I Lived To Be 40!!!!

Today is my 40th birthday!

I never thought I'd live this long. [Weird, huh?]. I have two beloved cousins who died in their 30s of cancer, I've had so many near death pregnancies, I've had other near death experiences [including cancer myself when I was only 24 years old] - I just never thought I'd live to see 40. In fact, for the past few months, I've been living life feeling like a "marked man" LOL!

To wake up today alive and well and 40 years old is so cool!

In reflecting back on my life, I am very happy. This isn't where I expected to be on my 40th birthday, but I feel a deep sense of contentment and happiness none-the-less.

My kids have been absolutely adorable about it today - I woke up with a beautiful hand made card on my pillow and I've already heard countless renditions of the "Happy Birthday" song [including the one where I smell like a Monkey LOL!].

I woke up to a clean house too - my wonderful SIL came yesterday and helped me clean house all day. It was very nice. I LOVE a spotless house, but with 6 kids it is an endless battle with the Chaos Monster.

We are having two of my favorite young ladies over today to do a spend the night party for my oldest daughter - her birthday party got postponed a couple of times for health reasons, and it just worked out that today would be a good day to reschedule, so we did!

Today I am looking around at my life and feeling very happy - today I am celebrating a happy, simple life, one filled with people who love me.

Praise God for so many Blessings!

Say Hello To The Mystery Machine!!!

We have a van!!!!

Check out the Mystery Machine:



My brother [pictured below with two of the Monkeys] really outdid himself. He is *famous* for being able to get a good deal on everything he buys, and he's been looking for a van for us for a few weeks now. He found plenty of things that would be "good enough" but nothing that met his standards for "awesome" and "a good deal".



Then, on Friday, he found our new van! He talked the guy down 1/3 on his price [meaning I paid 2/3 of what he was asking - it was a *phenomenal* deal!]. And the van is really awesome - we just love it. It is really big on the inside, but it is easy to drive - drives like a dream. I think it is so cool looking [and yes, it definitely reminds me of the Mystery Machine, only burgundy, every time I look at it!]. It has what I call "character". :)

The kids love it too! They are so excited - we all are.

My brother brought the van to us yesterday and he my SIL stayed to play with the kids. It was so fun!

My brother played catch with my two older kids. Which was great - my brother got my son his baseball glove for his birthday and it was awesome for them to be able to play catch. My son [or my daughters] have never had anyone to teach them to catch or throw - ever. I'm so happy they have a guy around who will do that stuff with them now. My son caught on really quick and did a great job throwing and catching - WooHoo!





My SIL played with the younger girls while the older kids played catch - that was awseome to watch too. Monkey3 has a real natural ability when it comes to gymnastics and it was fun watching her show her aunt what she could do [back bends, cartwheels, one handed cartwheels, etc]:



And having my SIL play "air plane" and spin them around was definitely a favorite activity:



I have to say, life is really coming together for us here. Things are good. We are all happy - we are all enjoying life again.

God is Good and life is beautiful.

And Monkey1 is silly:



I hope you had a great weekend!

God bless you!