another birthday

This time it was mine. I'm all of 31 years old, which is the same age that my mother was when, during her first year of marriage, I was a newborn baby. Here I am, married 8 years and expecting my fifth child. God certainly has different plans for each of us!

He had different plans for my birthday, too. I was hoping to get to the local garage sales by myself in the morning and out to Laurtizen Gardens in the afternoon, but Adam got up at 6 and took Anthony fishing. Since I was up early, I cleaned the bathrooms and worked my way through three loads of bath and dish towels. They came home at noon with not so many fish, but we defrosted a package from their last fishing trip and had a fish fry with seasoned potato wedges (providentially, I didn't think the rice was going to be done in time for dinner the previous night, and so microwaved some baked potatoes, but when both were done at the same time and the kids preferred rice to potatoes, I had leftovers...perfect for our fish fry.) It was a delicious lunch with Adam's fishing buddies, even though none of them realized that it was my birthday. (Nope, not even Adam). When I was done cleaning up, Adam was asleep in his recliner.

When Adam woke up, he came over to give me a hug and said, "You've been so quiet - I'm sorry I forgot your birthday! Where do you want to go for dinner?" But, really, I wasn't that hungry, so we had some leftover cheese pizza (that I'd made for the kids, who I knew would not be interested in eating whatever fish daddy and Anthony brought home). We did some chores outside, including a bit of chainsaw work on the cedar trees out the kitchen window - where I want the swing set and a sandbox. Then we went to Zesto's - our default local place - for ice-cream sundaes and shakes. I prefer Cold-Stone Creamery, but it's much less local and much more expensive, besides the fact that I'm the only one in the house who prefers "hard" ice-cream to soft-serve.

Of course, there was a fireworks stand set up in the parking lot and the kids all wanted to buy fireworks for mommy's birthday. They all know how much I love fire. (NOT) I do enjoy fountains, though, so we bought a few of those along with some cheap fun things for the kids and had fun trying to capture the showers of sparks and pops: