Makenzie's 11th birthday

Makenzie's 11th birthday is this Thursday :-) For her gift, I redecorated her room. She and I both dislike white walls, so we made her room MUCH more colorful:
Makenzie picked out all the colors, and liked the curtains, curtain rod, tie backs, light switch and electrical socket covers, and border that I picked out.


We took down her closet doors and hung glittery curtains instead:
The glittery curtain on her window had to be cut to fit the window, so we used the extra piece to make a glittery "M" to decorate one wall:
After church Sunday, the Hofacker/Nelson clan came over for a birthday party spaghetti lunch. Makenzie chose cherry cheesecake for her birthday "cake."
Makenzie has turned "teenager-ish" much earlier than Joel did. Actually, he's not really very "teenager-ish" at all, and he IS a teenager. I guess girls are MUCH different. Makenzie mostly enjoys being with her friends, watching tv, listening to music, and playing games on her ipod. She's doing very well in school (now that she understands that we will take her ipod away because of falling grades like we did a couple months ago), loves to read (actually, she likes to collect books more than she likes to read, it seems, although she does eventually read them -- very similar to her mother), and often helps with chores and babysitting Seth. If I would let her, Makenzie would be involved in cheerleading. But I won't let her do that, so she wants to play volleyball and run in the track meets with the rest of the family (except me) during the summer. She tried playing basketball, but didn't really like it.

Seth is still playing soccer on Saturdays. I use that term "playing" VERY loosely!! This was what he did most of last Saturday:
His "buddy" is SO patient with him and actually got him to run and kick the ball a few times.
This is how we find Seth sometimes after he falls asleep -- cuddled up to Scooby Doo :-)
This is a very busy week for Hallmark, of course. I worked three of my stores yesterday and the other two today to make sure they were cleaned up after the mass Valentine's shopping. Then Thursday and Friday, I have to take all the Valentine's cards down and put up Easter cards. Those will be two rushed days since Thursday is Makenzie's birthday and I can't work early or late or I'd miss being with her. I just have to be super speedy in the hours that she's in school ;-)