Birthday time is upon me again. Funny, it seems to happen at the end of every May.

I decided in celebration of the last year to look at all the things I’ve accomplished since my last birthday…

So here goes…Year 31 saw

1. Starting a running program and ultimately running my first 5K (okay 4 miler…)

2. Realizing a dream and seeing Elton John in concert. Yep…still talking about it, and will for…um…ever.

3. Laughing hysterically at and with both of my children.

4.Realizing my potential and that I am only as capable as I allow myself to be. (see number 1)

5. Acknowledging that I am not superwoman. I do need time for myself, and now I take it.

6. The cessation of my biting my fingernails. I have a nervous personality…but haven’t bitten my nails in the new year and don’t plan on going back!

Its a good start. I am far from a perfect person…but slowly, I’m getting there. I’ll let you know when i arrive, so you can be duly impressed!

Oh, and…Happy Birthday to Me!

Here’s to 32!

From making the dark chocolate ganache, I had some leftover heavy whipping cream…and since I’m not much into drinking straight cream, I decided to let the kids shake it…

shake, shake, shake…

shake, shake, shake…

shake that butter.

Mmm…tasty.

there’s no guilt here…

is this how you do birthdays?

mmm…rhubarb crisp

followed shortly by carrot cake…

and brownie torte with dark chocolate ganache and toasted almond slivers…

(Well, not all on the same day…that would just be silly)

i will admit that i cut this brownie for the picture just so i could lick the knife…and it tastes just as good as it looks.

Happy Birthday week to me!

For mother’s day this year, i was inspired by the LOVE photo collage I saw on tipjunkie.com…

http://www.tipjunkie.com/2010/04/handmade-mothers-day-gift-ideas-2.html (number 9 on the page)

i decided to make my children freeze their tails off and get some pictures of my own…in all fairness, i did let them put on sweatshirts!

I made my signs by printing out large letters, cutting them out and gluing them to posterboard. It didn’t take all that long, and I kindof liked the way it turned out.

This is probably my favorite shot from the morning. Their little faces get me everytime. I’m not sure what was so funny…but they were certainly having fun!

This is also a favorite…it shows the progression of the photo shoot…

Evan saying “I’m done”

Ok…so there are a few things I wasn’t expecting this morning.

I wasn’t expecting 38 degrees when I woke up to run 4 miles. I also wasn’t expecting to wear many more clothes than i normally do when i run, and i wasn’t expecting that with the cold my underwear would slip while I was running…but don’t worry, by mile 1 it had settled nicely and wouldn’t present a problem for the rest of the race. (I just thought you’d all like to know about that.)

I woke up nervous. Silly…nervous??? I “run.” Why should this run make me any more nervous than any other…perhaps could it be because there were A LOT of other people that were going to be running with me…probably much faster than me…probably passing me… After all, it should just be another nice 4 mile jog.  I tried to calm myself down on the drive there with a little RENT soundtrack. Pretty much worked until I stepped out of the van, dressed for winter and was still cold. It just got colder as the layers started coming off.

I’d love to tell you that I’m a good enough runner to take my camera with me…I’m not.

I’d love to tell you that I even thought about taking it with me this morning so i’d have it at the end…I didn’t.

But Beth did!

I’d love to tell you that I ran the whole thing…so I will. Ran it. Ran it. Ran it.

I even ran it in the time I wanted. I was just aiming under 50:00.

Time says 49:17.

I’m just proud of myself…doing something I really never thought I’d do.

And…here is my children’s favorite part of the race…enjoying the ding dongs they had at the end! We decided it was too cold for them to join me out there at the finish line…so I brought a little race home to them. I think they think exercising and cake go together now. Maybe they should.

I realized though that I’ve been depriving my boy of the joy of ding dongs…the look on his face reminds me that I wasn’t the only one with a first today…Mom = first race, Ev = first ding dong.

Ahhh…more to come…for both of us, I’m sure.