So you say it's your birthday?

It's my birthday too.  No.  Really.  It was my birthday yesterday.  On 9/11.  I was born first.

See?  I have the cakes to prove it.  Why do you ask, do I have three cakes?  Its simple really.  Alex only likes chocolate cake with chocolate icing.  Lizzy only like white cake with white icing.  And Gracie?  Well, we don't know what the hell kind of cake she likes but based on the other two, I can pretty much guarantee she won't get near a chocolate or white cake.  That's why she had a red velvet cake.

See?  Perfectly simple explanation.
 

But first, before we had all that cake love, I had to go on a scavenger hunt for all my presents.  That too has a pretty simple explanation.  When Alex was younger and after all his presents were opened he sat and looked at us and sighed, "Wait. What?  That's it?!?"  Like we had let him down big time.  So now on the kids Birthdays I make up a scavenger hunt and every once and a while I put a present in with the card and they get all excited.  At the end is their biggest present and they love it.

See???  Perfectly simple explanation.

I had to go to 20 different places in the
house, how good of them.  

Except this time I had to do one of my own scavenger hunts to claim my presents.  Some of those cards have my own handwriting on them.  Alex told me he learned all about recycling in school so he saved them from Lizzy's birthday in August.

Then they kicked me out of the house to put balloons and streamers all over the place.  That's why I have a picture of these two horribly freaky little boys.

Again, a simple explanation.  When they kicked me out I went to the antique mall.  Don't these two just freak your shit?  Not only that, but they cost $2,985.  I know, it's ridiculous.  I bet that includes their ghosts, you know, free of charge.  Those boys could see me from every corner of the antique mall and made my skin crawl.  Even now they're staring at me.  Taunting me, the little one on the left whispering, "I ate his brains, now I'm going to eat yours too."  

But after all the running around, it dawned on me.  They were giving me what they liked best about their Birthdays--the scavenger hunts, the balloons and streamers all over the house and their favorite cakes.  All the things that I have been doing for them for their Birthdays, for years.

And this year they returned the favor.

And that was the best present of all.


Note: After this post goes up for a few days, I'm taking down the picture of those two kids and getting rid of any evidence of them.  I want them out of my house, even if they're only on my computer.  I so wish I could un-see them and get them out of my brain.  They freak me out that much.