A smash-and-grab birthday.

Geneva had a BIRTHDAY. She is THREE. (How though.) It was, you guys, right in the middle of our move, and I was so first-trimestery, and I really had to pep-talk myself to get that birthday tree up.

UGH IT IS WORTH IT. I get ahead of myself, though. I happened to be awake and creeping her on the monitor when she woke up and saw all the balloons.

Three is SUCH A GOOD AGE.

'No it's not.'

Whatever, Geneva, you are having a (nar)whale of a time.

Presents.

More presents.

More presents.

DIS IS MY OWN DOLL DAT IS WIKE MY SISTER'S DOLL DAT IS NAMED SIDNEY WEE! (Geneva loves Sidney Lee. Now she has her own.)

Eleanor made her a card in which she drew the two of them as princesses.

Look at those SHOOOOOOOES.

And then Eleanor went to preschool and my parents came out and my dad watched Geneva while my mom and I packed up and moved my entire kitchen, which is the most demoralizing project because every time you're like, Hey I think we're done! somebody opens up two more completely full cupboards.

But we DID IT and then SORTED MY KITCHEN ON THE OTHER SIDE and it ONLY TOOK FIVE HOURS and I would occasionally entertain thoughts of what it would be like to do it myself, and laughcry. We got home to find that my dad had covered the kids in tattoos.

It's not a birthday unless somebody has Rainbow Dash on their belly.

I made Geneva an angel food cake in a fancy bundt pan and from now on, I am JUST DOING THIS everyone gets box cake mix in this fancy pan omg it's so easy.

We went to Five Guys Burgers and Fries for dinner. My children are obsessed with the peanuts. They come in a shell! You can have as many as you want!

My sister and her fam came out to join us. 'Wook at dese wong fwies!'

Then we had a cake!

Geneva loves being sung to. She does not love cake?

She DOES love Raspberry Fingers.

She also loves this doggo.

Happy birthday, squirble.

Baby deets

I'm So! Let's see. I'm due around Christmas, but will have a c-section earlier than that. So I'm about 11 weeks now. I nap a lot! Napping is the worst, I don't care who says different. Saying, Oh, I had a three-hour nap this afternoon! sounds so luxurious because it implies that you have all this free time and you can just waste a chunk of it, but I don't have all this free time, I have boxes that need unpacking and I hate yielding up an hour of my afternoon because I'm so tired.

But anyway. A baby! And my last one, so I get through the exhaustion and the nausea and tell myself it's the last time. Everyone else is getting so big. Eleanor has lost two teeth!

And she's starting kindergarten in the fall (how?) and Geneva starts preschool (HOW THOUGH) and so it'll just be me and the baby, rattling around in this house. Maybe I can unpack then.

Josie always told me to wait a while before having a third, because then my two older kids could play together, and this is longer than I intended to wait but here we are, and all my kids want to do is go off and read together.

I'm over here, making dinner, and they're over there having a book club and no one is hanging off my leg going 'Pick me uppppp pick me up pick me up.'

Sometimes things are so good that we can't believe we're starting again at Square One, but other times things are so good that we're thrilled to be pouring in one more. I will say, the body really leans into that third pregnancy

Another thing!

That I have been working on. In my spare time.

We are all very excited. Especially Eleanor.

And especially Geneva.

And also especially me.

This is why we moved (and I am never moving again)

I have internet! IIIIIIII HAAAAAVE INTERNETTTTT. We moved! And then had no internet, and now we have internet and all our stuff is in this house and today we did the walk-through of our old house and I'm crying a little, because a week ago Friday my mom came out and helped me box up my entire kitchen and drive it all over to the new house and unbox it and find homes for it all, while my dad watched my kids, and then my parents took my kids for the day THREE TIMES in the next week and a half so I could unbox more things and drop stuff off at the thrift store and just like go grocery shopping because you STILL HAVE TO EAT even if you're moving.

And then my dad and my father-in-law and my brother-in-law and Joel's buddy came over on Saturday to help full the u-haul and drive it back and forth, and my mom helped me fill my car with the small things, the hangers full of clothes and the plants and the door mat, and drive those over, and then my in-laws took my kids all day Sunday so that Joel and I could clean the old house together, and then they fed us dinner, and then my mom came over tonight to put my kids to bed while my dad came with us to do the walk-through because our landlord is being a TOOL about everything and my dad can be very calming to us and very stern to other people and the walk-through went AMAZINGLY (we are very good House Mover-Outers Of, due to practice) and then my dad re-wired our hilarious chandelier that I hated at first but have become unreasonably attached to, so now ALL the bulbs work, and my sister-in-law is like five houses down so the other day, when both our husbands were out of town for the evening, I was like COME OVER WE WILL HAVE BURGERS AND PUT A MOVIE ON FOR THE KIDS.

I am living a life.

More accomplishments!

Another thing! That I did. Was turn 35! Every other birthday has been me and the girls and sometimes but not usually Joel. I buy a little cake, wrangle a little celebration. But! This year, my folks drove over after naps and hung out with the girls, and then my sister and her family including this ADORABLE BABY

joined us for pizza.

This is the year that everyone brought me flowers, and/or treats from Duft and Co. My mom and sister were there in the morning and brought me back a sticky bun, and Josie MAGICALLY arranged for someone to bring a selection of desserts to my house! Which I forgot to take a picture of before we ATE THEM. Accept, in lieu, some of my flowers! And my succulent terrarium!

Eleanor picked me an ENORMOUS bouquet of dandelions (our yard is Dandelion Town and the girls love it and we care exactly none because we are renters).

Which leads me to our NEXT THING WE BOUGHT A HOUSE WE ARE HOMEOWNERS.

Some months ago, the girls were with their grands and Joel and I were spring-cleaning the house and then went out for some delicious cult sandwiches and stopped to check out an open house, Joel kept trying to make me look at real estate but UGHHHHHHH DON'T WANT, but we didn't have our kids and so anyway, we went to walk through this house. Just to look.

But! It was our dream house! I mean, it had all the things we wanted. So we went home and we were like...Is that our dream house? It is, right? We really love it. So we sent someone else over to walk through it, check it out, and we facetimed my parents and sent them the link to the listing and we were like, Here is a house, we think we love it, offers have to be in by tomorrow evening, we don't even have a realtor. They were like, You can get a realtor, and also, you should buy that house.

So we got a realtor, post-haste, and put in an offer and got the house! AHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAAH OMG WE OWN A HOUSE AND IT IS BOTH OUR STARTER HOUSE AND OUR FOREVER HOME BECAUSE WE ARE NEVER GOING TO PAY OFF THIS MORTGAGE BUT ALSO BECAUSE IT IS PERFECT AND WE LOVE IT. We got the keys on Saturday, I put in my plants on Sunday, there's a little raspberry patch in the backyard, we have a deck, there's an island in my kitchen with drawers in it and the most HIDEOUS chandelier that I will replace in like ten years after we've like bought a reasonable couch and fixed that patch on the roof and other houseownery things.

So now I am 35 and also I own a house.

A decade and counting

Another thing! That we did. Was successfully complete ten years of marriage! Ten years is no joke. Our trip to Hawai'i (ugh, blog post pending, I guess?) last November was our official ten-year trip, but our actual anniversary was late April, so we dropped the kids with the grands and got the hell down to Seattle, to stay at The Inn on Queen Anne.

So quaint! Perfectly respectable accommodations for two lovebirds traveling w/o their progeny. And located a mere half-hour walk from Pike Place! Where we got these AMAZING hand-shaved noodles and Vietnamese flatbread.

And then, apologizing profusely, ordered one of these monstrosities at the Original Starbucks.

It was SUPER DELICIOUS I will not lie.

And then we went to the ZOO and it was super sunny and warm and all the animals were out and then we went to Skillet for a redux of last time we were in Seattle and this time Joel got the fried chicken sammy and I got the porchetta, which was frankly a let-down but I think every porchetta that doesn't come from meat&bread is going to disappoint me.

And THEN we went to Top Pot donuts, not because we were hungry, but because we were going to be hungry later and then it wouldn't be open, and got a lemon-filled, a raspberry glazed, an ovaltine-filled, and an apple fritter.

THEN WE WENT TO THE SPACE NEEDLE.

It's so needley.

And you wait in line to buy your ticket, and then come back later and wait in line to get onto the elevator, and next time I would probably go not at the end of a long day because we were ALREADY DONE before we even got up there, but BEHOLD.

So I guess it was pretty alright.

The next morning, we had day-old apple fritters (thems keep really well) and cut-up fruit and swiss cheese and dried cherries for breakfast.

walked down to the aquarium, scoped out the octopus (who apparently escapes its tank every few years),

and then went in search of this one particular Mexican place before our harbor tour, and it was NOT WHERE IT SAID IT WAS ON THE MAP but we ducked into a donut shop and the girl is like, Huh yes that does say it should be right here, but she googlepictured it and was like, OH I know where that is, go back down this street halfway and turn down that weird alley that looks like it might be nothing but is in fact a wonderland of secret and hidden shops, so we DID and the alley went ON AND ON and we were just at the point where we would have to have found something else to eat to make the harbor tour on time and WE FOUND IT and it was incredible and also its super satisfying when you're touristing and it takes you forever to find something and then you do.

Here are some tacos I had.

And a huarache (1000% would eat again).

And then we went on the harbor tour! Which we both thought would be sort of lame but we forgot how much we like being taken on tours and told what stuff is, and also, boats are gentle and soothing and we maybe each took a little nap.

And then went back to that wacky wonderalley to scope it out more, and got this vegan mango chili ice 'cream' overtop of a death-by-chocolate same.

Also there was a Japanese festival happening? So we walked through that. LOOK at this tiny magical tree.

And then we went to the Chihuly Glass Museum, and I'm just now realizing that most of the good pictures are on Joel's phone, but LOOK at this Seussy-looking business.

That's a boat full of some hand-blown glass crazy, that is.

Everything is insane.

THIS IS INSANE.

Then we went out for Indian food and everything looks so small only because the garlic naan is so heckin' huge.

Sunday morning, we got up and ate our last stale donut and slices of swiss cheese and drove to the outlet malls, where we malled for FIVE HOURS and I bought a le creuset for my children to fight over when I die, and then we came home to our beloved children, who missed us not at all.

Ten years! Not yet divorced, and neither of us has died.