Happy Birthday to me...

So it's a little late...but I wanted to post about my experiences on Sunday, May 11th. This doesn't happen very often, but this year, both my birthday and Mother's day fell on Sunday, May 11th. My husband and I had taken our pop-up camper and gone to Palo Duro Canyon on Friday to spend a day with my extended Taylor family. It was a family reunion of sorts, with about 45 aunts, uncles, cousins, sitting around the "Mesquite" campground sharing memories and chasing kids!! I must say it was a pretty successful first "camp-out" with the twins, with Cord only waking up once Friday night crying because he was in a strange place and ME only making one mistake putting the camper up! I say ME because Chad had managed to hurt himself lifting weights and may be suffering from a separated pectoralis (chest) muscle. He was of limited assistance at the best, and every movement caused him extreme pain...not a very fun camper!! I took the twins hiking up some pretty "big" hills for 3 year olds, and they had lots of fun playing with their second and third cousins! Anyway - we left Amarillo about eight p.m. Saturday night headed back home. When we got home, we left most of the unpacking for the next day and just managed to get everyone to bed!

So...I get up Sunday morning to make breakfast and get everyone ready for church...needless to say, after camping no one was very enthused about getting up!! My first and sweetest moment of my birthday/Mother's day came when my son came wandering into the kitchen wiping sleep from his eyes and asked what I was doing. I told him I was making breakfast because we had to get ready to go to Sunday school and church. He said, "I don't wanna go to church." I told him, "Yes, we need to go so we can tell Meme and Ms. Tricia and Ms. Kim, Happy Mother's Day"...okay, here's the sweetest thing...He said, "How 'bout you, Mommy? Happy Motha's Day to YOU!" Such a sweet, precious moment. Then his sister came in and said, "Today's your birthday, Mommy?" They then proceeded to sing Happy Birthday to Mommy for about the next five minutes!!! What a sweet moment!

The rest of the day, however, was spent working to clean the house, do yardwork, do laundry (it's NEVER done!!!) and get things ready for the coming week...not rest for the MOTHER!!!
I did get a beautiful shirt from my Mom and the church sang me Happy Birthday!

I decided Sunday afternoon to make myself a Coca-Cola® chocolate cake (my favorite) for my birthday, because THAT is what I wanted!! Well, the recipe calls for an 11"X17" cake pan, and I only had a 9"X13", so you can imagine the chaos that created...after throwing away a good portion of the batter to fit it in the pan I had, I tackled the problem of icing it...I finally decided to dump the sheet cake onto a large flat tray I had to have room to ice it! It has to be iced when warm, so the "dump" occurred while the cake was hot...and not so good! Anyway, to make a long story longer...my BFF, Carrie showed up around this time and managed to salvage the cake, ice it, and make it look like I had planned it that way! Thank you Carrie!!! She also gave me a massage (1 whole hour!) for my birthday and I absolutely LOVED IT!!! If you ever have a chance...do it...I think I can now make it through the rest of the school year...Thank you Nakia Sexton Hargrove for a wonderful massage!

So...I come to school on Monday for another big surprise...my classroom decorated by BFF's , Donna and Charla, full of streamers and confetti and a gorgeous petunia hanging plant ( I LOVE PLANTS!!!). They also treated my to lunch at my fave, Thai Kitchen, and then gave me a beautiful dragonfly pendant which I will wear every chance I get - I LOVE IT!!!!!! It totally made my MONDAY and helped make my birthday a super one...I also loved getting the birthday greeting comments on my blog! Thanks friends.

Speaking of friends...I have found a long lost BEST friend from childhood through the world of blogging!! My best friend, Donnie Carroll was the Church of Christ preacher's son who lived right across the street from me growing up and I think we were connected at the hip until he moved away when I was 10. It was probably the first biggest loss of my life! Anyway, through the blog neighborhood, he found my blogspot and figured out that it was me and we have been communicating every since...he and his wife live in Coppell, TX and Donnie (who goes by "Don" now...) blogs through as his black labrador, Riggins. Check out his site link from this page...Black Diamond Riggins. So shout out to Donnie...I'm so glad you found my site...

And lastly...I'm still waiting for my birthday present from my wonderful husband of nearly 15 years. Chad is so very busy right now with the graduation edition of the paper and his volunteering to do the sports banquet video which has generated sooooooooooooooo many software & computer compatibility problems. Anyway, I love you, Honey and I know that my family reunion camp out was a BIG part of my birthday present and the rest is coming...I'll blog about that soon...

Okay, I'm out of things to say and out of time to say it...so until next time,
Another Twin Mother