Twenty-Five with Hives

Hola. It's me. I've been MIA. I blame my children.

I had a birthday. Shout, "Hooray!" I had to pluck these pictures out among 300, so be prepared to be hit with a lot of Lucky Number 8 posts.

Let me start by confessing to those I love most -- my blog followers -- that I have ventured out of my comfort zone and made another bold fashion statement. You know. Like scarf wearing. These things are big and blog worthy in my book. I bought red pants folks. And I wore said red pants on my b-day because I love them so much. This is what happens when you get called to work with the Young Women I suppose.

I can tell you now because a year has passed, but last year was probably my worst birthday ever. Eli was a pill the whole day. This year was a different story. The kids were angels. Maybe my red pants mesmerized them into cooperation.

Although the kids were good all day, we aren't the type to risk taking them out in public to test their good behavior. No, we prefer our Olive Garden at home where the kids are free to scream their guts out, thank you very much.

What is this? For me? You shouldn't have.

I kid you not, moments before I opened this gift, I had this conversation with Jeff:

Jeff: I'm so sore! I went to the gym today.

Me: I'm jealous you can be sore. I haven't worked out in forever. This snow is killing me.

Fast forward five minutes -- I'm unwrapping a gym membership! My husband can read my mind.

He also got me (and himself) a water bottle. He was a bit more excited about these than I was. Apparently they are super great for protein shakes which I think are disgusting. We don't have any water bottles though, so I'm happy to finally have some!

Next we moved to the kitchen where my mind-reading husband was finishing up some tasty cupcakes.

Twenty Five. 

I put off curtain orders on my birthday evening so I could cuddle up with Jeff and watch our favorite shows together. I got tired really early and kept complaining about being cold. Then the next morning I was hit with a fever. Let me tell you, it knocked me out for three full days. On the morning of day three, I began to grow concerned when I noticed a rash on my feet, knees, elbows and hands.

Of course I immediately thought I had Scarlett Fever. Then I thought I had Pneumonia. Then I thought I had hand, foot and mouth disease. Then when the rash started itching it was self-diagnosed as Shingles.

Fear not. I am alive. The rash eventually faded with my fever, and the only logical explanation I can come up with is that I got a heat rash from having a fever for so long?? Anyone else have any ideas? 

In other body related weirdness, I have recently sprouted sideburns:

Can someone contact Heidi Klum and tell her to send some sideburns down a runway for me so that I don't have to spearhead this cool trend all by myself?

There are certain things people never tell you about having a baby. This is one of them.

Since there is no hope of my hair being cute any time soon, I've been focusing all my energy on making over my house! Being cooped up all winter has me pacing around thinking of all the darling things I need to get done to spruce the place up. Then this little gem arrived on my birthday and now my mind is really racing:

I am not going to do a big reveal until we get everything done (probably in the summer), but I'll give you a little taste of my latest projects. 

I have been DYING to have big, bold, striped curtains. I finally figured out the perfect spot for them -- on our sliding glass door in the kitchen. I love, love, love them! They add a lot of spunk to the room and look a lot better than what was there before.

This curtain was hard to get a cute picture of. I wanted to add a little more color to our living room. The pop of burgundy on the walls did the trick! The curtains have two vertical ruffles going down.

Pinterest helped me give one of my plain vases some personality with a little twine. Love the way this turned out.

I also made a maxi skirt:

And today the boys blessed me with long naps, so I was able to make 12 freezer to crock-pot meals! Reeeeeeally hoping they turn out.

Yaaay for birthdays and projects. More to come!