25

January is a busy birthday month for us. Thomas's dad's birthday is on the 15th, my mom's is on the 18th, and Thomas's is on the 22nd. We had nice birthday celebrations with our parents, and Thomas got a 3 day long celebration.

We spent his actual birthday at home with just the two of us. It was a very relaxing, fun day! Thomas had to work in the morning, but when he was done, we went out for breakfast and then came home and hung out and played games most of the day. I made pot roast with mashed potatoes and other veggies for dinner, which is one of his favorites...and mine too...how convenient. :)

After dinner, he opened his mound of presents. It may look like he got more than he really did, since this pile includes crib bedding and baby clothes. We decided it would be more prudent to spend most of the money we'd normally spend on presents for birthdays and Valentine's day on baby stuff, but he did get quite a few things for himself as well, including the new Stephen King book, another book, a couple CDs, and a movie.


For dessert, a carrot cake with homemade cream cheese frosting...Since he turned 25, we had to get two boxes of candles to have the right number!


The next day, we went to his parents' house for dinner. I forgot the camera, so we don't have any pictures from that night. He got a lot of nice gifts there as well. The most exciting for me were a baby bathtub and diaper bag, but he also got a lot of Byzantine books, the board game Diplomacy, and some tools, and probably some other things I can't remember!

Then on the next day, we went to my parent's house for dinner. My mom made meatloaf for dinner and I made a strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert.


Among his presents that night were some more baby books, receiving blankets, a gift card, Connect 4, Axis and Allies, and a CD.


Johnny in the wrapping paper pile:


It was quite a fun weekend! Since then, we've mostly just been working on school stuff and, in the past few days, putting together some things for the baby. We only have one bedroom, but it is fortunately a very large room so there will be no problem fitting all our stuff and the baby's stuff. We deep cleaned and rearranged it a week or two ago, and we've put up some decorations. Yesterday I assembled the crib. I know it's probably a little early to be doing all of this, but it's fun and we're just really excited! We are waiting on a dresser that we ordered that will double as a changing table (our Valentine's day present to ourselves); we'll post pictures once we've got that here and everything's set up!