Hello world, are you still there?

Oops, it's been almost a month since I last posted. Can we agree that it's been egregious? Okay, done. Let's move on.

Well. So much has happened in the last month or so. First, happy just barely my birthday to me! Yes, it's true, I had a birthday this week and it was lovely, in a grown-up sort of way. My parents sent me a great package, with my favorite make-up and a fabulous green shirt and jewelry and a vintage cookbook. Amazingly, as I've gotten older, my parents have gotten even better at getting me gifts, and they were pretty dang good at it before! My in-laws sent me another package with a cute journal and some fun money and some seasonal books and DVDs for the boys, which was a present for me, really, because it kept the boys occupied for much longer than I would have thought. Again, a great gift!

The husband's gift to me was a family photo session we had on Saturday, in the early morning, at the Charleston Battery. After an hour shoot and 275 shots, we are all fairly confident here is one workable posed family shot. But we have lots of great candid tickling pictures! We appear to do those best, since J steadfastly refuses to smile on command or look at the person taking the pictures and no amount of cajoling will make him. Baby E was all smiles, of course, but also all drool and, unfortunately, all snotty nose, so there was lots of wiping. At some point in the middle of shooting, he also got his shirt mysteriously dirty, so we have no idea how any of his pictures will look in the end. We will have the digital results by the end of the week, so I will have some to post. Stay tuned!

After our hopefully successful shoot, we went out for breakfast at the Early Bird diner, our favorite retro hippy dive. I had my always outstanding curried scramble (eggs, potatoes, and veggies) with fruit, the husband had a southern-inspired scramble (more of the same with country gravy instead of curry and sausage) and the boys had enormous pancakes and my fruit. Everyone left full and happy!

And I got lots of calls and emails and Facebook comments from my family and friends, even some I hadn't heard from in ages, which was nice. All in all, a great birthday! I like these low-key grown-up birthdays. So easy!