Happy Birthday, Daniel!

Well, Halloween was awesome fun. I went to vote first thing (early voting), then visiting teaching (I know, can you say procrastonator?....at least I went...), then to Daniel's pre school party...Holy Cow...was there ever a lot of food and games to play and crafts to do! We had a wonderful time, and Caitlin fell asleep in the middle of it. Steve & Darrel came home for lunch and we had BLT's (thanks, Steve!). After we got the kids and did homework it was time for dinner and TRICK or TREATING! We went to a neighboring neighborhood (nicer houses - gated area - safer) and the kids brought home the LOOT! We now have tons and tons of chocolate and candy! We took Daniel straight up to bed after trick or treating, and Caitlin went down pretty quickly, too. Kenneth got to stay up and carve a pumpkin he won at school by guessing the number closest to the actual number of seeds in the pumpkin. (There were 503 and he guessed 199). Since he hadn't had a chance to carve a pumpkin, it worked out well. After the kids were down, Steve & I stayed up watching 3 episodes of "House".

Today started with a hard work out for me....just what I needed. I ran 2 miles and rode 5. Then I did push ups and sit ups. I felt really good when I was finished. Then I came home and woke Daniel up to "Happy Birthday" and a couple of presents. We had breakfast, then we went shopping with Daniel's birthday money. ("We" in this part being Angela, Zachary, Daniel, Caitlin and me). Daniel got a remote control snake. I tried to point him in the direction of some new clothes- but he would have nothing of it. He had several toys he considered, but the remote control snake was the favorite. We went straight to Chuck E Cheese's from there and spent the last of our tokens from our last 2 for 1 sale. Then we got In-n-Out Hamburgers and went to a park. Steve and Darrel met us there. The weather was lovely. No coats required. Then home for Caitlin and Zach to nap and soon after we got batteries in the remote control snake it was time to head off to speech therapy (much to Daniel's dismay). I volunteer during Daniel's speech class, and I helped Kenneth's teacher with her web site today. We came home and helped Angela cut out and laminate about 30 sleeves worth of pre school stuff. Daniel took a quick nap, then we went to Red Robin for dinner! Yea! Daniel had a great birthday - thanks to everyone who called or sent a card to help make it special for him. He is really growing up in every sense of the word. It's hard to believe it was 4 years ago that I had 18 people in my hospital room just 1 hour after little Daniel came into this world. Thanks again to Sean Buckley for the chocolate shake. I've never had another shake that tasted SO GOOD! We are so blessed to have Daniel as a part of our family, and I'm grateful every day for his health and strength. He's a good boy.