Happy Birthday to Me!

Today I am 31 years old! I guess it sounds older than it feels. :) So far we've had a nice, low-key day here at home. I told Jim that what I would really like for my birthday was the chance to sleep in this morning. He willingly gave me that chance, getting up early with the kids, while I slept until almost 9:30!! That felt SO good. I've received several lovely cards from family and friends (thank you!) and Jim gave me some early presents a few weeks back. (He was going to save them for my birthday, but I accidentally saw the order email, so I just opened them when they arrived.) He got me "Miss Potter" on DVD and a super-duper new sifter (8 cups!) which as you can see, is a great improvement over my old one, which I've had since we got married. It was a great workhorse, but has been getting a lot of holes in the screening from so much use, so I was thrilled to get a new one. :) He also got me something new for the kitchen--a rack to hang my pots and pans--and I am loving it, too! It gave me a lot more space in the cabinets.

Last night we finally had Sam's belated family party. My parents came over and we had pizza, pasta salad, and cake and ice cream. I had come up with the cake idea a while back, but I was feeling less than excited about the decorating process. Not that it was going to be that hard . . . but with my energy at a rather low point, I felt rather overwhelmed about it. I decided to make the cake and icing on Thursday, and asked Jim if he would mind helping me a bit in the decorating, after we put the kids to bed. He agreed, and we set to work. I had drawn out a rough sketch of how I wanted it to look--it was a "Cars" theme with a desert/Rt. 66 rather than a racetrack. Well, after I got the cake put together and the main layer of chocolate frosting on, Jim came over to help. Next thing I know, I was out of a job! He took over and did an amazing job, creating an even better result than I had pictured. Here you can see him hard at work, and the finished cake. Isn't it cute?
This was his first time to decorate a cake, can you believe it?! I will be happy to share the cake decorating jobs with him for future birthdays! Sam was very happy with his cake and we have been enjoying the leftovers today. :) Sam and I both received several nice presents from my parents and it was a nice "combined" birthday party.

It's been quite the busy week and I haven't had time for blogging or writing hardly any emails, either. On Monday I had my 36 week midwife appt. which I'll hopefully write about soon on my other blog. On Tuesday I had to go get my license renewed, and we did a little bit of other shopping at the same time. Weds. was spent at home, Thursday was grocery shopping and cake making, and Friday was spent preparing for the birthday party. Jim has been busy working on finishing our second bathroom. It is nearly complete now, and looks awesome! I'll try to post pictures soon. God gave us a really big blessing in getting a door for the bathroom. We stopped at Lowe's before going to the midwife's house on Monday, with the plan to get a door even if we had to pay full price (but hoping to find something marked down a bit). Well, Jim was poking around in the clearance section and discovered a door that was exactly the size and style we wanted, but there was no price on it, so he went to ask the guy working in that area. The guy said, "Oh, that's damaged," and ended up giving it to us for $40!! It was barely damaged, and was originally a $170 door. We were so excited to get this special blessing! It will be so nice to have the bathroom finished and useable for when the midwives are here, as well as when my in-laws come to visit, hopefully later this spring. Hooray!!

Our deer have been continuing to visit; we see at least a few of them almost every day. Today we counted 8 at one point. We've really been enjoying getting to see a little extra wildlife besides the usual birds and squirrels.

I am officially 37 weeks pregnant now and so happy to have made it this far. Jim and I have both told baby that he/she is welcome to come out anytime now. :) I don't feel like it is likely to happen right away, though . . . but I could be wrong! I do think this one is going to be bigger than either of the other kiddos, but we will see. I'll try to post a new pregnancy pic. and 36/37 week updates on my pregnancy blog, sometime today or tomorrow. I guess I will wrap up this chattering post for now! Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!