Shifting Gears

I love a birthday celebration that’s not limited to a single 24-hour period and our family seems to be pros at prolonging events.  While the real day was Friday I was still in celebratory mode tonight and even have a birthday lunch to look forward to tomorrow.  Tonight the family gathered at our house for dinner – Burl fixed his fabulous chili and since I made mac and cheese (the kind that comes from a blue box!) for Bella, the rest of us decided to have a little chili mac!  Paired with corn muffins it was a real treat.  Cindy has offered to fix my dessert and I requested something low cal.  She brought a yummy cheesecake and a fat-free chocolate pudding/Cool Whip concoction that we labeled a “pieding” since it was a pudding-pie.  Whatever you call it, it was quite yummy, especially with a squirt of chocolate Reddi-Whip, and certainly satisfied my sweet cravings.

For entertainment we had Bella who in just the last week has suddenly started talking and was quite vocal about everything – amazingly she can say “Mulligan” and while he tried to hide under the table he didn’t figure on her being able to crawl under there and find him!  My wonderful family gave me very lovely gifts – certainly more than I deserve but I’m not giving anything back!  I could have started my lifetime gift from Uncle Sam but since I’m not ready to retire, I’ll let him keep his monthly stipend for a little while longer.