Birthday gifts

I celebrated my birthday a couple weeks ago, and by far the best gift I received is that my parents came out to offer support and watch our kids while I had my next round of appointments. Here is a picture of us enjoying a treat at the local bakery, accompanied by some friends. (Nice smiles, kiddos!)I received several other nice birthday gifts, as well, and wanted to share a few here:

My family continued our breakfast in bed tradition with my request of yogurt/granola parfaits, assembled by Nathan. Yummy! Eric took the kids to the thrift store the weekend before and let them each pick out a gift for me. I wasn't quite sure what to say when I opened the one on the right--I definitely had to suppress a laugh at its, um, unique style! They were very excited to give these to me--really cute.My mom thought of an awesome gift for me--a personalized book of the month club! Each month, she's going to send me a book of her choosing. Her first selection was this. I can't wait to read it!

My dear friend Mandi made a neat framed picture of a verse that has been meaningful to me ever since this happened. And since I'm swimming through some deep rivers again, I have it prominently displayed where I can be reminded of His faithfulness to me.I also received a neat surprise from my wonderful blog friend, Katie, which I hope to share about in a couple weeks.

Though I had a bad cold on my birthday and didn't feel much like talking on the phone, I was so appreciative of all the notes, calls, and gifts I received. And I want to thank my parents again for making the trek out here!