Birthday spoils

This past Saturday completed one more turn around the sun for me.  37, to be exact.  So I guess technically I'm in my 38th year, but since no one says that, we'll say I turned 37.  I'm not afraid of 40 but I don't need to get there any faster than absolutely necessary.

This is the fifth birthday blog I've written, and each birthday has been better than the last.  The first birthday blog, I wrote about getting a trip to Paris for my birthday.

Holding the itinerary.

This seems like a million years ago.

By my next birthday, I'd been married and had my first miscarriage.  Talk about surreal.

My lovely hubby also got me my laptop.  

Me and this laptop have seen some things.

The birthday after that was a million times better because I had a Sofia in my belly.

I have no memory of being pregnant.

I always said I'd never forget it, but life moves on and then all you have left are the pictures.

My pregnant friends, take lots of pictures!

I barely noticed the next birthday because I was knee deep in planning Sofia's first birthday party and making 65,000 cakes in pursuit of The One Cake.

My baby was so tiny!!

You remember this?

I seriously laughed out loud when I saw this picture.

They've been good birthdays and I'm thankful each year that I've made it to see another one.  This birthday, I'm in a new town with (very few) new friends, but my family is together, my baby is healthy (who's not at all a baby anymore - she's almost 2!!), and I've still got a little pep in my step.

My one friend offered to hang out with Sofia for a couple of hours while Drew and I had some alone time and we happily took her up on it.  We snuck off to a nearby restaurant and had some dessert and cocktails.

Drew got me a beautiful statement necklace and I hate that 

the picture is so blurry.  But I didn't want to be that guy and have the bartender

take a million pictures so we went with it.

It was nice to have a few moments alone and it really made me realize that we don't do that kind of stuff nearly enough, and my husband is a pretty cool dude.  We should get out like that more often.

After we came home, we decided to go out to eat since we were dressed and Sofia *seemed* to be up for it.  

Again with the blurry pictures, but whatevs.

Making funny faces, trying to keep her occupied until the food came.

She'd had enough of the high chair, so I tried to appease her by having her sit with me.

No dice.

Shortly after this picture was taken, Sofia had a Stage 5 meltdown that required us to pack up our food two seconds after it hit the table, and get on home before she took that whole restaurant down with her.  Eh.  Life with a toddler.  Drew and I had our meals in bed and watched a movie on the iPad which was even better.  It was still a great birthday and I still had a great day.

What's more, my lovely little mommy sent me some shopping money and I promptly went to Target and Old Navy and picked up all the things I've been eyeing.  And yes, I know I complain about my lack of fashion originality and how I used to shop at the cool places, but the fact is, my job as a stay at home mom is a Target/Old Navy kind of job.  How would I look in some Nieman Marcus blouse, having to wash spaghetti sauce and almond butter and pee out of it? (I have had all three of these things on me in the past morning.)  

I'm a stay at home mom and I shop at Target and Old Navy.  When I've got some fancy dinner to attend, I'll make the field trip out to Nordstorm, but for now, this is how I do me.

Plus, it made me happy to hit up Target and fill my cart!

Our dinky doormat was giving me the blues.

This one makes me much happier.

Our old kitchen dish towels matched our old red kitchen,

but was out of place in the new one.

New white towels will match everything from now on.

They're small things, but they make me happy and I get a little smile on my face every time I look at them.  Once my stuff from Old Navy arrives, I may do a little fashion show because it's been ages since I bought clothes for myself.

While we were in Target, I also picked up Sofia's birthday party outfit.

I'll give you three guesses what her birthday theme is going to be.

I also got a phone call from Drew telling me to go to Best Buy to pick up another birthday present.  I thought I was done with presents and honestly I wasn't expecting anything else.

Then this happened.

Oh you can't see that so well?  Let me help you.

Isn't that just the prettiest thing you've ever seen?

This, my friends, is the sole reason for this post.  I could have just been like, 'I got a vacuum for my birthday but Pretty Ricky requires more than that.  He requires a build-up, an introduction.  And yes, I named him.  No reason behind the name other than I like the way it sounds.  And he's just so pretty.  I squealed for a good five minutes when I found out what Drew had done.

And feminists, step to the left.  I got an appliance for my birthday and I'm THRILLED.  I want to make out with it.  It's gorgeous and I love it and I don't care who knows about it.

I have a disgusting hairy dog and her shedding gives me anxiety attacks.  I'd been saying that I wanted a new vacuum but I never in my wildest dreams that Drew would consent to getting another one until our current one completely crapped out.  So I continued to vacuum every day, knowing that it wasn't picking up like it should, leaving behind all manner of dog nastiness in my area rugs.  I prayed for the death of my old vacuum.

So when this guy came home, Drew could barely put it together before I snatched it out of his hands and hit that power button.  Our living room rug literally got a shade lighter with all the crap Pretty Ricky was able to suck up!  I vacuumed the whole house and was fascinated and disgusted by all the stuff that was in the cannister.

Peace out, Barney.  You can handle the basement work.

Pretty Ricky's got things covered upstairs.

Ricky's cannister is smaller but there is no denying he's got more power.  He's so much lighter and has his own pack of tools!  Y'all, I'm in love.

So, once again, another birthday is in the can.  I'm another year wiser, another year more comfortable in my skin and it's back to real life for me.  I finally finished painting the playroom, I'm starting to plan Sofia's birthday party, and we have started potty training.  There's nothing like scrubbing pee out of your newly vacuumed living room rug to bring you right back to Earth.

But it's nothing Ricky and I can't handle.  Now if you'll excuse me, I think I see some dog hair that needs to be taken care of.