Happy Birthday to me!

Thank you everyone for the happy birthday wishes! Although it wasn't an ideal birthday (Don had to work), I still had a very nice day. It started with church. The kids didn't get to bed until after 9pm on Saturday because we were at my parent's house visiting with my cousin who is down here on vacation. I didn't want to take cranky kids with me to the 8am mass so I left the kids home with Don. I feel guilty for even saying this BUT....it was absolutely wonderful to be able to actually pay attention in church for a change. I finally felt like I was there in body, mind, and spirit. I had to stop at the store on the way home from church to get a few things. Once I came home, Don and the kids gave me their cards and lots of hugs and kisses. I had to do a little bit of research on the internet and then it was time to feed the kids lunch and get Joshua down for a nap.

Don had to go into Lowe's at 2pm. My parents were coming over to watch Joshua so Shawn and I could decorate my room for VBS (we were doing a rainforest theme). There was supposed to be 3 group leaders decorating our room but only one other girl showed up. We had no idea how we were going to decorate the room. I brought a bunch of brown paper bags (the kind you get from the grocery store) and that was it. Trista brought a bag full of stuffed animals. We were able to acquire some construction paper and we used it to cut out a bunch of leaves. I cut the bags open and rolled them up and twisted them to look like vines and then we stapled the leaves to the vines. When we first got there I felt a little overwhelmed because I saw all these other people bringing in lots of plants and greenery and other things to decorate their rooms with and all we had was some brown paper bags, lol. I just didn't have the money to go out and by my own decorations for VBS so we did the best we could. We were only supposed to decorate a small area and I have to say that by the time we finished, it didn't look half bad. I forgot to take my camera yesterday to take pictures. I took it today but there was mass confusion and I didn't have an opportunity to take a picture. I'm going to try and get there extra early tomorrow so hopefully I can post pictures tomorrow. I found some rainforest sounds and copied them to a CD to play in the room while we were doing our small group time.

While we were at the school decorating, I started walking around the other rooms to get ideas. I found the 1st grade class (my aunt is teaching 1st grade) so I stopped in and saw my friends Heather and Meredith. Heather knew it was my birthday so she yelled to everyone (they had a lot of youth helpers) to sing happy birthday to me, lol. Then when Trista was leaving (she is the evening 3rd grade teacher) she gave me a small gift. I thought that was very thoughtful of her since we only met about 2 months ago.

So after leaving the school, Shawn and I made a quick stop at Publix to pick up a rotisserie chicken for my parents and then came home. I found out that Joshua didn't take a nap. Holy cow, he didn't fall asleep on Saturday night until 10pm and still woke up at 6:30am and he didn't take a nap??? As soon I got in the door, I immediately got Joshua's dinner together and fed him, changed him, and put him to bed. He fell asleep in about 2 minutes, lol. That was at 5:30pm. Then the rest of us ate dinner. My mom made us an SCD legal spice cake with legal frosting and it was soooo good. The kids loved it! I didn't get my present from my parents because my mom ordered it online but she did have it shipped to me. She sent me the tracking number and it's supposed to arrive on Wednesday so I will have to let you know what I got and how much I love it (at least I hope I'm going to love it). My parents left a little before 7pm because I wanted to get Shawn to bed early to make up for the lack of sleep. Joshua woke up about 8:45pm (I guess he thought he was taking a nap, lol). It took me about an hour but I finally got him back to sleep.

So that was how I spent my birthday. Of course after the kids went to bed, I had a ton of stuff to do to get ready for VBS. I didn't get to bed until about 1am. I hope to make it to bed earlier tonight.