Happy Birthday, Mama!

About two weeks ago, on March 2nd, I turned 29.  Yup, that's right.  I've entered my last year in the twenties, and 30 is now less than a year away!  This was a wonderful birthday for me.  We had bits of birthday celebration over the course of a week or so, which is always fun.  And it was automatically better than last year since Danny didn't have to be out of town!

I got my first (and most awesome) present about a week before my birthday.  After Claire's first performance of "Beauty and the Beast", I was frustrated that my little beloved point-and-shoot camera just wasn't going to be capable of getting any decent pictures of Claire on stage.  So, while we were walking through Costco getting groceries, Danny decided on my present.  We walked out with a new Canon Rebel with zoom lens and the whole nine yards!  We've talked about getting this camera for over a year, and we know we'll use it a ton.  As you can tell from the "Beauty and the Beast" post, it is an amazing camera!  We've had so much fun with it already, and we've only kept it on auto mode!  Now I need to find a class or something to teach me all the many tricks our new toy can do.  Thanks, Sweetheart!

My actual birthday was on Friday, and it just so happened to be an off-Friday for Danny.  Yay!  We arranged for the kids to spend the afternoon at Grandma Candy's, and Danny took me out on a date.  We went to the Ogden Home and Garden Show, and had so much fun looking at all the cool stuff.  After that we made our way to dinner.  Danny wasn't telling me where we were going, but as we got closer to our final destination, he decided to give me a hint.  "It rhymes with Lexas Codehouse...", he said.  Classic Danny!  I was able to stop laughing at his hint long enough to eat some majorly delicious food at Texas Roadhouse, and too much of it!  It was a perfect day.

Then, on Sunday, we had David, Camillia, and Ruby over for Birthday Cookie Sundaes.  For some reason, I had been in the mood to bake cookies for days, and had managed to hold off until my birthday dessert.  We made our classic Peanut Butter and White Chocolate Chip Chocolate Cookies from Our Best Bites, and tried a new recipe from another food blog...Rolo Stuffed Cookies.  Yummers!  Aunt Katie helped me get our six dozen or so cookies baked and ready for that evening.  We had fun in the kitchen!  And we got to snitch as much dough as we wanted. ;)

The cookies turned out amazing!  And beautiful!  And we love that we can now take delicious food pictures with our awesome new camera! :)

After assembling our delicious Cookie Sundaes, we sang "Happy Birthday" and blew out my candle.  Johnny was on hand to help.  He's such a good son. :)

Then everyone dug in!  It was a fun dessert to have as a birthday treat, and it was fun to make something besides a cake.  I'm also feeling more and more confident in my ability to bake, which is good, since Moms do a lot of baking!

We had a delightful evening!  Unfortunately, we weren't able to celebrate my birthday (and Grandma Candy's birthday a week earlier) with my family since there was some sickness going around both houses, and we needed to be conscientious of little Ava.  But later that next week, Grandma Candy took me out shopping for my birthday, and I ended up with not only a nice evening out with my Mom, but the ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid!  Thanks, Mom!  We put it to good use making Divine Cherry Chocolate Ice Cream for the Vigil Family dinner that weekend.  Matt smoked some awesome beef ribs, and Grandma Candy made her famous baked beans.  We provided the ice cream, along with a Banoffee Pie that was nothing short of amazing and should definitely only be made once a year.  

I had an absolutely wonderful birthday this year, thanks to all the people in my life that love me.  It's truly humbling to see how much everyone cares.  Thank you everyone!  I love you, too!