Its my birthday week!!! So to kick off my birthday I set the goal to write 29 notes to friends who helped make last year so great. Which is a wonder all in its self that I have 29 friends to write letters to. I have never had a “group” of friends. I always tell Marc I “collect” friends from various places and walks of life. And it took a long time for me to give myself permission to work on building friendships and not let my social anxiety persuade me otherwise.

Sunday morning the girls had more wiggles then our house could hold so we went for a walk.

We walked passed Lori’s house and she joined us on our loop around the block. I told her about the rentals in Waco Marc and I have been looking at and about my dream to homeschool my kids. Lori is an excellent listener. She has really become one of our best friends in quarantine. Her daughters and grand babies all live out of state, so she has adopted us, loved on us, and checks in on us regularly.

Jane could hardly stand herself when we arrived. She was just too excited to show us the birthday cake she and Grammy made for me. It was a pink castle Bundt cake. And it was glorious to behold. After dinner my girls insisted on helping me blow out my candles.

Kerry and Carol are the sweetest and gave me a really tender card. They are phenomenal in-laws. I love them.

Monday was MY BIRTHDAY!!! And we started the day with sprinkle pancakes and candles!

We saw Lori working in her yard on our walk and she let the girls “help carry” the ladder back to Mel’a barn. Hazel and Ruby beamed with pride with their hard work and big girl job.

We took some good naps and played at home till the later afternoon when we headed over to Jo’s. We all ordered birthday ramen noodles from Worth and Jo made my favorite chocolate chip cookies.

We finished the evening with no-stress comfy family photos for each other in their backyard.

Twenty-nine and feeling fine!! And extremely blessed!

This week Ruby has shown more and more interest in learning her letters, so Marc being the awesome dad that he is has been helping her write out words. This is Her face the first time she wrote her name. I don’t know when she has been so happy and proud of herself.

Levi thinks he is so big and is pulling his leg up on everything! Watching the washing machine is one of his new favorite past times.

The Dentons went to their cabin up North for the first part of the week, so we had the fun job of looking after the feathered ladies and collecting eggs.

Marc had the morning off from school, so we spent a good portion of the morning with him reading aloud more of our current family story book, The Girl Who Drank the Moon. The story goes a little over their heads but I can tell they enjoy the special togetherness of story time. The kids and I made towers with magnets and blocks and every girl got their hair braided while Marc read. Ruby and Hazel had crazy adventure on their pillow ship they built in the middle of the room, kept afloat by their walking purple puppy and unicorn. (Obviously Magic only small children understand).