Presents all around!

It's official, friends. I am IN MY THIRTIES. When did this happen??? Even last year, when I turned the big 3-0, it didn't feel too bad. But now I can no longer say, "I just turned 30." No, now I am a 30something. Oy. Yep, you guessed it, today is my birthday. J

It DOES feel weird to be in my 30s, but to be honest, I don't really care. I like birthdays, even my own. J And today has been a fantastic birthday so far.

This morning my hubby and I got up and ready for the day, but before he left for work, he insisted on waking up checking on Lamb & Monkey. So even though they were up until 10 PM last night (Lamb decided that she needed to get me a birthday present just from her, so Daddy took the two big kids shopping while Roo and I attended a Pampered Chef party.), they were both out of bed at 6:50 this morning. Can I tell just tell you… I think I probably need to work on my attitude a bit. I was less than appreciative of my loss of "me time" this morning, even though it probably wouldn't have happened anyway because Lamb could be out until 3 in the morning and still be up by 7 AM. (OK, I might be exaggerating a bit since we've never actually kept her out until 3 AM, but I really think she would still be up before 8 for sure.) So while I was up in my room, sorting laundry and grumbling to myself thinking about the day ahead, Hubby and the kids went downstairs and made a little treasure hunt for me.

Monkey came upstairs, absolutely beside himself with excitement. He said, "Mommy, we're aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall ready downstairs. Follow me." I went down with him and found my whole family and my mother-in-law sitting there with big smiles. They had hidden my presents, and it was my job to find them. Fortunately, Monkey gets so excited that he just can't contain himself, so he pretty much "found" all of my presents and brought them to me. J Each of the kids had gotten me something—a beautiful orchid from Lamb, and a book on landscape design that I had been wanting from Monkey. (I'll have to tell you sometime about my sudden love for gardening.) And from my wonderful hubby, I got a Bose speaker system that connects to my iPod or my laptop—YAY!!!!! I spend most of my waking hours listening to iTunes through my crummy laptop speakers, so I am very VERY VERY excited to have good speakers now! AND they are portable with a carrying case, so we can take them on trips, etc. They even have an 8-hour battery life, so I can take them outside or… well, pretty much anywhere! YAY!

Then my mother-in-law volunteered to stay with the kiddos so that Hubby & I could go have breakfast, so we made a quick trip to Cracker Barrel for an hour or so to ourselves. I spent the rest of the morning running errands. This is the only low point in my day so far… I made a 30-minute drive to return some maternity clothes I had borrowed, only to get there and find that the bin of clothes was not in my van! Grrrrr. Fortunately, I had rented a couple of movies for the kids before we drove out there, and I told my kids that they could watch a movie in the car while we ran errands, so they were perfectly happy. We finished our other errands just in time to meet my husband, mother-in-law, and parents at a local Mexican restaurant for lunch. And my wonderful parents gave me my present—a Wii Fit! Yay—time to work off the baby weight… and the stress weight…

And of course, I have to give a shout out to good old Facebook. I have been inundated with birthday messages, and let me tell you, it feels GOOD. Happy. Birthday. To. Me.

And now, it is time for me to GIVE a present on my birthday. My big kids picked a number, and that number was 12. So the winner of my first ever blog giveaway is Monica Lappe! J Monica will be receiving a Starbucks gift card or Glee album, whichever she prefers. J Congrats, Monica!

Well, since no one informed the laundry that it's my birthday, it looks like I have some folding to do. After that, though, I plan to take the rest of the afternoon "off" (until my kids are up from their much-needed-and-hopefully-long naps) and do some writing, so hopefully you will have a nice big post about Roo tomorrow.

Have a great Katy's Birthday! ;-)