Happy Birthday To Me

What a great beginning and end of today.  I woke up to a text from my friend from Nigeria, whom I was very surprised remembered my birthday.  She gave me a great laugh ...the text was the song "onye ga gbegwu? - iyaaaa, ga gbegwu iya; Nenyenwa ga gbegwu, iyaaaa, ga gbegwu iya, o bi fere ne me gi ... and she ended with happy bday and my special blessings.  I had that song in my head the rest of the day and it put a smile in my face. 
Then I had some voice messages, one from my brother who is two years younger than me and shares the same birthday as me.  For years now he has this competition of who would call each other first and he called me at midnight eastern time (I was already in bed) and I am one hour behind him.  So today when I called him I told him he actually lost this year (by accident anyways) since it was not yet my birthday central time :). 
Then I went to church and enjoyed passion Sunday- I also got to make my palms into cross.  It took me back to my childhood in Nigeria- it was the best part of palm sunday because we got to make different things with our palms.  Then I came home to a cell phone filled with voice and text messages of people singing happy bdays- my parents, my other brother, sisters, cousins, close friends , and the phones kept ringing.  I also got flowers from my boyfriend/husband-

thoughtful of him all the way from his deployment.  He also got a few hours in port and instead of hanging out with the boys he spent it on a skype call listening to me and telling me how gorgeous I looked and how much he missed me and the baby.  I updated him on things that were going on in the house and outside- including the recent Nigeria elections.  It was great hearing from him. 
The calls continued but I had to prepare some food for the baby shower/b-day party my colleagues were throwing for me.  They wanted a Nigerian dish but I had such little time and so I prepared jollof rice and puff puff (the puff-puff was inspired by a fellow blogger 9jafoodie). It turned out great and it was all gone except for some chicken scratch.  The jollof rice came out spicy and I thought the oyibo people wouldn't like it- umm they loved it and even appreciated the spicy test.  I actually make my jollof rice first like fried rice because I like the test of the curry; I fry my rice first in curry and canola oil, put my oregano, rosemary and thyme, then my tomato sauce, I added this a little beans, shrimp, shredded beef, mixed vege exactly how hubby likes it.  It came out great but spicy.  It is hard for me to eat non-spicy foods and it got worst since I became pregnant- I hope wal-mart never runs out of habanero peppers.  lol
The baby shower was a second out of four; the first one was by my nurses, the third one is by my sisters and mom and the fourth one (I think) is from my medical school buddies.  I have gotten so much gifts- clothes, diapers, stroller, swinger, toys, books, breastfeeding supplies and so on. I am already afraid of this little one being so spoiled. 

It was so nice to share my birthday with my little one, I had a wonderful time and the whole time he/she danced around as if aware of what was going on.  Well here are some pictures, I've got to get busy with some thank you cards.  God bless you all and I hope your day was as good as mine.