Retrospect: Pete's Birthday {The Old Boy is 30}

Birthdays are a big deal. It wasn't many hundreds of years ago that people didn't live to see too many birthdays, so we have to celebrate in big fashion whenever we do reach such momentous milestones; or at least in as big a fashion as we can afford.

When Pete turned 30 I wanted to do something he would remember. So 30 became the number of the day and everything we did was in groups of 30.

While Pete was at work I picked up 30 balloons and placed them throughout the apartment, each tied to one of his 30 birthday gifts. The first balloon was tied to the railing just outside our apartment door next to a stack of party hats and a sign that read, "Please Take One." When we got home from dinner at Patsy's Pizzeria, our fave New York pizza joint, Pete had to go throughout the apartment from balloon to balloon gathering gifts that ranged from Kit Kat bars and chocolate milk, to shirts, ties, baking tools and self help books extolling the virtues of self employment.

The 30th and last balloon was tied to a cake stand on which I had fashioned a donut cake (no, there were not 30 donuts, there were only 18. Why in the world would I want 30 donuts in my house??).

Even though I don't think Pete got quite as much of a kick out of the balloons as the girls did, I think he really loved his birthday celebration. He enjoyed having so much candy and junk food at his disposal, and looks pretty snappy in his new birthday clothes.

I wanted Pete to feel how much his ladies at home love and appreciate him, and in that respect think the mission was a success.

A just because moment

This girl just kills me. 

And at 11 months old, as Amelia says, "She's growin' that hair!" And it's looking pretty strawberry.

:)

The Family that Plays Together

My family plays pretty hard. It feels like we're doing "stuff" all the time. Parks, museums, concerts, libraries, gardens, zoos, pools, puppet shows, you name it, we're there. In fact, when I'm talking to my Mom on the phone, our conversation often goes something like this:

Mom: So, what're you up to today?

Me: Well, there's this ________ going on down at the _______ ______, and I was thinking I'd take the girls and go _________ing, and then check out the ________ ________, and then meet some friends for some _________.

Silence

Mom: You sure work a lot harder to entertain your kids than I ever did.

Touche.

But I don't have a back yard. So climbing trees and running barefoot through the grass and making flower chain crowns and catching grasshoppers are kind of out of the question. (There are few places in this city I would suggest running barefoot--and just try picking flowers here, see what happens.) 

So I embrace it. I'm busy entertaining my kids almost all the time. So this is a post dedicated to highlighting some of the things we've done to stay entertained lately:

Indoor games with Daddy (On rainy Saturdays) 

Checking out the Discovery Room at the American Museum of Natural History (of Night at the Museum fame)

 P.S. This is the coolest card catalogue chest type thing I've ever seen. The little ladies explored opening the drawers and finding treasures for almost an hour.

Impromptu Huck Finn swimming at the park

And Beauty Parlour--this was also impromptu, and unfortunately, unsupervised.

But that is not all, oh no, that is not all.

More to come.