100 things #37 Giving comes easy for me ...

but it's the art of gracious receiving that is still sometimes a challenge. Last night I celebrated my birthday with my family... Mom and Dad, Theresa and Chris and Brittney and Eddy. I am very fortunate to have such a close knit family and even though our schedules are beyond hectic we still squeeze in time to celebrate each other when it's time. I really, really love my family.

Back to gracious receiving ... the gifts I got last night are not gifts you pick up at the mall and wrap in perfect paper, they were thought filled and fun really, really fun. I want to make sure the givers of these gifts know how excited I am to have received them.

This is my sister ...

This is Larry, an artist that works for my sister at Party Perfect.

This is a painting that my sister had Larry paint for me for my birthday. Several years ago I gave my sister a birthday card with a similar face on it. She loved the sister card then and has loved it since, it's framed and near her desk at work.

I love, love, love, love, love the painting ... and once it's framed, I have the perfect place to hang it.

This is my niece Brittney ...




This is the box filled with blinking rings, a boa, glowing bracelets and necklaces a carnation wrist corsage, some lucky dice and a $20 bill for our trip to the casino after dinner. A winners costume if ever there were one.



We didn't stay long but we did enjoy ourselves for a little while, I won a few bucks and could have been gracious enough to share the wealth so all of us could have enjoyed ourselves a little while longer while giving it all back to the casino ... I opted not to do that. I've got a baby shower for my daughter coming up in a few weeks so having a couple of extra bucks wont hurt.

I want to thank my Mom and Dad for being the backbone of our family and always supplying the glue that holds us together, for buying dinner last night and the shopping $$$.

I should not leave Chris and Eddy out, Chris did take my sister off my Mom and Dad's hands 24 years ago and has taken good care of her ever since. Thank you for that Chris. Their anniversary is on my birthday so we celebrate together every year.

Eddy is Brittney's boyfriend, I love watching the two of them together. Eddy was the boy next door when Brittney was a kid, who would have thought that he would become so important to our family once he grew up? Thank you Eddy for being such a good friend to Brittney.

It's been a Happy, Happy Birthday for me so far, A weekend with David in Deerfield, a birthday celebration luncheon yesterday at work and tonight I get to celebrate with some of my closest girlfriends. I feel blessed.