Wooooooooooo Date Night!!! My super old husband turned 32 yesterday. I get to call him super old until I turn 30, so it’s a good thing I’m only 22.

We celebrated in style with a little birthday music:

A super delicious carrot cake:

Swear to God, the best cake I've ever baked - and it was from a box and made with applesauce instead of oil.

I managed to light all 32 candles with only one minor thumb burn:

Plus we only burned one tiny hole in the tablecloth!

Then we put the kids to bed, left our babysitter on the couch with the remote and hit Mohegan Sun. It’s handy that we have two of the biggest casinos in the world right down the street.

E's yearly cigar, one of the many cool light fixtures, Leffingwells Bar

Fake sky over Leffingwells

Indoor river, riding the elevator, ceiling over the craps table

You know how people throw coins in fountains for good luck? At casinos, they throw CASH.

We brought home hats "for the kids", Birthday Krispy Kremes, my handsome husband

Terrible cell phone photos are what happen when you're too embarrassed to take a real picture at home in front of the 19 year old babysitter.

Sparkly top: Dress Barn (I’m not even ashamed, they have cute shirts)
Jeggings: Nordstrom Rack
Ridiculous platform heels: Charlotte Russe
Earrings: I don’t remember and it doesn’t really matter since you can’t see them.
Clutch: Ditto the earrings

We lost, of course, because that’s what you do at casinos but it was SO GOOD to be out and doing adult-type things without having to wipe anyone’s nose or mouth or butt. We chatted with grown-ups about things other than our kids. We made angry faces at the douche-canoes who sat down in the middle of our blackjack shoe (because we’re so fancy and worldly we know that’s poor manners). The kids slept the entire time and didn’t even know we ditched them. Let’s do it again soon!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband and Happy Sunday to you!

I might as well skip this considering how VERY VERY LATE it is, but 60 is such a nice even number I’m just going to go with it. Plus I don’t have the energy to recap all of last week with real words, so pictures and captions will have to do.

Sunday:

E entertained the kids while I considered dying from exhaustion, a sore throat and a cough

Wonderful surprise cup coozie from my friend @emilybilbrey

This is what packing and cleaning the house looks like when you're sick - Twitter & football

Monday:

Cookies for breakfast?! It must be someone's birthday!!

The kids LOVE my Understanding Exposure photography book

Even though we did NOTHING all day, she was happy to be ONE!

Tuesday:

Totally entranced by this stupid toy at the car repair place

This is in front of the post office, a few days before Christmas. Our town is kind of sad.

Wrapping ALL THE THINGS

Wednesday:

Woke the kids up at o'dark thirty to get on the road

Playing with his Aunt Carolyn, who lives in Africa so we NEVER see her

STILL. SO. SICK.

Thursday:

Jam and bread? Don't mind if I do!

I ate so many waffle fries I didn't even have room for a peppermint milkshake. TRAGIC.

Helping Carolyn pick out a new (old)(really really old) camera

Puking toddler landed us in the ER at 8 pm because the doctor was worried about dehydration. Thank goodness for Zofran.

Friday:

Vintage trains & Legos

Watcha doin' Caroline? Oh just hanging out.

Still recovering

Saturday:

Forced festiveness at Reston Town Center

At least WE liked ice skating

This is how you juggle two napless kids so your wife can chat with her friends

Santa came!

I think I am finally over my cold/respiratory infection and Little Evan hasn’t thrown up in a couple of days (although he did ask for medicine for his hurt tummy a couple times) so MAAAAAAYBE we will get to enjoy a few days of relaxing family time while E is off of work. Of course there are also a zillion decorations to put away, two fridges to clean, a mountain of laundry and way too many new toys to find homes for, so “relaxing” is a relative term. At least I can check my week in iPhone photos wrap up off my list!

That’s a total lie. I just got SUPER DUPER LUCKY with the VERY FIRST SHOT I took yesterday morning when I tried my hand at a holiday twinkle lights bokeh photo shoot  (inspired by Jill & Pinterest).

Like I said, this is the very first shot, straight out of the camera. No Photoshop or processing.

Of course, the rest of my shots look like this:

For some reason when I set my camera (Nikon D90) on the A setting (which I am told stands for Aperture Preferred) so I can manually choose to shoot at 1.8 only 1 out of every 3 shots comes out right. The first one is good, the second is dark, the third is darker. Every time. I’m not switching angles or settings or anything, so I don’t know why the camera keeps changing its mind, but if someone could make it just always shoot like that first photo that would be super awesome.

Oh my God I am the WORST. I have this fancy, expensive camera and a whole bag full of lenses and I shoot in auto almost all the time with no real intentions of learning how to use manual. Like I said, THE WORST.

Here’s a couple more I managed to salvage with some editing:

Since I was trying to get photos to use on the mantle for Caroline’s party I went out and bought a silver sparkly dress (because the theme is sparkly snowflakes with lots of silver, light blue and light pink). So now she will match her decorations (CRAZY ALERT DING DING). But I ALSO bought an outfit for her to wear TO the party, because I didn’t want her to be wearing the same dress in the decorations as on the day (DING DING DING DING EFFING DING). I’ll try the twinkly light shoot again this weekend when E is home to a) help get the baby to look/smile and b) help me use my camera since he’s the one who read the instruction book.

Oh man, I am SO HAPPY to be home vegging on my couch and staring into a long, boring afternoon of regularity. No more traveling, no more driving, no more pack-n-play, no more guest bed, no more unbaby-proofed houses, no more stuffing my face with pie, no more long afternoons with no naps, no more rushing around to get thing unpacked and Christmas decorations up. I love spending time with our families but everything about traveling with kids is stressful. It’s hard to be “on” as a mother constantly – sometimes I just need to lock myself in a bathroom and scream, but in a house full of people there’s always someone knocking on the door to make sure you’re OK. I have trouble explaining yet, I’m fine, I’m just GOING TOTALLY CRAZY for a moment. It will pass.

Instead of letting Nick Jr do all my parenting today, I managed to get the kids out the door to Stroller Strides and the playground for a few hours. We’re having that week of insanely mild temperatures where all the New Englanders run around in shorts and tank tops and say “This is crazy! I can’t believe how warm it is!”. I think this happens every November – I definitely remember wearing flip-flops to my OB appointments at this time last year – but it still feels SPECIAL. I’m determined to take advantage of it as much as we can before I have to deal with winter coats and hats and mittens and blankets and running out to start the car at 7 am so it defrosts before we leave the house. And the snow. There’s going to be so much snow.

I’m already sad about Christmas being over, which is CRAZY because it is NOT AT ALL OVER. It’s not even December. Why am I letting myself get depressed about taking down decorations while I am putting them up? It just feels like the month is so full of things that I can’t possibly enjoy all of them enough. And I WANT to enjoy them, especially because Caroline’s birthday is coming up in 3 weeks and I’m trying to throw together a tiny party for her. Of course, by “tiny” I mean I’ve already started decorating, made a lace garland and I’ve bookmarked seven different kinds of cake to try making. I SWEAR it’s going to be low key though, if only because I won’t have time to clean up before we have to get back in the car and travel AGAIN for the holidays.

So excuse me while I go take a nap. Today I am thankful for easy, quiet, boring afternoons like this one.

Have you noticed we’ve been in a celebratory mood around here? I don’t know what could have possibly given it away, besides maybe my endless posts about Evan’s 2nd birthday. I just really love any occasion that involves a good party. And who doesn’t? Dressing up and eating delicious food are two of the greatest joys of life.

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