Dexter turns 3

This little boy turned three. He has amassed quite the sword collection in these three short years. The two most important Ds in his life are dinosaurs and dragons. Well, Dad too so that makes three Ds. If ever I need proof that I am doing okay, I just need to look at those two boys. Seeing them pal around together makes me feel very full.

Dexter keeps telling us that he's not a baby, he's big. He's becoming a little more independent each day picking out his clothes and trying to dress himself. The result is that he wears the same dinosaur and Ninja Turtles shirts every week and getting out the door or ready for bed takes just a bit longer. It's an exercise in patience for me and Josh.

This year he is having one of those birthdays that lasts forever. On his real birthday, he took robot treats to daycare. That's what happens when mommy is on maternity leave. She steps her game up. For his birthday dinner, we dined on chicken nuggets at Chick Fil A and he ran around the playplace. P.S. that Chick Fil A on Mills Civic does the business! A steady stream of families the whole time we were there and the drive thru was never empty. Crazy town.

His eyes were shut for the first photo so I said "Open your eyes" and his eyes got quite wide and turned out like this.

And then this weekend, we had the big family shindig featuring a build your own sandwich bar and a shark cake. Word to the wise: if you're going to build your own sandwich, hit up Graziano's for all your meaty needs. There was a rapid fire present opening where lots of tiny cousin hands helped expedite the unwrapping process. Our house is now the official showroom for Ninja Turtles and Imaginext toys.

He began to tear into one gift before everyone arrived. That's what happens when no one is parenting you.

One "cheese sammich".

I keep coming back to this quote--"the days are long but the years are short." It feels very true. Some days with Dexter (and now Evy) make me want to throw up my hands and say this parenting stuff is for the birds! How many times do I need to repeat myself? Is it nap time yet? When will this phase be over? Long, long exhausting days.

But then, look at this KID! This action figure wielding, get his own glass of water, cheese sandwich requesting KID. Short, short years.

To our favorite

You are an idea man. You are a social butterfly. You are a chef. You are the best at rough housing. You are funny (and kind of a smart ass). You are the quintessential cool kid. You are well dressed. You are in favor of just one more. You are a hard worker. You are a very good friend. You are my kind of weird. You are his kind of crazy.

You are our favorite. Happy birthday, Joshie!

On my 29th name day

Do you feel reflective on your birthday? I've spent a little bit of time today thinking about where I've been and where I'm going but honestly the way that I prefer to celebrate another passing year is through food. And so I ate. I chatted with my coworkers over a Captain Crunch roll at Waterfront for lunch and sat on the patio at Jethro's with my family and dined on brisket doused with Carolina BBQ for dinner. I traded bites of the amazing mac and cheese from there with Dexter and sipped on a 312. Josh brought me down a mugful of Whitey's Mississippi Mud ice cream while I curled up on the couch to read my blogs.

But if I must reflect on what this year has brought me, then I will say, happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, joy...

Today though on my birthday, I feel full.

   

First birthday

Ah, the first birthday party. It ended up being fairly low key but there were times that I thought all my blogs and Pinterest would just up and carry me away with their fantastic decorations, stunning ideas and adorable themes. Then I was reminded that I am cheap and lazy. And so a little get together with just family it was. And a homemade yellow cake...and oversized balloons...and a rainbow colored garland. Okay, so I did gather a few ideas from Pinterest and other blogs. As I mentioned previously, I made this cake but used the mini cake tutorial for Dexter's cake, (although her instructions don't include knocking the can over and spilling batter in the oven, whereas my version includes such an event and a lot of four letter words), and I found the garland template here. Our house is roughly the size of a matchbook so we went to my dad's house in favor of more room and less crazy canine. The photos were taken by my sis-in-law Dawn who saved the day when it came to documenting the event.

It was a good day. A little exhausting, but good.

Doors are still the coolest

We celebrated Ben's third(!) birthday with our family this weekend. The gym at Christ the King was the perfect locale for all the kids to whoop it up and Dexter was content just crawling away on the floor. He tried to get in a game of dodgeball but I put the kaibosh on that. Not until he's 1, am I right? He discovered some closet doors and spent the majority of the time balancing himself and walking around them. It's seriously like moth to flame, set the kid down and he'll sniff out the nearest door and make a beeline for it.

Oh, yeah and this happened too. Bummer, buddy.

 

Vegas aka Joshie's bday aka Jaga bomb, Jaga bomb, Jaga bomb aka girl meets moleskin

We took our first long trip away from the Dexter baby a few weekends ago to celebrate Josh and his buddy BJ turning the dirty 30. We ate (Spago, Todd English P.U.B.), we drank (and that's where the Jagerbombs come in), we gambled (Josh lurves craps, I found a seat at the roulette table), we hung out by the pool. I have no photos of these events so you'll just have to take my word for it.

I also learned a valuable lesson about pretending to be something you're not. In an effort to look the part of someone that willingly stays up after 10 p.m., I decided to wear heels the first night; a practice that is reserved for weddings, work meetings and walks that are less than .1 miles. But hey, I thought, it's Vegas and I'm on vacation and I have this fancy miniskirt and won't I look so hot in these high heels in this fancy miniskirt?! And then we walked...and we walked...and we walked. And then I thought: Lora, you eeediot (because sometimes in my head I talk like Ren from Ren & Stimpy), that fancy miniskirt would be a lot hotter if you weren't hobbling around like Quasimodo! After that catastrophic miscalculation, I landed myself in flip flops and flat sandals the rest of the weekend and also was introduced to moleskin, which for some reason sounds kind of dirty to me, but it's actually just a miracle blister reliever.      

One photo that I managed to take from Josh's birthday dinner.