happy birthday to me

this was a 'big' birthday - 35! as i get older, my birthday 'wishes' are less and less exciting. for the past few years i have just asked for sleep. since my birthday fell on a sunday this year, sleeping in was not an option since we have to be there by 8:30am. my parents sent some flowers with a balloon that arrived yesterday and were one of my first birthday wishes of the day. (matt said "happy birthday" to me over a sleeping manning who had woken me up at 5:30am.) i woke up to a white, snowy morning too.

my second birthday request was to not have to prepare any meals! and since i love, love, love eating breakfast out, we went out to eat brunch after church. the wait wasn't as bad as i was expecting but (as usual) my food was the very last plate to the table. it was worth the wait though and we had a lovely breakfast.

matt had his hands full with trying to keep the kids away so that i could nap. there was a lot of crying. when i finally woke up after my lazy afternoon in bed (i was only able to nap a short while, but enjoyed the rest). i found matt trying to work with manning sleeping on his arms. i carried manning off to his bed and matt was very grateful.

i realized that i should have taken my birthday picture before my nap because i was a mess when i woke up but a poor picture is better than no picture. this is how most of our attempt went...

and this was the best one.

it was seriously one of my better birthdays! i felt special, i got some rest and felt very loved. thank you for all of my birthday wishes! love.