Birthday Weekend

By the time my daughters' 16th birthday finally rolled around, I was tired of celebrating. They stretched it out all weekend. We partied and partied to make up for the fact that their actual birthday was a Fast Sunday this year. We started with haircuts for both of them and a trip to the Plaza where we went with friends to their favorite retail emporium: a place that mostly sells underwear. Eliza was pleased to have me buy her presents there. When we got home, they tried on the "free" t-shirts they acquired as a bonus for spending way too much money there, as well as the matching undies they all bought so they could have an inappropriate pants-off dance off with Ellen in the privacy of the basement later that night. (Ellen came down from Omaha and was the only one who refused to take her pants off for the event, although her panties did match the rest of them.) We also hit Target some time in there, where Mariah had me buy her birthday present: a speaker system for her ipod. The highlight of that day was probably the beautiful Gerbera daisies sent by Mariah's not-so-secret admirer from California.

The next day, we decided, we would celebrate as if it were their actual birthday. We fed the sleepover buddies egg burritos for breakfast and kicked them out the door so I could extract some child labor from my offspring. Then Ellen and the girls went to the movie Abduction, which they said was stupid and not even about an abduction, but they loved it anyway. On the way home we picked up Chipotle for lunch and had it wrapped "to go" because we didn't want to be late for the next group of teenagers who were about to descend on our house. My daughters had agreed to do hair and makeup for their friends who were going to Homecoming that night. And of course, they needed to glam themselves up as well for their own party. We had about 15 polite Mormon teenagers come over for pizza, lap tag, visiting, candy and hide and seek that night. Most of the boys were younger guys from our new stake who have puppy-love crushes on Mariah and Eliza. As they were leaving, Eliza said she couldn't decide if the party was good or not because there were so many awkward moments. I think they still had a great time.

On the anniversary day of their actual birth, I was pleased that their restricted licenses had magically become regular valid drivers' licenses, because Alan had to work and I was at ward council, so they drove Ellen and their siblings to church early so they could have interviews with the bishop. We traded keys in sacrament meeting, and Mariah drove the van home after the block of meetings so they could stretch out in luxury while I drove a couple of kids home from church after taking way too long to clean up after Primary. That night after Ellen left, we had a very low-key family party with leftover pizza from the night before and they blew out the candles on their birthday brownies. We went around the table telling things we liked about each of them and some favorite early memories. Alan liked Mariah's down-to-business way of getting to work when she has decided she is going to get things done. Willa remembered playing Worthless Rafts and Trippin' Donkeys with her. Wyatt liked how Eliza is always nice to him, and I remembered when she was not yet two and muzzled a dog and yelled in its face to scold him for scaring her to death when we were on a Sunday walk in Texas. It has been a fun and busy ride with these beautiful, fun, silly girls. The weekend was just evidence of the way things always roll when they are around.