Catching up

Hi friends. It's been awhile. 

These past couple weeks have been a blur for me. I have had three sick kids with an awful upper respiratory infection and a husband with pneumonia. It has been utterly exhausting-to say the very, very least. 

The up side? 

I managed to shower this morning. 

 And I had my good friend come to visit for a week, which seemed to be the only thing that put a smile on my face. Ed is our college friend and is truly one-of-a-kind (in oh so many ways.) I think he thought it was going to be awesome to hang out and talk and drink and laugh and eat---which it was, but for only 5 hours of the day after the kids fell asleep. Other than that Ed was thrown head first into our daily routine including early wake-ups, tantrums, craft time, and god knows how many episodes of Dora he had to endure.

But from the moment he arrived, our kids were smitten.

We didn't have much alone time and didn't get out as much as I would have liked since my entire extended family was sick too, which pretty much wiped out all babysitting services. So instead, we ate everything in sight, drank ourselves silly, caught up on as much trash tv as possible and played wii until we passed out. 

The highlight of the visit was adding my new favorite condiment (my neighbor's homemade habanero jelly) to EVERYTHING in sight. Delicious. Which was the inspiration for our homemade white chocolate habanero ice cream that was TOO DIE FOR. With a sprinkle of salted pecans it was the perfect combo of sweet and spicy and salty. 

Thanks Ed for a such a feculant visit!

The day after Ed left I turned 36. Waking up to the sound of two girls serenading me with a birthday tune was a great start to the day. Bella insisted that I follow our birthday/holiday tradition of personalized pancakes and I grudgingly agreed. But ya know what? There's something pretty satisfying about slathering your age in syrup and shoving it down your throat.

Our word of the day project has been going well. We were on a science streak for a couple days with words like mitochondrian and algae. Although, vindication and amputate lead to some pretty funny conversations. But on my birthday, I got to pick. And sure enough, with my eyes closed, I landed on

Goblet.

But of course I did.

At dinner, I got the "special" plate which felt pretty cool. 

I listened to two kids sing (and one kid moan) the birthday song. It was perfect.

And the cake was delicious

just ask Bella's nose.

But my favorite part was the after dinner dance recital. 

I swear her costume choices are getting exceedingly more creative.

 Thank you, my incredible family, for such a memorable day! Here's to another 36!