Birthday Perfection

What??? It's Mommy's birthday? She's how old?

Poor Sunny Mouse must have been too hungry to wait for the cake; she had to start on the lilac bush.

The best birthday picture I could take of myself....this is getting to be tricky, finding a creative way to take a picture of myself each month. This month was especially tricky because I just barely could open my mouth wide enough to eat cake by yesterday after having my wisdom teeth out on the 28th of October. That's not why my lower face is hidden, though. I just wanted to focus on the eyes, although I think the focus ended up being on the screw holding the girls' slide on rather than on my eyes anyway! Either way, I got a picture of myself turning 31, and the earrings you can see (one of them, anyway) were the ones picked out by Miss Mouse specifically for my birthday present.

The anticipation builds......

until they are all on fire. Notice the cake is half purple (Sunny Mouse) and half green (Miss Mouse). The cake, which is a heavenly "angel cake", according to Miss Mouse, was an unexpected treat from Grandma Kathy and apparently had been snuck into my freezer when I was in outer space on pain meds after the aforementioned wisdom teeth adventure. Tricky, tricky! And yummy, yummy!

The best thing about my birthday this year - well, there were several! First, the coloring in the picture of myself - that really is the color that everything appeared both last night and tonight. The photo is heavily edited, obviously, but that golden/pinkish/red color is what has saturated the world the last two nights. How awesome for a November birthday girl to play in that light. Most of my birthdays have involved a much, hm, "whiter" and colder color.

Next, Miss Mouse was nearly out of her mind with excitement about my birthday this year. She and Mr T went shopping on Friday to find a gift. She was so pleased to have to keep the gifts secret from me, but late in the afternoon on Saturday, as she told me for the fifteenth time about the gift bag she had picked for my present, she exclaimed, "Yes, and we got you a fancy, fancy gift! And the earrings aren't the fancy gift; the fancy gift is something else." Oops! The really fancy gift turned out to be a truly fancy bird feeder which has already provided much entertainment and bird education for us. It was just so incredibly fun to watch her be excited.

And last, even though Mr T had to put in a 12-hour day, he was able to be home for 2 hours in the afternoon to have cake and visit with us, and I was able to go out and celebrate my free birthday meal with two of my good friends, one of whom brought her own little girl along. So, the, hm, six of us "women" enjoyed our Italian dinners and some conversation. What a treat!

Check out others' brave self-portraits by clicking here

The Farming Life for Me!

Even before our trip to the farm a couple weeks ago, Miss Mouse had been announcing that she wants to be a farmer when she grows up. Yes, indeed, she is certain of it, and while visiting the farm, she definitely showed her love of the land, of the outdoors, of all things "farm"!

Sunny Baby Mouse wasn't feeling so terribly well at the farm (her unfortunate fall left her fairly sore for a couple weeks...thankfully, she's back to normal now, but she had a couple tough weeks which unfortunately included the week we were visiting my family), but she was obviously able to enjoy herself!

It doesn't seem like that long ago there were two other little girls hanging on the same red gate.
How time flies. How precious this time we have with them is.

Miss Mouse was impressed with the new truck (so was her Mommy!). It has quite the air horn, too!

Though Miss Mouse is often my more timid girlie, she has no fear of the farm animals. Number 71 was quite the favorite that week. Miss Mouse was pleased that by the end of the week Number 72 also came to take oats out of her hand.

Usually Sunny Baby leads the way into the unknown, but when it came to this week, Miss Mouse was in charge.

Miss Mouse and Auntie Laura had a birthday party for McFlufferton. This is the cat that was dropper-fed by my sister last October. He's fairly, um, docile. Miss Mouse carried him around and loved on him all week. He kindly acquiesced. Auntie Laura got him a catnip ball for his birthday (say it fast: "catnipball"). Miss Mouse ran up to Grammy to announce that McFlufferton was going to get a catnipple for his birthday.

Like I said, all things "farm" are loved by Miss Mouse. She and Grammy were laying newspaper to compost the flower beds for the winter.

We had a wonderful trip to my Grandma's and Aunt's and Uncle's place. Sunny Baby is calling the "Kiiiitttteeee". She seems to assume that if they don't come to her, she just needs to call them louder. They must not have heard her, right?!

My Mice do look alike. And that is so fun!

Auntie Laura and Uncle Jon have an amazing house of light. They have windows on three sides of their living room. I went picture-crazy in that warm, late afternoon sunlight!

I am fairly sure we have a picture of another little girl in the same spot, at about the same age, also looking for a kitty.

Peeking through Great Grandma's windmill.

Miss Mouse had the privilege of riding out to the "grain pile" with Grandpa Bob and Mommy. She wasn't quite sure why I thought it was so cool, but it seemed like a pretty great sandbox to her. To me, it was amazing; we have no pictures of me holding excess grain from a pile at age three. A child of the 80s drought, I remember harvests that would not ever, not in one's wildest imagination, have yielded enough to need to pile grain on the ground. Abundance, in the hands of people like my parents, is an amazing thing.

Miss Mouse loved the sandhill crane. We talked about the different shades of gray in its feathers and how it almost had brown tints in certain areas. To me, this is incredible. She is appreciating the gifts of nature, the gifts of God's Creation more now at three than some of us do in a lifetime. Really? How many people would have thought offhand that a crane was a beautiful bird? Yet, it is. If we only take time to notice the beauty. That time, time to notice, time to appreciate, time to drink experiences in - - that time is one of the most important gifts I'm striving to give our family. We are so blessed to have time to give time to them.

The most upsetting part of this picture to me was that I wasn't entirely sure Miss Mouse knew the duck was deceased. Mr T. assured me she did, but she carried that thing around and loved it nearly to pieces.

Yes, Sunny Baby did, indeed, have a great time.