It was my birthday [month]... shout hooray!

My tagline for my birthday this year was 

"Because you only turn 28 once... unlike 29, which I plan on turning several times."

(Which is actually a straight up lie, but it served its purpose of allowing me multiple celebrations. Age really doesn't faze me. I think I'm in a much better place in every area of my life than I was in my late teens/early twenties and I feel pretty confident about continuing on that track. Also, I was 21 when Clyde was born so that doesn't leave me a lot of wiggle room to lie about my age without raising eyebrows...)

So my first order of business was to throw myself an early birthday party. I recruited some friends to come over late one night for hot chocolate and ice cream and just to mix things up a bit, I challenged everyone to wear as much orange as possible.

The [pretty sophisticated] decor: 

 exhibit A. 

My mother-in-law gave me a spool of this orange mesh ribbon and it's just been waiting to make its debut!

 exhibit B. 

Crepe paper streamers make everything more exciting, right?

Some party attendants. Things to note: the orange-ness of baby Jack and baby Clark, the fact that Holly and Madi steal other people's babies, Tami being so sweet and dropping by mid-date to say hi, and the fact that Nicole and Kristen were at all surprised that I was taking pictures, haha.

Jack was in a hilariously social mood that night, he snuggled right up to Holly and later wandered around the living room handing out shoes (mostly to Em K) and cuddling with Paulina. What a goof!

 He ended up crashing about an hour in, bless his little heart. My other boys were champs and slept through the entire shindig.

 

 Some group shots; I had to post them all since we didn't manage to get everyone looking and smiling in the same picture, haha. Thanks for coming and hanging out and sitting on my living room floor, love you all!

 OH, and a few people disregarded instructions and brought me presents (which awesomely provided me chocolate for days and days!). Maren was one such rebel and she gave the disclaimer that hers was a gag gift... so you can imagine my surprise when I opened it: an awesome wide orange belt.

It was immediately suggested that I wear it that Sunday to church, so I did :).

 

 Next up was a dinner out with Kara, Nicole, and Paulina to celebrate Kara's and my birthdays (three days apart!) and serve as our last outing before Kara's baby boy came.

 I'm not even sure there are words to describe this night; I haven't laughed that hard in a while... our dinner was (mostly) excellent, our server was adorable (hence the need to get a picture with her), our conversations were wildly inappropriate and therefore awesome, and the amount of food we left carrying was somewhat embarrassing :).

 Den meeting for Scouts fell the night before my birthday,

 so I made the boys sing to me (Noah sweetly led them) and sweet DeArley brought me a present!! Love her :).

And then it was my actual birthday:

And I woke up to three darling boys, lucky me! 

(Four if you count the cute guy taking the picture... and he's my favorite because he let me sleeeeep innnnnn!!)

The day was delightfully normal and low-key and wonderful.

Will purposefully picked his Packers shirt to wear since he knows it's my favorite team :). Also, he was sitting there singing primary songs which was ADORABLE.

 It was my turn (Chuck and I usually alternate weeks) to go help in Clyde's classroom, where I got to help the kiddos glue their [paper] hearts onto their little [paper] bodies. And then I stuck around while the kids went to music so I could chat with Mrs. Holman, whom I absolutely love. She probably had "teacher" things to "do" but whatev. It was my birthday.

The kids have mostly had inside recess because of the FREAKING COLD, but they got to go out for a couple of minutes so I went out too and got a picture with my favorite Clyde Monster.

 OH, after school we ran some errands that included two of my favorite destinations: Costco and Savers, within the latter of which I found these PERFECT shoes! (And, luckily, their respective mates). I've been looking for dark silver flats forever... well, a month, but it felt like forever. And these were five bucks and almost identical to some I'd been coveting at Target and fit perfectly, wooo!

Then we came home and ate some dinner with this cute little elfin baby.

 

 And the boys played some Kinect!

 And hugged adorably.

Oh, and then Chuck challenged me to a dance battle and beat me soundly. Here's the photographic proof:

 It wasn't even close. So embarrassing... possibly for both of us :).

 Post-dance picture to prove we're still friends.

 And then we put the boys to bed and Chuck sweetly stayed up and watched a girl-y movie with me. It was seriously such a lovely day spent with my boys. I also was amazed at all the sweet birthday greetings people sent via facebook and email and text - so fun to receive them all!

And my final birthday celebration was with the incredibly wonderful woman who went to the edge of death (aka had a c-section) to give me life: my mama!!

 The Sunday after my birthday we gathered at Grandma Pam's for delicious dinner and cake and SET, which I dominated. Naturally.

And now I'm 28 and life is so so so good!