Sickness, a Birthday, and Insects

Baby Girl #2 turned 10 on Tuesday.  It wasn't the original plan, but she actually got to celebrate all week long.

On Tuesday Daddy made her some eggs for a quick breakfast and then I surprised the three oldest with a painting class.  It wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be, but they all had a good time anyway. 

 The best part of course was getting to take the day off of school.  No school for anyone on birthdays around here!  Well, that was the best part for the rest of us.  The best part for #2 was a toss-up between getting to finally wear dangling earrings and getting to read Harry Potter.  Once they turn 10 is when those two things happen for our girls.  She's almost done with the first book and she hasn't worn anything but danglies since Tuesday!

And for her birthday dinner she chose CiCi's Pizza.  Ugh!  But we let them choose wherever they want to go (within reason) so CiCi's it was.  Complete with Mac and Cheese pizza.  One of my favorite pizza's there, actually!

On Thursday we went on a field trip to the Insecterium in New Orleans.  Our only time to actually go to NOLA since we've moved here.  Also the only time I've had to go through airport-like security to see a bunch of bugs.  But we got to see friends and eat some more chocolate covered bugs, so it was worth it. 

Of course crawfish are going to be on display!  Especially the blue ones!

Eating chocolate covered wax worms.  We're used to them now.

Can't forget these two!  Notice the one person not in the pictures eating a bug...

We thought he was going to be the only one to have one land on him

But #2 got lucky too

And since we were in New Orleans with friends we decided that we would take the girls down to a famous cafe to get some famous beignets.  First of all, we walked several blocks to get there.  We were in the downtown area and had already paid for parking for the day so we didn't want to try to move the vehicles and have to pay again.  Walking in crowds trying to keep track of 9 children was a little stressful for me.  But we made it in one piece.  We even got caught by a few street performers.  The girls enjoyed it even if I was slightly irritated having to put money in a terrible "magician's" hat.  But the beignets were really good and the time with friends was welcome.

Iced Cafe au Lait--it was humid!

Lovely magician--just lovely

After getting home I took #1 and #2 to get manicures.  This was one of the things #2 wanted for her birthday.  I was originally going to just take #2, but she asked if #1 could come too and since #1 has her own money to pay for it I agreed.  We had a good time.

Tonight #2 is actually going to get to open the rest of her gifts.  I failed to take in to account Valentine's Day and President's Day when I ordered her gifts so they didn't actually get here until yesterday.  Definitely another Mommy Fail to add to my list.  It won't be the last either!

And tomorrow she'll get her birthday breakfast, chocolate chip pancakes and turkey bacon.  So even though it didn't quite work out the way she wanted, I think it was still a pretty good week for her.

As far as school goes, we actually only did school work on Wednesday.  I woke up in the middle of the night Sunday night sick to my stomach and stayed that way for the rest of the day so school was cancelled.  Tuesday was off for the birthday, Thursday was the field trip, and Friday was co-op.  So we did part of school on Wednesday, and it wasn't really good for anyone.  I was still not feeling great so was cranky and short with the girls.  They couldn't seem to get in the school gear and kept messing around.  We didn't really get anything important covered.  And so we'll chalk this week up to "life experience" (because that sounds better than saying the week was wasted, although it really wasn't) and we'll move on. 

I'm looking forward to not having anywhere to go tomorrow.  I'll probably sleep as late as I can get away with.  And we'll be back on track for next week!