Birthday, after Birthday, after Birthday

All these birthdays can only mean one thing.... CAKE....which only leads to one thing.... my clothes getting tight(er)! After last week, I need to run about 150 miles and spend 3 weeks at the gym. Why is it so much easier to gain weight than to loose it?!?!?!?

The 12th was DW's 30th birthday!!! To celebrate, his Dad took us all to dinner on the 11th at Yamoto.

Me, DW, & Belle

Annabelle tried to figure it all out. It was so cute. Of course when our guy went to start the fire on our grill (I guess that's what you call that thing?), I got Belle and stood up a good ways back. My first couple experiences at a Japanese Restaurant involved singed eyelashes (well, maybe that's a little dramatic, but they felt like they were on fire for sure) and being hit in the face with a flying shrimp...since I'd hate to go all "crazy-momma" on the cook who might accidentally toss a shrimp my girl's way, I decided it was safest for me to just stand. She loved watching him cook and he was way less of a "trickster" than they usually are...I guess since we had a baby with us, which of course I appreciated. He was great.... and the food was great, too....

Can you see that smile behind her paci?

After dinner, we went back to our house for cake. I had asked Devin earlier that week, what kind of cake he wanted....he thought and thought, and I named off every cake I remember him saying he'd had when he was a kid, and every other cake I could think of... he decided a cookie cake sounded good. He said they used to get the ones from the mall on their birthdays. Oh my gosh, our mall used to have the BEST cookies and cookie cakes...now, not so much, but when we were kids and it was "The Great American Cookie Company" --- ohhhh, man, they were good. Anyway, I decided I'd try to make one. His only request was that it have pecans in it. It turned out pretty dang good, if I must say so myself... and it's MY blog, so I MUST! :)

After we'd decided what kind of cake he'd have, I thought about what to put on it. Several years ago, his mom was cleaning out some old things and she gave me the heads for the superhero cakes that she had made for Devin and his brothers when they were kids. I drug them out, and couldn't decide between Batman or Superman. ***Sidestory, coming.....A few years ago, after much persuasion (and of course the seller was that Cooper was dressing up as Robin) DW had dressed up as Batman for Halloween (which is hilarious because storebought costumes are made to fit men who are about as tall as me (which there aren't very many), definitely not my 6'4"husband... when I brought the costume home and he tried it on, he came out of the room with a "ticked-off-at-me" look, and said, "well, I'll do it, but I look like Bat-Dork..." (I was Batgirl, (Catwoman was way too much for me...something about my thighs in a black pleather bodysuit just didn't sound appealing...and when you add a baby on my hip to the picture, well, it was just not a good idea...BatGirl is more my style, so I was her... plus my BFF had the costume leftover from years prior, so that was a pro, too! Ha...) so we were the whole Batman crew)... anyway, I thought about doing Batman on the cake, in honor of his stint as Batman, but "Happy 30th Birthday, Bat-dork" didn't sound very nice, even though he'd totally get it and think it was funny...
So I decided on Superman. He totally IS my Super-man... He's my do-it-all honey and the best husband and daddy I know...


In the middle of our dining room table, I had put out some of his old things...(My M-I-L and I went digging in the attic storage....after loosing 4 lbs in just sweat, we came out with 2 boxes of stuff....mostly old toys from his toddler to teen years.....everything from his "Tow-Gator" tow truck to his gameboy.

(I laughed so hard about that gameboy. It's so funny to see how things have changed...now the Nintendo DS' have color screens and graphics that don't even compare to the old-school Gameboy)...

Don't the toys just scream "1980's"!!!

I had asked 30 different people from different times in DW's 30 years to give me one word that they'd use to describe him. It was fun to tell him all 30 of the words and sweet to hear what everyone said. I had scanned old pictures for days and picked the perfect songs to include on a slideshow of old pics and then I had planned on doing a whole "this is your life" kind of thing with the words from the people in the slideshow, as well... Well, things never turn out like planned and since I am semi-computer illiterate, not to mention that I try to do 500 things at the last minute, it just didn't happen. I ended up putting together a little something and I think it turned out okay.

Singing "Happy Birthday"... I love this picture...because there's only 2 girls he looks like that at, and I was holding the camera, so you know he's not looking at ME! :)

I hope DW felt very celebrated and loved. I am certainly glad and thankful that he's mine.

Wednesday was the last bible study meeting for the summer bible study group that we've been having....it was also the day after Danielle's birthday, so of course we had to have cupcakes and sing to her!

Also celebrating a birthday last week, was our little miss, who turned 8 months old on the 9th.
EIGHT months. Wow. Two-thirds of a year have passed. I can't believe that....

The biggest milestones lately have been, of course, the crawling... Miss Priss is into EVERYTHING. She explores all over the house and enjoys getting her hands on anything she can! She has turned into Momma's little helper, and follows close behind and "helps" me all over the house....
in the laundry room... in the kitchen....

and especially when I'm cooking dinner!

We now have 4 teeth and are working on 2 more.

She has started making this new face this last week. It's the cutest thing EVER and I am so glad I got it on camera... She sucks her top lip in like she's thinking about something... I think she's just feeling those new top teeth, but it's the cutest little face!!!

She loves the Gerber snacks (fruit puffs & yogurt puffs) and does such a good job feeding herself those. She loves to be a 'big girl' and thinks if we are eating, she should be, too. It's so fun to watch her and we love our time spent around our kitchen table. She has quite the personality and loves for people to talk to her. If there are people around who aren't looking at her, she does anything to get their attention. When they do finally look at and talk to her, she smiles and buries her face in my arm and acts all shy. She's such a girl! She is so silly and just loves to laugh. It's absolute cuteness. Even though, it makes us sad to see her growing and changing so quickly, it is so much fun to see all the new things she's doing.

She is such a joy and oh-so very loved.

With that, I think I'm almost caught up with what's been going on around here...Up next is the baby shower we hosted for Stephanie on Sunday....

~amw~