I had a Fake Birthday!

My birthday was this past Wednesday (the 23rd). I told Dennis that due to just getting back from our big vacation, I would rather wait until after he gets paid at the end of the month to celebrate. So I had a pretty low-key birthday. I was able to sleep late (about 10am!) then when I came downstairs the whole downstairs was cleaned. Even the kitchen! Happy birthday to me! But, wait! There's more! (call in the next 10 minutes and you will receive not one but TWO happy birthday hugs. Hurry, supplies are limited!) Dennis worked from home so he made everyone lunch and then put the babies down for naps. In the afternoon I supervised Bastian and Spencer while they made brownies. Gideon was busy playing Wii haha, the kid has his priorities you know. For dinner Dennis made stir fry. I love his stir fry (that's not a creepy euphemism, I really do mean stir fry). The kids were all really good and played nicely all day so I didn't even have to yell on my birthday. That is a priceless gift right there! After dinner Moira and Bastian kept asking where the balloons and streamers and pinata were. I told them that grownups usually didn't have big birthday parties. So, Moira then said "Mama, this is your fake birthday. When is your real birthday?" hahaha. We will celebrate my birthday this Friday. I'm thinking we will either go to the drive-in if they are showing anything good, or maybe just go to dinner at Cheeburger Cheeburger. I might even make a cheesecake for dessert. If I'm really lucky I might get a gift or two (gimme gimme gimme! Mine!...er, I mean, it's not about the gifts.).
That is how I celebrated my Fake Birthday. It was a good day. Moira told me "Happy Birthday means I love you" and I truly felt the love on my birthday.

And, I'm sure there are some of you wondering which birthday it was for me. This year I celebrated the 11th anniversary of my 21st birthday.

**Bastian lost another tooth!!**
Bastian's front two teeth have been loose for about a month. The other day I was in the kitchen making dinner and I hear Bastian and Gideon yelling. So I go see what is going on, and Bastian's mouth is bleeding. A lot. Dripping. Yuck. I take him in the bathroom to rinse and spit and get some ice for him. It turns out that Bastian's mouth got up close and personal with Gideon's back and it knocked his two front teeth even looser. And, for the next two days it seemed like every 5 minutes Bastian was bumping his teeth into something and making them bleed. I mean, seriously, was he walking around with his front teeth sticking out like a bloodhound tracking a scent? I swear he bumped his teeth on every single object larger then a speck of dust in the house. But, finally yesterday one of them fell out. Hurray!! Spencer and Gideon were off at a sleepover, so Bastian was the big kid in the house. He was all excited and put his tooth under his pillow. Well, actually Spencer's pillow because he slept in Spencer's bed.

Here is the uh-oh part. The Tooth Fairy almost forgot to come get the tooth! Luckily the Tooth Fairy's husband kept her awake until after 3am because he was snoring. As the Tooth Fairy finally started to drift off to sleep she suddenly remembered that she missed a tooth. So she jumped out of bed and got a dollar and 2 peanut butter cups and put them in a baggie. She then left them under Bastian's pillow and stole his tooth. Then went back to bed and eventually fell asleep. And at about 7 am the Tooth Fairy's husband suddenly jumped out of bed and ran out of the room. A couple minutes later he came back and said "You didn't tell me you already got the tooth!" then went back to bed until 9. Because the Tooth Fairy's children sleep in late every morning since no one has to get up for..er, fairy school. Of course the Tooth Fairy's children do stay awake later at night, but the Tooth Fairy is perfectly ok with that since it means she doesn't have to get up at 7 am every morning. Or, ok to be honest here, so the Tooth Fairy's husband doesn't have to get up at 7am every morning. Because the Tooth Fairy is not a morning person.

So, that is pretty much what my week has been like. How about you? Anything interesting happen in your life this week? I feel as though our conversations have become so one sided.

Bastians birthday!!!!! (& laugh at the dorkiness that is me)

Alright, I know I'm a bit late on this one. Bastian's birthday was on Saturday the 12th. He had a pirate party. We had invited 10 of his school friends. 1 had RSVP'ed to say he couldn't come. 2 RSVP'ed to say they would be there. The other 7 never RSVP'ed at all. And didn't come :( Good thing Bastian has 3 brothers and a sister to fill out the party guests. It was a great party anyway. Dennis's Aunt Sophie and cousin Renee came. I feel like I haven't seen them much lately so that was nice.

Dennis put together a Treasure Hunt. He had a great story about 'Chips A'hoy' who got caught stealing the captains candy so he was kicked off the ship and then was chased all over to try to get the candy back. Each clue had a letter on it, which then spelled out Pinata...and led to a pinata Chips A'Hoy which the kids then beat the...er, candy out of. Here is a slide show of the party:

http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc98/luvmy5monkeys/July/?action=view&current=4b877e4b.pbw

So, now my big boy is an even bigger boy. Why do these children insist on getting bigger??

**Now, Laugh At The Dorkiness...trust me, you'll laugh**

Ok, the last time I said something so dumb that Dennis just kind of looked at me like "Is she serious or joking?" was about 5 years ago when we were down in Florida. Dennis had won a 3 day trip for the two of us. The best parents in the whole world (also know as MY parents) stayed with the kids (only 3 of them at that time) so Dennis and I got a little get-away. So, during that lovely romantic weekend my facade of brilliance was shattered. When we were driving across one of the very long bridges in Florida I say to Dennis "Look at those pretty pink birds flying over us! I wonder what kind of birds those are?"...and Dennis gave me the 'are you for real?' look and said "They are flamingos". Well how was I to know? I didn't know they could fly. I'd only seen them hanging around little ponds at zoo's. I've never seen a zoo flamingo fly. For that matter I've never even seen a plastic lawn flamingo fly.

So, I've gotten away with rebuilding my image of smartness since then. And I didn't even have to tell Dennis my latest stupid thought...because it remained a stupid thought. But it was just so funny that I had to share it with Dennis so he could laugh at me...and also share with all of you, so you could also laugh at me.

This little brain fart happened when we were on our way to visit the National Zoo. As we were walking from the metro stop down the hill to the zoo entrance I was checking out all the restaurants along the street (kind of a hip urban street, with cafes and other froo-froo eateries). I was seeing if there was anything I was interested in trying for dinner after the zoo. So, across the street a bit ahead of us I see this sign:

And I'm thinking to myself "ZEEE-Levin...ZEEE-LevIN...I wonder what kind of place that is?" to me it sounded like another froo-froo ethnic restaurant, right? Until I look at the signs in the window and realize that it's not ZEEE-Levin...it's actually 7-Eleven. As in 7-11. As in Slurpees and Big Gulps. So, not a froo-froo ethnic restaurant.

Yep. I'm a dork...

Did you miss us?

Our insanely long vacation is over. We actually got back very late Wednesday night. We left Virginia at about 11 am, so we should have gotten home by 9pm at the latest. We got home at 1:30am. It took 3 hours just to get into Pennsylvania...which, by the way, Moira learned how to say and was very proud of herself so for a good 20 minutes all we heard her say was "Pennsylbania, Pennsylbania, PENsylbania, PennSYLbania, PennsylBANia, PENNSYLBANIA!!!" That was...well, I'm sure you can imagine how amusing that was.

We did have some minor set backs (like spending all morning and $400 for me to see a doctor for a UTI) but all in all it was a great trip. We figured out the Washington DC metro pretty easily, and the metro workers were very helpful. We got to see all of what we wanted to see. It was very hot (upper 80's to mid 90's) everyday, with humidity somewhere in the 80% range (or what I like to call 'sweat your ever-lovin eyebrows off' weather). So, I'd love to go back to visit DC again...but I'm thinking maybe in the spring. Or fall. Or possibly the dead of winter. Have I said before that I don't enjoy heat much?

Lincoln directs us which way to go.

Here are a few slide shows of the trip....This one is of pictures from Indian Caverns, Gettysburg, The Mall, and The Zoo.
http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc98/luvmy5monkeys/Washington%20DC/?action=view&current=9a45e405.pbw

I love the picture of Lincoln in front of the picture of President Lincoln. I laugh every time I see it, because when I was trying to get the picture I was saying "Lincoln! Look at me! Lincoln, smile!" and people in the room were looking at me like I was nuts (why is that crazy lady telling a picture to look at her??).

At the zoo we bought some gilatos for a snack. We had never had it before, and Bastian couldn't remember the name.

This slide show has more pictures from the zoo, and also from the Washington Monument,Lincoln Memorial, and Mount Vernon:

http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc98/luvmy5monkeys/Washington%20DC/?action=view&current=0f56889a.pbw

We then spent 3 days in Virginia meeting up with some of the mom's from my iVillage board, but I'm not going to put up pictures from that. We had lots of fun, and it was so great to 'meet' some of the women that I've 'known' for the last 2 years!

Our last stop on our vacation was 2 days at Kings Dominion (the one in Virginia). On the way to the hotel we stopped at Dairy Queen for dipped cones...the kids had never had them before, and I remember having them as a little kid.

Here's some pictures from Kings Dominion:

http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc98/luvmy5monkeys/Washington%20DC/?action=view&current=eece7570.pbw

I have about 1,000 more pictures from the trip, if anyone is interested? Haha, I thought so.

But, we did have lots of fun. And it was so wonderful to spend so much time together with the kids. They did so great. Even with the 7 million degree heat and 90 bajillion percent humidity. They are such great little troopers.