How I spent my birthday...

The boys have been riding the bus home this year for the first time since they've been in school. I've still been taking them, however, in the mornings because the bus comes at 7:05 and if I drive them we don't leave until 7:30.   


Hey, that 25 minutes is a lot for someone like me in the early mornings hours.  Trust me.  


They decided last week (and I've really no clue as to why) that they wanted to start riding it in the mornings so the night before last when I was putting Dracen to bed (you know he has that alarm clock now?) he says to me, with complete and utter 7.5 year old seriousness, 


"If you don't see me in the morning, I got on the bus."  


I had to laugh.  "Dracen", I said, "you know I'm going to set my alarm and get up to see you off."  


"Why?" he asked.  


"Good night, Dracen!"  


They've been saying they were going to catch the bus for the past week or so but yesterday, on my 40th birthday, the stars and planets finally aligned themselves correctly in their proper positions in the universe and the boys rode the bus to school.


So I stayed in my night gown until 11:00.  Don't judge. It was my birthday!  


The weather was perfect, I felt like a superstar with all the birthday wishes on facebook (don't you just love fb on your birthday?), went to yoga at noon, sat on the deck in the adirondack chairs with my Diet Sun Drop and read a great book in the afternoon, and finished the day with two back to back baseball games, the first ones of the season.  


The boys gave me hanging basket ferns, a sweet card and some rose bushes to set out and my sweet husband gave me some beautiful windchimes, chocolate (score!), and a birthstone necklace.  My birthstone, by the way, is the diamond.  


I told the boys before we left for their games that I wanted one more gift....to have my picture taken with them in their uniforms.  Devin, normally the camera shy one with the I will sabotage every picture you try to take of me attitude was very cooperative. Well, "cooperative" when we're talking about Devin and cameras.  


The Dracenator, on the other hand, was acting like somebody licked the red off his candy, stomping his feet in the ground and shouting, "My cleats hurt!"  Sigh.


I suppose you can't have it all, but I most definitely feel blessed with more than my share.  


God is good.  

Smile, Dracen!

Smile RIGHT, Dracen!!! 

Oh, I give up!  Let's go!

And to show you that he really does know how to smile, here he is smilin' it up at The Melting Pot Saturday night...