We took our first trip to the neighborhood pool on Daddy's birthday. I was surprised that it wasn't very crowded. The girls had fun playing in the pool, but the water was way too cold for Jonah and me! I'm so glad the girls are taking swim lessons later this summer. It's time that they learn how to swim!
This was the first year in many, many years that Brian and I actually got to be together on both of our birthdays. The way it fell, Brian came home from Super Summer on the day of my birthday. We were planning to go to Osaka that night, but I wasn't feeling well so we ended up just sticking around the house. The next day, on Brian's birthday, we went to Outback, which is one of our new favorite places to eat. We have celebrated a lot of birthdays together now...18 birthdays, to be exact! WOW! It is still so crazy to me that we have now been together for more than half of our lives. I'm so glad that I get to share my birthday with the one I love!
I came across this picture the other day. We were 15 and so in love! Look at that baby face Brian has...he was so cute! (and still is, of course!)
I am blessed beyond measure!
Daddy's birthday dinner at Outback!
And last but not least...about a week after our birthdays we went to Ted's with Grandma & Grandpa Baldwin after the girls' PreSMAK program on Wednesday night. It was SO good, and definitely worth the hour long wait! Yes, we wanted it that bad! The highlight of the evening was when the waiter whispered to me, "Is it his birthday?" talking about Brian, and I just grinned and said, "Yes!" I saw no reason to explain that it was also my birthday! Just in the nick of time, I asked Brian if I could see his phone to look at some pictures, and used it to video right when they came out with the sombrero, ready to sing Happy Birthday!
Brian is such a good sport!
Three Generations of Baldwin's...and a Pony!
These three video's are of Mackenzie playing the piano for me at G-Ma's house on my birthday. She is starting to ask pretty often if she can take piano lessons, so we may have to look into that this Fall.
We made a Pinkitzel run the day before my birthday for an "early celebration." (Any excuse to go to Pinkitzel, right?!) It was such a fun, sweet time! We definitely had plenty of sugar...bags of candy for the girls, chocolate toffee for Mom and me, and of course cupcakes! And, since it was my birthday I got 2 cupcakes...why not, right?! Don't worry...I saved one for my birthday breakfast the next day! When I posted the above picture on FB, I was surprised that no one commented on the fact that there were 5 cupcakes in the picture...I was going to just say one of them was for Jonah! The girls sang Happy Birthday to me, which I loved. This was the start of a wonderful 31st birthday!
Here is a video of the girls singing Happy Birthday to me!
Birthday Cake for Mack, Strawberry for Madi, Salted Caramel for G-Ma (of course!), and Cookies & Cream and Turtle Cheesecake for me. YUM-O!
Jonah did get a little taste...and he liked it a lot!
We spent the first week of June at G-Ma's house, while Daddy was at Super Summer. These are just some fun pic's taken while we were there. The weather has been so mild that we spent a lot of time playing outside. Jonah loves swinging and the girls love playing in the sand. G-Ma was still working this week, so during the day the kids and I just hung out at the house mostly. It was so nice to relax and not be running all over the place. We went up to the library and had lunch with G-Ma one day and the girls decided to make crowns for everyone. Even Pony and Piggy had crowns! Wednesday night on our way to church, we found this huge turtle by the driveway at G-Ma's house. I haven't seen a turtle that big in a long time. One day we went and visited Aunt Tamara and baby Olivia and saw their new house. That was a lot of fun!
I think we scared him...he crawled away pretty quickly! He was headed back to the pond, I'm sure.
Sweet Cousins!
He likes to hold onto the ropes. I think he was getting sleepy because he looks a little zoned out!
This is how the girls sleep in G-Ma's King size bed...sprawled out so much that she can't even sleep in there with them! They're so funny! They sleep like little rocks on there, and never facing the normal direction!
On Wednesday night, we went to WHBC for "Wacky Water Wednesday in the Word!" The girls had so much fun playing in the water slide. Madison was so funny...she was loving it, but the expression on her face was so serious the entire time. She was very worried about being sprayed with the water hose! Mackenzie had a blast, and it is always funny to watch how quickly she makes new friends. I'm thankful that even though we don't get to be at WHBC often, we still get to occasionally do fun things like this there! This was the same day as the whole Chick-fil-a phone incident, so we were all ready for some good, relaxing fun!
This is like looking at me when I was this age. I was always very serious too!
So I had a little "episode" with my cell phone today...it was too good not to share, so here is the story that I posted on FB. It was so long that I didn't figure many people would actually read it. However, there were 65 "likes" and 27 comments. =0) I'm sure everyone had a good laugh at me! I'm just thankful that it ended well and I still have a cell phone!
This
is going to be a long story, but humor me and read to the end. I promise
it will be worth it and you will get a good laugh, at my expense. So I
took the kids to Chick-fil-a on my own today...first mistake! I've just
gotta say that the 3:1 ratio with young kids is still totally whipping
me! In the craziness of getting the food, watching the girls play,
dealing with Jonah, trying to eat myself,
getting them ice cream, cleaning up & throwing away the trash...I
realized when we got back to the car that my phone was missing. Thus,
panic mode set in. I unloaded the kids, left my purse and everything
spilled out of it in the car, and headed back inside hoping to find it,
but it wasn't there. They had just taken out the trash too...great. Just
great. They called my phone, back where the trash bags were, hoping to
hear it, but no phone. We went back to the car, dejected. I looked in my
purse for the 3rd time, and decided I had to go back in to Chick-fil-a.
I was going to dig through every trash bag until I found it. It was
either in the trash or someone had stolen it right out of my purse. The
manager was very kind and had his employees look through 12 bags of
trash. (so sorry nice Chick-fil-a people!) Still no luck. I walked back
to the car in tears, carrying Jonah and dragging the girls behind me,
convinced that it had been stolen and sad to lose all of my pictures and
contacts off my phone. As I was having a total pity party on the way to
the AT&T store, I couldn't help but think of all the people who
recently lost everything in the tornados. How misplaced and overwhelmed
they must feel. There I sat with just my phone missing, and it was
nothing compared to what so many had lost, but it was upsetting
nonetheless. All I could think about was updating my FB status to say:
"To the jerk who stole my phone out of my purse at Chick-fil-a: I hate
you." I know...not nice of me, but I was rather upset. When we got to
the AT&T store, I explained that my phone had been stolen and the
nice guy helping me tried to track it on iCkoud. All that showed up was
Brian's phone in Shawnee, where he is at Super Summer this week. I was
about to resign myself to the fact that my phone and everything on it
was gone and I was going to have to spend the $ to get another one and
start from scratch. I called Brian from the AT&T store phone and he
decided he would call my phone to see what happened. Maybe whoever took
it would answer. Uh, yeah...right! This is where it gets good. All of a
sudden, guess what starts ringing from inside my purse. Yep...my phone
was there all the time. The looks on the two guy's faces in AT&T
were priceless...they weren't sure whether to laugh or not! I felt very
foolish...but very relieved to have my phone back. I called Brian and he
just laughed. I said "you know, you don't have to tell everybody about
this." and he said, "yeah, sure...I would never do that!" I figured I
might as well laugh at myself and tell the story my own way before he
did! This is an escapade that I won't soon forget. And next time before
getting so worked up about "the jerk who stole my phone," I will take a
deep breath and check the inside pockets of my purse!
