Birthday Season

I love birthdays. I always have. I hope that I always will. I want to be the sort of woman who ages gracefully, accepting the gray hairs and laugh lines (okay, wrinkles) as they come. Mostly because I don't want to pay big bucks for fancy skin treatments or go get my hair colored every month. But 'graceful' is much nicer sounding than 'cheap and lazy.'

Anyhow, growing up, we had a 'birthday season' in our house. Starting in November, I had my sister's birthday, my mom's birthday, my other sister's birthday, Christmas, then my dad's birthday. I was the lone spring/summer birthday, all the way out in June. (Funnily enough, both my sisters spouses (or soon-to-be-spouse) have birthdays in that season as well) I enjoyed my singular birthday, but I did feel sort of left out of the 'season.'

Then I got married, and my husband has an April birthday, which totally trashed birthday season. I know, tragic, right? THEN, Marian was born in March, and the boys in May, and I realized - I built my very own Birthday Season! And, since my birthday was two days ago, Birthday Season is officially closed. Let's review, shall we?

March 2nd: Marian turned 3. On March 1st, Marian was 2. She knew what she liked, but could be dealt with in a fairly reasonable fashion, and was relatively easy to manage with some sleight of hand or turn of phrase. March 2nd, she turned 3. Oh my goodness gracious. Some sort of switch flipped in that little girl's head overnight, and she became obstinate, and opinionated and whiny. Oh, so whiny. I can handle the opinionated and demanding stuff. It kinda, sorta fills this mommy's heart with pride to see my daughter demand things her way. But I could do without the whining. As in, I'd like to find a way to permanently disable the part of her larynx that allows that particular frequency of sound to be emitted. Ah, well. She will not be three forever. And there are so many parts of three that are pretty awesome. Hopefully, I'll write more about that later...

Her birthday started like this:

Chocolate croissant and tears. An auspicious beginning.

Once the tears cleared, and we'd weathered another tantrum about the FIRST present she opened, we took our little princess to the nearest thing we have to a castle here in Sonoma County: Ledson Winery. Okay, yes, so we took our three year old to a winery. For her birthday. But we had her first birthday party at a brewery, so at least we're consistent! We sipped some wine, had a picnic and ran around like princesses!

Sticking to the theme, we abandoned all pretenses about her birthday being for her, and went to another winery. I am just now wondering if us taking Marian to wineries on her birthday is the root of all her whining. Whinery? If that's the case, then I need to take her to an anti-whinery. What could that be? A place where they make grapes? Vinegar? I'm going to have to ponder this...

We did have cake in the evening. She wanted a Star Wars Princess theme, so this is what she got:

Rapunzel wiht a light saber.

A few days after Marian's birthday, we had a little party for her. We stuck with the Star Wars Princess theme. (Heavy on the Star Wars) The kids had pool noodle light sabers and got to do some target practice by hitting bubbles. I was pretty proud of my Death Star cake pops. Definitely not professional level, but they were tasty! Someday, I think I could throw a Pinterest-worty party. Maybe. Probably not.

April 2nd: Marc turned 41. When Marc turned 40, I was uber pregnant. I had wanted to throw him some phenomenal type celebration, but my little parasites made that difficult. I figured I would plan something awesome for his 41st, like a "First Anniversary of Your Fortieth Birthday Blow Out Bash!" Well. Yeah. That didn't happen. Turns out having three kids takes a lot of time and energy. Maybe next year...? We did start out with a good breakfast - fewer tears than there were at Marian's birthday breakfast.

I spent an afternoon gathering the supplies for Marc's birthday meal - steak from Thistle Meats, the cake from Bovine Bakery and other ingredients from Petaluma Market. I felt very metropolitan walking around downtown Petaluma with my purchases. Petaluma is a small town, of about 50,000 people (okay 57,941 according to the 2010 census), but there are some pretty fancy places! You should come visit! I'll take you out to dinner! Unless I don't know you. Then, I suppose you should still come visit, but you'll have to fend for yourself for dinner.

We may have recycled Marian's candle for Marc's birthday. Because 4 - 1 = 3. And because I had no other candles. I would have picked some up at the Market, but fancy grocery stores charge a LOT for birthday candles. Doesn't Marian look so sweet helping Marc blow out the candles? That's one of those lovely parts of having a three year old that I mentioned earlier.

A few days after Marc's birthday, we drove to Sacramento for part 2 of his birthday. He went golfing with his buddy. I don't have any pictures of him golfing, but here is the boys playing with a ball:

I do have a picture he took while golfing. It appears to be a turkey. I don't think the turkey was invited, but turkeys are pretty rude like that. I hear. Marian helped Marc blow out the candles on another cake, again looking so sweet. Marian, not the cake. Actually, Marian AND the cake. The boys ended up their evening by getting their first taste of pizza! They weren't too sure what to make of it. Fear not, I am sure they will learn to love it. Because, I mean. Pizza.

Birthday season continues in May, for the boys' first birthday! I think this post is long enough for now, though, so I will have to write about their birthday (and mine) later!