The Big Q turned five years old this past week. Well that's not really true. He turned 5 on January 26th but we just celebrated this past weekend. Strange, it's not like us to ever be late.

I can hear you snickering.

Anyway. His original plan was to have a snow party. He wanted to build snow forts, have a snowball fight, paint the snow with waterguns filled with water and food coloring, have snowball cookies, etc...It was quite a good plan for a five year old. EXCEPT there was no snow on the ground and no real chance of accumulation. So he decided to choose the complete opposite of a snow party, a POOL party. My parents got a room in a local hotel with an indoor pool. Check-in was at 3 and by 3:30 the pool was crawling with 12 kids with cabin fever and their parents. I'm sure the Hampton Inn was loving us. It was funny to watch as other hotel patrons showed up at the glass doors only to gawk at the chaos inside and then take their flip-flops back to their rooms.

There was a no food or drink rule in the pool area so we decided to swim from 3:30 to 5:30 and then all meet up at a local mexican restaurant where we reserved a room to do dinner, cake, and presents. After the kids wore themselves out running from the pool to the hot tub to the sauna for a little over two hours, they were all slightly exhausted and quite hungry. After retrieving a pair of children's underwear from the bottom of the deep end, we got the kids dried off and dressed. Perfect time for dinner. Except for the fact that the restaurant had no recollection of our room reservation and we ended up in a back room that had no heat and smelled slightly of an old septic tank. We could take it or we could pack up 12 hungry, wet kids and try to find another place to hold all 25+ of us at 6 p.m. on a Saturday night. We decided to take our chances in the septic room. As long as we kept the door closed, we didn't actually shiver too much.

10 minutes after getting the room situated the ONE waiter that we had came and took our drink orders. Things were taking a little while but, hey - our little group is used to things not being perfect. We adjusted. We decided to open presents while we waited for our food. So we opened presents. That took all of about 15 minutes. Then they came and took our food orders. It was getting interesting. The whine factor had increased incredibly. 2 of the kids had actually fallen asleep at the table. I was ill prepared for activites to fill the time. I figured we would eat, sing, open presents and be out. At one point while waiting for the food to come, I heard a rousing game of "spin the bottle truth or dare" going on behind me. I heard, "Is it true that you used to eat boogers?" and "I dare you to lick the light switch on the wall." and at one point my attention was drawn to a young boy standing on a chair and dancing. It was turning into a 5 year old Animal House. Q came up to me in tears saying his tummy hurt and he thought he was going to throw up. Alfred took him to the bathroom for a while with no results. While they were gone the food arrived (one hour and 15 minutes after arrival time). Everyone ate and as people were finishing we cut the cake and sang happy birthday to Q as he struggled to sit up straight lest he hurl on the table. But he smiled and was excited to blow out the candle with his germy breath. :) And while we avoided Quinton throwing up, Serena was not quite so fortunate. From my table I heard her yelling "I NEED MORE PAPER CUPS!" When I looked over, her 10 year old was tossing his cake. Alfred scrambled to find him a garbage can. For real, throwing up in a garbage can has a much higher level of dignity than paper cups, wouldn't you say? Poor kid.

Oh well. It was the perfect end to a not so perfect party. BUT had it been perfect, we wouldn't have quite as many funny stories to recall next year, right!?

That night before bed, Q said he had the best day ever. That made it all worth it. He (we) are so blessed to have a group of people surrounding us who don't care if we seem to have it all together or if our party decorations match the tablecloth. We have a family that enjoys being real around eachother. We can relax and just have a good time without worrying about appearances. Everyone brought him gifts (which were very much appreciated) but as he grows up, I hope that he can see WHO the real gifts are in his life.

One of my goals is to drink more water. There are a few problems with this goal. First, I don't really like it. Second, my bathroom usage increases so dramatically that I get frustrated (up in the middle of the night two or three times type of increase). Lastly, I could drink 32 oz of Diet Coke and be fine but whenever I drink even a glass of water, I can feel it sloshing around in my stomach (weird, I know).

Any suggestions?

Ten things that I used to think were cool that now annoy me (in no particular order):

10. Personalized license plates (sorry Serena).

9. The combining of two names to make one name for a couple (i.e...Bennifer for Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner). Although I still refer to my husand and Cal as Calfred on occasion.

8. American Idol audition shows.

7. Glitter Graphics

6. Loud bass coming from a car with rims twice as big as they should be.

5. Uggs. Come to think of it...I never liked them.

4. Glenn Beck

3. People who swear by the Atkins Diet.

2. When people spell their kid's names weird just to be different...Like Madysyn instead of Madison.

1. Bluetooth headseats.

The Perfect Friend
by Shannen Wrass

Today I found a friend
who knew everything I felt
she knew my weakness
and the problems I've been dealt.
She understood my wonders
and listened to my dreams,
she listened to how I felt about life and love
and knew what it all means.
Not once did she interrupt me
or tell me I was wrong
she understood what I was going through
and promised she'd stay long.
I reached out to this friend,
to show her that I care
to pull her close and let her know
how much I need her there.
I went to hold her hand
to pull her a bit nearer
and I realized this perfect friend I found
was nothing but a mirror.