Thirty-three and feeling good

It was definitely a unique sort of birthday, and it kicked off the weekend before when Dylan and I went to Sedona. We called it my birthday trip since we knew he'd be out of town for the actual day. We followed it up with my aunts/cousins birthday happy hour Monday and my happy hour with friends on Tuesday. On the actual day of my birthday, I was flying solo with G and headed into the J-O-B. Not ideal, but I didn't really care because I had already been delivered a good dose of birthday love.

After work, Gavin and I got home to my mom setting up a birthday table in our backyard. Kristin and the boys came over, and she went above and beyond to not only pick up my favorite pizza, Papa Murphy's, but also made the famous Palmer family strawberry pretzel salad for dessert. Yes, the woman who is 39-weeks pregnant with two small children and who had already organized a happy hour for me. Top-notch SIL, if you ask me. My mom, who had organized the other happy hour, was sure to get a glass of wine in me and had the backyard looking very festive. It was fun to have my family here, but Gavin gave us all a run for our money. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the only time he stopped screaming until he went to bed was when I turned on Tess's Gig Harbor video (his favorite!) and gave him food. And to think....he had had a great day at Dawn's! He was saving the attitude for me, I guess. So, it could have been a less stressful and exhausting evening, but I was so happy to have my parents, Kristin, and the boys with me. It would have been much more painful by myself.

This sums up my birthday afternoon pretty accurately.

Discovering the fountain.

Scotsman for the costume party. More complete outfit, and better photos, to come.

Chillin with his bro, Alex.

The kid who gets cream cheese in his eyelashes.

Is this how one should sit when wearing a kilt?

With the birthday festivities wrapped up, I think Gavin decided to pass on one of his childhood viruses to me. You know that feeling when you've been at work for a couple of hours and all of a sudden you think, huh, I feel really terrible right now. I had to give myself a pep talk to not barf a couple of times, and I felt achy and tired and hot. This is not an ideal health situation when you have six hours left in the work day and a rambunctious 1-year-old to look after by yourself, but we powered through the evening and did the things that needed to get done, and I was able to crawl into bed before 9pm. Imagine the torture when a few short minutes later I had to drag my body out of bed to pee. Things are looking up, though I wouldn't say I feel fantastic. We hit Luna's birthday party in the morning, and then Gavin gave me the gift of playing happily by himself in the playroom while I laid on his beanbag and did absolutely nothing for about an hour. I didn't look at my phone, listen to anything, or watch anything. Literally nothing. I don't know if that's ever happened before, except for when I'm asleep. The afternoon seems to have brought me renewed energy, I just finished green tea and an apple, and Gavin's in his crib flirting with the idea of a nap but mostly playing with cars and talking, so the remainder of the weekend should wrap up pretty nicely.