What a day!

So as today comes to an end I am reflecting on how many blessings I have in my life. Truly? There are too many to count. I find that birthdays and holidays in general bring to my mind how grateful I am to be living the life I am, with my family and friends. I would like to start by thanking each of you that called, emailed or wrote to say Happy Birthday! Your good thoughts and well wishes are appreciated and made my day.

Jonathan took the day off and we spent it together. The boys had school -so we headed out for breakfast, did some shopping and saw Four Christmases at the movies. It was a funny movie and we both enjoyed it -which is much better than him going with me because he has to (my birthday = my choice of movie) and me knowing the whole time that he hates it (which does happen) as that dampens my spirits a bit. This time he smiled and laughed...making it even better for me. Then Steven had a basketball game that was a scrimmage against a private school, so not an official league game. The coach played everyone and we were behind, then ahead, then tied... and my boy made the game winning basket!! Happy Birthday to me! Now that is close to as good as him telling me on Monday that his gift to me would be him acing the tests he had to take on my birthday.. this was SO MUCH better than that! What excitement and the look of happy on his face when it was over.. priceless!

That said, I did get some nifty gifts! Jackson gave me a new cell phone cover he picked out (my other just broke last week). Steven gave me a great (comfy) pair of slippers I had my eye on! And Jonathan gave me a book I am SUPER excited about (new Harry Potter) and a robe I was so anxious to get (pink)!

We headed out to the casino for our first time at the Feast Buffet. We all enjoyed it (as much as Jon or I ever really enjoy buffet) and it was fun. We all had a good time -I just wish I had taken my camera as the decorations there were awesome -lots of huge animated nutcrackers and beautifully decorated trees... I would have likes some pictures of that. But you can't catch them all -so the memories in my head will have to do (or maybe I'll go back and take the pictures... we'll have to see on that).

After dinner we headed home, did homework, got our p.j.'s on and watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special we tivo'd (have I mentioned my love of tivo?) the other night.

It was a great day today. I was looking forward to it this year, which is different than other years. I think that losing weight has really helped me with not worrying so much about being older and I am happy for that. I am very glad to be on the journey I am on and learning so much about myself in the process.

So I did get Jon to snap a few pictures at the end of the night... this was the goofy one, but my favorite of the boys and me so I wanted to share it.