Happy Happy Birthday Birthday

December 16th is a special day for us, and this one was extra special.  Brinnley graduated to double digits!  Ten years ago I got the most amazing birthday present, and it is fun to celebrate with her every year!  We had a special birthday message from our elf on the shelf, Little Guy.

We started the day with birthday breakfast at 5:15am.  I wasn't going to post the picture of that because we look like we just rolled out of bed, but we really did just roll out of bed, so that's part of the story.  Plus, how can you just not love the big plate of bacon?!?  That was Brinnley's one request for birthday breakfast.  Eggs and Todd's killer hash browns were just a side dish for the bacon.  It was early, but it is an important part of HOME for us to start the day together with breakfast, scriptures, and prayer.  Elder Christofferson spoke in our stake conference this weekend about how sacrifice brings greater faith, and this is one of those ways where the sacrifice is hard some mornings (well, most mornings since I am not a morning person), but it is worth it in the end.  After Brenden gor off to early-morning seminary at 6 and Bryce and Brooke got on the bus at 6:30, Brinnley and I snuggled back in to bed and slept for another hour. :-)

I checked Brinnley out of school at lunch time and we went out to eat together.  That's a special tradition for us.  This is the first year in 6 years that we haven't gone to Noodles & Co., but we had a great time.  After the kids got home from school we went as a family to see Frozen.  We saw it at a charming, tiny theater in Lebanon.  The theater we were in could probably only hold 70 people, but it was awesome.  Very good movie.  I loved the art in it.  It makes me excited to get our art wall going in this house.  My favorite quote that will make it to the art wall, "Some people are worth melting for! -Olaf."


After the movie we went to Bob Evans for dinner.  It was amazing.  With a family of 7 it is rare for everyone to love their meal, but everyone did and that made it fun.  We had fresh blueberry pancakes, a fruit dippers platter, sirloin steak, potato encrusted halibut, a club sandwich, french toast, beef & vegetable soup, and fresh biscuits delivered to the table and everything was amazing.  That is quite a feat!  We will definitely be visiting there again! Our server was incredible too.  I will have to blog about that later.

I wanted to post a picture of the amazing gift Todd gave me.  While he was in Utah last week he stopped at Ben Behunin's pottery and got me three new bowls.  He couldn't have given a more perfect gift.  I LOVE them and am so excited to add them to our collection.  For anyone not familiar with Ben's work or his books, you are missing out!

It was an awesome day.  I am so grateful for our little family, quarks and all.  It wasn't perfect.  Kids had to get separated, things didn't go as planned, but that's what makes it family.  Praise the Lord for another year to figure out how to be happy humans together!