My Birthday Theme: Then I Opened My Door

Roll your eyes, be disgusted at the Fast Food, plastic soons & straw spread, but it's one of the sweetest Birthday Dinners I've had since I became a mom.

Simply because Eden has learned how to count coins and she loaded her purse with her own money; we went to Baskin Robbins and Taco Bell and she checked out separately and bought me my favorites: BUBBLE GUM ICE CREAM and a BEAN & CHEESE BURRITO.

(it didn't hurt that they fully supported eating dessert with dinner for this special occasion!)

This was 4 days before my birthday.  I absolutely positively was so spoiled and blessed and ended up with a full Birthday "WEEK"

On the day it was actually my Birthday Hallé said:

 "Good Grief MOMMY, you have a LOT of Birthdays!"

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The next day was Birthday Dinner at my parents. The girls dressed up and the menu of course included Broccoli and Angel Food Cake with Strawberries! The party night included some Tball, indoor foam croquet, presents, and raiding my moms closet for the best fashionista show EVER!  Thanks you guys.

I'm so glad my mom is a Kindergarten teacher so we always have "age appropriate" Birthday hats to celebrate in!

While I was in the shower 2 days in a row....Eden organized she and Hallé to make the arts and craft foam flowers with jewels on them and wrapped about 15 other tiny items from around her room and the house that she knew I loved.  I had no idea what was in the bags they brought in the car with us to my parents. To say they were PLEASED WITH THEMSELVES is putting it lightly.  To say I was PROUD....is putting it lightly also.

(some wrapped items were: used lipglosses, an old necklace of mine, pieces of gum, etc.)

grandma roxie, eden, me, hallé, mom

(my grandpa was too sick to come this year... I was teary eyed thinking about how much I miss having him there, we've celebrated almost all of our Birthdays together.  He turned 80 on 3/30)

And my favorite presents:

These following 2 photographs with the girls actually looking at the camera the first attempt!!!

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Then I opened the door on my actual Birthday

and got and start the morning with:

(Thanks Dad!)

Then I opened my door and was surprised with:

(Thank you Emily and Hailey for the Pink Dinosaur covered cake!)

Then my girls wanted to lay out around the cake and have me wear the jewelry they'd been taken out to pick out just for me the night before:

Then I opened my door  to the UPS guy who delivered this bag I wanted!

(Thanks Paul & Steph)

Then I opened my door and got to end my daycare day with:

(Thanks Will and Katie!)

Then I opend my door and took the girls and I to AZTECA!

(Thank you fellow patrons for not scolding me for allowing Hallé to do her flamingo dance over and over an over.... It makes me laugh!)

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The Day after my Birthday

Then I opened my door to the most gorgeous yellow flowers in my new favorite vase

(Thank you Liz!)

Then I opened my door that night: And was picked up to go out to PF Changs

(Thank you Becky and Jonni!)

Then I opened my door the next night: And was totally caught off guard and scared to get picked up for a surprise Birthday get together at a new Restaurant & Roxy wine bar!

(Thank you Amber, Daneille, and Robin!)

I got many other sweet gifts and cards and books, etc in the mail and here and there....my camera had just probably died or I was changing a diaper and didn't snap a picture of them.

Thank you, Thank you everyone.... Getting older this year was easy!

I hope that my blogging and pictures made it clear that it wasn't the things I got or the types of gestures that were overwhelmingly special to me, it was literally every ounce of my being, being able to believe for 32 years now wholeheartedly in the fantastic God I love....showing me His love and affection for me through these acts of kindness.  Truthfully some phone calls, texts, and things people wrote to me were the things that brought me to tears and have replayed through my head many times!   I have THE best friends in the world.

~I'm so grateful I was born~

Thanks MOM & DAD!

...then Christ died unnecessarily

I love remembering the verse at the end 

especially this time of year...

As Easter is less than a week away and the isles are filled with gobs and gobs of colored grasses,  chocolate in every shape, shiny eggs, and peeps.  I thought I 'd take a moment for myself to reflect before I get ready to celebrate our own traditions and be sentimental about little girls running around with pigtails and tinkerbell baskets for eggs and heading over to seattle to enjoy one of my very favorite things: THE TULIP FESTIVAL!   The chocolate is easy for me to rip on since I somehow was born with an aversion to chocolate unless it's in butterfinger form.

 (I know-not very american or woman-like)

And I've heard that my love of peeps would grow if I opened the package and let them grow a bit of a stale crunch on the outside.

Either way.....Those of you who know me and my sweet tooth,  know that I have no problem incorporating sweets into just about every facet and minute of my life.

So it's not the baskets and eggs filled with treats.

* IT'S THE BUNNIES * 

I'm just gonna say it; this is my 2nd year going public on facebook and my blog with the whole:

"I think Easter bunnies can be a hideous decoration."

No judging.  I just think they're not my cup of tea! 

Sooooo, they don't live here. 

Thanks. 

I explain to my girls along with the story of the cross, that Easter is an exciting time when the people who loved Jesus got to go to His tomb and when they

"opened it" there was a "surprise inside" (no dead Jesus)

I know there is no biblical "Egg Sunday" where we open eggs once a month to remember the exciting surprise that day that Jesus was no longer dead in his grave,

but had risen and was ALIVE! 

But for US.... when I talk with my girls about communion and it being a way to remember His sacrifice for our sins.  I figured that opening eggs with a sweet surprise/outcome is a good parallel to the abandoned JOY and excitement I want them to try and grasp would have been going on the day the people discovered their best friend Jesus had risen from the dead, kicked sin and satan's butt once and for all, and with a promise to spruce up a place in heaven for us all (with LOT'S of Playdough Hallé says) and return in His time to get us.

To me, That is exciting news!!!

That's worth squeeling, dashing around a backyard like a chicken with your head cut off

 (or like you magically picked all the march maddness upsets correctly this year!)..... 

 And it's definately worth popping a couple cadbury eggs to celebrate and savor the

"SWEET" gifts we have been given in this life.

 Whatever you believe, whatever your traditions; whether you believe in God or not...Bunnies or not....The sweeter your baskets are filled and the warmer your traditions-the better. I believe we're all on a road to discovering inside of us...what that act of sacrifice and example of unconditional love and gift of eternal life and forgiveness on the cross means as we walk out our  lives with the people and situations around us.   

 Even on my worst days being a temper-tantrum referee or colorfully venting to a best friend;

  I get to rest at night knowing I was created with hope, in the image of ~Christ~ who had Eyes to see the needs of a lost and dying world and made

His life count in the big and small opportunities around Him.

"Open the eyes of my heart Lord"

  

~ Galatians 2:19-21 (The Message) ~

"What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man! Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. 

Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ.

My ego is no longer central.  It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God.  

Christ lives in me.

The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going back on that.    Isn't it clear that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do it, to repudiate God's grace.

If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily."