Birthday Celebration

Last weekend I officially became closer to thirty years old than to twenty. It wasn't nearly as devastating as I had anticipated. In fact, I'm actually rather enjoying it. A quarter of a century seems kind of old, but a quarter of a century plus a year - not so much. Go figure.

Anyway, I am finally getting around to posting pictures from said celebration. In the interest of making things easy, I was going to just throw them all in a Facebook album and call it good, but I received specific requests from those in the pictures to leave Facebook out of it. No one objected to being seen in a blog post, though, so here we go...

Even though I'm not posting nearly as many as were taken, there are still quite a few, so prepare yourself for the overload. This is why I thought it easier to make a Facebook album.

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Some of my loot

My baby sister went to the store and picked this necklace out for me by herself. She also paid for it with her own money. She will be six years old in a couple of weeks. How adorable is that? I promised her that I would wear it to dinner and take a picture for her. ☺

Just before we left to go eat, my mother-in-law stopped by with flowers and a bracelet she had made for me. ♥ I wore that to dinner as well. Isn't it so pretty? I love it and love her.

**As always, just click on any of the photos posted to enlarge**

After dinner (which was delicious!), we made a pit stop for some snacks and some drinks to prepare for a night of Netflix and face-stuffing. My poor husband had been up all day long without any sleep after working a grave the night before, so he started to nod off before the festivities even got underway.

I'm probably going to catch hell for posting this picture, so let's keep it a secret. He started to fall asleep on my shoulder, but once the flash went off he rolled over to avoid being further disturbed. Poor guy.

Since my hubby (I can't believe I'm actually using that word, I have always hated it!) clearly needed to rest before our merriment could continue, I kissed him goodbye and decided to go see a movie with a couple of my brothers and my friend Heather. The following pictures ensued once we were on the road:

We belong on the short bus

Our ugliest fishy faces

"Okay Manda, grab all the loose skin on your neck and puff up your cheeks. Try to look fat."
I win. Creating a double chin is an art form. Haha!

meh

Unfortunately, the most hilarious pictures didn't get approved for posting. Too embarrassing and what not. This is just a taste, but it will have to do. We were all laughing until we cried and everyone was in a great mood. I have a giant folder full of photos from this night. We are ridiculous and I enjoy every minute of it. Haha!

J

H

Before I explain, let me say that Heather refused to participate in ↑ this ↑ activity, and the pics of me were really blurry and not nearly as entertaining as the ones I got of these two.

So, what you do is relax your face completely, and then shake your head violently from side to side while leaving everything slack. Then you have someone take a picture mid-shake and see what kinds of crazy awesome pictures come out of it. My friend Whitney had pictures like these posted on Facebook awhile back, and being the geek that I am, I've been dying to try it out with everyone I know.

We were all making weird faces, but I didn't even have to try since I'd just had my caffeine fix

Heather and I after the movie

My brother and I right before we dropped him off (around 2am)

He had to scrunch way down so he would fit in the picture, that's why his neck looks strange

I got home just before 2:30 in the morning and my husband was already up and waiting for me so we could continue to celebrate. I definitely had a happy birthday and I appreciate everyone who thought of me and took the time to send wishes my way. ♥