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Category Archives: Birthdays

48th Birthday Adventures

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As you just saw, my birthday started with an amazing rainbow eye look to match my tie dye outfit. Plus the crown of course.

But the actual adventures actually started with heading with my bestie to pick up my other bestie and then head to Kenosha!

Trying to find catchers equipment for Owen and backup mitts for Evan at Play It Again Sports. What you do when it’s your birthday and wearing a crown and a mask.

Next birthday adventure stop: lunch at Frank’s Diner! It’s been two long years since we’ve been here and it was as delicious as we remembered!

No jalapeno bacon for the Bloody Mary this time. Womp wah.

Next? Crumbl—this will be birthday desserts for us with the kids instead of cake. They didn’t have my fave cornbread ones this week, though. And yes, we ate a few bites straight from the trunk!

I caught Anna sneaking some bites in the car!

Now birthday adventures are on a hiatus but I’m cuddling with my doggo so all is well.

Birthday adventures, mom style: taking Katie to physical therapy! Ha.

Birthday adventures, kid style: watching a movie!

The last birthday adventure! A margarita by the fire…with Tom and Anna and David. With an Ozzy Man Reviews topper. It was chilly so I had my sweatshirt on and they thought it looked like a queen’s cape!

All in all, a great 48th birthday!

Rainbow birthday look!

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I decided to do something fancy with my makeup for my birthday! I’d been wanting to do this eye look ever since it came out over 2 years ago (!!) but I was always afraid I would screw it up.

I was also wearing a rainbow tie dye outfit so I figured it was meant to be!

I figured my skills have advanced enough that I might be able to pull it off…and I think I did!! It’s not exactly the same but it’s dang close—and close enough for my first attempt!! I even broke out the false lashes!!

And yes, I’m wearing a crown because BIRTHDAY and why not?!

Surprise birthday morning + school pic prep!

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There’s nothing quite like working until 2am and sleeping SO HARD in the morning only to be awoken by the slight noise of your bedroom door opening so you open your eyes to see EVERYONE standing there so you freak out just a bit and then they start singing Happy birthday.

And then I had to hurry and get out of bed because it’s picture day and I hadn’t purchased Owen’s pics so I had to rush downstairs to do that plus take my own photos before they left for band.

Also? Owen remembered on his own that it was picture day and wore his shirt, jeans, AND A BELT! He didn’t shower so his hair was a little crazy but in the grand scheme of things not bad!!

Birthday shopping trip!

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Katie got a birthday check from Gramma but she wanted to spend it in person…

From Gramma Jean: We went to Dollar Tree tonight before dinner and she wanted a basket to shop! Got two pair of flip flops and some other stuff, spent $12. I told her I would give her the balance so she had to get pencil and paper and figure out how much that would be. I said she could take the rest to granny’s and she said, not to be mean but shopping there is worse than here! (Choices of stores & options) I’ll give her the balance in an envelope. She’s funny. I pretty much let her choose what she was going to buy. She carefully thought about each one. Cute.

If it’s not the Katie show, we’re gonna have issues.

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Let me predict what’s going to happen today: Katie has had a friend here all afternoon after her birthday pool party. When she leaves, I will ask Katie to do something (anything, it doesn’t matter) and I’ll get attitude.

And why do I predict this?

Because that’s life with Katie these days. It’s like she’s really a teenager instead of just nine.

ANYWAY. FAST FORWARD.

I asked her three times earlier today to clean up her dinner garbage and each time—

I KNOW MOM!!!

—but she never actually did it so when I noticed after she went to sleep in the basement (a special treat) I called her back up and made her do it. She was pissed. And then—surprise—she DIDN’T FINISH so I called her back again. And she was just pure teenage attitude. So she lost her privilege of sleeping in the basement that night.

So she was being super pissy and stomped upstairs to her room—and decided the best thing to yell at me was “And are your ever going to clean up this pee?” (Maggie had peed at the top of the stairs in the craziness of the pre-party prep that morning and I only had time to put a towel on it. And can only go up the stairs once a day.)

So I might have yelled at her that I had been A LITTLE BUSY AT HER BIRTHDAY PARTY ALL DAY AND OH YES I WAS STILL RECOVERING FROM SURGERY DID SHE FORGET THAT?

It got worse from there. I can’t even recall the things that were said on either side but I did eventually tell her I wouldn’t mind throwing all her birthday presents straight into the garbage because she certainly didn’t deserve them with the attitude she was having.

Unfortunately all my friends with girls say this is normal. And their girls do it, too.

I’m not sure how we’re gonna survive this.

Happy 9th and 12-1/2th birthdays!

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The show must go on! We had paid for the double birthday party and the weather was gorgeous and we were not cancelling—even though lots of people told me they wouldn’t have been surprised. Really, though, most everything was taken care of by the staff—we basically just had to haul in the drinks and snacks and then had the pizza delivered. I pretty much stayed on the picnic table the whole time.

A great time was had by all!

Look at me looking all normal!

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Today was the kids’ dual birthday pool party and I was happy that I felt good enough to put on a face! (Don’t worry, I didn’t over-exert myself—I literally sat at a picnic table the whole time…but more about the party on the next post!)

  • CCTM Light Medium and Light Powder
  • Champagne Shimmer and Pink Ruby Shimmer ShadowSense on eyes
  • Pink Ruby Shimmer as blush
  • Clove ShadowSense as contour
  • UnderSense Primer and regular black Mascara
  • Glow Gloss

#pissygallbladder

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PLOT TWIST, continued!

Out of nowhere about 9:15 I started having extreme pain in my chest and just felt really crappy—enough so that I texted Tom to come home because I was NOT GOOD. It was time to start getting the girls ready for bed and I couldn’t even think straight so needed him to come handle it.

It wasn’t reflux or gas or anything I’d felt before—and I knew women’s heart attacks had different symptoms and that’s all I could think of. I googled and it didn’t seem like a heart attack but whatever was happening was not normal. I thought if I could just go to bed and hopefully fall asleep…maybe I could sleep through it. But the pain wasn’t going away and it was actually a little scary. And then just like that I felt better! Weird. I sat up in bed and just as I was getting excited that it was over…BAM, it came screaming back. At this point I called Tom upstairs and actually told him I was scared and it was at this point (about 10:30) that I said I needed to go to the ER.

Someone obviously had to stay with the kids—and Tom wasn’t able to drive safely (remember, he’d been at a poker night with the boys)—so he called Anna and she got here—from a dead sleep—within about 10 minutes. She drove me to the ER as I writhed in pain and tried to breathe through it. We spent the next five hours at the ER (10:30p–3:30a), most of which I was in about a level 7/10 pain.

11:15pm

I was on morphine for the pain (thank God for morphine) and it was weird how I could feel the pain ramping up (I started breathing differently) and knew to ask for more. Anna was googling trying to figure out what it could be. She was staying in touch with Tom. She was updating the sleepover moms on my phone. When I wasn’t incoherent with pain we visited like normal.

After some tests and bloodwork—my heart was fine, kidneys were fine, my liver was a bit elevated but not worrisome, and overall bloodwork was all fine. But the ultrasound. The ultrasound showed a really pissed off gallbladder. Stones and something else I forget. So then it was my first Covid test ever (which wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be) and a leisurely ambulance ride to another hospital to be observed and prepped for emergency gallbladder surgery! Anna went back to our house to stay with the kids while Tom drove to the hospital to meet me there.

3:45am — mask on and ready for transfer
3:57am — off we go to the ambulance
In the ambulance. No sirens but I think the lights were on.

Not exactly how I planned to spend Katie’s birthday…

But I cannot thank Anna enough. Seriously. She was my angel tonight—from the initial car ride to admission to keeping Tom in the loop to grabbing nurses to texting the sleepover moms…to relieving Tom at home (and watching the kids) so he could come see me. Whatever I needed, she was there.

Katie’s birthday sleepover…and more!

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Katie had two friends over for her first birthday sleepover. Holy cow were they loud. And of course there was some drama because GIRLS. I was dealing with it all myself because Tom was at a poker night down the street (I had breakfast plans with my mom group in the morning so it was a fair trade off).

But overall it wasn’t too bad. I hoped a movie would keep them quiet for a bit but that lasted about 15 minutes because one girl refused to stop talking and the others were getting annoyed so they just stopped.

And then…PLOT TWIST! Go to the next blog entry for the rest of the story!

Work doesn’t stop on a birthday!

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Daddy and Owen were painting the garage while Katie was having her waterslide party. Yes, it’s purple. We only use Home Depot or Menards “oops” paint colors ($30 vs $120 for five gallons) for garages so it was bright peach or this. We figured the purple was meant to be.

Also, Tom’s sprayer died about 3/4 of the way through…so we ended up buying a new one. We hated to spend the money but he will definitely use it for future projects.

Once we showed up to check on them, of course Katie wanted to paint, too…so we let Katie do her name.

Happy wet 8th birthday, Katie!

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When you wake up at 5am with an idea to hopefully make Katie’s pool noodle birthday candles a bit better (adding the letters) …and you’re hoping the rain stops so the whole thing doesn’t get ruined (because you were cheap and used the cardboard school folders instead of going to Target or Walmart to find the plastic ones) …but who expected it to storm this week (it’s never rained once on her birthday) …so you were taping candle flames to the sticks in the rain in your PJs (hoping the neighbors weren’t watching because the PJs were too short for public). Oh, and Tom put the letters facing the house instead of facing the street, so that required a last-minute complete rearrangement (because the letters were already pinned on—because we already moved the glue gun/craft bin to the new house). Phew.

But she LOVED it so that’s all that matters, right?

Owen’s birthday shirt…adventure.

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Owen’s birthday is coming up next week so I thought I’d make this awesome shirt I saw on Etsy. I only had one snafu but on the bright side I learned how to do something. Do you see it?

I posted this pic on Facebook and a friend pointed out that seconds and minutes were in the wrong order. Gahhhhhhhh!! So I learned how to remove vinyl…

And then printed more text and fixed it.

P.S. If you’ve thought about getting the Cricut heat press, do it. It’s soooo worth it.

Happy 46th birthday to me!

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When it’s your birthday and you can’t decide what color lipstick to wear.

First was too light. Second was too dark.

Also? Yes. You can bet your ass I’m wearing my tiara all over hell today!! 🙌🏻🙌🏻 Happy damn birthday to me! 😂

Tiara out to lunch, getting my nails done, and leaving my kid at a neighbor’s after school. Tiara on the go!!

Then, I got birthday calls from my mom and David (as well as a handful of friends who were all in Maine together!) and dad and Linda (who, when I saw they were calling, wondered why).

Then, what better way to end my birthday than a margarita with a new friend (we met at the Paint & Sip a few months ago).

No, wait. THIS is the best way to end my birthday. 💕