My Birthday

The day started off on a strange note. At 6:30, Rylea barked, so I got up and let her out and turned up the heater to daytime temps. I decided not to go back to sleep, but I did want to crawl back under my covers until the house warmed up. I even left my bedroom light on, since I wasn't planning on sleeping any more. The next thing I know, it's 7:40, and I wake up and think, "Oh heck! I'm late for work! I wonder why the alarm didn't go off." Then with a sigh of relief, I realized that it was Sunday, not Monday, and it was my birthday!

After church, we all gathered at B and J's for dinner and cake.

B would hate this picture, but it's the only one I got of her. I took it without looking. Pretty good for shooting blind, huh?


J cooked the dinner. He is a pretty good cook.

Brittani and Dennise were certainly enjoying their food.

As were Shelbi and Dennise's sister Tammy.

Cody's got a mustache. Unfortunately for him, it is a root beer mustache! And here is the star of the day:

Shrimp gumbo, made from scratch by J himself. He makes good gumbo. He is half Cajun after all. After we'd eaten that, we had birthday cake. Yes, it is a Texas shaped cake.


I told them they didn't need to put candles on the cake, but Dennise and Tammy found an emergency candle and stuck it in there anyway. Cody said, "Each candle represents 43 years." They sang, and I blew out the candle, then B said that somebody should have taken my picture while I blew out the candle. So Tammy re-lit it, and we staged this photo. Then I blew out the candle again and we cut the cake.

B handed me the server and said, "Which part of Texas do you want?" I replied, "I want home," and cut the part of the cake in which my hometown was located for myself. Cody wanted the panhandle, so he got Amarillo, and Dennise took the Abilene and Lubbock areas. J got the entire Mexican border, while Tammy cut El Paso for herself. As she was getting her piece of cake onto her plate, I pointed to the spot on her piece where El Paso is located and said, "That's where my brother lives." Shelbi got Big Bend and Laredo, while Brittani got San Antonio. As we were pointing all of this out to each other, J said, "There are some Texas folks around this table!"

B had also made a lemon pie, and that's what she ate. It's a real simple recipe--just make lemon pudding, put it into a graham cracker crust, and top with whipped topping.

After visiting a while, I came home and opened the presents I bought for my self and put Cody's name on. When I was a kid, my mother asked for house shoes for every birthday, mother's day, Christmas it seemed like. I thought it was such a boring present, but now that I'm the mom, guess what I buy myself--that's right, house shoes.


I got these in Dallas Cowboys colors, only I didn't realize it when I was buying them.

Cody--by way of me--also got me this Cowboys sideline cap. Speaking of, have you seen the new ones they have this year? Dark blue with a single white stripe down the middle. Colts are wearing the same kind. I told Cody they looked like a skunk.

My mother has got to be the absolute queen of useless gifts. She always buys stuff that's on sale, or cute, or whatever, but is totally useless. Usually I open her gifts and think, "What in the world am I going to do with this?" Sometimes I open her gift and think, "What the heck is this?" This year, she surprised me. With this:

It is a mug, which I have a thing for, that says Texas Born on one side, and Texas Proud on the other. She done good this time.

Finally, I ended the day knitting and watching the Cowboys spank the New York Giants.


For the first half, it looked like the Giants were going to make a game of it. A couple of key Dallas mistakes--including a taunting penalty--had them tied at 17 all at half time. But Dallas is a second half team. They came out rolling in the third quarter, and the Giants just can't seem to hold up under that kind of pressure. Going into the half, they only had one penalty. They made 6 more in the second half, including 3 delay of game penalties on Eli Manning. All the hype has been about what a good team the Giants have become. After all, they are on a 6 game winning streak. But the truth is, they just haven't had a very difficult schedule up to this point--aside from their first two games, that is. Once they had to face a team the caliber of the Cowboys, they just crumbled under the pressure and only scored a single field goal in the entire second half. Dallas went on to win 31-20.

Now, if only Cody's Colts will get on the ball. They are down 23-7 in the third quarter, and Cody is just a-fussin!

UPDATE: Fourth quarter and the Colts have pulled to within 2.

UPDATE: Adam Vinateri missed a last second field goal and the Chargers won 23-21. The Colts do this every year. They go undefeated for many games, but once they lose that first one, they just seem to fall apart.