Crazy Love Gamble-Style

I feel like Norah's birthday has been the most drawn out event EVER.   John had mentioned that we don't do as much for Norah as we tend to do for Ava, and honestly, there is some truth in that.  I know I can get away with less for her, she doesn't expect much and she is just happy feeling celebrated.   We really don't do that much for Ava either, outside of making her feel loved, special and a little spoiled.  But anyhow, that got me thinking that I better get a jump start on Norah's birthday so as we took our beach week off from school I was careful to include a few balloons and pointed out that everything that was fun that we did was "for her birthday".  Maybe too much, since by the time her actual birthday-day was here, I was feeling a little over it.  (I promise she did not notice though, I was careful not to let on)  We had her party on Saturday, just her best friend and her cousin, it was t...

Who knew?   I thought I might do a nice thing for Lauren who has been laid up on bed rest as she is having a difficult pregnancy and take her kiddos off her hands.  I figured I would invite them to join us on a fun trip to Pump it Up to see Santa.  We go every year and it's pretty awesome. Now I do believe that Lauren may have mentioned in passing that her kids were afraid of Santa, but she must not have gone into too much detail because I confidently walked towards the building thinking things were going to be great.   Until Asher got to the door and saw inside.  He totally lost it.  Apparently he could see Santa all the way from outside, and Santa had even brought a helper, Rudolf, his favorite reindeer.  Asher looked TERRIFIED.  He started screaming and shaking and sobbing.  This set off a chain reaction to his little sister, who quickly became equally paralyzed with fear.  I did my best to coax them into the establ...