Sarah's 30th and So Much More

This has been a busy week around our house.  The craziness began with my thirtieth birthday on Monday.  This was an interesting birthday for me.  Since it was my thirtieth I planned to celebrate it a bit more than usual, but we have entered a stage with Merrick where birthdays are really important to him and he thinks everyone needs to have a birthday party, so I doubly could not ignore it this year.  As I mentioned last week, Jeremy and I went out to celebrate my birthday the Saturday before.  He bought us tickets to see Frank Caliendo at a comedy club downtown.  It was really fun and nice to be able to get out on a rare date night.  On my actual birthday I went out to lunch with my mom, Becca, and Rachel, Jeremy came home early from school with flowers and made us dinner, and we had everyone over for cake.

Things did not slow down on Tuesday.  After school we had our ward primary pumpkin patch.  They have this every year at our former bishop's house.  The kids pick out a pumpkin, make a few crafts, eat way too much junk, and play on the giant swing set in the yard.  Each year I have to pry Merrick away when it is time to go and this year was not any different.

Wednesday was the low point of the week.  After almost a month of visiting from India, we had to say goodbye to my mom.  As we drove away after crying our goodbyes, Jeremy said "So it does not get any easier, huh?"  Let me just say that no, it does not get any easier.

Thursday was a quiet day around here.  With nowhere to run off to and with Jeremy's class being canceled, we decided to decorate our pumpkins.  We did not carve this year but used push ins that my mom gave me when she moved.  I decided I like this approach way better than carving.  It does not make the mess that carving does and Merrick was able to be way more involved than he would have been had knives been involved.  And, as you can see, they turned out adorable (I am also including a picture of our "Merrick" pumpkin that we grew in our yard.  We had a "Carrigan"  pumpkin too but it was dinner for some creature one night...maybe these deer that were in our yard)

Friday was our ward Trunk or Treat.  Merrick went as Finn McMissile from Cars 2 and Carrigan went as a fairy princess.  We picked Merrick's costume up after Halloween last year and Carrigan's fairy wings and tutu came from the dollar store, yet despite the shoe string budget they both looked adorable.  I was just getting ready to put in the pictures, but then I decided to make you wait until next week to see them...I am mean like that.

Finally that brings us to Saturday and the conclusion of my birthday extravaganza.  I told Jeremy that I wanted some new clothes for my birthday and he was super sweet and watched the kids Saturday afternoon so that I could go shopping.  Then, he stepped up with dad duty again that night so that I could go out to dinner and have a girls night with some of my friends.  It was very strange, in a good way, to have a day where I could focus on myself and I am really grateful to Jeremy for making it possible.

Well, that was our week in a nutshell.  It was a whirlwind week to say the least.  Now we head into the holiday season and we all know how busy that time of year is.  I don't see things slowing down anytime soon.