the big 2-8

Having a birthday during busy season is a hit or miss, but this year was a definite hit.  We got to have David all day long and party just us three.  It's crazy to think we found out we were pregnant this time last year!  To the day in fact.  I gave David a birthday present with the pregnancy test in it to tell him we were expecting.  A lot can change in a year...

We started off the day with snuggling that little cheeky boy and eating bowls of birthday cereal.  Laugh, but we never buy cereal.  It was delicious ;)

I was determined to have some fun family time and take Clark swimming for the first time - just a quick dip - butttttt turns out the pool is still icy.  We tried, but he wasn't having it.  Can't say as I blame him, but we still got to see him in those adorable swim trunks.  That's at least half a win.

For a birthday lunch/ pi day celebration we headed out to a local pizzeria and ate some delicious pizza pie.  Plus they felt they messed up on one of our pizzas (with a big air bubble in the middle) so they gave us another one for free.  Happy birthday indeed.

We spent the rest of the day cuddling this little munchkin, taking afternoon naps, and eating some razzleberry pie for the birthday boy.  It was a lovely day and we're so glad this birthday guy is ours to stay.  Now let's hurry up and get this busy season over with so we can have him around every weekend!

down south

With David's birthday on Friday and Brooke's Mormon Prom on Saturday it only seemed right that we would hop in the car Saturday morning and book it down to see her all dolled up and celebrate David's b-day all in one.

But first, we had to drop off flowers.  Lots and lots of flowers.  I'm a teacher for our young women at church and we had a program this Sunday - New Beginnings - that celebrates our girls and pumps them up for our program for the coming year.  They needed someone to help with the flowers and I was only too happy to jump up and down to do it.  Buy flowers on your dime and spend all afternoon in hog heaven arranging them?  Sure thing.  I'm on it.

I ended up making two large arrangements and 10 center pieces and my kitchen smelled A-mazing on Friday.  I'm pretty sure I'd be perfectly happy if I was a florist.

After we got those off to someone who could make sure they didn't die between Saturday and Sunday we headed down to Orange County.

When we walked in we had a good laugh:

My mom and I were twins.  Down to our twisted back ponytails and almost our choice of earrings.  Too funny.  I'd say this was out of the ordinary, but then I'd be lying.  

And then we got this cute girl off to the dance - she looked so, so pretty and I love that we live close enough to be able to support her at the little things like this.  The plan is have my camera fixed by her school Prom so we can nix all these sub-par iPhone pics.

After the kids got off we headed down to Laguna Beach to celebrate a certain birthday boy!  We ate at this great grille and I'm still craving those sweet potato truffle fries.  Yum, yum, yum!  It's always a treat to get my mom and dad to ourselves on nights like this and just enjoy being together.  We're selfish like that.

And that was nice wrap to the weekend - except for that pesky hour drive home.  We're working on fixing that sooner rather than later...

another year older

I gotta tell you, there needs to be some sort of rule that says you shouldn't have to go to work/school/real life on your birthday.  You should just have free reign to play all day and celebrate!   You know, if those sorts of things were up to me...

To start off Dave's b-day, I whipped up some superb scrambled cheese eggs and maple bacon (normally it's oatmeal, so be impressed ;) and then sent him out the door to brave the 405.

We had originally planned to grab lunch together, but what with some other things I had to get done that day (insert buying flowers - lots and lots of flowers), we decided we'd grab dinner together in Santa Monica after going to the temple.  By some miracle from the birthday gods, Dave got off work at 5:00 during busy season (what????) so we had plenty of time to celebrate.

We meet up at the temple (after I breezed through a freeway sans-traffic at 4:45 on a Friday night - another miracle) and lo and behold...it was closed.  Till next week.

What?  Fail.

A for effort, right?

We salvaged the night with a delicious dinner of tempura fried green beans (swoon), fried chicken, and Texas toast.  And topped it all off with an order of sticky toffee which they brought to our table and we both stared at it wondering why on earth we ordered dessert when we were already so ridiculously full from our meal. 

But it was Dave's birthday.  You have to order dessert on your birthday.

It was a lovely night and now this boy is 27!  I'm married to an old man.  Just kidding.  But it's crazy to think we met when he was 23 and now we've celebrated 4 birthdays together.  Time sure flies...

Happy birthday handsome man!

baby sister birthday weekend

We spent this past weekend down in Orange County with the fam planning Brooke's surprise 18th birthday bash.

But, first and foremost, a beach day was definitely in order.  

It was a lovely day in San Clemente.  As the story goes, David has been coming to this beach south of the pier with his family for years, and I've been coming to this beach north of the pier with my family for years...so we're pretty sure we were there at the same time at one point along the way.  I'm sure.

The next day was all about getting Brooke's birthday partay prepared.  We had life size Jenga & lawn Twister, ping pong & Mexican Cokes, and a caricature artist + a rockin' s'mores bar.  It was fun times and she was totally surprised.  I think we done good.

Sunday was really Brookie Sue's b-day and she is a whole EIGHTEEN years old!   That makes me feel so old.  When did this little lady get so big?!?

It was a pretty fun weekend.  We love this little sis of ours, and we especially love celebrating her.  Happy 18th B-day Brookie Sue!  I'm glad we decided to keep you, even though I wasn't quite sure about you at first ;)  Love you!

partying

So Wednesday night, my Laurels were so darn cute and threw me a birthday party!  I love planning parties with one condition: that they are not my own, so it was so cute to show up and see streamers strung, banners made, and a lovely birthday crown to wear all night.

Delicious homemade birthday cake was eaten, sherbert was supplied (my favorite!), prom was discussed, dresses were shown, boys were texted, and happy birthday was sung.  It was a great success.

Oh!  And I BAKED!  You really ought to be proud of me.  I made these babies and two days later...they are almost all gone.  Don't worry Dave and I didn't eat them all by our selves - we shared (sort of).

Come on it sugar cookies and pink frosting.  I didn't stand a chance.

Thanks for a great night my lovely Laurels! 

golden birthday

David has been giddy for about a week over his plans for my birthday, but on Monday I thought he might explode with excitement. He came home from work and was about to tell me what we were going to do, and then decided not to at the last minute.  When do I need to wake up? What do I need to wear?  I asked him tons of questions, but he sidestepped all of them and said he'd wake me up when it was time and I could figure everything out in the morning.

6:30 AM Tuesday morning:
David: "Carly, wake up!  It's your birthday!!!"

I have to admit.  That was a little earlier than I had anticipated, but I have no qualms with starting the celebration earlier rather than later.  After giving me his (very thoughtful) gift (which I love, love, love.  Mine has a little 'N' on it) - he pulled out his phone, opened an app and gave it to me.  "And," he said, " we're going there today."  The app was MouseWait - he got us tickets to Disneyland for the day!!  If that's not the best birthday present ever, I don't know what is.

The park doesn't open til 10:00, but Dave was so excited (okay, I was too), that we hopped in the car at 8:30, grabbed some McDonald's breakfast and hit the I-5.  We really had some birthday luck with us, because somehow we didn't hit any significant traffic, and we made it to Anaheim by 9:50.  That must be some kind of record.

First things first, we ran right into California Adventure and hopped in the line to get a fast pass for the new racers ride in Car's Land.  That's right.  We waited in a 20 minute long line to get our passes to move ahead of the line later in the day...it sort of made sense.  Now that I think about it we ended up waiting in line for 40 minutes for that ride...we just split it up between the morning and the afternoon.  Good thing it was worth it.  The ride was way fun, you know, when we rode it at later that day at 4PM.

After getting that out of the way, we ran to start riding actual rides!  California Screamin' did not disappoint (as seen by my rockin' windswept do), and we rode Toy Story Mania for the first time.  We mean business in those 3D glasses.  Please let it be known that I almost beat David playing a video game!  This may be a first.  But he blew past me in the bonus round of the last game.  Didn't somebody tell this boy it was my birthday??  I don't think that should be allowed...

To be honest, the lines were so quick in California Adventure that we were done with everything we wanted to do by 1:00!  So we ran over to Disneyland and got me a birthday badge, because, hey, it's only your birthday once a year right?  Everyone might as well know it!

It also ought to be mentioned that we didn't have to wait for any ride more than 35 minutes the whole day.  Happy birthday to me.  Thanks Disneyland.

Right about this time our fast passes were up for the racers ride in Car's Land so we jetted back across to California Adventure.  I have to say, I've never utilized a park hopper pass as much as I did yesterday.  We hopped between parks 4+ times!  Yes, both our feet are very sore today.

P.S. Car's Land was kind of incredible.  Definitely worth going to see.  We were very impressed.  And the racer's ride?  SO much fun.  Not worth standing in line for an hour for, but using our 20 minute fast pass line?  No brainer.

Mom and Brooke showed up around 4:30 (having dropped everything to come hang out with us last minute!  We're so glad they did), so we jetted back over to Disneyland to ride a few of our favorites with them.

 Hats were tried on:

The Tea Cups were ridden:

Dave creamed me on the Astro Blasters (as expected):

And, of course, we had to check out the Matterhorn's new bobsleds - you're not (as) squished anymore!  Woohoo! :

We ended the night by meeting up with dad and going back to California Adventure for dinner (because, let's be honest, their food is way better):

And we called it a day!  And what a good day it was.  Thanks Disneyland.  Contrary to previous conclusions, you are, indeed, the happiest place on earth.