My Birthday

My Birthday is November 28th, which means it is almost always around Thanksgiving. Sharing a birthday with a holiday really bugs some people, but I found that I tend to benefit from the fact that my birthday falls on a day when there are lots of people gathered who are all in a very thankful, giving mood. Plus, I would usually milk the whole "I'm never home on my birthday" point to my mom growing up, so I usually had several different parties that would drag my birthday out for weeks at a time as I celebrated once with my extended family at Thanksgiving, once with just my family when we got home, and once with my friends later during the week. My birthday rocks.

Now that I am all grown up (and yes, 25 in my mind has always been the official, "all grown up" mark) my birthday still rocks. I married a man who loves to celebrate and does an amazing job at surprising me with things I never even knew I wanted, and our son has had a fascination with birthdays (more particularly candles and cake) since he turned two almost a year ago. So I was not let down this year.

We celebrated my birthday on the same Saturday as our Thanksgiving, even though my real birthday wasn't until the following Monday. We just have a thing about never doing things on the day you are actually supposed to do them.

The morning started with Matt and Bennett singing me "Happy Birthday" which got Bennett really excited about the cake and candles. I'm pretty sure he sung that song to me about thirty times throughout the day, which he would then end by having me "blow out" the candles (which were a variety of things from a plastic french fry to an actual candle he found in our bathroom and tried to light with a lighter. Scary.) and then he would ask me where the cake was.

After my birthday song (the first one) Matt gave me my first present of the day...A CAMERA!! Not the point and shoot kind, the record kind. Where you can take videos that are longer than thirty seconds and then have actual family videos to watch when your kids are all grown up and you want to remember how cute they were at their Kindergarten graduation. I was so SO happy! Especially after Matt told me he stood in a crazy Black Friday line outside of Best Buy for three hours to get it for me at a great price.

Funny side story: When Matt came home from his Black Friday shopping, he told me he had a few things he didn't want me to see. So I closed my eyes when he came in the house with everything and I didn't peek (I am good at not ruining my own surprises.) However, Matt never said anything to Bennett, since it's never made a difference before. But while Matt was wrapping my present, Bennett walked over and literally shouted, "OH MOMMY! LOOK! A CAMERA! A CAMERA!" Poor Matt, he had tried so hard. I pretended to be surprised anyway.

The rest of the morning was full of Thanksgiving-y things like turkey making and table setting-up. But then around 11:00am the doorbell rang and in came this beautiful Edible Arrangement with chocolate-dipped fruit and a pineapple "25" in the center. It was so cute and so yummy.

Funny side story: While Matt and I were driving in the car a few days before this day, Matt decided to check his voice mail using the Bluetooth in our car. So over the entire surround sound system comes this lady's voice telling Matt that his Edible Arrangement had been confirmed for 11:00am on November 26th, 2011. Poor Matt, he had tried so hard. I pretended to be surprised anyway.

So pretty soon people started showing up at our house for Thanksgiving and the party got underway. When all the food was spread on the table, and we were just about to start eating, Matt stopped everyone and told them all that it is my birthday on Monday. Everybody cheered and clapped and said "Happy Birthday!" and then from around the entry hall Mary came in carrying in a beautiful chocolate pie with real whipped cream from from favorite pie place in a town an hour away from here. It was all lit up with candles and everybody sang to me and then Bennett sat on my lap and helped me blow out the candles.

Funny side story: I had wanted a chocolate pie at Thanksgiving since we started making food arrangements back in the beginning of November. I assigned myself the project...and then procrastinated it as everything else that goes along with hosting a Thanksgiving with 17 people in attendance took precedence. So only moments before we were supposed to be sitting down and eating my delicious homemade chocolate pie, I found myself scouring the freezer section of every grocery store in town, and coming up empty handed. That's the downside to having Thanksgiving after everybody else. Fortunately, all of our guests were bringing pie, so I just resigned myself to eating something else instead of chocolate this year. Little did I know that Matt had secretly arranged for Mary and Wayne to pick up this pie at a VERY busy pie store and transport it an hour up to our house where everybody could sing "Happy Birthday" to me and I could blow it out with pure joy. Matt had tried so hard. And I really was surprised. What a great guy.

So that was my birthday. Along with several other presents, including a new purse from Mary and Wayne, new family picture frames from my mom and dad (well, the money they sent was spent on that) a little extra moolah from some of Matt's grandparents, and many many birthday cards, phone calls, and texts from countless others. It was one heck of a good day.

Well, that was the celebration part of my birthday, since my real birthday was on the next Monday when Bennett decided he was going to be a monster and throw fits every few seconds. But Matt more than made up for it when he came home from work early, told me Bennett was going down the street for a few hours, and then made me a delicious dinner while we talked in the kitchen and I painted my toes. After that we watched a few episodes of my favorite show, I took a long hot bath, and then when we were good and ready, we walked down to pick up Bennett, who had been busy helping Miss Joelle make me lemon cupcakes with chocolate frosting. I have to say, 25 is shaping up to be a pretty great year. I am one lucky girl.