A New & Exciting Decade!

This past October, I said goodbye to my twenties and gladly welcomed the big 3-0!  

I was so lucky to have my mom in town to help celebrate this monumental time in my life.  I love her dearly.  Because she was here, Jason and I were able to enjoy a birthday dinner night out for our birthdays - without kids!!  

(In case you didn't know, Jason's birthday is the day after mine.  We're cute like that.)

This picture was taken at Macaroni Grill on Jason's 34th (Happy Birthday, baby!!) 

And me.  At 30 and a day old!  

I may be a little chunkier than my twenty-something self, but I couldn't be happier with my life!  :)

And my sweet husband, in celebration of my big day, threw me a surprise party!  I, like a total fool, didn't take one photo from that night.  BOOOO!  That was an egregious mistake. 

Many wonderful friends were there to celebrate with me and there was lots of yummy food.     

I have to admit I kind of knew something was going on, but didn't quite know what was happening.  The quick synopsis is this:  Jason contacted a few of my close friends about throwing a party, but I happened to catch a glimpse of an email train with the title line, "Party for Lili's 30th birthday" a few days after he'd started scheming. 

(hint:  If you're trying to be sneaky, don't title your email something so obvious...) 

So, like a good wife, I naturally acted clueless, but I secretly knew something was brewin'.  

A week later, he disclosed that he had been planning something but it had all fallen apart.  Immediately, I started to pull together a gathering at a local restaurant and started to make calls to all of our friends to invite them to a last-minute party.   (Later I found out that Jason had spent the good part of the day contacting everyone I had contacted telling them what was really going on!)  The night of my birthday, we went to pick up Deb for our dinner party out and I was greeted with a "SURPRISE!"

  Everyone was there.  They are all so sweet.

Well played, babe.  Well played!  

My sweet mom also treated me to a night away that weekend.  We got a nice hotel room, ate good food, slept in, went shopping and enjoyed hanging out together while Jason stayed home and watched the kids.  I sure married a good egg.  He's totally amazing.  And that night away was amazing, too!  Thanks, mom.  You're the ultimate best ever.

And on top of all that, I got a Nikon DSLR camera!  I've been wanting a nice camera for years and I'm loving it so far.  Now, all I have to do is learn how to take it out of auto mode and really use it.  Any one want to teach me?!?

I'm one blessed lady.  

My thirties are gonna be stellar.  I know it.

And just for some fun pictures of the family...

She's growing up so fast...

Simon started to crawl in October...in about a week, he was zipping around.  It was crazy how fast he got moving.

He also popped a few more teeth out.  

He was introduced to the singing and dancing Easter chicken.   

It was a rough go at first, but they are now good buddies.  

And he smiled lots!

This is the best age, I swear.

Lois showing off her new My Little Pony from my mom

Grammasita helped add to Lois' My Little Pony collection...

I'm not going to lie when I say she makes this mama proud!  I was a MLP collector as a little girl too.  

And a picture of my beautiful mom.  I'm so grateful for her and all she does for me and my family.  She always makes things better when she comes.  

We love you, grammasita.