Katie was supposed to be an inflatable T-rex but she had a meltdown at the last minute (somehow the costume “felt different” from when she last tried it on that morning) so after a MUCH drama, she’s wearing dino PJs.
Owen is some videogame character I know nothing about (Edgar from Brawl Stars)! Good times.
The best thing? They’re old enough to go out on their own so we sent them off while we sat at a fire in the driveway! (They went out first by themselves while we were waiting for Anna and David to arrive and then went out with the boys later!)
Our costumes were “glampers” — courtesy of Anna and David’s RV (it was in our driveway from the weekend—the kids had a sleepover in it)!!
It was a gorgeous day but it was windy and chilly—but at least it wasn’t raining or snowing! The fire was nice but could have been even warmer!
Maggie sat cuddled in a blanket on my lap for a good two hours).
That’s me and David. Anna was inside grabbing a snack. With a Katie photobomb.
We also had two adult drinks (Apple bourbon smash and rum punch) to hand out to friends but I didn’t get a pic of that!
Anna’s kids were tired after an hour or so of trick or treating but our kids went out again! Unfortunately I didn’t get the annual pic of their candy haul!
Costume choice #1 (Cruella) was scrapped last night because she couldn’t find the tank top I bought to go with it.
Costume choice #2 (2018’s Harley Quinn costume) was scrapped at 8am this morning because it was too scratchy, she couldn’t find a shirt to wear under it, and she lost all the accessories during her last sleepover.
So we went with a standby “costume” (MSU cheerleader) that she owns and wears regularly anyway.
AN INCREDIBLE WALK THROUGH THOUSANDS OF HAND CARVED JACK O’LANTERNS (Link)
Of course they weren’t all real pumpkins since the exhibit lasts all month…but they were still hand-carved. It was definitely neat but something we probably don’t need to do again!
Most of the pics are Anna’s because mine didn’t turn out as good.
Earlier this week we grabbed free Alton Brown Live tickets thanks to Vet Tix! Anna and David were actually going to Milwaukee as well to see a comedian so we met up for dinner first at Capital Grille! We hadn’t eaten there in years and it was better than I remembered!
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!
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?!
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!!
Soooo on our anniversary we stopped at an Asian grocery store and I splurged on like 10 different bags of awesome sounding potato chip flavors. Except… Some don’t have names on them—just photos.
We tried this nameless flavor tonight that we decided was some type of soup with broth and mushrooms and peppers…? They were definitely yummy but I really wanted to know the flavor. I reverse image searched and googled to no avail so finally went to friends on Facebook and learned that the translation must not be exact because it was listed as both Chinese Sauerkraut and Pickle Fish. But others translated the actual language on the bag and got salted fish and Laotian pickled cabbage fish flavor.
Then there was this exchange:
THOSE AREN’T MUSHROOMS!!!
Lordy, taking a closer look—no, those definitely aren’t mushrooms!
But I liked them so all was well, whether they were salted fish or Chinese Sauerkraut!! I can’t wait to taste the other flavors!
We ate Chinese for our first married meal so for a bunch of years after, we would eat Chinese on our anniversary—we even managed when he was deployed. Then we got out of the routine. We decided today was a good day to jump back in as we had to make an unexpected trip to Milwaukee so we had a lot of good options.
This was a definite winner as every single thing was DELICIOUS but our fave was the Sliced Pork Belly in Garlic Sauce.
We’ve all been cooped up with Covid and missed ALLLLLLLLLL the excuses to party…and you know we like to throw a house party…so we’re doing them all at once!
Post-Covid Celebration
Cascade Housewarming (7/2020)
Tom’s USMC retirement (6/2021)
BFF Anna-versary (8/2021)
Our 20th Anniversary (8/2021)
End-of-Summer/Back-to-School
Saturday morning and the Jello shots are here and ready thanks to Angela (she took the assignment when I ran out of time). But look at how well they fit in our garage fridge? It’s like it was meant to be.
About an hour before the party and I wasn’t even dressed yet. You think “Oh there’s only a little bit to do” but all the little things add up! Angela came over to help with a bunch of it and I’m eternally grateful. (Anna was picking up my kids from a class and getting the cupcakes.) It takes a village to throw a big party!!
Getting closer—getting the mixed drink dispensers ready! Peach Bellini, Rum Punch (empty), Vodka and lemonade, Beergarita, Bahama Mama.
David making his famous Trinidad rum punch! Yes that’s two full bottles of rum going in.
I forgot to take a pic of the food table but the dessert table was insane so I did takes a pic of that! We wouldn’t have needed to buy cupcakes at all! We had a few different kinds of cookies, two smoked cheesecakes, a German chocolate cake, a white cake, mini cupcakes, and Sam’s Club cupcakes!
Local-ish TiVo peeps!
We had to do at least one LipSense selfie!
The ribs were a hit. The pulled pork was amazing. And we have a ton of leftovers!
The only pics I snapped outside during the party!
The slide was a huge hit as expected. A few adults did go down towards the end of the night—butb it was actually cold by then so it didn’t last long.
David ended up making drinks for people at the bar…
And as we were saying goodbye to people, I discovered someone left a fern in our empty pot! (I had wanted to get succulents planted in it but never got to it with all the house stuff.) Turns out it was Ava, one of my gardener friends!
We just have great friends—from everyone who offered to help to the ones who loaned us things to the ones that jumped in to help before, during (putting away leftovers and doing the first round of kitchen clean up, and after (cleaning up the yard and house)… Thank you. We had a great time and I think everyone else did, too! Now to clean up some more and relax…
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.
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.
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.
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
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 transfer3:57am — off we go to the ambulanceIn 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 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!
We spent the evening at Dave and Anna‘s and their neighbors were having a street party and doing tons of real fireworks. It was both exciting and frightening at the same time…and it went on for hours!
I decided to do a full blue eye with red lips to have a more normal-looking eye instead of a red/white/blue look!
Face: CCTM and Light Powder with Clove ShadowSense contouring
Eyes: Sapphire Shimmer and Lapis Glitter with Warm Gold Shimmer highlights.
Cheeks: Red ShadowSense
Lips: Hurricane Red with Prism Gloss
Also? I officially suck at doing other people’s makeup. Especially crazy holiday looks. I didn’t quite mean it to end up like this but oh well. She doesn’t care so it’s all good.
Anna also came over to do a holiday look with my colors since she doesn’t own them (she thought blue was too scary). She looked gorgeous!
Tom was out fishing with the dads and I envisioned a relaxing morning watching movies with the kids. Ha. Hahahahahahah.
Instead I spent the entire morning cleaning up dog pee…Maggie peed through Katie’s comforter and sheets and thankfully we have Waterproof mattress protectors otherwise the mattress would have been done for.
She also peed outside our door. And had peed earlier this week that I didn’t get out the Rug Doctor for. The worst part is she also got Charlie’s cat bed so that needs to be washed and Katie is so angry that the bed will no longer smell like Charlie.
Since I had to clean all that l just cleaned the whole upstairs hallway plus half of our bedroom (lots of cat hairball vomit stains). And I needed to do the entrance to each kids room because it’s just filthy. I showed them the gray water so they can hopefully understand.
Oh, and anyone want to guess just how many colors I found on Katie’s carpet once she picked up all her crap so I could clean the pee?! I swear I’m about to rip the carpet out and just leave her with wood floors.
So I’m just hanging in my egg chair relaxing and waiting to head to a friend’s house for a BBQ. I’m glad it’s not 95° but it might be nice if it was at least sunny.
Oh and I might have done a crazy eye look… that actually turned out not too bad!
First, the before and after:
Then the before and after with no mascara and then with the amazing fake lashes… Lashes really add so much to a look—and even tone down crazy to make it look better!
This T-Rex costume has made me laugh out loud every time I’ve seen it while we’ve been trick-or-treating the past few years. So when I got the chance to grab one for Katie cheaply I did. It did not disappoint.
