52

As of last Friday, I can claim that number. I sure don't feel 52...that sounds so...well...you know... old ..er ...ahem....mature.  Elijah tried to talk my mother into reversing the candles...25....it wouldn't have fooled anyone.  Too many silver hairs...although my boys continually remind me that they are a symbol of wisdom...what sweeties!

I had an appointment early that day (very exciting and I'll blog about it later!) and when I arrived back home the older two boys had cleaned the entire house! Let me say that again....cleaned.the.entire.house, all.of.it ....nothing left undone!  AND, were well on their way to having dinner done...my favorite dinner!

So, we were able to relax and enjoy each other the rest of the day...lovely!

We were celebrating with a small party of family and friends the next day but that night it was just my boys and I. However...a very mysterious man showed up unexpectedly...I managed to catch a picture of him.



He dazzled us with unexplainable feats of magic.  Card tricks (pretty good ones too!), dice tricks (still trying to figure out that one!) and my personal favorite...placing 6 quarters into a bag and saying "Damongo, Damongo, Damongo gezheundtite" (which means Sunday, Sunday, Sunday and God Bless You....just so you know, his idea so that he would still acknowledge our Father in his own way....not into magic in this house...frankly I thought that very clever!).  He then dumped the contents of the bag out and voila! The money had doubled!  Quite a nice trick but he didn't think he could duplicate it with dollar bills.



This is the official uniform of the mysterious man....everyone should have a dress up box!  He dazzled us for an hour and then took his bow!



What touched me so much is that he spent much of the previous day and a good bit of the early part of my birthday studying these tricks to surprise me.  I shared with him that he truly gave the most important gift...time... which is love expressed.  It blessed me and brought me to tears.

I received some beautiful cards from sweet customers who, over the course of the last year or so, have become dear friends....thank y'all! I'll be writing soon!

The next day, my Mom hosted a small party for me.  The boys and I spent a good deal of that day baling hay again....this was our last go around for the year.  We ran into numerous obstacles (frustrating!).  The boys made many phone calls to Mr. Visionary who coached them over the phone.  We never would have made it without his help and encouragement.  We are so thankful to Mr. V and his sweet family.  He has been a great encouragement to my boys both in practical ways and spiritually!   Our neighbor, who always comes to help when he sees us having trouble, told us that the tractor had never been properly cared for and badly needed an overhaul this winter to put it in good working order.  We will have to do that before we tackle hay next spring. But, even with all the trouble, we put another 125 bales in the barn.  We should have plenty of hay for all the animals this winter and we did it ourselves...quite an accomplishment!  I'm so proud of them.  We finished just in time to get cleaned up and head over to Mom's for a lovely dinner, cake and ice cream with family and friends.

The evening closed with the Visionary family calling to serenade me with Happy Birthday...I could hear all the sweet voices (well, the twins probably weren't singing!) and again, I was brought to tears by the love of friends and of my Father who seems to be constantly reaching out to show me His love in tangible ways through my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Truly, I am blessed!