First, Heidi bought me a new scrapbook for Paige's "book of firsts", so that I could make her one similar to the one I made for Ava. We got this the night before my birthday, so it was like opening a gift on Christmas Eve before the mother-load on Christmas day. The next gift I received about 530 am. That was the first time Paige woke up to nurse since bedtime at 1030 pm, and usually she gets up at least two times before daybreak. Forgot how nice it was to get uninterrupted sleep! I remembered in the morning that I forgot to put the laundry from the washer into the dryer. When I was doing so, I heard this clanging sound in the bottom of the washer. The wedding band that I had taken off to put on sunblock several days previous, and then couldn't find again, had made its reappearance. It had been missing for 5 days and I had written it off as being long gone. My morning was off to a great start. The only thing that could have made my morning any better was going to happen next. We were going to have a big breakfast at Cracker Barrel. It is my favorite place to eat breakfast, and I love the coffee. So we went and I had my usual blackberry french toast. Christopher always gives me a slice of his bacon from his breakfast--he's so sweet! Here's another great birthday gift--Ava behaved the whole time and actually ate a decent amount of breakfast. She gets very distracted in restaurants and it is usually not a lot of fun taking her out to eat. She blew me away. What a treat! My sister Heidi met us there and had breakfast with us.
Then we were off to do all my birthday 'usuals' in Ann Arbor--my favorite place to go. It was about 1130, so we went to Zingerman's to get my 6 free birthday bagels. Last year I went in the evening and the selection wasn't as great, so we knew we needed to go earlier in the day. We got the bagels and a loaf of their cinnamon raisin bread--pricey, but worth it. It was fun to see the place buzzing. It is an expensive place to eat, but you will not leave hungry and you will not find a better sandwich--there are probably 100 sandwich options.
Then we hit Stucchi's to get my free birthday scoop of ice cream. I almost always get the same flavor, but they are all so good. I got my scoop of Chocolate Raspberry, which is raspberry ice cream with chocolate bits in it. YUMMM. If you have never eaten at Stucchi's (pronounced stew-cheese), you must. It is an Ann Arbor based company, and it is the best ice cream around.
From Stucchi's, we went to the diag and let Ava run around. I needed to get Paige her lunch, and needed a place to sit and nurse. Christopher and I love to walk around Ann Arbor, and so does my sister. They both went to U of M, and are fond of campus. Me too, because I associate them with the campus.
After Paige was done eating, we went and got our lunch to take home from Jerusalem Garden. It is this little 'hole-in-the-wall' place that serves middle-eastern cuisine, which happens to be my favorite. We got chicken shawarmas and hummus, and took it home to eat. I enjoyed every bite of my birthday shawarma, and the hummus was good, too.
We got home and put the girls down for a nap, which was much shorter than usual. DO NOT try to get pictures of your kids together when they have not had their full naps. Especially if they are still not totally fond of each other, and are both nap-deprived. Thought it would be easier with my sister along (normally this would be such a great help), but let's just say, it's not the ideal thing to try on your birthday if you want it to continue to be a great day. Enough said. (If you read back to my blog entry on my 31st birthday, you might read similar advice, though I apparently didn't remember to take it!) So, we came home with no pictures, and I was relieved to see my parents made it down safely to our place. Dad brought steaks and sweet corn from up north (the sweet corn is way better than anything we eat down here--ever.) That's what you get used to when you grow up in a farm town. Christopher grilled the steaks to perfection, and they were so good! What a great dinner.
The last thing Christopher and I did was go to JoAnn's Etc. store and bought a new sewing machine. I have one that was Grandma Zirk's machine, and it is one year older than I am. It is a good machine, but it's been wearing down and having quirky problems each time I work on a sewing project. Since I have been doing a lot of sewing lately, Christopher thought it was time to get a machine that had some of the more helpful features and functions that today's machines have that my machine doesn't. So we got in and ordered it in the nick of time, as the store was closing. The next day the machine wasn't on sale anymore and would've been 100.00 more than what we got it for. Very thankful for the timing on that!
So, that was my birthday this year in a nutshell, and it was great. I saw God in all the little details--the things we sometimes think are too small for him to care about. But he does.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
