My First 39th Birthday

What a great day!  I actually woke up depressed (birthdays do that to me sometimes), but after I got the first three children off to school by 8, I went back to bed until 9.  That felt good.  I deliberately skipped exercising, and decided to throw out my usual routine in general.  That felt good too.  I started to come around as I got in my usual birthday mood - which is to get excited about doing whatever I want to do that day and also feeling really grateful for a life so rich with blessings.  I stared at the wall and let my mind wander for almost a half hour before Rachael woke up and asked that I "hug her up" (wrap her up in her "gempi" -blankie - while hugging and smooching her) which I gladly did.  And I did it until she didn't want me to anymore, unlike my usual tendency to give her a little love and then move on to breakfast, clean up, blah, blah, blah.  I just held her and enjoyed the moment, smelling her hair.

I made my favorite breakfast and got a shower.  My mom told me to go clothes shopping by myself, but I told her I consider clothes shopping a necessary evil and I'd rather go to Office Depot and get materials to put together my Mind Organization for Moms machine.  So she and I took off to run some errands and go to Office Depot while my dad stayed behind to happily read his book with Rachael who was watching "Yo Gabba Gabba".  (Incidentally, one of my Facebook friends posted this lovely birthday greeting on my wall today.)

After our errands, we headed back to get my dad and Rachael for a nice little late lunch at the Blue Lemon here in town. (I should say it was nice after Rachael got over the fact that I was only going to let her drink water and we were in fact sharing the whole wheat agave carrot cake muffin with pistachios on top.) Brandon had snuck home for a few minutes in the middle of the day and dropped off some balloons and flowers.  Nice!  The kids got home shortly after that and I spent the next couple of hours emptying backpacks, making snacks, getting Will to scouts and back, and running to the store for a dozen cookies for Kate's church activity.

Shortly after five I took a little personal indulgence:  I took off with Rachael in the ibert for about an hour.  We rode all over town, checking out neighborhoods, biking through sprinklers, ooohing and aaaahing over the glowing mountains.  The mountains here really are beyond gorgeous.  Here's a picture taken from my porch:

By the time I got home, Brandon had the table all set for dinner, and we gorged ourselves on Olive Garden.  (Why do I love eating food someone else makes so much?)  I love this picture:

After dinner, I took my parents for one last sunset drive up around the mountains since they were leaving the next day, and we saw this right in the middle of a neighborhood we were driving through:

Back at home I opened a few presents and we had red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting - yum!  Someone had left the freezer open so the Breyer's Rocky Road was too "melty" for eating, but the cake was more than enough after that dinner!  I was feeling pretty carbed out.

Brandon really wanted to put 39 candles on the cake, but half of the candles were the long, skinny kind, and before we could get all the candles lit and sing the traditional "Happy Birthday" they started folding over!  How's that for a reality check! Yikes!  So there's no picture of me blowing out the candles since it kind of became an emergency, but here I am with my cake looking as worn out as my candles:

I really, really wanted a picture with all my favorite people, and I got one with everyone but the master planner behind the party and presents: Brandon.  Oh well, at least I got these:

Kate won the most brownie points by writing something in my card about no matter how old I was I still looked 25!

Elizabeth carefully wrapped her old Snoopy watch to give me as a present.  Isn't that awesome?  

There they are!  The cute people that were with me 39 years ago the day I was born!  

 All in all, a spectacular day!