Lordy, Lordy . . . . . Yes, I'm Forty!

Happy Birthday to me . .. about a week ago!  I want to so first and foremost that I had a wonderful birthday.  I planned  my day this year to make sure that I was able to enjoy my day as much as possible! 

I really didn't want to cook on Friday, April 27th so I made my birthday cake on Thursday and also went to the grocery store on Thursday night to make sure I had everything I needed for Friday.  Here's how it all went down.

The Morning:
My morning started with getting kids up but then I had a special breakfast.  I had picked up a Cheese Coffeecake at the store and some chocolate milk. 

It just so happened that they coffee cake was marked down - I hadn't really planned to get it so it was a double blessing.  I LOVE chocolate milk but try not to buy it all of the time so this was a special treat.  I had really wanted a cup (or two) of my favorite Tassimo drink but, once again, we could not get them - the store was sold out :-(  That's ok, the Chocolate Milk made up for it.  I had a few things on my to do list - so I cleaned up the kitchen and put away all of the painting supplies (because it is done!), got some jars ready for my sister-in-law and ran the vacuum.  Then, I relaxed until lunch time. 

My Afternoon:
It turned out to be a fantastically sunny day so I knew that I wanted to be able to sit outside for most of the afternoon.  First came lunch.

I picked up a few old favorites for my lunch - French Bread Pizzas.  Back in the days before kids, when Darryl worked a 4 day week, he would go to the grocery store on Friday mornings while I was at work and we had these little pizza's often.  I forgot how good they are!  I also picked up some of the snack mix with the little rye toast things in it . . I cannot think of the brand but I just love it (and so do my kids!!) .  Then my latest favorite beverage of choice - Sprite Zero :-)  After lunch, I wrapped up a few things before heading outside to sit and read.  Amazingly, the boys "let" me - Nate was in and out between watching Toons and playing; Josh hauled out his portable train sets and played trains on the patio the whole time. 

Now, remember, I didn't want to cook today so we waited for Daddy to get home so he could take care of dinner. :-)

My evening:
For my birthday dinner, I wanted burgers on the grill, macaroni salad, pretzel salad and olives/pickles.  I actually did have to make the pretzel salad in the morning because I didn't have everything I needed but it was a quick thing to make so it was ok :-)

Then, the fun began :-)

 Darryl knows I love birthday so he picked up birthday hats and noisemakers.  The boys loved having hats to wear and learning how to blow and make noise!  They also got to put all of the candles on my cake.

 Josh wanted to help me blow out the candles - but we convinced him to at least sing to me first :-)

 Then we enjoyed cake.  I have to confess, for 39 years, I've always had chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with M and M's on top.  Well, this year, I made a turtle cake instead - yum-o. 

Darryl brought home these beautiful Roses for me and the kids "signed" a card (it is too cute) for me too.

Now, this was not the end to my birthday weekend!  On Saturday morning, we got up and headed out for the day.  Our first stop was McDonald's - we got Mocha's and Sausage McMuffins for breakfast.  We had to make a little detour and meet my dad to drop off the jars for my sister-in-law (she is making things for the upcoming wedding!) then we headed to somewhere I seldom get to go to . .. we went to a huge Outlet Mall.  See, my husband is not a shopper so normally when we head to the mall, I pick my stores and we quickly get whatever I want to get but this was my day so we started wondering and guess what?  HE HAD FUN!! HA!  I think it helped that he had some of his own money to spend (and he had fun shopping for himself).  I had fun too!  I didn't buy anything here but they have a Pottery Barn Outlet . . holy cow.  I love that store.  This is what I DID get though:

A Sweat Jacket from Eddie Bauer (I really need a jacket like this - I kept stealing my husbands), some perfume, Reb'l Fleur (the last time I bought real perfume was about 4 years ago HA), two necklaces, an electric "tart" pot and some tarts from Yankee (the pot was marked at $15.00 but only rang up at $8.00 - that is my kinda of deal!), and then the suncatcher (which is already hanging in my kitchen window). 

From there, we went to dinner in Frankenmuth.  The Bavarian Inn serves a Family Style Chicken Dinner that is fantastic - they serve great salads, chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and, my ultimate favorite, the buttery noodles!!  We really enjoyed dinner - especially being able to eat it HOT!  After dinner we had planned to go to the HUGE Christmas Store, Bronners, but we forgot that it closes early in the off season so instead we walked through some of the little shops in town before heading home.  It ended up being a good thing because we picked up these awesome cupcakes :-)

At the cupcake shop - they also chocolate covered bacon and, since it was my birthday, I got a piece of that to eat while we were walking around (we saved the cupcakes for home).  I've heard people say how great chocolate covered bacon is and considering the fact that bacon is my favorite meat (HA!) and I love chocolate I figured I'd love it.  Wrong.  I, quite honestly, don't care if I ever have another piece.  It think it might better if the bacon was freshly cooked . ..

All in all, it was sa great two days.  I did notice that everything I did on Friday to make it a special day revolved around food - geesh!  I did give myself a manicure and pedicure so hopefully that off sets the love of food!!! 

Now, on to my "Next 40 years!!"