A bit of a ramble about a birthday weekend

Espen is playing at a friend's house, Gwen is napping, and there are a thousand other ways I should be spending this Monday afternoon. But instead of doing useful things like dishes and laundry, I am curled up on the couch with some leftover trifle from Nick's birthday, basking in the afterglow of a rather glorious weekend. We basically spent the whole entire thing celebrating his birthday in one form or another, and it has been lovely. On Friday I got to take him out on a date, so we went out to dinner at Mamacita's, then to a movie. We saw Guardians of the Galaxy which, let's be honest, I wouldn't have picked myself in a thousand years, but it was actually a really, really fun movie. It reminded me of adventure movies from the 1980s, back when they were just fun and unpretentious, y'know? 

The birthday boys. 

Then on Saturday (after hours of yard work and grocery shopping and all of the grownup ridiculousness that Saturdays bring) we had some good friends over for dinner. Nick and Clayton have been friends since they were about 11, and happen to have birthdays one day apart, so this year we combined forces for a two family birthday celebration. Nick and I had prepared a Norwegian-style smörgåsbord with rolls, cheeses, meats, veggies, eggs, jams, etc. and Clayton and Amy brought a delicious salad and a birthday cheesecake. So the four of us sat down and ate and ate and ate while our kids rampaged around us. Good food and good company is hard to beat, and I think we all went to bed in a happy, stuffed-to-the-gills stupor. 

Just look at this tiny piñata I found! Could it be any cuter?
I stuffed it full of mini peanut butter cups, and everyone rejoiced.

Sunday was Nick's actual birthday, and probably the simplest celebration. The kids made cards and I wrapped gifts while Nick slept in, then we opened gifts* and got ourselves off to church. Gwen's greatest birthday gift was happily going off to her nursery class by herself (imagine a room full of 2 year-old girls in foofy dresses) for the first time ever. On the flip side, Espen was brought to me twice because he kept pinching a boy in his class. I asked him why, thinking that maybe the boy had said or done something mean, but Espen cheerfully told me that he had just been acting out of boredom, and pinching his classmates was more fun that practicing for the primary program**. You can't win them all! 

After church we headed home, and I started working on dinner. Nick had requested a very grown up dinner of skirt steak with tomato, feta and herbs and a less grownup dessert of trifle. I found the recipe in Real Simple a couple of months ago, and it is absolutely delicious, especially if you like your flavors fairly punchy. So glad I made it again, because yum! The kids had chicken and french fries, so everyone was truly happy. Nick's brother Cody, and his wife Becky joined us for dinner, dessert and games. Another chill, but happy evening with people we love. It's hard to ask for anything more. 

Tasty trifle!

Also, in case you haven't worked it out by now, I am nutso crazy about this husband of mine. When he's not busy taking me to Venice or gifting me jewelry (I know!), he's building the bathroom shelves I wanted or patiently parenting our little wildebeests. Or working ceaselessly for our little family. If gloating wasn't such a terribly unattractive thing to do, I'd be tempted to throw in a little "neener-neener" at this point. Still. Thanks, Love, for sticking with me for yet another birthday, and continuing to make me feel like the luckiest girl alive. 

xox

* Funny side note: Nick was explaining what one of the DVD's he got for his birthday was to Espen, and was saying something about "this man named Stephen Fry," when Espen said in an offhand sort of way "Oh, I know who Stephen Fry is. He reads my Paddington stories." Proud parenting moment!

**Every year the Primary, which is our church's children's organization, takes over the sacrament meeting/main worship service to present a program about what they have been learning in the past year. There are lots of songs, some talks given by the kids and their teachers, and the cuteness factor is usually pretty high.