Birthday Week Begins at the Barton Household--Happy Birthday, Cole!

This is not a post about a motorcycle trip. This is a post about a birthday. Cole turned 13 today!

opening presents

let me see, Cole!

What did he get? What he wanted most: a phone!

For breakfast, he requested crepes. Garrett says they are not pronounced "cRAYps." He is in French class at school and he says they are called "crEps," short e pronunciation.

Cole took video with his phone while we sang Happy Birthday to him

then he accidentally deleted it. Oops!

What, Cole?! You are supposed to BLOW out the candle.

This is my plate of crepes

And here is Cole in his new birthday outfit! Yay for overnight shipping!

We had a bit of a tragedy here. It is a tragedy in that it has tainted my faith in humanity more than I would like. I received notifications from UPS that I had packages coming while we were gone on our motorcycle trip. I had at least two of my kids watching the house for the packages. As a matter of fact, Garrett was there every day to feed the animals (and play the X-box). When we arrived Sunday, there were no packages anywhere. So, I checked the tracking on a couple of the packages. Two were US Postal Service, so not really trackable, but the UPS one said it had been left on our doorstep Friday night. Then I started contacting neighbors to see if they had picked it up for me. Those who I talked to hadn't seen it.

Tuesday afternoon I was driving home and thought I would look in the field across from our house. Maybe it had been in a bag that had blown all the way there. And I saw the box. The empty box. Someone walking by took the package, tore it open, stole my boys' swimsuits out of it and threw the box over the fence. Why?

But luckily, Cole's major birthday present had already arrived. I still feel violated about what happened, and I have been told I have no recourse. Why don't I just leave $80 taped to my doorway for anyone to take? The sad thing is it is highly unlikely they could do anything with the swimsuits. Who even has kids skinny enough to fit them? Just stupid and mean.

Cole has had a wonderful day. He has been sure to call all his friends and let them know his new phone number. And he was so busy texting today, I could hardly get his attention. He enjoyed a tasty breakfast (made by Mom, a rare occasion around here). Well, breakfast wasn't actually served until 11:00. That's why I don't usually make breakfast. I take too long. He also requested spaghetti with pesto sauce for dinner. That was yummy, too. One of the fun things about being the birthday kid is getting to make the meal requests.

Yesterday was my niece Grace's birthday. Tomorrow is mine and my nephew Isaac's. It is also Travis Pehrson's (but we are not related). Saturday, Tyler turns 11. I have a fun post in mind about my two birthday babies, born almost exactly two years apart. We will see. Tomorrow I might just be lazy and ignore my blog altogether.