Today I took Alyssa and Ryan to the pool. The plan was to meet my mom and brothers down there, but they were running late, so it was just the kids and I from 12:00pm – 2:30pm. Then my mom and brothers showed up, which made Alyssa happy, as she was very excited to show my mom that she can now swim on her own, without any type of float or aid. She went off the diving board a few times, but mostly hung around in the 5 foot section. Ryan was happy to go in and out of the pool and walk around the perimeter of the pool as well as the perimeter of the entire fenced community the pool is in when the activity in the water got to be too much for him.
Right around 3:00pm Dan walked in… with a pizza and birthday cake!!! As it turns out, he and my mom had been making plans all week to surprise me today. So pizza and birthday cake were had, and I was given all of my birthday gifts. From my mom, a cool sequined tank top from Target. From my brothers, books and a little bottle of spray-on perfume. And from Dan, a Bissell ProHeat 2X Deep Cleaner (and a $20 gift card, which came along with the cleaner as a promo)!!! The domestic side of me totally shrieked with happiness. But more than anything, I was just so happy that Dan and my mom planned a little party for me, even if it was at the pool, under the pavilion, with no decorations or even candles for the birthday cake. In most cases I’m the one plotting and planning for others, with no one really doing anything in return, so to have that done for me today meant SO much. 
Awesomely delicious and adorably decorated cake.
Also awesomely delicious, though I’m not sure about adorable.
While I’m on the subject of photos, check out the 2008 me vs. the 2010 me:
Is it sad that I tried out my carpet cleaner today? What can I say? I was excited! Almost as excited as I was to get wedding favors at the wedding Dan and I went to, haha. Also, is it good or bad that the cleaner managed to leave behind several clumps of carpet fibers? Is it really that aggressive on the carpet? In the case of my carpets, particularly the hallway (kids + cats + dog = ick), that’s a good thing! I did both kids’ bedrooms, the hallway, and about 1/5 of the carpet in our living room. Then I ran out of carpet cleaning solution. 
Stupid Bissell. You’d think they could cough up a full-sized bottle of solution for a $199 carpet cleaner.
Oh — before I forget, guess who got pulled over today? Yours truly. It was my fault but kind of not, you know? It’s one of those things where it unfortunately happens, and due to where we live, there’s not much I can do about it. Basically, our drive leads to the road, obviously, but the turn out is right at the crest of a hill. It is literally impossible to tell if traffic is coming either way past thirty feet or so, and if the weeds are overgrown, forget it. Most of the time I’m pretty good about guessing that the coast is clear and jumping out, but today? Not so. I looked both ways, checked the right side again since any potential traffic on that side of the road would be the traffic I would potentially jump in front of, and then jumped out — right as a cop came flying up the hill (DEFINITELY going over the 40mph speed limit!). I floored it as best as I could to get my ass out of his way, but he still had to slow down enough to piss him off, and I wasn’t surprised to see his lights come on. 
But I got lucky! I was the perfect pulled-over driver. I immediately slowed down, put on my signal, and continued driving to a side road just ahead, turned onto it, pulled into the first driveway I found, rolled down the windows, turned off the car, took off my sunglasses, pulled out my driver’s license, registration and insurance cards, and sat with my hands in my lap until he came over. I also apologized profusely, and explained that it’s really hard to gauge any traffic from either direction, particularly the direction he came from, and then apologized some more. He asked where we were going (to the pool, duh*), how old the kids were, and then went back to his vehicle to run all of my info. Twelve minutes later (it seriously takes that long to verify info? Sheesh.) I was let off with a warning. As I said on Twitter, I’m thinking apologies + kids + boobs (I was wearing a swimsuit and a strapless cover-up) saved the day. That, and maybe he noticed that tomorrow is my birthday and decided to be nice? Eh, in any case, I was definitely grateful!
*I left the duh and any hint of attitude out of my reply.
That sounds like a good surprise bday for you! You know what I’m loving, besides that cake? The fact that you break out in freckles just like I do. Freckles are sexy and we have plenty.
When I saw the 2008 you compared to now I was like woah! You are lookin good!