Thursday October 25th, Happy Day!

Normally, birthday's are celebrated at our house on the actual birthday, but in my mind our little family of five was going to be too busy tonight, so I said my birthday needed to be celebrated last night instead of tonight.  I didn't communicate that I was asking for the whole birthday celebration to be held last night to Craig and even though he and the kids had been shopping for at least a month already, I caught him off guard!  Needless to say, at 9pm we finally sat down in the den to open presents after not even eating together since they were running 3 miles, Ingram was hungry and ate while they ran, and I snacked on food all afternoon, and the girls both had homework to do, we didn't sit down as a family for dinner.  Then we were grouchy and even bickered about opening presents and finally the kids won and made me open my presents.  Have I said before that our emotions are running rampant around our house with scans approaching?? 

Today my real birthday celebrations started with a bang!!  I woke up for the second day in a row at 7am after going to bed after 1:30am (I'm one of those people who REALLY NEED about 10 hours of sleep to function and be sweet) but my girls and Ingram were so sweet this morning; we even finished off the ice cream cake from last night for breakfast.  Speaking of last night, the girls asked me where the cake went and I had to explain that after they went to bed, Allyson Ferebee and Stephanie and Bryce Bailey (Team Ingram fundraising gurus!) and we ate it all.  Craig and I spent a few hours listening to all their ideas about how to raise funds and we're super excited about them all.  Stay tuned for more information one future Team Ingram and Kids Conquering Cancer events!!

Now back to today...Kari Smith and Sarah Scott, a couple of my closest girlfriends, planned a birthday luncheon for  me today and it was so much fun.  We did what all girls do when we get together; we talked and ate lunch and talked some more.  Of course Ingram was also there and had had everyone laughing the whole time too.  He painted while we ate and then decided he was ready to eat his lunch; the kicker here was that he asked Mrs. Sarah to fix his plate instead of me!  I couldn't believe that little stinker, but at least he sat with me and sang when they brought out the cake.  He even helped me blow out my candle.  I heard a friend say the other day that when she's feeling down that all it takes is another friend coming over, making her get dressed, and going somewhere to help her feel better.  Well, I'm not feeling down (that I know of) but we are on a roller coaster of emotions and all these girls and their families have been through these almost 7 months with us, but today really made me feel special.  A fun little extra is that since I opened my birthday presents from Craig and the kids last night, I got to wear a couple of my new things today.  Ingram always says he's the luckiest kid inteh world, but today I definitely felt like the luckiest girl in the world!

This afternoon was the normal chaos that included Ultimate Frisbee for Madison afterschool and also two soccer games.  We would have had soccer practice for Lindsey also but Mommy fell behind on the homework routine from lack of sleep and riding the emotional roller coaster and we had to do intense studying with Lindsey for the afternoon.  We finally hit the homework wall and had to get outside for fresh air and what better place to do that at than the soccerfield for the last bit of Madison's game.  We also met up with the Callender family at the soccer fields!  They are dear friends that came to St. Jude a few years ago from Lousiana for their sweet Ally to be treated for Neurobalstoma.  The whole family came in town last night for her 1 and a half year post treatment scans and I'm honored to report that her scans were CLEAR!!!!  We celebrated on the soccerfields with brand new Vuvuzela's that Craig ordered for the marathon weekend...and they are loud!!  Craig and Ingram introduced them at the soccerfields and everyone (except the first family that Ingram came upon in the parking lot) loved them.  Before Craig could get around the car to stop Ingram, he had blown it about 3 times right inside the rolled-down window of their car where they were sitting! 
We headed to Moe's for dinner after the game and the Whelan's joined us as well.  The kids were all so cute and pretty much well behaved as we were the last customers in the restaurant.  Once we finished dinner, we all had to go our separate ways, but it sure was great to catch of with our friends and let the kids have some crazy fun outside of Moe's blowing the Vuvuzela's at 9:30pm outside Moe's in Collierville.  I'm pretty sure we broke some sort of noise ordinance, but the kids sure were having fun together!



Enjoying My Early Birthday Presents With Craig And The Kids!
 

It's So Great To Just Be Able To Sit Around And Laugh!
Luckily, Spending Time With These Gals From 9pm To Midnight Will Produce Lots Of Laughter!!
Thanks Stephanie And Allyson For Heading Up The Fundraising And For Making Me Laugh!

So The Girls Begged Me Not To Put This Picture Online,
But Who Else Can Look This Great Doing Monkey Face With Ingram!!

Oh Yeah...Check Out These Shark Faces!!
These Girls Are So Going To Get Me For Posting These Pictures!

See, I Also Put In The Good Picture Where We're All Smiling.
They Can't Get Upset At Me For The Pictures Now, Right?



Ingram Wasn't About To Let All These Kids Get Ahead Of Him!

Even Though We Were Playing In Germantown,
I'm Pretty Sure They Heard Us All The Way Downtown At St. Jude!!

Kate, Lindsey, Ingram, Doyle, Madison, Ashley, Paula, And Ally...
The Whole Crew, Well Almost, Craig Took The Picture For Us.
We Love The Callender Family!!

These Crazy Kids Were Making All Sorts Of Noise Tonight After Dinner!
Even Though They Hadn't Seen Each Other In Months, They Acted As They Played On A Daily Basis.
Love You Kids!!