Happy Birthday!

I had a very happy birthday...for the last 3 days! The celebration started Monday night with an awesome dinner at the Schultz's (with AMAZING cupcakes). Tuesday was my actual birthday and while I had to work most of the day (Reading Rocks and Family Night) I still had a lot of fun. I got a lot of birthday wishes and even had the teen guys sing me Happy Birthday in 3 part harmony. :)

After Family Night, several of us went over to my friend Chris' house to eat ice cream and play games. We stayed until 2 a.m. and had a blast!

Since I had to work most of yesterday, we decided to "officially" celebrate my birthday today. I woke up to orange pancakes for breakfast and got to take it easy around the house all morning. Around lunch time; Shera, Brooke, J and I headed out to a buffet lunch (at one of my favorite buffets) and then went to see the movie Transformers. I have been waiting for months to see that movie, and it was so worth it! I LOVED it!!!

After the movie we just hung out for a while before ending the night with my mashed potato cake (which you see pictured above). It tastes SO GOOD! We had planned on going to watch fireworks, but they got rained out, which was okay with me. I didn't mind staying in.

I also got a lot of wonderful presents and cards. My parents sent me a "Magic Bullet" juicer and blender (that I love!). Chris gave me a sympathy card about elephants that made me laugh so hard I cried. Brooke made me a cookbook (with recipes to be included later, hehe) and Shera made these awesome pillows for me. (I think the "Kiss Me I'm Irish" shirts really look like, "Kiss Me I'm Trish", so I have always wanted a shirt that said that, haha)

So, in all it has been a fun few days. I have also been spending a lot more time with 2 of my favorite kids, M and N. They have recently memorized my phone number, so I hear from them a lot. They both remembered my birthday and got me a card and some candles. The card almost made me cry...they wrote "To our favorite god mom who cares about us". Apparently I am slowly becoming god mother to all the kids in church, haha. I am currently god mom to Dario, Luis, Linda, Bonita, Pedro, Miguel...and now M and N. Whew!

M also showed me her final report card, and I was so surprised!! Her grades improved dramatically between the 2nd and 3rd grading periods, the exact time she joined after-school. Her reading grade went from an F to a C, and she went from being on a 3rd grade reading level to a 5th grade reading level (she was in the 4th grade). All of her grades went up and she was able to avoid summer school; and even have almost all A's and B's! I am so proud of her!!

Seeing her report card made me pretty sad to not be having after-school in the fall. With my new job I know for sure now that there is no way that I will be able to continue, but I am praying about other options.

Right now I am strongly leaning toward doing a teen tutor program where I will have open tutoring hours for teens to come and get help. Jeff, J and Pastor Andy have all expressed interest in being a part of something like that. It will be nice because the teens will only come if they want to, and I won't have a program to plan. In light of today, I think I might see if one day a week I can do something similar for kids. For example, if it was a day that both Jeff and J were tutoring teens, I would be available for kids. Really the only kids that I am concerned about are Bonita, Linda, Pedro, M and N (Miguel doesn't really need help). I can handle helping them once a week...We'll see what happens though.

Tomorrow its back to life as usual. Friday I am heading to Washington DC with Brooke, Jenna and Ashley and we are all SO excited. We have tickets to the Holocaust Museum and a free hotel room for the night! Brooke's dad will be there with his youth group and they had an extra room, so we are taking it. We have to head back to Philly early on Saturday though because its the church picnic!! I am taking ALL of my kids and I am so excited. We go to a place with a pool and tons of other things to do and its always a fun and relaxing day.