Happy Birthday to me!

Not to toot my own horn, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY to me! I don't really hide birthdays and I am a big believer of celebrating little moments in life. So, despite my ever-increasing age, I will enjoy this day. The kids made me breakfast (banana/choco chip pancakes) and I always love that. On Friday, I was treated to dinner at Buca de Peppo (sp?) with 12 great friends.

Why I love an October 5th birthday:
-Cool, crisp fall weather with gorgeous, decorative leaves
-When my birthday falls on a Sunday, I don't have to tote all the kids to church because it is conference weekend. This is way more important to me since I ALSO have my hubby home, which is unusual for Sundays.
-I can usually talk my mom into making me stuffed baked potatoes.
-I get to celebrate with my bro and sis (Oct 2 and Oct 4). Not ALWAYS fun to share "Birthday Week", but it also kind of makes it an event (and it drains Mark of all his cash....the only sib with his b-day in July).
-I can buy new fun fall clothes under the label of "birthday shopping". I tend to buy a lot of things under this label...often way into November.

Why I don't love an October 5th birthday;
-studies show that this is the most popular day to have a birthday. More people have their birthday on Oct. 5th than any other day. It's less special because 15 other people are being sung to in any given restaurant.
-if my birthday falls on a Saturday, Bill (or any guy I was dating) was off to priesthood session. This means I'm on babysitting duty.
-having to spend my birthday shopping for sibling presents, which I always leave to the last minute.

Favorite birthdays past:
-2 years ago, we woke up at 4 am and hopped a plane to Disneyland. It was Parker and Emi's first time there. I was WAY prego with Quinn, but we had a ball! They were SO excited, and that kept us going (even though we were tired). I've never seen my kids fall asleep so fast as they did that night.
-My first year we were married, my hubby arranged for me to have a full spa day, complete with lunch. So fun.
-My 18th birthday was so fun....it was the night of my senior year homecoming dance. It was Ryan's (the guy I went with) 18th birthday, too (see what I mean about EVERYONE sharing my birthday) and we had a ball. We went with a fun group....I was escorted to the U-haul truck by all the guys, we all had pizza in the truck looking out from Zarahemla drive. After the dance, we watched "Field of Dreams" on Skyline's baseball field on a big projection screen. The only bad part was my dad's automatic sprinklers went off during the doorstep scene......an accident? Probably not.