A VERY anti-climatic birthday

 I guess I'm a little backwards that our anniversary post for the 3rd made it up before my birthday post which was the 1st, but that's just how it goes.  We had a very busy week between recovering from Christmas and jumping into birthdays and anniversaries.  (And we still have Daniel's birthday coming on the 20th!)

I'm slowly learning as I get older (and have kids) that birthdays become more and more anti-climatic. (Haha!)  I still get really excited about my birthday, but I'm beyond the days of balloons and roller skating parties.  (And it seems that others don't get as excited when you're an adult.)  Daniel had to work New Year's Eve unfortunately and so much of my birthday he had to catch up on sleep-- such is life being married to a man who works nights. 

Me and the boys ventured out in the morning to IHop to get my free birthday breakfast.  Go here to sign up for the pancake revolution-- they'll email you a coupon for your free pancake breakfast on your birthday.  Make sure you do it far enough in advance of your birthday, and also make sure you actually print the coupon, the manager at my location hassled me about having it on my iphone. (And who hassles someone on their birthday?)

After pancakes, we had a few errands and then headed home for nap time.  I was anxiously waiting for nap time to end so that everyone (Daniel included) would wake up and we could go out and celebrate..... Every year up until this year, we go to my parent's house for dinner.  Traditional New Year's dinner in Southern fashion-- pork, greens, black eyed peas and cornbread.  My sister's birthday is the 28th of December so we celebrate both at the same time.  Unfortunately this year, my Dad wasn't feeling well and my parents post-poned to the weekend, so it was a little weird having my birthday to myself....

Once everyone woke up we had planned to go to Ulta to get my free birthday brow arch.  (Everyone knows I love freebies, so naturally cashing in on all the free stuff is the perfect way to spend my birthday.)  See here on the Ulta website when you scroll down to the very bottom and read the fine print that your brows are free on your birthday.  Unfortunately for me, Ulta hadn't updated their site and the location near me that we went to no longer has a "Benefit brow bar."  I called the secondary location near us and they said I could come the next day and we never made it back because of our work schedules.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't bummed, because I was, but I share this freebie with you anyway in case anyone else wants to cash in for their birthday.  I now know that you should call your location before you go, not only to make sure it's something they offer, but also to check the hours of the Benefit brow bar.

Once we left Ulta, we headed to Red Robin to get my free birthday burger. Go here to sign up for "Red Royalty" so that you can get your free birthday burger.  Sign up in advance, so that it's available for your birthday.  Leeland was really excited about this.  He's starting to really understand birthdays and understand that we typically go to people's birthday "parties", so much of the day when he wasn't singing happy birthday to me (So cute by the way!), he was saying that "we need go momma birthday party." So off to Red Robin we went for my birthday "party" which was really just the 4 of us out to dinner.  Unfortunately for us, we got a crappy waiter and terrible service, but the food wasn't bad.  (And the assistant manager was very apologetic about our crappy service, in the sense that he is sending us a $30 gift card to come back.)

After we left Red Robin very frustrated with our service, I started to throw myself a pity party about how anti-climatic my birthday was, so we went to pick up some Ben & Jerries "smores" ice cream to top off the night.... because Ben & Jerry really know how to fix your problems.

I still knew leaving Red Robin that I had one thing to look forward to-- the "Love & Envelopes" birthday girl club.  I wrote about Love and Envelopes last year, but essentially it's a club where people send you birthday cards.  You are assigned a person each month to send a card to and the idea is that when your birthday month comes, people are assigned to you and your mailbox is filled with love.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE to get mail so this is just perfect for me.  There was minor confusion when I updated my address with the club back in October since we moved, so unfortunately my address didn't get updated and I had to wait for my birthday cards to be forwarded.... I didn't receive the first one until the 4th, but I did get them and I guess that's all that counts.  Also the downside of having a birthday on a National Holiday I guess is that my mailbox can't really be filled on my birthday anyway.

Not trying to be a "Debbie Downer" about my birthday and I'm not one of those people who dreads getting older, but this is just how my day went-- though I VERY much so looked forward to my birthday, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Such is life as an adult....  I guess I just don't understand why people don't get excited for your birthday when you're an adult?  I made it another year.  Be excited! ....maybe next year I'll throw myself a roller skating party.