Celebrate!

Look at this little turkey making her best elephant sound. Happy 11months baby girl! She is on a food strike, sort of, after the croup, an ear infection and a tummy bug, so I don't have any new baby recipes to share but I'll soon be spelling out some of our old favorites. Her new tricks include letting go of things and standing, cruising like mad around the coffee table, crawling up the stairs by herself (supervised, of course), climbing on top of anything actually, and closing doors.

Well, mommy turned 30, baby turned 11 months, Maddox turned 5. If there is something we don't skimp on around here, it is birthdays. My new birthday camera has been hard at work, (new pictures above and below), and Bryan took me out for an amazing dinner over the weekend at Zebra which touts itself for carrying local sustainable food (obv the seafood isn't local). We had Blue Point Oysters, Lobster, Duck Duet, Creme Bruele and Chocolate Cake (oh, and it took me like four samples to pick out a bottle of wine - two weeks of not drinking from being sick and it was as if I had forgotten what wine we like!). We hired a legit babysitter for the evening who is really sweet! Once we hit the open road with baby under watchful eye at home, the conversation went a little like this:

Bryan: I kind of feel like we should paint the town tonight!

(silence)

Bryan: But that will fade as soon as I get food in my belly.

(laughter)

Amy: Um, I wore my standing shoes, not my walking shoes. And besides, I'm going to need a RedBull just to get through dinner.

Are we old as dirt, or what?! We did have a lot of laughter, reflected on our lives together, I shed a few tears (what's a 30th birthday without some sentimental tears), and really lovely conversation all evening. Believe it or not, we only talked about baby a few times!

Sophie's birthday invitations are in the mail, Christmas cards have been ordered, and I am almost done Christmas shopping this year thanks to my forward thinking and some really great websites like Etsy, Amazon, Zulily and The Mini Social. How can it be that another year is almost over? I just haven't bought much for baby girl because between her birthday and Christmas and her four grandparents that love her to pieces, I think she will spoiled enough.

A little photo update from my new camera!