Oh My Wordy, Look Who's 30!

Best. Birthday. Ever.

Turning 30 wasn't a big deal to me like it can be for some women. I have my health. I have my family and friends. I have an amazing husband and our baby due any day. And I still look like I'm in my 20s (ha). Life is good.

Every birthday since 21 hasn't been a big deal. The older I get, the more boring and ho-hum birthdays become to me. This year, however, was an exception. It started out as just another day, but it sure didn't end that way. I got up. Went to work. Ate too much during the work day (between the carrot cake a coworker made for my birthday and a birthday lunch compliments of my boss). Struggled to stay awake in the afternoon as the inevitable food coma hit me. Enjoyed all the birthday phone calls, emails, text messages, and Facebook messages. Then headed home at 5:00, excited to see my happy dog, check the mail for birthday cards and packages, and go out for a nice birthday dinner with David.

This is when my 30th birthday took a surprise turn. As I rounded the corner of my street, I saw, to my utter surprise, what looked like my Dad's truck parked in front of my house.

"No, it couldn't be...." I thought.

"Wait, yeah, I think that's his license plate."

Sure enough, as I pull into the driveway, up pops the garage and my Mom is standing there. "SURPRISE!!!" she yells with the biggest grin on her face.

And I just started crying.

I think I was in shock for a good hour (at least). I kept saying, "You're crazy!" and "I can't believe you're here!" And, of course, David had been in on it the whole time (since Thanksgiving!), which made it that more special to me.

As if their visit alone wasn't awesome enough, they came bearing gifts. Lots and lots of gifts. The first thing I saw when I walked in the house was a gift for Bubba from my sister Jennifer, which was SO sweet because she had already done so much for me and Bubba already. Next to the baby gift was this huge three-layer cake my Mom made. [Becky and Jeff, you'll love this: it was FUNFETTI!!! My favorite when I was little, and still love to this day because it reminds me of childhood.]

One of my first questions to my Mom, "So are we still going out for dinner?" Because at this point I didn't know David had been in on this and I still thought we had dinner reservations. Wrong. She pointed to the oven, and I peek in and notice a heaping pan of lasagna starting to bubble. My favorite!! Not only is lasagna always my birthday dinner of choice, this one was extra special because it was Jennifer's famous 8 lb. lasagna. Nothing beats it. And last night it was extraordinary as always.

THEN Kirk stops by to drop off a birthday card (that he's been meaning to give me for three years, which is hilarious) and a scrumptious chocolate cupcake from this fantastic cupcake bakery in town. It was so sweet of him to stop by, and the three-year-old card made me laugh. I'm saving the cupcake for another day, though, because I have an entire funfetti cake to eat!

My serving of cake had toothpicks in it. I thought that meant I won a prize, but all it got me was excused from washing dishes. ha! I'll take it! :)

After dinner, we moved into the living room where this was waiting for me:

Let me explain. Many, many moons ago, when Jennifer turned 30, Mom had a fun idea of getting her 30 gifts. Well, what you do for one you have to do for all. Sure enough, Jamie got 30 gifts on her 30th, and now it was my turn. I, of course, had not remembered this tradition at all, so I would've been none the wiser had I only received one birthday gift (until Jamie called and asked how I liked my 30 gifts; I could see that happening. ha). And so I spent the next 60 minutes tearing through presents (with some assistance from Chase The Opener, David The Box Keeper, Mom The Trash Collector, and Dad The Photographer).

I was not amused by this gift: "Olivia Newton John's Greatest Hits Vol. 2." What the heck?! Well, turns out this is part of the tradition. Mom always got the #1 song, book, and movie from the year we were all born. Ummmm.....thanks? hahahhaha 

Won't be drinking this for a while, but never hurts to start filling up my wine rack now. Best to be prepared. :)

Love this! A bath caddy to hold my glass of wine, a candle, and prop up a book while I soak in the tub. *sigh* Makes my muscles relax just thinking about it.

Little helper. Look at him go!

After we opened presents, we stayed up too late talking and laughing and telling stories and laughing and looking at baby pictures and laughing and talking about Bubba and laughing. It was a perfect night. I didn't want to end it by going to bed, but alas, I had to cut it short because I knew I had to get up early for work.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mom, Dad, and David, for making my 30th SO special. I'll remember it always.

Two other random highlights from the day:

1)  I turned 37 weeks pregnant on my birthday, which means Bubba is officially full term! We made it! Now we're just waiting for him to decide to enter the outside world. :)

2)  I won Final Jeopardy for the first time ever. Let me explain. The Stelsels and the Parkers love Jeopardy. David has this fun (?) habit of guessing an answer between seeing the Final Jeopardy topic and seeing the question. Well it's caught on, and now we all do it to test our psychic/genius powers. So as we're in the middle of opening presents last night, Kirk calls. It's Final Jeopardy time. He tells us what the topic is -- Popular Baby Names -- and we all make a guess. Lo and behold, I got it right!! How appropriate considering my condition. ha. The answer, by the way, was Jacob. ;)

Categories: family time, life or something like it