Happy Happy Birthday, Sweet Baby!

No. Not the Snapper, my husband, light of my life...my everything. He turned 28 last week, and I'm finally up to documenting the festivities.

Mia helped decorate...blowing up balloons is HARD, so she added sprinkles...MANY sprinkles to the cake, and an extra candle...one to grow on. We took daddy out for spaghetti and meatballs...his all time fave, then back home for the opening of gifts and eating of cake. I LOVE how Mia was very involved even in blowing out the candles. Daryl was silly...shaking obviously soft gifts, wearing his new cap even though it was still wrapped. Silly. He loved the gifts...especially his HUGE RC airplane...and the birthday beer :)











Daryl actually took Friday off, so we got to the POC early enough to do some early evening fishing. Daryl hooked a MASSIVE Jack Cravel! Known to get hooked and then fight fight fight for HOURS! Daryl was THRILLED! This fish is so strong and huge, he almost took all of Daryl's line out, so we had to pull up anchor and chase the fish down! After an HOUR...SERIOUSLY!!! Tom almost got him in the net, but in a flash he dove out of the net and under the boat...snapping the line :( No fish. No photo....but we did have one super happy birthday boy!

Then back to the house for dinner and the guys started working on putting the plane, engine and all that good stuff together. Armed with power tools and more birthday beer, they set to work with over 400 pieces! Did they even open the manual? No. Daryl even got injured. A rite of passage when building an airplane, I guess. He was very proud.

The next morning, we hit the open waters while Mia and Nana happily spent time together back at the house. Mia was up all night throwing up...bad chicken. She was weak, but did rave about how daddy held her hair back with she barfed in the toilet. Her hero. Mia only barfed one more time that afternoon...on Nana, on Nana's shirt and in her bra! DISGUSTING!!! Thankfully I was napping.

After the AWESOME UT game, HOOK 'EM Horns!, we went out to Clark's for dinner....it was lovely sitting outside on the deck, enjoying the moment and each other. Then Mia was ready to go. Tom and Dee so sweetly brought back a YUMMY slice of Birthday pie for Daryl :)

self portrait while tooling around looking for the perfect spot

my bonnet head shark...Tom held it...he's strong and I'm not stupid! the rest of Daryl fishing were all with his Jack Cravel

the most PERFECT shot in the world...except for Tom's CRACK!!!!
LOVE the smile on my happy man's face

The next morning, everyone took Mia out on Pawpaw's boat...I opted to sleep longer. Baking a baby is hard work and exhausting. Mia loves to go fast, and when going slow, loves to play around with Nana. When she was sitting on one of the tall chairs, by her Pawpaw. Daryl asked her if she wanted to go up way front, or play in the back. She simply replied, "Daddy, I'm just ridin" That brought another HUGE smile to Daryl's face.

Happy Birthday Baby!

I LOVE you!

Always and forever!

Another little peek

Mia can't get enough of Casa T...and neither can I. She always looks forward to seeing 'my friends' ...she'll name them all...and 'my Miss Andrea'. This week, their focus is on corn and they made little dolls from corn husks. Mia LOVES hers and wouldn't even let Niles (our dog) sniff it. I think he would like to get used to the little pet treats they made at Casa T last week. Now he thinks everything is for him. I had to post the shot of Mia with her binoculars she made at Casa T (last week was all about birds)...dirty face and all. Another favorite shot was of the kids enjoying the music of Ella Jenkins. Seeing Mia sitting on that drum makes me smile.

all of the photos are by the lovely Andrea

Gwen is Two-rrific!

Mia's cousin, Gwen, turned two last week, and we were all out at the park this weekend to celebrate this sweet little girl. It had been a while since I'd seen everyone...home on sofa being nauseous...but, I've been feeling better and was ready to PARTY! It was a perfect day at the park, and all the kids had a BLAST. Gwen was a cutie trying to blow out her candles, but needed a little help from her mama. Mmmmm cake.

Oh, one of my highlights was when Gwen came up to me, pointed and called me Tah...my heart melts every time, and wanted me to pick her up and did NOT want to be put down. I could have held her all day. Then she pointed to rocks then the swing...so, I put her down and she held on to my big finger (hard) and we walked hand in hand to the swing....swung a little bit until she started squealing! Ahhh Nana had arrived. Aunt Tah was replaced :)

Here are a few...ok. MANY shots. There are even more on my flickr :) (I still didn't get everyone or enough...but I'm just getting back into the swing of things)

photo of Gwen and me taken by the lovely Anjalika

We wish you the most wonderful year,

sweet Gwen.