Happy Birthday, Dustin!

Last weekend we celebrated Dustin's 28th anniversary of being alive! :o) I had a lot of fun making his birthday "non-cake". Now that I have a little more time on my hands, I am able to do things like that. I called it a non-cake because he didn't want cake for his birthday, he wanted brownies. Brownies alone seemed so uninspired, so I used one of his other favorite treats, scotcheroos, to make a helmet, which sat on a brownie decorated as grass. It was yummy, and that is what mattered!

Evan and I, of course, went out and got him some gifts, among them were cozy adidas pants to lounge around the house in (those were Evans idea since Daddy told him how jealous he was of his comfy pants), a video game, a bears t-shirt, and a wooden box picture frame that spins that I painted, of course, in true Chicago bears style and filled with photos of Dustin at Soldier field when we went in 2008.

The one major thing, however, that Dustin wanted for his birthday was just ONE DAY of not having to do ANYTHING. He didn't want deadlines, or specific places he needed to be, or projects he had to think about. So, we granted him that as well! It was a nice weekend so we blew up Evans pool and chilled out with him....but we got a little toasty and decided to blow up our pool as well. That's where this activity turned sour...all we had was a foot pump. Apparently you can use a wet/dry vac. but we didn't think about this until our very nice neighbor offered to let us use his, but at this point we were already halfway done so Dustin said thanks, but no thanks. Well, we should have taken him up on it....but as it turns out it wouldn't have mattered. We started filling it with water and the sides seemed low, so we pumped some more. By the time we got in, the sides buckled out and started to spill the water out. We had to hold the sides up to keep the water in....not really very relaxing, so we were forced to give up. We never bothered to release the air and by an hour or two later, it was laying on our patio as flat as a pancake. Hmm...we're guessing there's a hole in it. Call it a hunch. The neighbors were outside watching this whole thing, so we were a bit embarrassed and decided to run inside and hide. Fortunately for him, Evan slept through this whole thing and when he woke up, we were going inside, anyway. I was in charge of bringing everything in while Dustin gave Evan a bath. As if we weren't embarrassed enough, I had to make matters worse. As I was loading things back into the house I had to dump the water out of the glass bowl that Dustin had put out for Tango....I grabbed the bowl by the bottom and went to toss the water into the vegetable garden. Not really thinking about how it being wet, and my hand being wet would create a bit of a slippery situation, the bowl went flying into the air and literally BOUNCED on the patio making the most ear piercing sound I have ever heard in my life. In fact, I found out later that Dustin heard it from upstairs in the bathroom. Oy. I don't think we can ever go outside again! The good news is that somehow the bowl lived to tell the story. Impressive. Apparently Pyrex makes a very sturdy product. LOL

(Evan showing off that he knows how to chill "pool-side", no doubt the result of good parenting!)

The best part about Dustin's birthday celebrations for me, is that I win too! We always go out to eat for each others birthday, and we both really love the same places. Dustin picked out Molly Woo's (which is our favorite Chinese restaurant) for his birthday dinner. Yummmm!!! For those of you who have never heard of this place, it's part of the Cameron Mitchel line, so I guess you could call it "high end", but it's really reasonable to go there for an occasional dinner, and it is SO good. I love that I always have leftovers, too, so I get lunch the next day out of the same meal.

Evan also gave Daddy the gift of sleeping in his crib! It was quite the monumental moment after all of the *unique* things we've tried to make him not be afraid of it. Now, getting him to take a nap in there is a totally different subject, but for now, we'll take what we can get!(This picture taken August 7, 2010)

Overall, (aside from the part were we make ourselves look like big doofus') it turned out to be a nice relaxing birthday celebration. Best of all, it was great quality time with our little family! :o)