Birthdays here and there and everywhere

This weekend was a big birthday weekend. What is it with November and August? We know lots of people, family and friends, with birthdays in both months. August is big in our neighborhood-- of the families I can can think of off the top of my head, 6 kids have August birthdays on our block alone. That makes reserving the park shelter at the end of the street for parties a big tough. November is also huge. My mom's was Friday, Mike's on Saturday, Jack's friend Caleb's Monday, and countless other friends whom we will not get to see for their birthdays due to geographic distance. I feel like I send birthday emails every day! You Scorpios are taking over the world. Guess that's what happens when couples "celebrate" Valentine's Day in a romantic way. Heh heh.

I made cupcakes for Mike and my mom's birthdays. I was so delighted to find the recipe for white cupcakes with buttercream chocolate frosting (my fave) from Magnolia Bakery in NYC.

They turned out quite nicely


though as usual, I had too much frosting


I decided to attempt to freeze the leftover frosting for future use. We'll see how that goes... Mike looked at me like I was crazy (not uncommon) when I tasted the first cupcake and declared it tasted like New Jersey. Strange how things like tastes or scents can take you to a different world. When I would get cupcakes from Magnolia in the Village, I usually walked over to the river walk to eat them, which overlooked the NJ shoreline. Just a random memory.

Mike and I went out to dinner Saturday night for his birthday to his favorite restaurant, Cosi Cucina's. We got engaged there exactly 9 years ago from this past Thursday. It was the first dinner we had ALONE together since Benj's birth. He made it the hour and a half we left him with friends (thanks Steph and Brad) so that mommy could have wine and eat without rushing. Oooh, the little things in life. I'm hoping he'll do just as well when we leave him for a couple more hours tomorrow evening to go to a wine tasting and dinner I planned for Mike's birthday gift. We're headed out to the Wine Experience at the mall for this little shindig, so hopefully it will be fun.

Yesterday we saw my parents for the first time since our big family blow-up, oh, 6? 7? weeks ago. It went fine, but my parents were surprised to see how much Jack is talking and how much Benj has grown.


Last night Jack's friend Jaxson came over to play for a few hours and they found some time to enjoy each other's company in between the various fights over trains


I dicovered the magic of humidifiers last night when I bought one for our room so Benjamin could clear his little nose a little, and he must have liked the hum so much that he slept for 6 1/2 hrs before waking up to eat. I was so confused I kept waking up to check on his breathing. So much for uninterrupted sleep.

Jack has started crying and clinging to me when I drop him off a daycare, which as any parent who uses daycare knows, is a traumatic thing. Leaving your child there when they seem to be communicating that they feel they'll DIE if you do it makes you feel crappy. I'm hoping this will pass. They tell me he's always fine after I leave, but when I pick him up he always falls to tears when he sees me again. Not fun. Hopefully this, too, shall pass!