the 3.2. club: the initiation process

*...*...*...*WARNING!!! A BUTT-LOAD OF PICTURES ARE CONTAINED IN THIS POST!!!*...*...*...*

June 25th, 2012.
The day of my birthday.
The day I turned 3 decades old, plus 2.

On that morning, I woke up to this:

Followed by a showering of sweet cards and gifts:

Mike's card went on to further explain the first picture you saw in this post...

"I love you for so many reasons...hopefully you'll figure out why."

For the rest of the day I was finding notes hidden and placed all over the house:

I have such a sweet and loving husband.  He's so wonderful to me!  So encouraging!  He knows what makes me smile and feel good.  It's hard to have low self-esteem around my man.  I love it! 

Mike had to work the 2012 GARBC Conference taking place right on our own BBC&S campus.  But this also meant that he wouldn't be around almost all day.  So he took the morning off to spend it with me and our littles.  We ended up going out to eat for breakfast for my birthday (rather then dinner).  Which is actually better for me...breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, anyway!

We came home and I was able to take a shower at my leisure.

{a. perfect. luxury. vacation.}

He stuck around until lunch-time.  On our way to drop him off at work {we only have one car and I had a few errands to run} we stopped at McDonald's.  And he bought me my VERY OWN SODA.  We usually share a drink.  But not on my birthday!  Didn't you know that birthday girls don't have to share?!  Score.

While out and about, I stopped at Target and found these beauties.  I fell in love.  And decided to buy myself a birthday present.  Mike thinks they make me look like a bug.  I say I look like a pretty darn hott bug, if you ask me!  Eh.  You can't win them all...

After the errands were done, I continued with my self-spoiling birthday fun and bought an iced coffee.  Cream and sugar.  Please and thank you.

Knowing full well I'd be home all day for the evening with no birthday cakes magically appearing on my counter, I bought a few ingredients to make my favorite kind of cake {vanilla} and icing {chocolate} combination.  {A girl needs her sugar and pyro-fix on her special day, doesn't she??}  So I whipped up my own birthday cake. Yum.my.

No birthday cards in the mail.  {sad face}  BUT a great second place was getting our FREE Starbucks Gold-Card drink in the mail!  boo-ya!!!!  Can't wait to use this bad-boy soon...

At this point, my friend, Rachel came to spend the evening with me.  Her hubs was working with my hubs.  So two girly-friends, who would otherwise be alone, decided to come together and hang out, ridding each other of their loneliness with intent to have endless talkative fun {and incidentally, one of those girls was having a birthday: BONUS}!!

Mike and Nick {Rachel's hubby}, eventually came through the door at 10:30pm. {Yes, Annaleigh was STILL awake.  She LOVES birthdays and I wanted her to be there when we had to blow out the candles...hence the really tired...but really happy baby.}  I stuck in some candles, we sang the standard song, and ate my de-lish cake with friends.  Gotta love impromp-tu birthday parties, huh?!?!  So fun!

And there's no better way to end the day of a great birthday than this...

p.s. JD had not been feeling well this day, so when we went to put Annaleigh to bed, he woke up.
We decided to let him join in on the book-reading-before-bed-time-fun.

 In the words of Mike,

"Happy Birthday, Mama"

Yes, it was.  It was a very happy birthday indeed...

birthday extravaganza!

Can you believe that this birthday card made it all the way to me,
from Massachusetts,
WITHOUT a stamp?!?
Well, believe it...because it did.

I can honestly say that this was one of the best birthday celebrations I ever had {the other best celebration being my surprise birthday trip to NYC for two days, of course}.

This year though, it was simple.  

And I loved it.

It was filled with my two favorite people, canollis, 

a new {much-too-long-overdue} hair-style, 

Starbucks and shopping!

My hubby did his best to make me feel like a "Queen for the Day".

{Thanks, babe, for all you did to make it special.}

So. much. fun.

First, we ate lunch at Carmella's.  And Italian deli and pastry shop located a few blocks from our house.  A diamond-in-the-ruff that was recently brought to my attention by my good friend Jessica.  

It was cute.  Quaint.  Sweet.  Just my style.

A sweet little pig-tail curl.

We then went shopping with the gift card I got for my birthday {thanks, Dad!}

{Spending money that doesn't belong to you is so much more fun, don't you think?}

Mike was amused by the look of the shopping bags in our back seat...

Annaleigh however, was not so amused.

By the end of the day, 

I'm pretty sure she was done being dragged around while her Mommy oohed and ahhed {and smelled.  smelled?  yes, I said smelled} everything in site.

And I LOVED getting all these birthday cards in the mail...

It was a great day to celebrate turning 25!

{or some sort of number like that....}

And if you want to know where my favorite place in the world is to get a canolli,

click here.

one of my favorite days of the year

happy birthday to my better half

Happy Birthday to the Love of my Life!

To the one I love most on this earth!

I hope today is just as special as you are!!

my top ten things...

...about turning 30:
(so far)

#10 birthday dinner at an authentic Italian restaurant, Casa Bella's (which, by the way, is owned by a Russian)






#9 birthday iced coffee


















#8 a private ballroom dance lesson to learn the Foxtrot


















#7 ice cream birthday cake from Mannings










#6 having my ice cream birthday cake handed to me, by a hottie, on a silver platter









#5 having my closest friends sing me the birthday song









#4 blowing out the candles


#3 pretending to blow out the candles for the sake of a picture








#2 having a sweet baby to sit on my lap

#1 not even feeling a day over 18