Pink Birthday Saturday

This weekend I am celebrating my 44th birthday. My family is taking me to Johnny Rockets on Saturday night and on Sunday, (my birthday) my best buds are taking me to Lucky Strike bowling & lounge on Hollywood and Highland. Think 1960's swanky, cool bar with bowling lanes.

The roses pictured above are from my Brownie Troop. On our meeting Tuesday, we had cupcakes, a giant chocolate one for me and they gave me these pretty roses. I just love my girls!

Also, since I am such a big fan, Disneyland has put together a special celebration just for me! Please view the following video...

Have a great Pink weekend and check out more fun, pink stuff at Beverly's.

New Year's Tag

WOW! Joy over at Joy to the Blog tagged me a gave me a New Year's Award.

She had a million other people to choose from and she picked me...I'm so honored.

The rules for the tag are as follows...

1. Be a lover of the New Year

2.List 5 things that you like about the New Year

3. Pass the award along

4. Let your recipient of the award know that you

tagged them by leaving a comment on their blog

5. Link back to the person who tagged and awarded you.

Well, I must say she picked the right person for the job :)

My 5 reasons that I love the New Year

1. Rose Parade on New Year's morning. I love to wake up early and see "behind the scenes" before the parade starts

2. I love getting a fresh start, a clean start on a project. It's like a do-over :)

3. My birthday is January 11th!

4. I de-clutter my house and donate, donate, donate!!!!

5. I love the seeing the "Year in Review" shows. I'm a "just tell me the facts, ma'am" kinda gal. They always neatly tie up the year. Sort of like my Christmas newletter. It shows you how much you have accomplished and what you need to work on.

And now for the "new" award winner....Karin at Creative Chaos. I just like giving her things to do in between her chemo appointments. Love ya, Chickie!

Eco-friendly Gift Idea

I found this awesome gift idea for children's birthday parties. It is an eco-friendly invitation and gift giving service that allows you to send emails as invitations (save a tree and energy it takes to send a paper invite) and guests make monetary donations online toward one big gift for your child and the other half of the donations go toward a child-based charity of your choice. (You don't waste energy or wrapping paper) There are many benefits that your child will experience from having an ECHOage birthday party. The greatest benefit is that your child will be able to make meaningful choices and have a positive impact on others, and on society, at the time of his/her birthday. This, in turn, will empower and reward your child. ECHOage is a practical, hands-on way for your child to make a difference in the world and become involved in environmentalism and social justice at a young age. Love, love, love this idea! I will be posting a link for this on my party website, http://www.partywishesscv.com/ and my son will be using this service for his birthday in June! Please check out the following info and the website.

An ECHOage birthday party is a unique opportunity for you and your child to do something extraordinary - to improve the world - together.
Here's how: Guests are invited to an ECHOage birthday party online. Instead of bringing a wrapped and packaged present, guests simply rsvp and give a secure online gift of money. Payments are pooled for the purchase of ONE special gift and to support ONE meaningful cause.
ECHOage will arrange everything, so no need to drive, shop, wrap or even pick up the phone to make a donation.
There's more: The parent of the birthday child gets an official tax receipt.

My Word for 2009

The word I have picked to be my inspiration word is...ORGANIZED.

I always dream of labeled boxes and wood floors with no crumbs or smears.

A place for everything and everything in it's place.

We are a household of ADHD people. My oldest son is very high functioning Autistic and my red-head is, well, we call im the "Energizer Bunny". He just keeps going and going!

I know my family will function better and be much happier if we were more organized.

I have already organized my master bathroom with cute baskets and threw out so many half empty lotions bottles I had lost count! My husband helped me with the garage but it has far to go. Instead of hording things to list on ebay (something I have said I would do for 3 years) I am just donating it and not looking back!

I can feel it that this year, I WILL get organized! I am willing to take baby steps and not get burned out. I would also love for my husband and I to create a Living Trust. I would also like to have an inventory of our home and a stocked home emergency kit in case of any disaters (aka earthquakes) Things you want to be prepared for but really don't like to think about.

Please check out Tip Junkie for others "words". I hope I have inspired you to come up with your own.

And the winner is....

I'm so sorry to have taken so long to post this today. It was the first day back to school for 2 of my kids and let's say, it was a rough day!
I had 3 phone calls from school from 2 different kids. Not enough money in their lunch accounts and headache (from not being used to wearing his glasses for 2 1/2 weeks) and stomachaches and general yuckiness from lack of sleep. Chasen had a marathon sleepover on Saturday night and had still not recovered from it yet. :)

So.....the winner of my 100th post Tea for One giveaway is.....
Deborah from Pictures, Pots, Pens.

Congrats Deborah! (same name as my sister, just a co-inky-dink)
Please send me your address so I can get this out to you!

Thank you to everyone who leave me such lovely comments.

I hope to do better in my next 100 posts :)

Pink Rose Float Saturday & My 100th Post!

Happy New Year! I am so excited to have my 100th post on the first Pink Saturday of the new year! On Friday, my friend Sandy and I went to view the Rose Parade floats. I haven't been this close to the floats since I was a little girl in the early 70's when my grandma lived in Pasadena. They are truly amazing up close! I took over 200 pictures but this is just a sampling... {WARNING: Montrous post-but worth it! There is a surprise at the end--SSSHHHHH!!!}

Here is Asimo-he opened the parade on Thursday.

(click on the images to see larger)

Here are the drive-in movie pups.

They are watching this green moster come to life!

(Those are brussel sprouts on top of his head!)

This is where the driver sits.

I think I'll have flowers like these at my

daughter's wedding...in 20 years :) The detail is just incredible on this little fox. Lots of people on a very foggy morning. We just order the spectacular weather for New Year's Day to make everyone else jealous! This is what California looks like everyday...honest. This zebra even has eyelashes!
Check out the seeds and berries on this dragonfly. I just LOVE fairies!
This is the Vera Bradley float. The purses didn't even look like they were made out of floral material. They looked like giant bags! Aren't these swans and orchids gorgeous? I wanted to take this arrangement home!
LOVE the White Rabbit!
Classic--Roadrunner and Coyote. My kids have started watching these old cartoons. They are just the best!
These beautiful sea life creatures were on the Surf City USA float.

The starfish detail is white beans.

Look at all of the blue Irises!!!

Fun Surfing Family

The Alaskan float

The detail on the dogs is incredible! That's Pompus grass to make the dogs look fluffy.

These puffins are so cute!

This is me in front of the Wizard of Oz float.

More Pompus grass

Godzilla was attacking the crowd.

But there was no running and screaming!

This float won the Sweepstakes Trophy. It was AMAZING!!!!

Check out those orchids!

To give you an idea of scale, those are oranges in the orange lining.

Remember the skateboarding dog?

He was there for a demo.

The next few pictures are for Dana at The Stone Rabbit

who is also celebrating her 100th post today!

This is a REAL cottontail rabbit!

For Dana's Granddaughter

Thank you so much for stopping by and celebrating my 100th post with me!

In honor of this momentous occasion, I am having a giveaway!

Since I love tea and I love parties,

I will supply a small tea party (for one) for the winner!

Please leave a comment before Sunday night at 10:00 pm PT and I will announce the winner on Monday. Don't forget to check out more great pink post by stopping by Beverly's.

Fight On!!!!

Fight On Trojans!

Kick Penn State's butt!