5 on Friday!

How is it already May?!  I cannot believe that this year is almost halfway over!  Time, PLEASE slow down!

O N E
You guys, I had such a great birthday.  The day itself was pretty low-key.  It was cold and rainy outside, so I took the kiddos to open gym at our local rec center in the morning.  That night CK had tee-ball pictures (which were a disaster, since I basically had to drag her by the arm to get her picture taken, and then beg/bribe/threaten her to get her to somewhat smile).  Anyway, when I got home from pictures, there was this amazing painting of one of my favorite moments I captured on my iPhone camera one morning.  My sneaky, thoughtful, amazing husband had a painter in Charleston recreate the picture on an 18x24 canvas and y'all, it is perfect (all the way down to CK's constantly-scraggly hair):

Oh, and not pictured (but equally important) is the ice cream cake from Coldstone that T went to great lengths to get for me (since we don't have a Coldstone in town).

The birthday fun continued yesterday when some of my first Carrollton friends took me out to breakfast and spoiled me with eggs, bacon, and a spa gift certificate.  And then last night I had one final yay-I'm-32-hurrah with some more girlfriends, out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants.  We drank, ate, laughed, and they showered me with all kinds of gifts, which were totally unnecessary and almost made me cry.  Considering the fact that last year on my birthday I felt like such a stranger in this small town, I was so touched this year to have so many people make me feel loved and special.  Thanks y'all, you guys are the best! <3

T W O
We all know I love to run, and my fingers are crossed that my love of running trickles down to my kids.  Well, CK is constantly asking me if she can get out of the jogging stroller, but my answer is a resounding NO, always.  However, the other day I thought, what the heck, let's see how she does.  We set a few ground rules, and then I let her get out and run beside me.  She ran the whole last mile!!  I couldn't believe it, and I was so proud of her.  And I kid you not when I say she had her light-up-your-world-smile plastered on her face the entire time.

T H R E E
So, thanks to many people reaching out to give me advice and suggestions when it comes to making baby food, we're a couple weeks in and doing great!  So far I've made sweet potatoes, carrots, butternut squash, and peas.  And then my Ninja blender DIED!  I haven't even had it for a year, so when I called the company they were quick to send me a replacement.  Anyway, it has been so easy and so cheap, and I have to say I am very proud of myself for making the food myself!  We will definitely use store-bought food when we need to for convenience purposes, but I am gonna keep on plugging along with the homemade food.  Next up is green beans, and then we'll get into fruits!

F O U R
And thanks to MORE advice and suggestions from people, I found a devotional I am going to start doing daily!  I posted on Facebook looking for recommendations, and the majority raved about Jesus Calling.  I got quite a few other suggestions, which I wrote down and will look into next.  I was also gifted this book for my birthday (thanks Lu!) and am going to start it, too.  I'm so excited because I plan on completely changing the way I start my day.  Right now I'm usually up by 6:45am/7:00am, which doesn't give me much time to get myself going before I'm nursing E/changing his diaper/begging CK to get dressed/brushing teeth/helping T find his shoes/dealing with a tantrum/etc.  The mornings always just leave me feeling a little frazzled, and I'm ready to have a better start to our day... especially now that E is getting into a pretty consistent, predictable routine.  SO - my new plan is to set my alarm for a little earlier, get up and get ready before everyone else is up, and then come downstairs to have some quiet time/devotional time/hot coffee time ALL BY MYSELF.  Now, I'm sure it won't always work out the way I imagine, but I am honestly looking forward to starting my mornings this way and I'm hopeful it'll make me feel refreshed and ready to tackle the day!

F I V E
We have lots of fun plans this weekend!  Two birthday parties tomorrow and we may try to go to Mayfest - but what I'm most excited about?  Sunday!  On Sunday we're headed into Atlanta to go to the Braves game!  Two of our favorite friends invited us to go sit in awesome seats, drink way-too-expensive beer, and soak in the sunshine while we watch some baseball.  I'm irrationally excited, mostly because we'll be dropping the kids off at my sister-in-law's house and will get to enjoy the game without wrangling our circus (thanks Beth and Cory!).  THEN that night we're gonna hang at my sister-in-law's for awhile for some dinner and fun!

Have a great weekend!!