My Birthday...

My birthday was yesterday and it was the very best one of my whole life! And not for the reasons I'd expect! I had been feeling, not badly, but sort of "blah", not really wanting to go anywhere or do anything just because its not super comfortable anymore to do things like go shopping, or sit in a movie theater, or other things of that nature. So basically I didn't have any big plans, we were just going to spend the evening together.

By the time Albert came home from work, I was sort of feeling like going out somewhere, but then, by the time we got all our little ducklings in the house and home from various activities, it was 5:30...wayyyy too late to start getting kids ready to go out to eat on a Friday night (unless you want to wait over an hour for a table...no thanks). We started to go by ourselves (and Bree) out to Olive Garden but quickly scrapped that plan..the wait was long and the kids were bummed. So we just turned around and came back home...

Sooooo, the kids and Albert set about creating the perfect "stay home and do nothing" birthday that turned out absolutely perfect! The kids organized a spa in the living room. Brice and Jackson gave me a foot massage and Brandon and Daddy gave me a back massage! That was the best! Daddy and the boys made a birthday cheesecake and we played Taboo with the oldest five, after the little ones went to bed...so much fun. I love that game. Even the kids that were not so great at playing still had fun. Finally, we left the kids with a movie for them to watch, while we snuck upstairs to bed and watched a movie together in our room. It was absolutely perfect...

This is my favorite picture of the night. Albert just realized he'd read the directions wrong and added the milk to the crust mix instead of the pie filling. Oops. A quick trip to the grocery store for extra graham crackers to mix in fixed the problem...

Brice was my foot massager for the night (he and Jackson). He was so into his task. He was really proud of himself and he did a great job! It felt really good!

Here is Drew mixing the cheese cake filling. An argument briefly broke out between Brandon and Drew regarding who was going to mix.

Here is the game we played with the five older kids...we really love this game and had so much fun!

Here is the finished cheesecake....it was yummy, and Daddy & the boys made it themselves....

Here is Mommy during the birthday song....sorry the pic is so hard to see...

In "Brandon" news...we turned in his 24 hour urine collection today and hopefully early next week we'll have the results of his chemistry panel. Also, Monday is his kidney ultrasound...We'll keep everyone updated!