where we made Rice Krispie Mickey Mice (half dipped in chocolate), and I knitted while Amber made Averie’s cake!

On the morning of the party, I woke up at 4.30am with stomach pain and couldn’t go back to sleep for AGES! However, when I eventually did, it was time to get out of bed – go figure! We got up and ready, miss Averie had a fall resulting in her sucking on ice (apparently that’s what you do with ice, you don’t put it on your sore spot!)

Then, we ran some errands (Target – where Amz got me a hot chocolate (YUM!) and the Florist to pick up flowers for the centrepieces) before heading to the venue to finish up some last minute decorating.

The party was a resounding success (as always), between 50 and 60 people showed up and aside from the fact the tornado sirens went off and everyone had to leave early (meaning no one took food home with them like they were supposed to!), much fun was had by all. I got to see some people I’d not seen in a while (like my lovely friend Sarah W, who, seven months ago gave birth to her first and adorable little girl Mackenzie) and hang out with some friends.

It was great fun – especially given that most of Amber and Aarons family and friends not only remembered me from last year, but were also keen to hear about where Colin was and how he was keeping!

The only downfall was, I didn’t get pics taken with anyone other than Kenzie and the birthday girl! None with Amber, Heather, Sarah, Emily, the Stacks…*headdesk*

Back at home, I unpacked all of Averie’s toys from their packaging…

(seriously, Emily was right when she said Amber should have hidden some away for Christmas, man the kid got spoilt rotten!) before Amber and I went out to dinner at a local bar (the name of which escapes me) where we shared a sandwich and some wings (that were so medium and not mild like they pretended to be!).

It was like old times really, again, something Emily and I chatted about, as much as we love Averie to death like she’s our own freakin’ family, sometimes it’s just nice to get our friend for a whlie. Dinner was like that (and so was the following day, when Amber and I burned holes in our credit cards but that’s another story, for another blog post! LOL!).