Sweet Birthday

Last Friday was my birthday and it was a very nice one. My family and I went out of town for a church function and stayed overnight in a hotel. We combined some family fun with the church function and it was great. They surprised me with some of my favorites from Bath & Body Works and Clinique's Happy perfume. :) We went out to a nice dinner at Red Lobster and I enjoyed my favorites without overindulging. I was full, but not stuffed.

I came home on Saturday to a mailbox with some more birthday cards and two packages with gifts. As the kids say, "SWEEET!!!"

Another sweet part of my birthday was a surprise that I received from the ladies at church Sunday morning.

In case you can't tell I was handed a huge basket filled with baked good and a recipe book with a dessert recipe from each of the ladies. The basket carried a sample of their recipe for me to try. The ring leader told me they were supposed to give her one serving of their dessert, but some had to bring me a full batch. She said she didn't think it was a problem since I have a family of five.

I was cracking up laughing as I looked through all the food:

• Hurricane Delight - a mixture of chocolate cake, cool whip, nuts all drizzled with caramel - a cool whip container full.
• Banana Nut Bread - a medium sized loaf.
• Chocolate Cream Pie - an entire pie.
• "Died And Gone To Heaven Peach Pie" - a slice for two people.
• Strawberry Shortcake Pie - a slice for two people.
• Brownies - four good sized sqaures.
• Jell-o "Poke" Cake - a slice for two people.
• Chocolate Dipped Cookies - two Ritz crackers with peanut butter spread between them and dipped twice in chocolate and hardened. - About two dozen of these.
• No-Bake Cookies - half a dozen medium/large cookies.

There were also 3-4 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (my absolute favorite candy) tossed in a tin with some other non-food goodies as a gift from a friend of mine that morning.

I was so touched by the thoughtful act of putting together the recipe album with pictures and such because it will be a great memento to have when I move again. Plus, they did all this in secret and the surprise from all of them was totally unexpected. It brought me to tears to think of their thoughtfulness...

...and almost to more tears to think about all that food!!! LOL

Years ago I would have been in heaven at the site of all these goodies that were just for me. This time I could only laugh because it was like a thanksgiving dinner's worth of sweets all at one time.

How in the world did they expect me to eat it all????? Even with my kids and husband I knew it was going to take a while to work through it all and not overindulge every single day.

I've tested each food so to allow me to write a proper thank you and let them know how wonderful the food was. I took bites of each with the exception of the items with chocolate and peanut butter... I've had more than I probably needed of them on Sunday and some more yesterday. Then last night I packaged up about two thirds of it and put it in the deep freezer. If you look closely at the chocolate cream pie you'll see my one bite taken out. LOL

This was definitely a birthday to remember, both because of the wonderful gifts I received and because of this basket of sweets given while I was trying to be careful what I ate. :)