Early Birthday Love...

I LOVE Birthdays...not just mine but all birthdays!  I think birthdays are a big deal!  I usually celebrate my birth month!  Every weekend in the month of April is dedicated to celebrating my birthday!  As I get older...nothing has changed!  I will be turning the big 3-0 next week and I am not the least bit upset about it!  We have been so busy lately with putting our SC home on the market, searching for a new home in VA while living in RI (confused?), getting ready for my surgery and the hubby's work schedule becoming more time consuming that I have completely neglected my birth month!  But lucky for me, those who love me have not!  Yesterday I received 2 surprises in the mail...I LOVE getting mail!!!
First, I received the most thoughtful card from my mom.  My mom is a card person...she takes her card giving very seriously!

The next surprise was in a white box that looked like it contained checks...there was a return address but it wasn't from anywhere that I recognized!!!  Inside the box was this...

I, of course, did what any other adult my age would do when they receive a gift a week before their birthday!  I immediately opened it :-)

Mother of pearl heart Pandora charm!

HUGE THANK YOU to one of my best friends Alison for the beautiful and thoughtful gift!  You sure know how to make a girl feel special!

Normally, I spend my birthday with my best girls, my man, and lots of wine!  This year our schedule just doesn't permit time to travel to my favorites but don't worry ladies, we will make up for it this summer!  It's not as exciting being so far from my family and my best friends on my birthday but the hubby has a fun weekend planned for us so I am really anxious to see what he has in store!!!  I am sure it will be blog worthy....

MYO Basket!!!

Who doesn't love a good gift idea?  I know I do!  Sometimes I put a ton of pressure on myself to try and give the perfect gift.  I hate the feeling of giving someone something that I am pretty sure they are not really that enthused about!  I also hate to give gift cards...I think the main reason for this is that I struggle when I am given a gift card.  I still have a few gift cards that I was given for Christmas that I haven't even touched!  It is like the curse of the gift card, the minute you get a gift card to a particular store is the moment you dislike everything in that store!  I have a really hard time spending gift cards on myself...unless, of course, it is a starbucks gift card!  I have always been a big fan of gift baskets....whether it is a baby shower, wedding shower, bachelorette party, house warming or birthday, a gift basket always seems like a good idea!
Last week, I went out to dinner with a group of my favorite ladies!  Over the past year I have developed such a great relationship with my bootcamp buddies and we try very hard to get together every so often outside of our sweaty bootcamp sessions!  This particular evening we went out to dinner to celebrate our girl Shelly's birthday!  After tossing around a few gift ideas, I threw out the idea of a gift basket....and knowing how much my girl Shelly likes mojitos, I had the perfect "theme" for our gift!  A "make your own" (MYO) mojito basket!!!

"The Ingredients"

 Cute little Mojito cup that I found at World Market!

One side says "Mojito" and the other has the recipe on it!

Vodka, Simple Syrup, Fresh Mint, Lime Juice and fresh limes, club soda, mini shaker, mini muddler, basket, ribbon, shredded paper and cellophane!

Viola!!!

 The Birthday Girl...I think she liked it!

I was actually pretty proud of this creation...can you tell?  I am looking forward to making more fun little baskets like these...maybe a MYO margarita basket????  or a MYO ice cream sunday basket? hmmmm...I also made a cute little housewarming basket for my bestie, Nicole and her hubby, but I failed to take pictures of it so I am waiting for another friend to buy a beautiful new home so I can make another one and blog about it hehehehe!