Cole chose to have a few friends over to compete with him on his new WII to celebrate his 13th birthday and to go race cars at Fiddlesticks. Boy is that WII ever fun. We all enjoy it and it's great exercise. I played him in 3 games of bowling and the next day I felt like I had done squats. Move over Mario, here they come. Of course what's a birthday with Baskin Robbins ice cream cake? It's certainly a tradition in our family.

5 reasons I love my mom By: Taylor
#1. She takes care of me
#2. She comes up with great ideas for
my birthday parties and my friends always love my parties.
#3. She takes me places I need to go
#4. She takes me out to go
shopping and have lunch
#5. She helps me with projects, homework,
book reports, etc,.

5 reasons I love my mom By: Cole
#1. She is always there for me.
#2. She loves me back in return.
#3. She takes me where ever I need to go.
#4. She is a great mom.
#5. I don't know what I would do without her.

This was my birthday gift from my kids. What a wonderful gift. Taylor, my little writer, wanted to do this when I got tagged a few weeks ago.

13 years ago, I was given the greatest birthday gift of my life. After experiencing seven incredibly long years of infertility, we were blessed with a baby boy. My due date was actually a week earlier, but he decided to arrive one day before my birthday. When our ultrasound results showed a boy, I thought "Dear Lord, what are you thinking? I'm a girl's girl, a girly girl through and through. Not one ounce of tomboy in me. What do I know about raising a boy? I'm from a family of girls." Well He knows, He always does. He gave me a boy not only to nuture, raise and love, but to help take care of me. This child of mine can fix anything, put furniture together and figure out anything technical. He's amazing and what a great kid. Happy Birthday Cole! We started off with the traditional birthday pancake breakfast with 13 quarters surrounding his plate. As the morning went on, he found 13 pennies with his toiletries and 13 dimes on top of his wallet. I brought him and several lucky friends a couple of pizzas, wings and sodas for lunch and when he arrived home, he found this 13-dollar banner in his room and 13 gold dollars on his bed. We are off to Taylor's piano recital and then out for a birthday dinner celebration.

We had such a wonderful weekend - starting Friday. I didn't have to work. My friend, Angie, took me to a wonderful new Italian restaurant for my birthday and brought me some sweet gifts. Friday night we barbequed and rented a movie. Saturday morning I went to a rare flea market in Chandler. Rare because Phoenix only has a few flea markets a year. I've been hitting flea markets, estate sales, Goodwills, garage sales and antique shops searching for treasures for Sparkle Bella and the vintage paper swap. It's been dangerously fun. Summer has officially started here because I finally went swimming in our pool and made the first pitcher of lemonade of the season. We ended our fun weekend by seeing Spidey 3. It was very entertaining. My favorite scene was when Spidey and MJ were laying on a giant web watching the stars.