Celebrating the Big 5-0

Happy birthday to me, the big 5-0! I got up nice and early this morning (4:11am) to go to the temple, per my usual Tuesday routine. BUT I didn't take a nap at all this morning or afternoon! I purposely kept moving cause I didn't want to waste my birthday sleeping! Today is the day I get to cash in!

So let's see - what are all the ways we celebrated today? Abi asked me what my favorite kind of cake was, and I said German chocolate. It was a B day for Abi, so after seminary, she went by the store and picked up ingredients for that. AND that didn't mean the pre made german filling! This girl made a german chocolate cake from scratch! I didn't even know people did that. 

Wow. It was delicious! So I ate too much of that and have some saved for myself for tomorrow and the day after. Mel and Christian came by and brought some homemade chili, which was also super delish. Melodie asked what I wanted for my b-day and she came up and helped me clean in the basement. Wes  and I worked late last night cleaning the finished/carpeted side of the basement, and he really liked it - the only thing missing for this to serve as a guest room was a closet - SO I helped start this and Wes finished it last night: We turned an extra bookshelf that we weren't using anywhere else into a little closet!!! 

Wes and I were both very proud of our frugality and creativity. Our new basement/guest area/visiting married kids sleeping area is complete! 

What else... while Mel was here cleaning and with Katharine, I went to the gym for 2 1/2 hours. On my way home I went by the store for ice cream and also picked up some sushi. I shared it with Abi, Peter and Katharine, who were the only ones home. We scarfed it down and hid the evidence before anyone else got back from friends' houses.

O&D were gone at friend's houses, S&N were at Janes, Lily was taking a nap, so too bad for them - ya snooze you lose! Natalie being weird tonight - 

Dressed up in some strange fashion and playing with Katharine, making herself laugh so hard she couldn't stand up. Daniel got distracted from his saxophone practice by Natalie. 

Wes went to work with Corey today, helping him on his demo video. And they took my bike, which was mostly fine cause I wasn't planning to bike today, but they keep going biking without me. They were at work for a while, then when I thought they were done and would be heading home to celebrate with us, life360 showed them heading to Draper... they went biking in corner canyon, which I was a little annoyed by, cause I thought Corey and I would go out to do something... prob not to eat cause I had already eaten enough, but something... I was a little bummed by that. I hardly saw Corey today. Abi gave me some spa in our bedroom though. Soaked my feet and gave me a pedicure, a scalp massage, face mask, a hair mask, the works. Then I took a bath to clean myself up and came down for cake and ice cream. 

Happy birthday. Corey said he wanted to get me a new bike but he doesn't have money. Ok, I'll accept that well intentioned thought. "I've almost had some pretty awesome stuff!" - Nate Bargatze I would like to do a biking trip for Corey and I or some friends like I went to in February. Maybe Corey and I will do a biking trip for his birthday and I'll have that count towards my party today. Or we'll do something big and milestone-ish for the big 5-1 next year. 

Update: Mel sent these to me on Wednesday but I'll put them here. She asked her siblings to text her things they love about me, aww. Here's Ethan's quoting himself on drugs, haha!

We'll follow Ethan's with Bella's <3  

• She’s patient with herself and other
• She’s a baby lover
• She has her own style and personality
• She doesn’t care what others think about her
• She’s athletic
• She’s always righteously following the path
• Amazing disciple of Christ

Hyrum: 

• She has a strong commitment to the Lord and has pointed all of us to Him
• She raised and loves me and all my siblings
• Gave birth to 13 kids so she's tough and built different. She is not like other moms at all
• Strong and athletic. Inspires me to work on fitness as she currently can out-climb and out-bike me
• I love connecting and talking with her over little things like reels, legos, reels, girls, sourdough, etc. 
• She uplifts

Joe: Things I love about Mom:

• She is strong in the gospel
• She is a hard worker
• She loves the scriptures and the temple
• She follows the prophet
• She likes kids
• She isn’t afraid to try new things
• She has a great laugh
• She sacrifices for what is most important

Abi: 

• she lets me stay home even when i’m fake being sick
• she gives really good back massages 
• she listens to my stories about my life & seems interested 
• she is nice about sharing the car with me 
• she is very generous
• she inspires me to be a good mom

Lily - 

• I love her laugh
• How she clicks quotes and puts them on the bathroom
• Talking about body
• How she loves setting
• Her sense of humor (reels)
• How corporative she is
• How patient she is and always willing to help

sophis:

1. how she checks on me when I'm sad
2. how she's funny
3. invites me to do lots of fun stuff
4. her laugh and how it's contagious 
5. her smile
6. how she's nice

natalies

1. I love it when she laughs  it makes me happy
2. I love it when we  are talking about things and have good conversations
3. I love the sourdough  she makes
4. I love it when she talks about her testimony  it strengthens mine
5. I love how she's so passionate and loves all her children even the super annoying ones