You say it's your birthday.......

it's my birthday too!

Last year I wrote this post as my birthday approached.....and here it is again, June eleven. This year I am thirty-two.....very uninteresting. I just still can't believe I'm that old.. I just feel especially old this year......as if I've let myself go......except I haven't, at least not forever. When I was pregnant with the twins I got a little crazy and extreme cleaned my closet. I feel the need to do it again. "A Vegas dress?! I'm never going to Vegas again, and if I do I certainly won't be able to don a strapless dress!! In fact, what else in here is strapless?! Cause it's gotta go! A bikini?! That ties on with strings?! Gotta go......a backless shirt?! Who do I think I am?! " I could go on and on.

I haven't let myself go.....it's just that I have been pregnant or recently delivered a baby or two for much of the last three years. Everything in my closet is either something I wore when I was pregnant (which I classify as maternity even if it isn't) or OLD. Three kids ago old. And part of me doesn't really care.....I rarely leave the house, and when I do I just throw on my gym clothes. Taking the kids anywhere feels like a workout so it's totally justified. But then there are times when I actually have to get dressed in real clothes. That's when I look in my closet and feel old. Or when I see clothes I love but I realize wearing silk just doesn't make sense in my world anymore.

At the same time I feel amazing.....I have cut back Alyssa's hours and have even made time to sew a few blankets for expecting friends. I can hold both my tiny babies and read to the big kids all at the same time. I keep reminding myself that most of these things are temporary. There will come a day that I can again wear silk......and there will only be so many days that I can hold both of tiny babies.......and only so many days I can read to them.

This last weekend I was given the best birthday gift. I wish I had done a better job of documenting it in pictures. My Aunt Janet, my cousin Valerie, and my newest cousin-in-law Spencer came to our house and watched all the kids so Matt and I could enjoy a day to ourselves. It was amazing. There were three of them which made me confident everything would be under control. Plus they're family and I know they just love my babies so I had no worries. We had lunch and a few cocktails at Pismo's, then went to a movie (which we haven't done in-and I'm NOT exaggerating-over three years), then we met Hally, Lauren, and Nelson for happy hour at Ruth's Chris and followed that with a little treat from Marble Slab on our way home. It was around 8:30 when we got home. Usually at 8:30 I'm exhausted......I can't wait until 9:30 so I can justify going to bed. Not that day....I felt like a million bucks! Like I had hours of life left in me before bedtime. It was a most amazing gift......and it made me realize that I need that time with Matt. Time for us to be husband and wife......not mom and dad. THANK YOU Janet, Valerie, and Spencer-it was a most thoughtful gift and we enjoyed and relaxed every minute of it.

Here are some images from my day..........










More on the birthday tomorrow.....or the next day......or next week.....

Love.

I'm a little behind on this post.....

It's been a little while since my last post because it's been a little crazy around here. Just typical stuff-Gracie climbed out of her crib so we turned it into a daybed. It was a bit of a disaster trying to get her to sleep in the  new freedom of a big girl bed. That came at the same time I moved the twins from Rock and Plays to cribs. It's also during the time that Gage has been wrapping up Kindergarten and we've had "off" schedules, teacher gifts to get, and parties to contribute to.

But right now in my house.......it's ALL quiet. It's pretty strange. Gage is off to swim with Courtney, Gracie and the twins are napping AT THE SAME TIME!! So here I am blogging in the few moments I'll have today. This might mean dinner doesn't get done but there's worse things.

Today Gage had his Kindergarten Celebration.....you might consider it a graduation. I don't, but you might. This was another one of those times.....when maybe I should have been sentimental about how fast he's growing up-but I wasn't. I'm actually looking forward to all day school.......to real reading and real expectations. I might change my mind next school year-but right now I'm looking forward to his growing up a little.

Our yogurt date afterward......

I was bothered.....the place was playing Drake's "Started from the Bottom" UNEDITED. For anyone that might not know that means we were listening to "f-bombs" and the "n-word".......and not just once or twice those words are part of the chorus. Gage actually said, "Let's sit outside Mom". Then on our way out he said, "That guy needs to be more considerate of others.......did he not SEE ME?!?" So if you're considering the new Sweet Kiwi Yogurt by Vons-just be ready for the kid working there to be sharing his highly inappropriate iTunes play list. We won't be going back.

The twins are approaching 4 months and they are hilarious. I've spent the last two weeks trying to work on a schedule for them. By schedule I mean a VERY flexible schedule. Just something so that I can TRY to get the three little ones all down at the same time. I succeeded today-BLISS. They are sweet and almost always smile back if you smile at them. They smiled at each other for the first time earlier this week. It was really hard to capture but they caught each other's eye and Jay smiled, then Ashlyn smiled back....they went back and forth for a few minutes-it was so cute.

Gracie has been busy building her vocabulary and learning to sleep in her bed. Some of my favorite new words are "pantry" and "pops" which means popsicle. She was sick-first with a fever, then some kind of cold/cough, then she got stung by a bee.She's had a rough week but she was looking pretty good this morning.

She took the bee sting like a champ. I was doing the dishes while she sat out side with a "pops" and out of nowhere I heard her start crying, as I ran to her she said, "Bee.....bee.....beeeeee" but I had no idea what she meant until she showed me her little arm. I pulled out the stinger and put ice on it but she really didn't cry much. She's tough.


Okay, that was all written YESTERDAY so now for today.....

Gage had a Teddy Bear Picnic at school and families were invited. Gage didn't have a teddy bear so he took a monkey instead. I took all the kids with me and we were only five minutes late arriving, pretty good for me. The twins were pretty good......

Then after school I had the saddest thing happen......we took Ella (the back neighbor) home because Mandy, her mom, couldn't make the picnic. We invited her to come play after school and we stopped by their house first to drop a few things off. When we got back in the car I was a little behind the kids, I saw the back door open and I shut it............right on Ella's ankle!! She yelped and my heart sank and I just scooped her up like she was my own-I felt SO awful. When I got inside and told Mandy what happened she actually laughed a little as she grabbed Ella and said, "My mom used to do that ALL the time.....I swear at least once a month someone got something shut in the door-that's just how it goes when you have so many!" I was so glad she made light of it because my heart was broken. It's just another reason they are the best back neighbors.

Tomorrow is Gage's last day of Kindergarten.....and I feel the same as I did the last day of preschool-just fine. Not even a little nostalgic about his growing up. Looking forward to summer camps and first grade.

That was all actually written last week so I'm going to go ahead and post before I'm catching up on things that happened a month ago!!

Love.