It's My Birthday

Well I am 32 now. I had a wonderful birthday. It started the evening before with a "gift" from my neighbors. We live in a practical joke neighborhood, we have good fun with each other. In the month of may there were three birthdays. The first one received a teepeeing of his car - complete with Napolean Dynamite quotes written all over his window and a carful of blown up balloons. The next birthday received a yard full of 300 colorful pipecleaners wrapped around popsicle sticks. My birthday was the last and I received a house and yard wrapped in bright yellow CAUTION tape (think police tape) and outlines of bodies drawn on my driveway along with a big sign on my garage door that said "Caution it is Tenniel's Birthday Caution". To someone passing by it looked like our house was taped off for the scene of a crime until you read the sign. It was funny and I left it up the whole day (we discovered it before bed the evening they did it).

Then each of my children gave me a dozen roses! Ciaran picked white, Sirah picked pink and Rhiannon chose red - yes three dozen roses - wow! Serona bought me a beautiful matching necklace and bracelet with silver Celtic knots and beautiful black stones from Scotland. They are really something special. I also received a handknit Irish sweater from Ireland from my parents and some wonderful cards and cash gifts from various family members. It is tradition in my Irish family to call and sing "Happy Birthday" so I received quite a few of those fun phone messages. One of my favorite things on a birthday! My neighbors also gave me a wonderful Raspberry Sage candle and a bottle of Minnesota Cuvee Chardonnay that I am really looking forward to opening.

The kids and I spent the day at the MN arboretum, one of my favorite places to go and a membership that I use birthday money to purchase each year. We went with a neighbor and her daughter, who is just a bit younger than Sirah. We had a nice time and the kids enjoyed wandering around, even when I got us lost :) Ciaran found his first toad of the day which was very exciting to him and everyone wanted turns with the toad who we let go after a few minutes. We had lunch there and enjoyed the rest of our afternoon.

Ciaran had a tball game last night so we headed to the field for that. It is fun to watch him play though the kids are definitely still learning. At one point he was playing a field position that gets no action at his age (short stop) his coach asked him what he was doing and he said drawing rainbows in the sand. Atleast he was honest. At another point a boy hit the ball and did not think it went far enough so ran into the field and kicked it further before heading to first base! The things they do :)

We came home and uptaped our yard and I talked took some family phone calls. We had to postpone my birthday dessert (strawberry shortcake instead of cake) because it got too late. All in all a great birthday.