Birthday Fun, The Kids First Eclipse, and Shopping with Nan!

Dear Friends and Family,

Thanks again for your birthday wishes! I had an amazing birthday. Chris bought me roses and the Fitbit Charge 2! (I really love this Fitbit - not only is it a watch and pedometer, but it also lets me know when I get text messages and then displays the message, and it lets me know when my phone is ringing just by buzzing my wrist! It's the perfect gift for a mom who is often away from her phone!)

Chris also made me a delicious dinner and he and the kids made me an impressive lemon cake.  It was adorable. The night before my birthday, Claire told me to stay upstairs while they did something downstairs (frost the freshly baked cake).  The next morning she led me into the dining room to surprise me with my cake only to find that all the frosting had slid off and pooled around the sides! Poor Claire! Her face just fell in disappointment! She quickly recovered though and told me it was a volcano birthday cake.

How can you not look at this cake and smile?! It just tickles me and makes me feel so loved at the same time.

The following night my wonderful book club met and threw a little birthday party for me and my friend Loretta (who is also an August 16th baby)! JoAnn is extremely creative and she is also an AMAZING cake baker! She made us a hummingbird cake and then decorated it with the hummingbird motif! It was incredible!

The hummingbirds were even edible! What a delicious cake! Thanks, JoAnn!

 

On Monday we were all excited for the eclipse! Although we wouldn't get to see a complete eclipse, we saw most of the sun blocked with a peek from a friend's glasses and with our cereal box pinhole viewers. Chris even took a half day so we could watch it together.  Laura Billings invited us over to watch from her deck. When weren't checking out our viewers, we were enjoying the view!

Ready for the eclipse!

 

Claire and I pose with our pinhole viewers!

Yesterday, Nan took Claire shopping for her first grade backpack. Gone is my girl who loved the latest Disney Princess, and then the coolest toy craze. We are onto hashtags and emojis! Spending the day shopping and having lunch with Nan was a blast! She loves my kids so much and we love her too!

I included all three of these pictures because...Will's face!

I hope everyone is having an amazing week!

Love,

Bethie