The Girl's Birthday recap :)

I'm starting this on her birthday, while The Girl and The Boy are upstairs, making a lot of noise and waiting for the party guests to arrive..hopefully I will remember to finish it before it is scheduled to post...ha, ha...
So this morning was one of those "who's sleeping in my bed?"  mornings.  Last night there were thunderstorms, so The Girl climbed into our bed before I got there (with at least one cat), Mr. Ranch ended up on his side of the bed, The Boy has been sleeping under a "tent" in his room for a week...you can't even walk through at the moment, and I ended up in The Girl's bed.  The plus (for me) was I could stay up as long as I wanted and read and no one (other than Alice The Cat) complained. The Girl, who hasn't wanted to be up before noon for months, was up before Mr. Ranch's alarm, asking if she could open her presents during breakfast.  Let me tell you, breakfast was exciting...I almost feel bad that I didn't cook The Girl something special...but I think we all had granola bars. (Whoo, hoo!  Party on!)

 Hat from mom and dad...maybe take the tag off...I love you can see what a disaster the house is when you look at the background

 Purple drum sticks and a purple infinity scarf...shopping for a 12 year old is challenging, but you can't go too wrong with purple stuff, right?

 So to review...on the left is Alice the Cat...and below is a stuffed Bad Kitty doll (from The Boy).  Twins? Hmm..

 After the breakfast mini-party, Mr. Ranch headed to work and The Boy and I dropped The Girl off at "Band Camp".  Today was the last rehearsal, sometime in the next few weeks they will have a "real gig"...

While The Girl rocked out, The Boy and I ran errands and started the pizza dough for tonight's "Make your own pizza" extravaganza....The Girl invited two friends over for the afternoon (pool-pizza-cake)

 After lunch, the guests started arriving and we headed out for the pool...

 It wasn't too crowded, the neighborhood schools have already started back, so it was mostly toddlers.  And a couple teenagers, who I wondered if they were skipping classes to come to the pool :)

 The Boy and I had some fun with the underwater camera

 While the girls hung out in the deep end

 and played on the waterslide.

 The Boy and I had a treat of nachos with yummy fake cheese

 About 3:30 the storm clouds started rolling in and eventually the lifeguards told us all to get out because of lightening.  It had cooled off enough that everyone was ready to go back to the house anyway.

 This is The Boy's face as he waited (and waited, and waited) for the girls to get ready to leave the pool..

 After opening gifts, the girls (and The Boy) made their own individual pizza (there were a few pieces of crust and one partial piece left when they were done eating...I think they were hungry!)

 Mr. Ranch and I made a couple extra--two of which ended up in the freezer for a school night dinner and one in the refrigerator for later this weekend.  We ate that big yummy round one, with mushrooms, black olives, pepporoni, ham, jalapeno, onion, and habanero cheese...yum!

 Since it has been too hot all week (until yesterday) to turn on the oven, The Girl got a ColdStone cake--note the minions froliking on top.  Red velvet cake, amaretto ice cream and chocolate sprinkles, again, yum!

The Girl is now lurking around the living room, attempting to stay up "later" while The Boy hangs out in his room with a stack of library books...A good birthday for everyone!