L.J. is FOURTY YEARS OLD!!!

I’m going to be doing a lot of catch up posting over the next few weeks.  Not everything will be in order.  Tonight I have a little bit of time before I can put my last load of laundry in the dryer and call it a night so this is one I know I can do quickly.

L.J. turned 40 on March 15th.  FOURTY!  That’s like one foot in the grave, right?  I know I can give him a hard time because I won’t be 40 for many years still and he always forgets my birthday anyway.  (On my last birthday I waited all day for him to remember and say something but NOTHING!  NA DA!  ZILCH!  He’s not going to live that one down for a long time.)

I wanted to do something nice and fun for this big day but at the same time, I was so sick and I knew he could care less about it.  That was our spring break and plans kept changing by the day so I finally decided to just let the day happen and try to make it as nice for him as possible.

We started out the day by going to a funeral.  Fun…right?  It was for a very close friend of the family and we really wouldn’t have missed it for the world.  My sister-in-law, Amy’s father passed away.  Much too soon by our standards but he is in a much better place with both of his parents and working hard, I have no doubt.  It actually was a very sweet, uplifting funeral and both L.J. & I were touched by the stories his kids shared about him.

Next we went to lunch with L.J’s parents, Troy & Jenny and his sister, Caroline.  All had come to the funeral too.  Then we went home and packed up the car for a week in Heber.  We had a long list of projects to work on at our house there and were going to use every minute we could.  (Pictures to post soon.)

Actually to step back a bit… L.J. had found out that he was being laid off at work just a few days before this.  So on our way out of town we had to go by the office so he could turn in his work truck, laptop, keys, etc.  What a great birthday present!  This ended up taking longer than planned and the office is right downtown so we got out of there right during rush hour traffic.  Oh the day just got better and better!

We were supposed to be in Heber before dinner and the family there was all getting together for a little party.  Well, we were very late to the party.  Everyone went ahead and ate and we got there in time for dessert.  L.J. got to tell everyone our news and we all had a good laugh at his timing for turning 40, being unemployed and now his wife is pregnant.

After everyone had left I realized that I had forgotten to take any pictures!  It seemed fitting for the day that nothing went as planned but I still wanted something.  The party was at our good friends, Dustin & Sarai’s house so they posed for a few with us.  Dustin and L.J. went to high school together and L.J.’s younger sister Marcie married Dustin’s younger brother Daniel so they are as good as family too.

The funny thing is that Sarai and I are only a month a part from each other and she grew up in Phoenix.  We used to go to the same regional Saturday night dances but never knew each other.  The four of us have so much fun when we get together!  Thanks guys for letting us invade your house!

Lyla giving her daddy a birthday hug.

Obviously money is tight right now and L.J. is incredibly hard to shop for but I was able to get him something for his birthday that he did enjoy.

For MONTHS I have been working on a photo book online with Shutterfly.com.  I love this website!  This book was the Top 40 Reasons we love L.J. and I think it turned out pretty well.  I had spent so much time scanning in old pictures from his childhood to when we were dating up until just a few years ago when I finally got a digital camera.  All of this had to be done at night while he was sleeping and then hidden every night so he wouldn’t see when he got up early for school.  And then assembling to book online took quite awhile too but it was much easier to hide at least.

I had to do all of this during the first trimester when I would have much rather been in bed or passed out anywhere.  It was a struggle but something I really wanted to do so I made it happen.  I’m going to try something new.  I saw on Shutterfly that I can upload a copy of the book here.  I would love to share it after all the work that went into it.

OK – so it looks like Shutterfly posted it as a separate post and not something that I can include here.  So I’m thinking it will be right after this post.  It’s getting late, let’s just try this and see if it works.  I think I can also put it on the right side so I’ll give that a try to.

Anyway, how’s that for a 40 year old birthday celebration?  Good thing he wasn’t wanting much!