Birthday # 35

I love the month of March for many reasons. One giant reason for my love is the celebration of my blessed birth. My darling mom recites my birth story every year: "I was mopping the floor and suddenly thought..hmmm, that doesn't feel so good. So I called dad and who should arrive at my doorstep before him but my visiting teachers. The contractions were coming on really strong and I needed to go to the hospital but they just wanted to talk about their birth stories. Dad got there, I got in the car and we waved to the chatty ladies on my doorstep as we drove to the hospital."-love that story.

Come on, birthdays are fun.

Fabulous and lengthy..a great combination, dinner out with my beautiful and hysterical friends. I'm seriously blessed with fantastic women in my life who showered me with thoughtful and lovely gifts!



A fantastic husband who loves to work and hates to buy presents... hence my tub is finally getting tiled AND the amount of presents I received once again from my husband/children=ZERO. I adore the guy but this "I stink at buying gifts" excuse is reeeeeally wearing thin. I'm 35 now and we celebrate lots of holidays in our house. You do the present receiving math.  "Mom I haven't gotten you anything and dad hasn't said a word." -Jack



I did plan a little family fun lunch so everyone could enjoy the wonder of a birthday! Mediocre spaghetti but excellent conversation and company.



I even got Kate to smile for a picture. She may not be looking at the camera but we're making some strides here.



"When's my birthday again mom?"
"December 6th."
"Again..seriously?"

The evening festivities consisted of grilling some steaks, drinking some Martinellis, devouring a new pound cake/with strawberries and lime zest recipe, and watching Secretariat...the slow moving slightly touching true story of that amazing race horse who crazy enough....won every race. There ya go...happy birthday to ME. 

So 35 has arrived and I'm feeling pretty good about it!



My FAVORITE birthday gal!!!

Years ago when I was around 10 or so, I had a most unfortunate hair do. It was shoulder length, permed to beat the band, and my bangs started waaaay too far back on my head and literally wrapped around my face like a rainbow or maybe a horseshoe if you will. It was bad. Fantastic Sams was not so fantastic for this gal. I remember being absolutely aware of its offensiveness and prayed each day that it would just grow out or something. It took a long time to recover from that mess.
The reason I bring up this ugly stage in my life was that I remember my older sister Kirsten actually making some snide comment about my "unfortunate do." I don't remember what was actually said and to be perfectly frank... she was totally justified in saying something, it was atrocious. The point was even KIRSTEN joined in the hair free for all...shocking. Now she doesn't remember doing this and that's all well and good. My point in sharing this little sister tidbit is that to this day, in all honesty, that is THEE only semi unkind thing my sister has ever said to me. She is the most genuinely kind person I know and IT'S HER BIRTHDAY!!!!!

So I know I've already posted this picture of my favorite sister during MY birthday weekend extravaganza...but since it's now HER birthday and this is the most current display of sisterly love that I have........ I will display it again because..I can and it's her birthday~~!!!!

I guess we wear a lot of sunglasses.We like sunglasses. We like a lot of similar things. I think that's why we get along so well. Holding family rendezvous down at Disneyland for weeks of Mickey bliss would be high on the list. Calling each other numerous times a day to share something hilarious we just heard on Limbaugh even though we are both listening to the same broadcast. Sharing current favorite recipes our kids would enjoy or laughing about the latest "Psych" episode, you name it, I share it with Kirsten. I have always appreciated the fact that I can call and talk/whine/vent/cry to her anytime I need to and that I always feel better after talking with her. How lucky am I?

So on this special day, March 18th, I want to say Happy Birthday Kirsten, you are truly my favorite in every way!!

Would you believe that 3 cameras were going at once here?

Reasons why #33 was THEE best birthday EVER....

Let's start at the very beginning....a very good place to start. I love having a birthday, that's all there is to it. This past weekend went far and above birthdays of the past so I had to list the reasons why turning 33 was so FANtastic.

We started off the day with:

-Subway picnic in the living room. I controlled my OCD ish desire to pick up every morsel that spilled till the partay was over. I still prefer table eating indoors.
-Receiving so many birthday wishes on Facebook was a hoot. It truly made my day. Thanks to all who took the time to do that..fun for me.

I requested a dinner out with Kyle-alone-and I wanted to be surprised on where we went. After dropping off the boys at my wonderful mother in laws, I drove down to meet Kyle at work. It truly must have been my special day because as I surfed radio stations I found :"Easy Lover" -by Phillip Bailey and Phil Collins..."She's an easy luv-a, she'll take your heart but she won't feel it....she's like no otha, and I'm just tryin to make you see...." So thankyou XM satellite radio for bringing that one down especially for me. Crab cakes, cesar salad, gigantor crab leg, steak, and towering dessert were all consumed on that blessed evening. The man came through with flying colors. Then, like another gift from satellite radio heaven above, "Close to you"-by Karen Carpenter comes on. What are the chances?

The cute cake lovingly made while I dined on everything I laid my eyes upon.

So my mom has been telling me for weeks to plan on the Friday after my birthday for an afternoon together...lunch/shopping, the usual. I obediently obliged her wishes and had my little fellas go elsewhere so I could once again be the top priority. As it turns out, my mom was in cahoots with my sneaky sister, my husband, and my mother in law in rigging up a FANTASTIC SURPRISE SISTER VISIT for ME!

My mom shows up at my door to take me to lunch. She claims she needs to just "freshen up a bit" and proceeds to walk into the kitchen. The door bell rings again and who could it be but this gal..... none other than MY MOST FAVORITE SISTER IN THE ENTIRE WORLD who happens to have 5 children, an incredibly busy life and, oh yea.... lives in UTAH!!! So all along thanks to my wonderful and thoughtful mom, she arranged for Kirsten to fly in Friday morning for my surprise birthday weekend.

The famous "lunch date" with my 2 favorite ladies.

And then my birthday just kept getting better.
In the parking lot of this particular eating establishment I spotted this little beauty (or did he spot me?) Someone seriously drives this truck...do you think he could live in Forks?

More birthday good times with my youngest brother Jens at my mom's house.




You ready for craziness.....my sister in law Jen(far right) had her sister (Jamie) fly up from Utah on the exact same flight as MY sister......who knew??

Oh the birthday cake!

sweaty cousins








Saturday brought more fun lunches that I didn't have to prepare, lazy shopping due to leaving Brody with my wonderful mother in law, and a lot of good laughs with my mom and cute siblings. Just spending a short time with my sister was what I needed. I feel rejuventad and ready for the weeks ahead. Thanks mom for knowing what I needed and making it happen,....I'm still impressed.