Birthday Boom...

This little girl of mine, despite my never ending complaining, continues to get older.

So this adorable Ella turned "14" on September 23.

This is a big birthday in our family because until this birthday our kids are phone-less.  

I know, I know everyone in her whole school has one but I still firmly believe that a phone really isn't necessary. 

She still is with me 95% of the time.

I know how am I so lucky?

I know the day will come when her friends will be her biggest priority and I have to bow off of her stage for a little while.

I have 1 year at worst and 2 at best before that happens.

I just hope she realizes that she is the light of my life and I can't believe that I get to watch this kind, feisty, compassionate, strong, sweet, funny, beautiful, wonderful girl grow up.  What an absolute blessing it has been to be her mother. 

I just can't believe I got one.

But since the phone is pretty pricey I wasn't sure what else to get her for her birthday.

So one of my love languages is cute things. In particular cute rooms which equal cute houses.  So Tom casually mentions to me while we are looking at the Restoration Hardware new teen magazine, "Wouldn't it be so fun to redo Ella's room while she is at school and then surprise her when she get's home."

Are you freaking kidding me? It is pure genius.  I am so excited I practically wet my pants and the planning began. Keep in mind this is the day before her birthday so I am busy busy. 

(Now I need to add here that the bones of her room were just redone like 5 months ago and I will post about that right after this because it was pink striped and she and I were soooo done with that.)

Ok so back to planning.  Couple of things...it needed to be free and I didn't want to do too much because I am on this whole minimizing no clutter thingy. 

Less crap...less mess.

So I wanted it to be just really simple but with teen touches and gold and feminine and twinkly.  Because I think all teen girls rooms needs twinkly lights only because if I was a teen I would want them.  

So I got busy making little signs on the computer and using frames I already had.  Tom made the most stunning X's and O's from some scrap wood in our yard. We copied them from Restoration and dare I say that they are way cuter and chunkier and I love them so much.  I hung a crystal candle chandelier in the corner that I have had forever that was in our playhouse until it turned into Tom's office.

We took out some cork board and put wire in it to hold her teen stuff.

My friend Tam gave me her old darling bedding a month ago and I just used that with a gold sparkly pillow I had in the living room.

And of course we added twinkly lights...

I could hardly take how much I loved it.

Just subtle changes but so freaking cute... I had to just stand in there and stare.

So I had Benjamin take Ella to tennis so I could put the finishing touches and Tom could finish his X's and O's. She got home and I wanted to die because she was walking in there and the twinkly and the cute and I was so excited and I yelled something like...

TA-DA!!!!! 

She just looked at me like, "You seem really excited about something but I am too young to know how to fake it yet so I am just going to stare at your face until I figure out what you want me to do."

Yep... so that is how it went down...me loving her room so much I actually giggled and her wondering if that was seriously a present I was even remotely serious about.

I was telling my Tam my sad tale of epic bad presents and she looked at me and said, "No duh, that isn't Ella's love language.  I forgot that part.  :) 

So the sorta moral of the story is that when you are giving your kids presents you have to know what their love language is or just love to redo rooms for the heck of it...ha!

Good thing she got that phone.

Happy Birthday Ella!!!

My cute little Ella in her new teen room right before tennis.  Have I mentioned before that she is really good at tennis. 

Well she is.

She is so powerful and strong...