Hello 35!

Wednesday was my birthday! I had such a love-filled day. I've gotten so many sweet calls, texts, and messages. When I got to work I found on my desk a mocha and a basket filled with goodies.

Inside the basket I found a Plunder box, a shirt, a gift card that can be used at various places, and LOTS of my favorite candy. Also, the basket is super cute and I'm trying to decide where I want to display it once my candy is gone. 

Here is the shirt. Hopefully, you know where these lines are from. I'm actually wearing the shirt right this minute. 

This is what was inside the Plunder box. I adore it. The pendent is a lot bigger in person. I love the color and the pearl accent. 

The biggest surprise of the day came when I walked into work and someone said go look in the lounge. This cake was sitting on the table. Kimberly's birthday is the day before mine. She is one of our janitors and she is the sweetest women I know. The woman cleans up poop, pee, and puke all day but you will never hear her complaining and she is always so joyful. We still don't know who bought the cake. I sent out an email to the staff telling whomever thanks. 

THEN, in walks Ms. Joann, the lady who helps me in the library, and she is holding an Italian Cream cake. Y'all I had cake for breakfast and lunch. Lucky me! She also surprised me with a gift certificate to The Sweet Shop which is where I eat lunch every Thursday. They have THE BEST Italian Chicken Salad. 

Throughout the day I got lots of homemade cards from darling students and a many birthday wishes from them also. I guarantee I heard happy birthday 200+ times. 

Once I made it home I had more gifts to open. Melissa, one of the girls I met through the Powersheets Facebook group, sent me an adorable planner. My bestie Jessica sent me a $50 gift card to Amazon. In the package there was a note saying I had to spend the money on myself. I can't wait to go shopping!

Jack got me a super cute pair of Corkys that are so comfy. My mom gave me a membership to our towns newest gym. I'll be adding some fitness plan to my Powersheets come April. My dad got me what he always gets me which is a card with a $100 bill in it. 

My beautiful sister got me a beach bag, my favorite Simple face wipes, a pair of shoes, sunglasses, and a git certificate to get a pedicure. I'm going to use my certificate the week before we go to the beach. 

My dad cooked fish for the whole family and my mom made a chocolate cake with help from the boys. I couldn't eat any that day because I'd had too much cake already and I was stuffed from the fish, fries, and hushpuppies. 

I am feeling so blessed and to top it all off we are officially on Spring Break!!!

Jack is 4!

Today has been a whirlwind, Our life can be so chaotic and I have to just roll with the punches. Before I get into today's events I will need to backup to Saturday.

My friend Brooke and I went to Fayetteville to visit my college friend Betsy and attend the tailgate with her. We went for a little while Friday night and got up early Saturday morning to go to the Farmer's Market. My right side started hurting really bad. I tried to push through and even went to the tailgate but had to Uber back to my friend's house because I was so uncomfortable. I ended up in her bed until we left Sunday morning at seven. The pain never went away so I suffered through until I could make an appointment.

Monday morning at 2:45 am Jack starts throwing up all in the bed that I share with him. He has never gotten sick like a grown up. He has only ever thrown up two other times in his life. I felt so bad for him. He said "Oh Jack! You made a mess". So the first time I saw him on his birthday he was puking onto me. I quickly got us washed up and pulled the sheets. The mattress was disasterous. He was wide awake at that point so I moved to the couch and he played around me.

After about another hour of sleep I get up and dress for work. Jack is still feeling fine so the plan was for him to go to school and me also. I get to work and was able to call later and make an appointment for after lunch.  I won't go into too much of my awful doctor's appointment but I'll say I know nothing more and I hope to hear from the doctor tomorrow.

I got back into town in just enough time to pick up Jack's cake. My mom fixed Jack's favorite homecooked meal-meatloaf, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and corn on the cob. It was chaos when I got home. My mom was cooking and Bennett and Jack were running around crazily with a balloon. They got even more wild when they saw me with cake and presents.

The rest of the evening was just WILD! I had to put up the cake because Jack couldn't stay out of it. Bennett had a meltdown because my mom broke the news to him that they were Jack's presents. Jack ended up opening his big gift while everyone was running around getting things ready. Since he had already opened it I decided to get it out of the package so they could play while we finished things up. The fight was on then because the boys kept screaming to each other "you have to share".

Once the food was ready Jack wouldn't sit down to eat and all I ended up getting in him was some of the corn. Bennett kept flipping out because his food kept touching (his mom was the same way as a child). My niece was screaming because she didn't want to be in her highchair. All the adults were spending their time dealing with meltdowns.

The best part was when we sang Happy Birthday to Jack. He was so excited and loved blowing out the candles. He loved having all of the attention. He couldn't sit still long enough to eat much cake and ice cream. He kept running over to his gifts and taking off the paper. I let go of there being a time to open presents where we were all sitting around.

At 6:45 Jack went and crawled into bed with zero promting and went straight to sleep. I hope he was just exhausted and not really getting sick. If you have been around here long then you know that sleep isn't Jack's thing.

Jack had a great time and loved having a day all about him. Here are a few pictures from today's events.

Birthday Weekend

1// One of the gifts I got Jack was this fishing game. As you can see from the picture Jack is cheating. In his defense, this game was much harder than I remembered. They don't use magnets anymore. As of Sunday afternoon two of the fish are MIA. 

2// I decided to go with a monkey cake this year for Jack. We have done Mickey Mouse and Thomas the Train. We all call him monkey so I found this to be fitting. We have the bet cake maker in our little town. It is the best cake I've ever eaten. 

3// This picture is all Jack. Never was there a more perfect picture that summarizes Jack up completely. Wild child!

4// Jack goes to the best daycare. He had a little party there on Friday. I just love this picture. These children are so joyful. 

5// Jack's favorite present is this Jack in the Box. I knew he would love it. He loves to be surprised and he enjoys you scaring him. Oh the magical laughter the first time that clown came up. He giggled and laughed for so long. We have had lots of laughs over this toy. Classic toy for the win!

33

Yesterday was my birthday, my 33rd to be exact. Once you have a kid, even your birthday becomes about them. Their happiness is your happiness afterall! Jack and I started our day with driving to the donut shop for breakfast. 

Side story: There was a lady who worked there and she had her 18 month old son with her. She was from another country and she explained to me that she hadn't seen her son in 16 months because she had to leave him with her mother so she could come to the United States to work. I asked her if he would be able to stay with her now and she said she didn't know. Her mom was just visiting with her son but she didn't know if she would have someone here to help her while she worked. Isn't that just sad? It made me feel really blessed.

After donuts (and a change of clothes) Jack and I headed to Wal-Mart. Jack and I are participating in a boy box swap (I told you about it here on Friday). We got our shopping done for that and Jack picked himself up a little truck of his own. The child seriously loves anything with wheels!

Although I stuffed myself with lots of unhealthy foods, I still got in some time on the treadmill yesterday. As a plus, my Mom got me 3 months at the local gym! 

This is one sad looking cake but man oh man was it yummy! The humidity was crazy yesterday and the damn thing would not stay together. Like my Mom said "add enough icing and it don't matter how it looks". Choosing strawberry cake was a very good decision! 

I finished my evening with a book. I am done with What Alice Forgot! Okay, here is my honest review. It was just okay. I wasn't in love with it. I liked My Husband's Secret a lot more. My next book that I want to read is The Girl on the Train. 

Hope all you fabulous people had a great weekend!