21-17-23

The title of this entry is NOT the combination to our safe. 

Random digits? No.

Winning lottery numbers? Nope. 

These numbers represent the recently "updated" ages of the 3 Smithlings.

I could have gone with their birth years: 92, 94, and 98.

Or I could have used the actual dates in Septemnber: 9, 18, and 22. 

I opted to go in order of first September b-day to last, using the birthday celebrant's "new" age. Are you sufficiently confused?

21

Since Liesey Lou is away at school, we had to celebrate with her in a virtual kind of way. I shipped a "self-contained party" package to her door. It was filled with some of her favorite things. Keeping in the "spirit" of the occasion, we also included a few items that are appropriate for a freshly turned twenty-one-year-old. Cheers! (FYI, the box has "TWENTY-ONE!" and a whole bunch of colorful "Happy Birthday" messages written all over it. The folks at our Post Office loved it.)

Viniq is too pretty to actually drink...

The little sister bought the big sister a decorative shot glass to commemorate the day. Printed on the glass is the message, "September girls have all the class." 

We really surprised our girl by shipping a red Vitamix to her doorstep. The intent is that she can use it daily to make smoothies or soups. Or she might think it could be used to make some "adult-ish" frozen drink concoctions, now that she's 21 and all.

This Snapchat sent from my girlie says it all.

I'm sure that her neighbors love the noise this beauty makes!

17

 This girlie turned seventeen on the eighteenth!

I made sure the windows on her car had a little b-day chalk art on 'em, but nothing too crazy. Thankfully, it didn't rain, so my artwork lasted a few days.

Look! It's a bumper crop this year. 

The bagel tree had to move indoors this year. The pest control guy was in our yard treating for wasps and fire ants, so I wanted to make sure that no residual spray ruined this plump "fruit." Also, I figured that he'd think we were nuts if he saw bagels outside, on a metal tree. Naturally, it would be perfectly "normal" to see a bagel tree on the inside of the house. I am sure he thought nothing of it, if he did see this view through the windows.

At least the people on this side of the table were having fun. I'm not sure about the two guys on the other side. There's no picture to show their status. B-day dinner at F&G Eats in Keller was delicious.

The Birthday girl got and early start on Saturday, September 19. We agreed to help with the packing of 500,000 meals for Haiti. We got to church at 7:30 and found stacks and stacks of supplies. It is pretty amazing to be a part of this operation each year.

After we completed our shift of meal bagging, we headed home to get ready for a party.

I was instructed to get Millie out of the house for a while so her friends could decorate her room. 400+ balloons later, her room looked like this:

 Sam, Mak, Millie and LOTS o' balloons

Yes, she was surprised!

We added Braxton and Brandon to the mix and headed off to the Dallas Galleria for some ice skating.

Millie received lots of great gifts: her favorite new perfume, Gucci Bamboo; a Kendra Scott necklace; gift cards; hard, cold cash; "Naked" eye makeup; a Nerf gun (Yes, for real.); and this lovely James Avery Ring was from her bf.

After we returned home from ice skating, we had pizza, salad, and homemade checkerboard cake. Yay for Tillamook chocolate/peanut butter ice cream and chocolate cake. Oh! And buttercream frosting.

To finish off the evening, Guardians of the Galaxy played on a big inflatable movie screen in our backyard. Then three friends spent the night -- GIRL friends; no boys were allowed to stay for that part of the party! :-P

I think it is safe to say that our teenager had a perfect celebration.

As a post b-day treat for our girlie and a pre-birthday gift for our son, we attended a Rangers game on Sunday. We were about 25 rows up on the third base side, so we had a great view.

The seats may have been great, but it was very painful to watch the Rangers lose to the Seattle Mariners. Ugh! However, the sting of defeat was softened by having field passes to see (David) Crowder perform after the game. It was a great time of worship!

23

I made the birthday boy a cheesecake with Snickers and Reese's PB Cups as garnish. SnReese's or Reickers? Whatever it's called, it was delicious.

What did the 23-year-old receive as gifts? Ca$h, new lenses for his Oakley sunglasses, vinyl, and a PS3 game. He also was given a box of his favorite things like Pop Tarts, chewing gum, Cookie Butter, Bee's Knees peanut butter, "Chateau Smith" zin., and a couple of brews.

To cap off the month o' birthdaze, we went out to eat with our favorite Uncle Julio, because he makes the best fajitas. Too bad that we don't group selfie too well.

That's it, that's all. September celebrations are all wrapped up. 

Let the diet resume.

These Colors Clash

Out of the blue, Millie was invited to go to a "color clash" that one of the local church youth groups was hosting. I gave her the green light to go to this event, so she donned a plain white tee and met up with her colorful group of friends.

Although she was tickled pink to be there, she was soon seeing red, orange, purple, green, and every other color of the rainbow. 

 These are the casualties of "war," but at least everyone is color coordinated.

 Talk about a splash of color...

I think a little pretreating of spots will be necessary before the next load of "colors" goes for a spin.