13 Today!

Kay turned 13 today! She is officially a teenager!!!

Kay celebrated her birthday with a few (7 of them!) close friends, they all arrived around noon and as Kay waited for her friends to show, I ran out in the rain (darn weather, it always seems to rain or be cloudy on Kay's b'day!) to pick up the Flying Wedge pizzas for lunch and organic juice from Choices. Kay and I do not like to drink pop so I decided not to pick any up and have all her guests drink juice instead. When I arrived with the pizza and juice, all the kids had finally showed up and they all sat around the Wii system. One of her best friends, Ty brought over two of his Wii controllers and he tried to hook it up to the system but couldn't figure out how. As I prep'd the lunch, I realized that I did not have any paper cups and just enough paper plates. Darn!! I had to trek back out in the crappy weather to pick up paper cups, I decided to take a chance and see if Starbucks would let me buy 10. I did not want to go through the construction (again!) to the corner store. Starbuck staff are awesome! She gave me 10 cups and I decided to treat myself to my SECOND Americano as I figured I would need the caffeine to keep me up to their speed. Eventually, all of them had (finally!) eaten their pizzas and as I was cleaning up, Kay decided she wanted to head over to CitySquare so they could start on the pottery painting. I booked 2 1/2 hours at CrankPots for them and I know it's not cool to have your mom around while celebrating your birthday with your friends so I was going to meet Malu, Belen and Cassie in the food fair to catch up while the kids were upstairs painting away. As we headed out, the weather still hadn't changed (sprinkling away at us), we gathered our umbrellas and started walking down. It's not too far of a walk and it was refreshing since I was feeling a little suffocating in the apartment with 8 teenagers.

As Kay and her friends were upstairs, I went down to the food fair to have lunch at Crepe de France since I did not eat the pizza (cannot eat pizza unless I make it myself) and waited for Cassie, Malu and Belen. The crepe I had was fantastic! I couldn't finish the whole crepe even though it wasn't that large and the crepe was very light. The ladies were running a little behind which was fine by me since I would soon be home with super hyper teens. I enjoyed every minute of my "alone time" until Cassie arrived. The two of us caught up on each other's life until Malu and Belen arrived. Gosh, Belen has grown so much since the last time I saw her! It has been a year and she is now 2 years old, adorable and cute as a button! She is walking, being a very mischievous little girl and talking her head off, she can speak Spanish fluently. Wow, how much has changed! I love watching the little ones grow, every little step they take is so different and amazing. Of course, Cassie and I took a ton of photos of her at City Square. Photos of Belen on my Flickr account. After a couple of hours, I got a call from Kay saying the kids were finished and ready to head home. I went upstairs to settle the invoice and let the group know that I was planning to head back to the apartment with Belen and Malu. Kay and the rest of them were going to walk back while Malu drove us back. Cassie could not join us for the birthday cake because she had a dance class with a friend. We hugged each other good bye and promised each other that we would all try to get together again real soon (hopefully not a year later!).

Back at the apartment, I started to prep for cake cutting and clean the kitchen up a bit. Malu and I chit chatted a little more (and took a couple more photos of Belen) while waiting for the kids to come back. After the kids arrived and settled in, we started off by opening Kay's birthday presents. She received some really great gifts and Malu, who should not have brought a gift for her but did anyways, gave Kay a beautiful 2 piece outfit from the Gap. After opening the birthday gifts, we were waiting for two more people to show up for the birthday cake. Rhoda and Jess were on their way over but were arriving fashionably late. Unfortuntately, Belen was getting a little upset and tired so Malu decided to call it a day. I felt so bad but she insisted it was fine, I had a few mini cupcakes left from the day before so I gave her those to go since she was missing out on the birthday cake. As I was walking them back to the van, Rhoda and Jess arrived in their "big @ss SUV". I directed them over to 20th street and told them they could park their big @ss car on that street. After I said my good byes to Malu and Belen, giving Belen many hugs and kisses, I crossed the street to Rhoda and Jess. We can now finally start the birthday cake! As I started to place and light the candles on the cake, Kay opened Rhoda's and Jess's birthday gifts. When the cake was ready, we all sang Happy Birthday and she blew out all the candles in two breaths! I decided to give each guest (except Kay) a slice of cake about 1 inch because I remember what Jas had told me last week. The cupcake cake is pretty sweet and full of sugar. Boy she was not wrong and darn the cake was YUMMERS! Very very good and very very sweet! Worth every single penny! With lots of leftovers.... ugh, cake for a week!

As Kay's guests started to leave one by one, Rhoda, Jess and I were talking and catching up on each other's lives. Rhoda and I just found each other after many years of not being a part of each other's lives. It was great to catch up on each other's lives and talk to each other the way we once were before our break. It's nice that we have picked up where we left off. She is one of my dearest and oldest friends and we are happy to have her and her family back into our lives. (For more birthday photos, head over to my Flickr account)