you say it's (almost) your birthday

About two months ago, when it was on sale of course, I bought a play kitchen for Little Miss J for her birthday gift from mom and dad. It was sitting in the garage in the box for several weeks. Her birthday party is this coming Saturday, and I wanted to have it all set up for her on Saturday morning when she woke up. Since we are so busy during the week, Gus took advantage of last weekend to put it together and it's been behind closed doors in our spare bedroom since Sunday with all the other birthday related paraphernalia. Similar to drug paraphernalia in that I have to hide it otherwise Gus gets on my case about going overboard for the munchkin's birthday - which of course I am, but everything is so cute. Anyway ...

Yesterday the cleaning lady came (which is AWESOME by the way) and she had the door to said hiding place propped open. Last night as I was in the kitchen icing sugar cookies for the party, I hear Gus say, "no no no" followed by screaming, followed by Gus yelling, "NINA." As Gus tells it, Little Miss J wandered into the room, saw the kitchen, and just like a deer in headlights froze with a look on her face that said, "how did I not know this was here and why have I not been playing with it all this time." After being told "no," she comes crying and running down the hallway to me. At which point I decided that it was probably fine for her to have her birthday present a bit early. Both Gus and I are notoriously bad at keeping presents secret. As soon as we get it we want to give it to the other person immediately, even if it is several days before the event for which the present is being given.

We had the big reveal in the living room and there was one happy little girl in the Chunglund house last night.