Celebrating

My birthday is nestled in between Christmas and New Years, right in the midst of the most wonderful time of year.  When I was little, I used to be upset that my birthday was "the last one of the year."  My Dad used to tell me that it was ok to be the last birthday of the year, because the year I was born, I was his favorite little tax break.  I never understood this until I actually had kids and now I think that he was totally right, and that I was legitimately a fiscally genius baby for coming a week early.  But, as the years have gone by, I really have grown to like my birthday. 

I still live in my hometown and most of my friends still "come home" to visit their families, so by default, they are home for my birthday, which is always fantastic.  There are always good holiday movies playing around my birthday.  It's always cold out, which means that I get to dress in layers and wear scoop neck sweaters.  I am a perfume junkie, so getting to spray liberally on my birthday makes me very happy.

Celebrating birthdays is always fun, whether you make a big deal, or a small deal, whether you guzzle a bottle of wine or just nurse a Shirley Temple.  This year, I wanted a low key day, I'm saving up my energy for my next milestone birthday; I'm going to have a blow out bash.  For real.  But low key definitely didn't mean without fun.

My father and sister both texted me around 3 am, which kind of begs the question, "What the hell were you doing up?"  And I got lots of love from other family members, friends and acquaintances.

My favorite part of my birthday (now) is getting cards (when I was little it was the ice cream cake, but not the whole ice cream cake: specifically the black crunchy pieces separating the chocolate and vanilla ice cream).  I've got a quirky sense of humor, so I appreciate when people make an effort to pick out the perfect card for me.  By the way, speaking of cards, I have said for the longest time that there are no quality humor cards around.  I have even mused about starting my own greeting card company/line to meet the demand of what I feel is an untapped market. 

Nothing says appropriate family portrait like your hands around your Mom's neck?

Jim's card



Snoopy?!  Seriously, this kid is awesome.



He even did the stray pen marks by himself.

 Besides the cards here are some other things I enjoyed about my birthday:

• Getting to sleep in and by that I mean, not having to get up for work.  Thanks to Jim who took care of Wubbles!
• Buying myself some birthday gifts.  Highlights include: make up (I'm thinking 2011 needs to be the year of the "smokey eye"), make up brushes and silver ballet flats from Target.
• My parents' getting me a sewing machine.  When I asked Jim what he wanted me to make he requested a sweater vest.  It shall be done.
• Dancing with Wubbles after dinner.
• Trying to make a birthday mix cd for myself... I'm still working on it.

On an unrelated but too incredibly cute not to document note, we gave Wub his first Oreo cookie today and the results were awesome!  He looked like a pirate.  We snapped like 20 pictures of him walking around the house going, "COOK!  COOK!," which is his word for cookie.  Something else that is good to know, water will take Oreo cookie stains out of furniture.

Lesson learned: black and white cookies and a light blue couch are kind of frienimies.

What do cookie pirates think about?  I'm not sure, but it must be very serious.

Until next time, have a safe and Happy New Year!