Celebrating Mom's Birthday

After SUCH a big day on Friday, we took a lower-key approach to Saturday. We took our time and just let the kids play! They LOVE the fact that her house has a basement that is essentially their playroom, so we enjoyed just being together and watching them play! I also was able to call my other two sisters and tell them the news. Well, actually I told Kristen the news. Kim wouldn't call me back and then eventually texted to say that she had no voice. I knew they were celebrating her birthday that night at dinner so I texted Mary, her daughter, and told HER the news! :) That got the word out! :)

We started off the morning by celebrating Mom's birthday! Her actual birthday was going to be Monday, but we had to leave to head home on Sunday morning, so she let us celebrate early. The sisters and I had gotten her birthday present months ago, so we were SO excited that she could finally open it!!!

We got her a Keurig! And BOY was she excited!! :) She enjoyed her first cup of coffee out of her Northside mug - love it! :)

Caleb had a good nap - with Tutu's ukelele from Hawaii clutched in his little hand...the boy has music in his blood!

Tutu's choice for her birthday dinner was Pei Wei - sounds GREAT to me! That's the saddest thing about living in Lexington. No PF Changs and no Pei Wei. Sigh. David was VERY jealous he wasn't there with us to enjoy it. It was delicious - and the kids LOVED the chopsticks of course!

Mom and her grandkids who ADORE her!

The silly picture :)

When I asked her what she wanted for dessert, she said she didn't want anything that was going to stick around after we left. So she had the idea for us to go to Wegman's where everyone could pick out what they wanted. The kids thought that was FANTASTIC! It was a little overwhelming to a few of mine who have a hard time with choices...(JOSIAH!!!) but it was so interesting to see the choices in the end!

Jacob picked a chocolate eclair

After MUCH deliberation, Josiah picked a chococlate cream pie

and Caleb and Callie chose cupcakes (Caleb's had blue sprinkles and a football and Callie's - don't know why I didn't get a picture of hers - had pink sprinkles and a ring)

I chose a fabulous piece of german chocolate cake and Mom chose a key lime tart. YUM!!! Happy birthday Mom! Thanks for letting us come and celebrate YOU for the weekend - it was wonderful and just what I needed! Sorry to overwhelm you with the surprise news.... :)

Mom got the kids in bed for me and I headed out to meet my lifelong friend, Courtney, for...well...just really to talk. We both got a coke at Panera but really just wanted to see each others' faces and hear hearts!! It was SO good to put my arms around her sweet neck! I saw her last in July briefly at the airport when she brought her two new sons home from Africa, but haven't actually "talked" with her since then. We've been in touch - blogs, emails, you know. But it's not the same. I have thought about her ALL the time but have tried so hard to respect the fact that with 6 kids, she has VERY little quiet time to herself and the last time I wanted to do was to take that away by calling and bugging her! So it was SO great to finally get to catch up and hear all about everything! I told her my news and she was SO excited! Also told her I was thinking of NOT finding out the gender this time which she was THRILLED about (she never found out with any of hers - which drove me CRAZY at the time) and she swore she would be my biggest fan so I wouldn't cave in! :) We finally got kicked out of Panera at closing and then sat outside for another hour in the 30 degree weather because we just weren't done! If it hadn't been so cold, we probably could have stayed all night. I can't tell you how good it was for my heart to have those few hours. I'm thankful for a friend that God brought into my life YEARS ago that I know still gets me and I get her. I love hearing where God has brought her life and sharing with her about mine. It's like we just pick up right where we left off. So thankful!