This past weekend was a very busy one. Russell had been begging me for ideas for gifts for my birthday for weeks. I'm terrible at coming up with ideas and he
(self-admitted) is the worst at picking stuff out. So I came up with the idea for him to just take me shopping. I wanted to spend the day shopping, grabbing a nice lunch somewhere while out, do some more shopping maybe grab a drink kind of day. You know the kind of day you used to be able to do
before you had kids. I told him it wasn't really about how much we bought, I just wanted the experience of the day with him. He was all in. He was thrilled that we would both be spending the day together and he wouldn't have to stress out about finding me a present.
We dropped off the kids at his parents house and went on our merry way on Saturday. We had not been able to get any Christmas shopping done yet so we had planned on shopping for my birthday as well as getting the Christmas shopping done for everyone as well. That proved to be a much larger task than previously thought. We spent the first half of the day looking for items for me because Russell insisted that we find my birthday gifts before shopping for everyone else. I felt so bad for him. I knew it had to be excruciatingly painful for him. At first, he'd just follow me around every single store. As I wandered around he'd be right on my heels....literally...on my heels. I can't tell you how many times he stepped on the back of them! He hates shopping. But he was an absolute champ. Never did he let on that he was having a bad time. And any time I thought he might have been done, I'd ask him and he pep up so quickly and say "No, babe. I'm great!"
(Taking a break from shopping for lunch at Mi Cocina....such a trooper and a great shopping partner he is!)
The day flew by and before we knew it, not much was purchased & we had to hurry back home to get ready for my company's Christmas party that evening. We hurried home and made the trip out to the party. We had originally only planned on shopping one day. However, we just didn't get as much accomplished as we had wanted to.
The next day we decided to do it all over again. This time we started out much earlier and had a great brunch at Ozona to get us going. We had a lot more luck finding things to purchase this day! We found more stuff for my birthday, gifts for the kids and even gifts for him! We took a break at a nice little brewery in the Shops at Park Lane. As we made our way back to the car to put in some more bags in the back, I noticed the entire back end of the car was completely filled. I said "Now that's the sign of a great day!" We made our way back to pick up the kids and made our way home.
The next day, Monday (my actual birthday), everyone made on their way like any other Monday. Kids to daycare, parents to work, etc. Russell had planned on making me a great dinner and needed to go to the store to get a few ingredients. I fed the baby and I was just starting to get him ready for his bath when Russell returned. The next thing I knew there was a knock on the bathroom door and as I grabbed the baby Russell said Dylan has something for you. I stepped out of the bathroom and there was Dylan with a bouquet of pink roses, a princess crown & princess wand. He said "Mommy, you're my favorite princess in the whole world! I love you!" I absolutely melted. He put my crown on my head and gave me my light up wand. I had heard Russell asking Dylan several weeks earlier about what he wanted to get me for my birthday and Dylan's response was "ummm...something princess!!" It was just the sweetest gesture in the whole world to me.
(My princess crown, wand & flowers Dylan gave me)
The whole weekend was befitting of a princess and that just topped it off. This was definitely one of my best birthdays in a long time. I cannot express how much love I had for my family in my heart that night. From Russell sacrificing his whole weekend to take me shopping and putting up with my indecisiveness, all while telling me I'm beautiful in everything and making sure I had a good time no matter what; to seeing the joy in Dylan's face being able to make me "his princess"' and then to snuggle up to my baby rocking him to sleep at night as he gripped me a little closer as if telling me in his own way "Happy Birthday". It's making me tear up again just thinking about it.
The next morning I woke up with a nasty head cold (of course!). I woke Dylan up to get ready for school and the first words out of his mouth were "Mommy, where's your princess crown?? You have to be my princess!" I looked terrible and felt miserable from the head cold, but again those words just made me melt.
I have the best group of boys in the world.
