Happy Fourth of July!

Mr. J has the day off today so we've got a babysitter coming so we can enjoy a rare lunch date sans kiddos. Hurray! What a nice way to start the holiday weekend.

Next week we begin the big Countdown to Dagny's 7th Birthday Party Luau Bash (C.D.S.B.P.L.B.). She's never had a kids party before so she is just a little excited. Like "Starry Night" is a little bit of a masterpiece. I bought a bunch of cute stuff from Oriental Trading, which has a huge section of their site dedicated to nothin' but Luaus. Also, they must be hurting for business because I got everything for 25% off plus free shipping.

This will be the first non-family party we've had at the house and I'm a bit excited about that myself. She's also the first girl in her class to have a birthday party at home instead of Chuck E. Cheese or one of the other popular venues. So the pressure is on to make the D.S.B.P.L.B. fun (limbo, Twister contest, freeze dance) .... but also because I've got that thing about kids entertaining themselves, I'm going to have lots of free time for the girls to just run around, play, dance, whatever. I hope I'm not expecting too much. To alleviate the need to feed, we're having an afternoon party and I'm putting out punch, fruit, veggies, pigs-in-a-blanket (actually Sister Schubert's Sausage Wraps) and the kids can feed themselves like at a real grownup cocktail party.

And the cake? Darnright it's homemade.