Birthday #32

In our family, I am THE planner.  And, yes, "the" needs to be emphasized.  I have a plan for our plans and an obsession with efficiency.  While this works really well for us most of the time, it hasn't been without some consequence.  For example, Mate has very little opportunity to plan anything for me.  While it may seem like there is a very easy solution to that problem, it took us 15 years to come up with something that works for us.  That plan looks like this: I choose one weekend a year to give over to Mate and make sure we have someone to watch the girls; he takes care of the rest.  Clearly, not rocket science, but a really big accomplishment for us, nonetheless. We decided to give this plan a whirl for my birthday and it turned out better than I could have imagined:

  32 years of life and I am learning to go with the flow.  Although, that wasn't too difficult when these were the plans.

After relaxing for a bit the next morning, we headed to pick up the girls at my mom's house where I was greeted with birthday wishes, a homemade cake and bouquets of flowers.  By the way, my children are obsessed with making sure I water said flowers . . . like, concerned to a level that makes me wonder what I did in the past to make them think I'm so incapable.  

Anyway, we spent the afternoon with my in-laws, who put together a lovely birthday lunch for me. 

We rounded out the day at a Valentine's Day party with 200 of our closest Solon Early Childhood PTA friends. 

 They even included a Happy Birthday message on the cake.

I am very thankful to have spent my birthday with so many people that I love and to be embarking on another year to learn and grow!