One year older.....and wiser, too?

warning: the following post contains excessive use of exclamation points

Sooooo...it's my birthday! It's been an absolutely awesome day. I always get excited about birthdays. Every time I see "June 10" in writing, I get really giddy. When my birthday starts showing up as the expiration date on jugs of milk and cartons of eggs at the grocery store, I know it's getting close

(confession - I will actually sift through the dairy and egg products to find those that have my birthday as the expiration date so I can look at it every time I open the fridge).

Imagine my joy when I drove past the county fairgrounds and on the marquee in big, bold, red letters it said "WEDNESDAY JUNE 10 - FARMER'S MARKET". I was beside myself. I just love all things birthday related. And since our wedding (three years ago, yesterday) the birthiversary celebration has only made things that much sweeter. Add Thomas to the mix and, well, I've pretty much got everything I've ever wanted. Which is great for me - however, it makes gift giving pretty hard for Kenta. What do you get for the girl who has everything she wants/needs?

Despite my insistence that I don't really need anything, Kenta manages to surprise me every year. This year was no exception. On Tuesday nights, Kenta is usually up really late making last minute preparations for his Wednesday morning meetings with his advisors. As I was climbing into bed, he casually asked me what time I thought I would be waking up in the morning. I had set a goal to attempt a 6 mile "run" on my birthday, so I thought waking up at 5 :30 would get me back before it started to get miserably hot outside. Kenta kind of groaned when he heard how early I was getting up. I just assumed it was because he would be getting to bed really late and I might accidentally wake him up when I got up. Well, I was wrong.

After I had slogged through the lamest 6 miles I have ever traveled on foot, this is what greeted me at our front door:

I was so excited about the cold bottle of water, I almost missed the card. It was a birthday card for me from Kenta! I read it and realized that it wasn't just a card - it was a mini-scavenger hunt with a clue. I figured out that my next clue would be in the car and this is what I found -

Sweet! More Love Spell!! I no longer have to ration my old bottle. (I had actually hinted to Kenta weeks before that I needed more of this, so that he would have sufficient time to enlist one of his sisters to go into Victoria's Secret and buy it for him. There is no way on earth he would ever go in that store. He makes it a point to avert his eyes and stare at El Chico as we walk by).

But the fun didn't end there...another clue!! I figured this clue had something to do with food, so I went to the front door and knocked and waited for Kenta to let me in. He took his sweet time to get there because he was really busy making me......

A delicious breakfast!! Yay! Pancakes, cream, fruit and scrambled eggs just the way I like them (with little bits of spinach - I need all the antioxidants I can get if I want to live to be 100). Thomas woke up right as we sat down, so we ate together as a family. It was a great start to a fabulous day.

Later in the day, we celebrated over a little gift that I had actually made myself yesterday - leftovers!!! (Do I want to cook on my birthday? No way, man!) And in lieu of a birthday cake, we went to Coldstone for some birthday ice cream. Pretty cool birthday, huh?

I think the best thing about this birthday has been that I really did feel like my life was complete and not missing anything, so anything extra that I got was just icing on the cake. I guess you could say "my cup runneth over" because - really - it does. And for the first time that I can recall, I'm not sad for the day to end. I know that tomorrow (and the day after and the day after that) can be just as special as today. I guess becoming a mommy has really changed my perspective on life. I think I have found my true purpose - I love being a mom and that is, by far, the best gift I have gotten this year. Thanks to everyone for the birthday phone calls and messages! Happy birthday to me!!