The benefits of a birthday

On Saturday, I celebrated my birthday. I don't quite look forward to birthdays like I once did, but I do enjoy all of the benefits that go along with them. For instance, my mom came to town on Friday to take me and the kids to eat "Mehcan" as Caroline calls it. When my mom told the guy it was my birthday, he must have misunderstood her request for a hat (perhaps she should have said sombrero) and instead grabbed the spoon and put the whip cream on my nose. The kids thought it was hilarious, while Momma and I looked a little bewildered. Oh, and I should mention that while leaving the Mexican restaurant, we decided to take a picture by their fountain. After Nana gave Caroline a penny to drop in the fountain, she realized she dropped her credit card in during the exchange. Oops! Lucky for me, I had my handy dandy hand sized camera she gave me for Christmas. I captured the whole retrieval on video! Once she finally retrieved her credit card, I told her that if she really needed money that bad, I would lone her some rather than her stealing money out of the fountain! Ha Ha Afterwords, we also went shopping so that I could pick out a present. My mom watched the kids while I tried on clothes, so I actually got to enjoy the experience. As usual, Caroline and Nana enjoyed shopping together as evidenced by the picture below.

I warned Matt ahead of time that I was not planning on washing any dishes on my birthday. His solution? Let's just eat out all day long! So, he took us to Cracker Barrell Saturday morning for brunch. While at the restaurant, Will decided to show off his new trick. Mamaw Kat recently taught him how to shoot deer, so now he shows everyone what a good aim he has. Unfortunately, his little finger gun is usually pointing at someone while he's saying pow, pow...so that leaves me to explain just what he is doing. Thankfully, the young men he was shooting thought it was funny once I explained everything to them.

I had requested a new pair for my birthday and Caroline told me, "Mommy, you don't need any new shoes. You can wear your old ones." The frugal apple obviously doesn't fall from her Daddy's tree. Despite her opinion, we stopped by the shoe store on the way home so that I could pick out some new running shoes.

Later that afternoon, we had some more birthday visitors...my Dad, Mimi and Uncle A came to babysit so that Matt and I could go to a movie. Before we went to the movie, we enjoyed the annual homemade birthday cake Matt and Caroline had made for me. It was absolutely delicious...the frosting was just right and I didn't find an eggshell in my piece this year! We haven't been to the movies in ages, so we were quite shocked at how packed they were. Since all the movies were sold out that we had planned to see, we ended up watching Marley and Me. It was precious and at times reminded me of our own lives right now. After the movie, we all met up to eat. As usual, Will made friends with the waiter and blew kisses to everyone as we left the restaurant.

All and all, I had a great birthday and enjoyed all of the visitors that came to help me celebrate!