It’s a good thing there’s no such thing as too many birthdays or I might be a bit overwhelmed from the last few days! Can you believe our little Cate and our little MacKenzie both shared back-to-back birthdays?

I’m happy to report that the youngest birthday girl had a lovely (and quite fancy!) dinner last night at her restaurant of choice, IHOP. But then again, who doesn’t want to go to somewhere that claims to have the best pancakes ever?

Her gifts from me this year included a Camp Rock sing-a-long microphone, a set of High School Musical action figurines THAT ACTUALLY SING (this was a big deal to Little Miss Performing Diva) and a very big gift that she gets to cash in later on: a “ticket” from me promising to take her and three of her friends to spend the night at an indoor water park about an hour away from where she lives!

I celebrated my other birthday girl, none other than our very own Cousin Cate, a wee bit different (though, in retrospect, perhaps a Zac Effon action figure might have been an appropriate gift for her as well). Our celebration began on Friday night when I showed up at the pharmacy she works at to surprise her with a few birthday essentials like flowers, balloons and cupcakes in the shape of a puppy dog since her mama wouldn’t let me buy her a real puppy for her birthday.

If you’re skipping the video because you can’t stand to hear our country accents, here’s a re-cap: I busted up into the pharmacy, presented the gifts and then gave her a card that told her to be ready to leave her house at 11 a.m. the next morning. Also: Cate was laughing so hard she snorted, something that I think may be one of my favorite things about her.

My theme for her birthday this year was “golden ticket.” I took three little slips of paper, wrote what activity was next on each slip and tucked them inside balloons before putting them in gift bags.

Before we left Cate’s driveway, she opened bag # 1 and had to blow up the balloon and then pop it to get her first golden ticket. The only problem is that I forgot that she’s extremely afraid of balloons popping, especially if they’re anywhere near her. Ooops.

She gave it a go though and got her first ticket: lunch at Chili’s! We love going to lunch there together and this time was no different. At the end of lunch, she got to open gift bag # 2 which contained a balloon that she refused to blow up. Good thing we still had a clean fork on the table.

Look at that face! This golden ticket told her that we were going to see a movie that we’ve been waiting to see together, The Time Traveler’s Wife.

The movie experience was really unique and by “really unique” what I’m trying to say is that, by halfway through it, I was literally curled up in a fetal position whilst crying enough tears to take care of any drought this nation is currently experiencing. Y’all, at one point I was crying so hard that the people in the row in front of us turned around to see what was wrong with the weirdo behind them. I was too busy hugging my knees to my chest to tell them I was just crying because THE MOVIE WAS RIPPING THE EMOTIONS FROM MY VERY BODY.

We headed to the Shake Shack next for a little ice cream treat for our birthday girl.

And pulled over at a gas station so I could get my own dessert of choice.

I am crazy about the Kool-Aid Bursts lately. Because, you know, I’m five years old.

We took her ice cream and my Kool-Aid and headed out into the country to visit one of our secret spots, a little Baptist church tucked away by a stream. Isn’t it beautiful?

Before long, it was time to open the last birthday bag! This one contained a golden ticket that informed Miss Birthday Girl that she had an afternoon massage scheduled at a local day spa!

After she finished, we headed to her house to meet up with her parents to head to Chattanooga for dinner. We went to a really nice restaurant which, of course, brought a little birthday dessert out for Cate. Cate, being the generous girl that she is, certainly didn’t pick up all four spoons and feed herself with each of them because that would be just ridiculous for a girl of 23, now wouldn’t it?

Except she did. She actually fed herself from four spoons with the use of only two hands.

Obviously her talents continue to grow with age.