Happy Birthday Amy!!!!!

Today my baby girl turns 8 and I can't believe the time has flown that quickly. There are times I look at her and still see my little 2yr old who was so dependent on me and so mischievous and now I see a 3rd Grader who is pretty independent and her own person.

Ok, enough drama!!! lol This week has been pretty dramatic in itself. Firstly we had Amy's birthday party on Sunday afternoon and invited 14 kids, both boys and girls from school and from her soccer team. This years theme was "Amy's Olympic Games." She's so into sports and with it being Olympic year I thought it would suit her down to the ground and she thought it was a great idea. I usually try and think of something original for the invitations and after watching the first couple of days of Olympic action I suddenly had my idea - to make security passes as the invitations. Here is what we came up with.

I made the cards, laminated them and then bought some lanyards from Office Depot and attached them for the finishing touch. Each person was required to wear theirs to gain access into the Olympic Village on the big day. We started off with Track and Field at Birds Nest Stadium. I was so busy I forgot to take pictures of the first couple of events but I managed to remember by the time the Long Jump cake around. Look at these kids go!

Next came the hammer throw - and no we didn't use the real thing. Instead we used Spud's Kong toy that we have tied to a piece of rope so you can give it a good swing and then release it. The kids loved this event and Joe was winning until Christa knocked him off the top spot.

Once track and field was finished the kids were ready to hit The Water Cube! It was very hot and humid and they were really ready to cool off in the water. They chose not to do any races and just have fun playing instead which was fine with me - I was tired too!!!!!

Does my have 6 pack Abs???

And the overall winner was..........Amy and not just because it was her birthday either. My competitive little over achiever just put everything into her running etc and she is fast! I had ordered proper medals from a trophy store online and they were pretty nice. We awarded one gold to the winner, a silver to the runner up, Christa and then everyone else got bronze.

Oh, I almost forgot about the most important part - the cake!!! We went with the Olympic torch and podium theme and I made the torch flames from boiled sugar which the kids were dying to eat. It was a lot of cake but thankfully the neighbors are always willing to accept donations of leftovers.

So, we relaxed the rest of the night away, Shaun and I stayed at the pool for a while and Amy and Joe went inside and started rummaging through Amy's gifts.

On Monday morning Amy came into our room around 6am and said she wasn't feeling so well. I went and lay down with her and immediately noticed that she was burning up and her temp was over 101F. I got her some Tylenol and a drink of water and got her settled back down. She didn't get back to sleep and came in to our bed a little while later than had to run to the bathroom to throw up. Thankfully it was just the water she'd drank but by now she was feeling really grotty. The fever spiked and dropped all day long which was sad because we had agreed to do her "pretend" birthday on this day because Shaun was leaving on a business trip to CA on Tuesday. She got up and opened her presents and was genuinely happy and excited but as soon as the Tylenol started to wear off again she wasn't so good. This went on all day long and her fever eventually got up to 103.7 which was worrying. She wasn't even able to keep ice chips down but by the afternoon we had started allowing her just one ice chip every 5 minutes and it stayed down doing it that way. She didn't throw up anymore but the fever still came and went. The next morning she still had the fever so I kept her home from school. Both her and Joe were really upset when Daddy left and it didn't help Joe that he had to go to school while Amy got to stay at home with me all day :( He survived though :) I ended up taking Amy to the Drs just to get checked out as she winced when I was taking her temp in her ear. Sure enough she had a small ear infection and because of that mixed with the fever we got a Rx for an antibiotic which was has made a huge difference. She still had a low grade fever at bedtime last night but woke up feeling good and healthy this morning for her "real" birthday. She went to school very happy.

I worked at the school this morning in Joe's classroom helping out with one of the reading and writing centers which is always fun. After I finished in Joe's class around 11.30am I then went to Amy's class to help out there. I didn't have much to do and I was finished just in time to go to lunch with the class. It was fun to sit with them and hear their chit-chat and the chicken nuggets and mashed potatoes were pretty good!!! Amy shared the decorated cookies I'd made (and forgot to take a picture of but they were gold medals with each child's name on).

Since we had already done birthday etc on Sunday and to make up for Dad not being here I told the kids I'd take them to Maggie Moos for dessert once we'd eaten dinner. We took a candle and lighter and sang happy birthday - hey it's like another Olympic torch!!!! It was a fun day all in all and Amy said it was a great birthday.