Celebrations

I woke up to this in the morning.
And got this in the evening.
Holding my breath for a picture by Tyler.
Smokin! Tyler got this shot.
Zinnias are coming up! I can see teeny tiny sprouts of basil and even teenier tinier sprouts of oregano. The jalapeno pepper plant looks like it might just make it. The tomatoes are still iffy. They looked ready to bloom until I planted them. LOL For Easter, Tyler chose, among a few other things, some gladiola bulbs. He planted them with his Papa on the side of the house. He waters them each day and is excited to see them bloom. I think they take quite a while, so let's hope he's patient. Easter went better than I thought it would. The best part for me has always been hiding the eggs and watching them find them. Well, even knowing there is no Easter bunny, the boys requested multiple egg hunts and we had a good time dying eggs and hiding real and plastic ones again and again. The following week we had a second 10th birthday celebration for Philip. We got to taste wonderful chocolate and chocolate ganache cake made by my Aunt Mary for the occasion. The kids were on a sugar high for a couple of days after the party, it was nuts! Philip made out quite well in the gift card area! He is very into reading a series called Warrior Cats by Erin Hunter. He bought a few of those titles at Books a Million (thanks Nee-Nee and Papa!). Then it was off to Target where he showed off his negotiation skills quite well. He ended up trading his $20.00 Walmart gift card to me for the equivalent in cash. He was able to buy a computer game called Spore, which he's been wanting for quite some time now. Thanks Church family and Aunt Mary and Uncle Bill! And how wonderful it was to have Nathan come down for the weekend! And to top it off, Ed and I finally decided to go ahead and buy each of the boys a Nintendo DS and a game cartridge. We have a friend who works for Nintendo, so we were able to get the systems and games at a much lower price than the general public can, or else, believe you me, we wouldn't ever had purchased one, never mind three! A friend is driving the game systems in for us tomorrow, since she has some business in town anyway. The boys are CRAZY excited. The week after Philip's party was my birthday. Ed and the guys made sure I had a really nice day. Plus, being on Facebook, I got a LOT of Happy Birthday wishes. Nothing like opening your inbox to 15 or so notifications from friends wishing you a happy birthday! The boys painted the letters for HAPPY BIRTHDAY on squares of brown paper bags and Ed hung it across the pass through before he left for work that morning. They made a card for me too and Ed supervised while Evan baked a cake. Thanks to my yogic breathing exercises, I actually blew out all my candles! Ed & Philip also got some Godiva Dark Chocolate Pearls, (YUM!!) a book and a c.d. for me. All in all, I was quite impressed by Ed and the boys! Though it may make me look super simple to please, I think this was my best birthday ever! I got to go out with a good friend the night before my birthday too. I never knew exactly how good a good beer and juicy burger could be together on a night when you really need a break! Mmmmm! The past couple days the little guys have been enjoying the sprinkler and too much sun while I've enjoyed lazing around in front of the t.v. I've been cutting coupons and doing school with Philip too. He's got a much better handle on fractions than I ever did, that's for sure! I think he is capable of thinking much more abstract than I am. He doesn't need to "show his work" or even put it on paper, he can just figure it in his head. Amazing to me, who to this day, still needs to write out every zero in any math problem before I believe I have the right answer. Speaking of math, I got GREAT deals today at Wal-Mart. They had some things on sale for a $1.00 and I had coupons for them, so I ended up with: a tube of Crest toothpaste for .25, a stick of lady speed stick for .25, and a couple of bars of Irish Spring soap for .50. I've got my list ready for Harris Teeter's triple coupon week too, thanks to Aunt Mary! I'm having fun with this coupon stuff now that I'm not taking it too seriously. That always seems to be the trick. Let go of insisting that you need a nap and the baby will finally fall asleep so that you can take one. ;)