Someone's Daddy

Someones daddy may have expected a Mark David, but came through with flying colors when Pamela Cathleen showed up.

7/7/1968, my first birthday party

Someone's daddy never complained when he was working more than one job to get someone the things that she thought she needed.

After ice skating January, 1970

Someone may have put up with more mouth & sass than should be tolerated, but always loved her anyway.

"Shoeland", Holland, Michigan, August, 1973

Someone's daddy may not say I love you often, but shows it in many little ways.

With dad at my wedding to Chris, 8/29/03

Someone's having a birthday today & I'm proud that he's this someone's daddy.

"Baby" Jack

Well, it's been birthday season here in Mimi-ville. Today is my baby's birthday. My youngest boy Jack is 15 today.

As I keep saying, I'm not sure how this happened.

Look at those cheeks!!

We celebrated this afternoon at my parent's house. Here's Jack with my mom & dad.



And one with Chris & I.



Jack got tons of cash for his birthday, it's what he likes to ask for. Two years ago I got him $100 in one dollar bills, last year it was two dollar bills. This year I had to go with dollar coins.



Chris picked out the bag we put his money in. Jack loves rainbows & silly things that boys don't usually like. He says some people think he's gay, but he's not, just himself. He said the gift bag was his favorite part.


My Jack has been a huge, amazing blessing in my life. He's funny, smart, kind and goofy, just the way I like my boys!

Happy birthday Jack, we love you so much!

I'm Celebrating Me Today!

Today is my day, my birthday! I'm 43 years old. It's been a great day for me. For once my brain doesn't have a dark cloud hanging over my head.

My computer died a few weeks ago & my husband went out and got me an awesome new computer earlier this week, for my birthday present. The screen is huge & I think is HD because it's so crisp & clear! The tower part of the computer is tiny, about 1/3 the size of a regular tower. I'm in love with it.



This morning I got up & went in search of my birthday cake & a cake for my youngest son Jack, who will be 15 on Sunday. I hit Sam's club & this is what I found.



It's a luscious vanilla cake (the good, homemade tasting kind) with pink strawberry flavored icing and strawberries on top. That was my breakfast.

Then since Jack was at his dad's house & Chris was working I took my 18 year old, John David out to eat for my lunch. I got a plate full of carbo-goodness in the form of a hot roast beef sandwich and french fries all covered in gravy! Superb! Of course I couldn't eat all of it because of my gastroparesis, but I loved what I did have.



JD had an appetizer plate. This is him not wanting to have his picture taken, but humoring me because it's my birthday, lol!



Then JD & I went to Kroger for a few things & I found these.



Called Whimsical Whoopies, it's like a Nilla Wafer flavored muffin top with buttercream frosting & sprinkles! Half of one of these was my lunch dessert.



After a while hanging out John David came home with his girlfriend LeighAnne and my birthday present. It was honestly something that I really never expected!



As I posted on my FaceBook, I now the proud owner of the hugest giant monkey in the history of giant monkeys!



(Terrible picture of me, but who cares, right?)

Here's Jack with my giant monkey.



Just for perspective, Jack is about 5 ft. 7 inches!


On my birthday's I try to do whatever I want for that day and reflect on my life as it stands. I am so thankful for my beautiful sons, my amazing husband, who really is my best friend, my parents & in-laws and my blogging friends. I have made some really great friends, most whom I've never met, but bloggers who I consider every bit as much my friends as any person I know in real life, so thank you to all of you!

Now Chris is here & we're catching up on the last season of Psych & doing nothing much. Perfect!

Birthday Trees!

First off, I haven't been blogging much. Part of the reason is that I'm still having computer problems. The second reason is that I haven't felt like blogging. Not because I don't like it, but because I decided that the next post I do "should" be a picture-laden big post about my hubby's birthday and it seemed like a hassle so I've been avoiding it.

Then today I realized that I can post whatever. There's no right or wrong type of posts, so instead of stressing over what I didn't want to do, I'm just gonna do a post I do want to do!

Chris did have a nice birthday. He got Del Monico steaks and fancy cupcakes at a work picnic & was able to bring some of them home. It was heavenly.

With my favorite author, Jen Lancaster raving about "designer" cupcakes I was thrilled to try some of my own. They were cherry, super-rich chocolate, vanilla confetti & buckeye, which was chocolate and peanut butter. I included a pic of a half of a cherry cupcake with some frozen yogurt & chocolate sauce. Drool away.

I can't even describe the difference in these cupcakes from regular or grocery store ones. Even the vanilla with confetti, was absolutely delicious.

John, our oldest boy, is working at a landscaping place and found some clearance trees he liked. I told him they would be a perfect present for Chris' birthday, so John (JD) arranged for his real dad, (Asshat) to meet him at the place where he works & bring home the biggest tree in his pick-up truck. John & his girlfriend LeighAnne brought home the 2 smaller trees in our old mini-van.

They were going away for the weekend, so JD wanted to get the trees planted last Friday before Chris came home from work.

I loved that JD planned all this out and made sure they were taken care of before he left to surprise Chris, his step-dad. When Chris came home he was thrilled with his trees. JD had picked out 3 different trees that will blossom with beautiful colors in the spring, and he figured which ones should go where based on how much shade and or sun they needed.

Since we had to cut down our dying ash trees a couple of years ago, this was great. This one is a Japanese flowering cherry that will bloom white in our side yard.

A prariefire flowering crab that will bloom pink & attract hummingbirds.

And a huge Eastern redbud for the back yard. Look how tall it is next to our motorhome!

In case you can't tell it's about 4 feet above the motorhome. What normally would have been a very expensive tree. It will bloom pink also. Chris had to dig the hole next to this one, cause JD ran out of time.

Chris ended up having a great birthday weekend, with presents that he will enjoy for years.

Oskar also had his birthday on Monday and we kind of forgot until the last minute. I'll be updating his blog in a few minutes with his birthday story.

I hope you all have a great Fourth of July and remember that no matter how bad times are, we still live in the best country in the world!