Super Saturday.

Flower was spoiled with fun parties on Saturday. She attended her first primary activity in morning. I took the girls while KG slept for the day. It was a Pancakes and Pajamas theme. They wore their jammies and took their blankets and pillows.
She wore her new butterfly jammies and took the blanket we sent her when she was still in China.
When they arrived they had a big pillow fight. Then they ate pancakes while snuggled on blankets watching Ratatouille. Not wanting to go all the way home I hung in the hallway and gabbed with Amanda, Julie and Kris.

We left there and made a stop at Blockbuster for some free rentals. Then we went to Old Navy to exchange some shirts for a smaller size. Finally we went to Walmart to purchase a birthday gift for Flower's preschool friend. She was invited to her first birthday party! (other then kids of our friends) That also meant I was essentially dropping her off at an unknown home. She's growing up. When I got the phone call from Benjamin's mom I actually got choked up. Lame. :) I am just loving every tiny little mile stone that she hits and being invited by school friends to their birthdays is a big one. She was so excited and help pick out a dinosaur gift for him. I dropped her off at 1:00 pm. She ran in and didn't look back.

Not wanting to go all the way home, I too River to Souper, Salad for lunch. I really liked it. It was kind of awkward not having someone to talk to though. :) I then sat in the car and read emails and blogs and dozed until 2:30. When I picked her up she was so excited to give me play by play of the party. She had fun!

We went home and layed down for naps with the intention of going to Sydney's baptism at 5. I ended up falling asleep around 4:00 thinking I'd wake up at 4:30 and get everyone up and out the door. Didn't happen. KG woke up at 6:45 and came looking for us only to find us all still asleep! KG couldn't believe he slept that long and I couldn't believe that me and the girls napped that long. Apparently we all needed sleep! I felt terrible for missing the baptism. :(

The true highlight of the weekend happened that night!
At 9:00 pm we went Oriental Express. They have been doing their Chinese New Year celebration dinner for the last few days. It's $22 a plate and includes several courses. That's a little steep for us especially knowing we wouldn't like everything on the menu. I was thrilled when we were invited to go at closing and eat all the leftovers for free!! I looked forward to it all day and it ended up being way more then expected!
Check out this table.
I figured we'd go and they'd set everything out and we could just pick at it and taste what we wanted. No. They had a big table set up, each having our own plate and all the left over food was served as though we'd ordered it. We ate as much as if we'd gone to the dinner. Jimmi and Chow and their kids sat and ate too. I also thought there was going to be more people there but it was just the Sturgill's, us, another family that is close with Chow, and Nadine who is like Chow's mother. I just felt so lucky to be included. The food was amazing but the company couldn't be beat. It was so fun to sit around that big table and talk and get to know some new people and just enjoy the whole thing. Knowing it was so late made it that much more fun.

I have been given lots of reasons this week to reflect on our friendships. My heart is so full right now with love. We have some truly close friends that we love dearly and who are an extension of who we are. They are like family. We are continually grateful for all they do for us. But I was also reminded this week that we have lots of friends and acquaintances that we may not do things with outside of church or certain situations(like the restaurant) but they support us at every turn and it's nice to know that there's so many people that rally around us and are happy for us. It really lets me know that we would have unlimited support in an unhappy time as well if we ever needed it. It feels really good to have such an amazing support group around us. I'm not really sure why it's affecting me so much this week or why it's touched me so much but I can say that I'm happy and my heart is full and that's all that matters.