My Birthday :)

I had a wonderful birthday today. It actually started yesterday with Irma giving me a birthday muffin and flowers (Sarah and Katherine made me cookies and a beautiful card) and then continued today with Pam making me scones (YUMMY) this morning, thoughtful gifts from the roomies, a half-day at work (a side trip to the doc's to get exsanguinated again- as much as that isn't fun, I did get to use my favorite word on my birthday :) and I got happy shots, so that is a very good thing!), a facial at the spa, and dinner (RIBS!) with some good friends. Thanks for spending time with me on my birthday guys, it was fun! I'm excited to see what will happen over this next year and I pray that I will walk with Him every step of the way.

Me and my FULL rack of ribs that I have been looking forward to ALL week

I was much more lady-like in my excitement over the ribs than Josh was...

Stephanie, Shelly, me, and Stacy (sorry, Sara :(, you got cut out of the picture...)

Todd, Stacy

Josh and Lisa

part of Pam :), Claire, Lynn, Christina, and Paul laughing as the TR people yee-haw me

Lisa made me a birthday cake (oh yeah, and thanks Josh! ;-) ). It was super yummy!

A best thing...

So on the list of best things ever? A child's unconditional love. Such a blessing. Over the past couple of weeks, my sister has told me the following stories about my nephew:

He was sitting on the bed looking at the family album and saw my picture and started talking about how he loved Sissa and Sissa got him "this" (he was wearing the wicked cool sweatshirt I got him for Christmas :) )

Yesterday, he was eating breakfast and looked up at my sis and said "Sissa is a girl. I love Sissa". Later that day, they went for a walk and walked over some chalk pictures some kids had drawn on the sidewalk. JM stopped walking and looked down and then got all excited, telling Monica "I DID THIS!!! I did this with Sissa!". Which we totally had, back in September when he and Monica came to visit, he and I let her take a nap and we went outside and drew chalk pictures for an hour. :D. How sweet that he remembers me. Definitely a blessing from God, since I only get to see the tyke about twice a year. Awwww, happy face.

Hospitality Event #2

So in keeping with our tradition of having one hospitality event a month, we had the Yohe family, the Sinclair family, and my friend Lynn over for some lasagna eats today. Good times, good times...

More on Hope...

Remember little Hope? Well, the good news is it is not cancer (yay!), the bad news is that she is still very sick and just miserable. They are admitting her to Johns Hopkins Hospital tomorrow. Anyone know how to make a little 6 year old girl NOT afraid of needles? And please, keep praying for her!