Retrospect; My 30th Birthday

I spent five hours on a bus covered in vomit. Life is glamourous, no?

Pete and I decided to go to visit my sister's family in Boston for Thanksgiving and we left on my birthday. (We still lived in NYC at the time, remember?) Of course the traffic leaving the city was horrendous. And, of course, my baby got carsick. Poor babe was fussy and unsettled. She kept going back and forth between Pete and me and then finally settled down long enough to throw up all over me. I was able to step into the nasty little horror of a WC at the back of the bus and get both Georgia and myself cleaned up, but it was only a matter of a few minutes before she repeated the performance and I was out of options for clean clothes.

Georgia felt much better and spent the rest of the journey snoozing peacefully on her daddy's lap wearing nothing but her raincoat and a diaper. I pulled my coat on over the smelly mess on my chest and cracked open the window.

It wasn't the best beginning to a birthday celebration I've ever had. But when we arrived at Sharon's house my sisters surprised me with a party and Pete had secretly made me a cake. Lovely Mexican food and balloons everywhere.

I really was happy about my party and cake, I promise. This is just what happens when someone else is in charge of taking the pictures.

So now I'm 30. It feels good. I'm more comfortable with myself, my talents, abilities, personality and purpose than I've ever been. I'm pretty sure that this is my prime decade. Life is better than ever and I'm loving the adventure.

Saying Goodbye

To New York City.

It all happened so fast; one minute we're living cozily in our (maybe) 500 square feet of New York rented space, and the next we're hauling our lives back across the country in favor of a 5 bedroom home with the most agreeable rent agreement possible--free. And just in time for Christmas.

I suppose we did kind of see this coming; Pete wasn't exactly making headway in the saving-for-a-bakery plan and we knew his parents were planning to leave for a mission to Brazil. I just don't think I really believed that we'd head back to Utah so soon--or ever.

We made the decision and acted fast, giving ourselves three weeks for packing and checking off our city bucket list. I must say I'm proud of everything we were able to squeeze into those three weeks, but of course there were things we left unexperienced.

One thing I insisted that we do before leaving was have a family portrait taken. It turned out to be a bit of an ordeal to make it happen (our poor photographer had to cancel last minute due to pregnancy complications so we had to scramble to find a photographer, and the dear friend we asked to step in and take our photos last minute didn't have any of his equipment available at the moment so he had to use my camera, which he wasn't familiar with. Nor is he a portrait photographer, he's a fashion photographer which is entirely different) but we got our photos done.

So here are a few images of my family bidding farewell to New York City and leaving our blessing. And a promise that we'll be back to visit someday. When we've made our fortune.

Retrospect: Four Babies and a Birthday Party

Three friends and I all had babies within six weeks of each other last year. That means that they all had their birthdays together this year, and we mommies decided to throw them a combined birthday party. We held the party at one of my favorite playgrounds for ambiance in Central Park; Safari Playground. I chose this location because of all the charming hippos popping out of the ground. They are just cute and I felt they provided the perfect setting for photographing a pack of squirmy one-year-olds.

We gave Georgia a bubble machine for an early birthday gift and it was the hit of the party. In fact, there was another birthday party going on at the other side of the playground and all the kids from that party kept coming over to play with our bubbles. It made me smile because I know we spent much less on the bubble machine than the other party must have spent on the clown they hired to make balloon animals for their kids' friends.

Pete made the birthday cakes, which we designed to be simple 4 inch rounds frosted white with bright colored sprinkles around the edges and a stenciled number 1 on top.   I love the way they turned out.

The cupcakes we brought for everyone else were iced with a very light whipped icing so the sprinkles ended up bleeding in the frosting resulting in a tie-dye look. Not what I was going for, but pretty nonetheless. And oh so tasty!

Of all the babies Georgia definitely has the reputation for being the biggest eater, despite the fact that for several months she's been the tiniest one, so we were all surprised when she didn't dive into her birthday cake like the other babies did. She sat back and daintily dabbled her fingers in the icing and snacked on it rather than demolishing and stuffing.

I'm really grateful that Pete got a few pics of me with Georgie at her birthday party. I'm typically the one behind the camera so I have very few pictures of myself with my kids.

I had originally wanted to do a lot more with decorating, but because of guidelines for parties in playgrounds at Central Park I wasn't able to tie up balloons, banners, garlands or anything else. I'm glad I didn't. It was a perfect first birthday party for four birthday cuties; simple and understated, with lots of freedom to just be babies. It couldn't have been better (except for maybe if I had been able to get some of those giant 36" balloons. Just for photos. Oh, well). Next party.