What did I do for my birthday?

On my birthday, I woke up to Nate kneeling down beside me for morning prayer and then the girls came rushing in with excitement. Savannah had already prepared her gift the night before and presented it to me in homemade water-colored wrapping.

It was a lovely blueberry muffin from breakfast the day before. So sweet and thoughtful.

London presented me with a portrait of me and Nate.

I absolutely LOVE my sassy stance in this drawing.

It was just great to wake up to my girls being so excited and happy for it to be MY day. After breakfast, I sat down to tell them about how after they went to bed the night before, I was in bed watching tv and cutting out family home evening things when suddenly there was a loud knock. Daddy was zonked out and so I went down and opened the door to be greeted by this:

and this on the door

and this in the card

and this on my hunt for the cat and dog friends (read note)

and this hand-stapled-with-love garland

and then the prize at the end (up in the tree, I might add)

someone knows me quite well - - my favorite Hershey's bars!!!
A whole stash of them!

After telling the story and showing them the pictures on my camera, Savannah turned to me and said, "did that REALLY happen?" as if it was too cool to be real.

Yes, I got Tikki-torched for my birthday!
How cool is that???

The girls were thrilled to go and check out the birthday decorations. I was amused by these lovelies . . .

What exactly did my tikki-torchers mean by this? =)

The girls loved them, but you may ask what made London so upset?

this.
The broken cat.
I so graciously shared my birthday gifts with the girls. Savy got the dog and London the cat. I warned them that they would break easily, but you know four-year olds . . . it was broken within ten minutes. but big sisters always know how to make things better

don't they?

Miss Reagan was looking especially cute on my birthday.

After dropping off the kindergartners and preschoolers, Amy took me out to breakfast at Wildflower.

my fabulous frittata and fresh-squeezed orange juice.

(yes, I'm even documenting my food for the day)

After breakfast we went to Deseret Book where Amy bought me a book. I am so excited about it - Mormonism and Early Christianity by Hugh Nibley. I have been wanting to study the gospel more in depth and early Christianity fascinates me with St. Augustine and the Nicean Creed and how the apostasy came about and precious truths were lost which were then restored by Joseph Smith. The part I like best about this collection of essays is that he submitted and published them through non-LDS publications and put them up to the scrutiny of non-LDS scholars. I just like that idea that he was that researched and confident in his writings. I can't wait to delve into this one. Thank you, Amy.

Then we picked up the kindergartners and then the preschoolers (and a big THANK YOU to my neighbor, Megan, for keeping them an extra 1/2 hour!) and headed to Fry's and the UPS store. Brave Amy went to grab a few groceries with all four of the toddlers while Reagan and I went to make about 300 copies at the UPS store (lovely FHE once again). And then we went to Amy's.

The kids played fabulously all day while Amy and I worked on FHE while watching episodes of The Biggest Loser (which I've never seen) and the biography of Pres. Monson (which was FABULOUS!). Reagan was perfect (as usual) and just played on the floor, trying her darndest to crawl.

Oh, and Amy even managed to make me a birthday cake and dinner as well.
Big sisters DO know how to make things better, don't they? (thanks, Amy)
My favorite shrimp dish.
Go here to get the recipe.
Seriously, it's so tasty and so easy.

My cake.
Amy is amazing at just whipping up something.
Amazing.
The cake was delicious with it's cookies-n-cream filling.
And that was my fabulous minute-by-minute birthday. And I must say this is the winner of the post with the most pictures of me in it. I never post pictures of me.

The best part is that my birthday continued on to Friday when Nate and I went out on a date. I just love going to dinner where we can be alone and talk and not be disturbed by non-stop chatter. It was probably the best part of my birthday, being alone with him.