tina's surprise party

last nite a group of people got together at genitti's in northville for tina's surprise birthday party.
let's just say tina was surprised and probably a bit pissed off as well. but i think she had a good time anyway!
everyone ate dinner and then headed into theater for a murder mystery which included actors that did not even pretend to act or care when they would forget a line.
i think they were a little thrown off by the tough crowd (come one, teens and i were there!) as they weren't getting many laughs. i don't understand how they EVER get laughs, but our crowd seemed to throw them off a bit. so maybe people do laugh.
finally we decided to just go with it and have fun. jessica asked questions that had nothing to do with solving the mystery such as "what's your sign" and "is she really a man?" (i think she was).
the one question on everyone's mind but nobody asked the librarian was "where do you get your hair cut" followed by a "here's my card." really, the only way to make it better was if they made tina get up on stage and then she'd start a fight.
it turns out that the urn wasn't really a priceless greek antique, dirk blue wasn't really a sailor, the librarian really needs a new haircut, and the murderer was not the twin of the victim but the triplet. who knew?!
after the riveting show, jessica and i headed to meijer to pick up some milk since i have to buy milk on an every other day basis these days and then justin met up with us. we all then took a trip across the street to target after justin went to starbucks.
jessica and i got there first and had some fun. we waited and waited for justin and when he FINALLY walked in, he was on the phone having a "serious" conversation and didn't even have the courtesy to fully enjoy our jr. high school antics. oh well...we had fun.
happy birthday, teens!!!! don't worry, you'll get your chocolate dessert tonite. and be careful of lead pipes with poison in them!!!

surprise time! i think tina's friend erin was more surprised than tina was:

tina and kelly who planned the party:
jessica is excited about the soup and bread!:
sheri and tina:
they sang happy birthday while bringing out canoli's but called her "kelly":

present time:
tina is taking up knife throwing:

tina loves tea:
tina's friend athena was called up on stage:
they say this is soupy sales, but i think it's bill bonds when he's drunk:
fun at target:

it's been awhile

we haven't been bowling in quite some time and hayden has really been wanting to go. so we decided to hang out with jessica, justin, bobby, mallory and bella and do just that.
even talan was able to get in on some of the fun.
at the end of the evening, hayden had bowled a 60 (the screen showed 54 because they screwed the score up) and hayden kept saying "i'm a loser!" when we'd tell him he wasn't a loser he'd say "yes i am! because i have the shortest score. so i'm a loser!" this went on the entire drive home until we finally explained to him that he would most likely beat every kindergartner in his school if they were all bowling without bumpers.
despite being a "loser" he had a fun time, and so did we!

hayden was so excited to be bowling again!:

something very interesting must have been happening:
bobby and bella:

bella's first time bowling:
talan's first time bowling:
it went directly into the gutter and only rolled just out of reach:
this try was much better:
and talan loved it:

a nice day for a drive

the other sunday we took headed over to dave's shop after church to allow the boys to finally take a drive in their hummer and to let hayden ride his bike around.
they both hopped right in the hummer....after a little screaming on talan's part since HE wanted to be the driver...and took off.
they rode around for a bit before hayden decided to ride his bike and then talan tried driving. he did fairly well considering he didn't understand he had to hold the pedal down to make it continue going and the fact that he can't really steer.
he had a good time until he realized what he really wanted was to ride hayden's bike. and the screaming began again. it quickly stopped once he found the half police car though. and then it started from hayden because he wanted a turn.
spring can't some soon enough!

finally they get to play with their christmas gift:




talan happy to be in the driver's seat:


dave thought tapping a role of painters tape to his foot would help him keep his foot on the pedal. for the record, i knew it was a bad idea:
this lasted long enough for me to take the picture and no longer:
hayden hunting talan down:
talan's turn:
talan found the half police car and was in heaven:

ch-ch-ch-changes....

back when we bought this house, way too long ago, i took it upon myself to paint every room in the place. not such a horrible thing when it's an empty house and you don't have kids.
by the time i painted our bedroom i had kind of run out of ideas and wasn't quite sure what to do with it. i ended up picking a color which was called elephant herd, we called it elephant turd, and i used plastic bags to make some sort of pattern. when it was all done i wasn't really sure i was sold on it. everyone else said they liked it, but i just wasn't sure.
so finally, almost 9 years later, i decided to redo it. i found a duvet cover i liked and a bunch of accent things and really loved the end result i saw in my head.
on thursday i decided to start painting once i put talan down for his nap. i figured it would take me all weekend seeing as though i could only do it when talan was in bed and the fact that i would probably only be able to paint one wall at a time while i moved all the furniture from one side of the tiny room to the other.
i ended up shocking myself when i had completed 3 of the 4 walls by the time i had to get talan out of bed. and as soon as dave came home, i had him help me move the furniture so i could finish the last wall. on friday, the walls were dry and i was able to move the furniture back in and when dave got home that evening he hung up some pictures. then on saturday dave hung the new blinds and the room was done! i am VERY happy with the outcome. just what i had pictured. and that doesn't usually happen.
here's what i did:

the beginning:




the middle:

the end: