the big birthday week, continued. . .

As you may or may not know, the week leading up to Christmas is an especially crazy time at the circus. I mean, it's a bit wild for everyone, what with Christmas pageants and rehearsals, cookie baking and decorating, present purchasing and wrapping, cleaning and all the other activities that lead up to the big celebration on Christmas. But for us, it's also a birthday week! We had a birthday party, obviously, and celebrated that same birthday again a few days later. A few days after that, we celebrated my birthday. And a few days after that, it was Christmas! (Really, it's a whirlwind of a week. Like things aren't whirlwindy enough around these parts. And yes, I just made up that word.)

Daddy and the children worked hard to make sure my birthday was a special day.  I was allowed to lie in bed in the morning, until Luke wouldn't have it anymore.  We opened presents, including new coffee (the commissary stopped carrying the decaffeinated kind for my special little coffee maker) and new music and new clothes.  The girls were especially excited to give me my gifts -- they'd picked them out themselves and had been brimming with excitement about them!  Chief among the gifts was the one that makes this post possible -- a brand new iMac.  We were all rather giddy about its giant screen and speedy operation.  Hopefully you'll be seeing more consistent posts from me because of it.  (No promises, though.  Writing time is hard to come by.  Time is in short supply in general!)

Later that afternoon, Nan and Grandpa arrived.  They were a critical part of a plan that Jim and the girls had hatched together.  Nan and Grandpa had sweetly agreed to stay with Luke and John David so that Jim and my girls could take me out to a "grown-up dinner."  The girls were extremely excited about this plan -- and that excitement comes through in these photos we snapped of them (with a dying camera battery) before we left.

"Oh," says John David, "A picture?  I'd better get over there!"

A random, funny story about the dinner planning.  Jim was talking to the girls about it and asked, "Madeline, if we take Mama out to a special, grown-up restaurant, do you think you can be a big girl so that you can come?"  Madeline cocked her head to the side, thought for a long while, and then said with a sly little smile, "Yes.  But if I hafta go potty, I'm gonna go right on the floor!"  And then she laughed.  And so did everyone else.  She was quite proud of herself for her little joke.  (And we have to admit, it was funnier than the knock-knock jokes she makes up!)

Our "grown-ups plus big girls night" was lovely.  We had a delicious dinner at Scott's Seafood (salmon!  sea bass!), picked up ice cream cupcakes from Cold Stone Creamery, drove past the Christmas lights on a sweet little street in Palo Alto, and then headed home to share the cupcakes with John David and Nan and Grandpa.  Luke, of course, settled for milk.

The day was everything that a birthday should be -- sweet and special and relaxing (well, as relaxing as things get around here, anyway).  What a blessing to spend the day with my thoughtful husband, sweet girls, and darling, rowdy little boys.