grown up.

me, i mean. i'm 30 today. i've had a lovely day so far.

yesterday i celebrated my last day in my 20s with the following:

1) after ella's breakfast, she and i took a stroller ride downtown to zumis and got an iced coffee, then headed to the park to enjoy the autumn air. j. joined us there after awhile and he and i sat and cuddled on a picnic bench while she explored the little play houses and the slide.

2) after a shower, i went to the gym at work for a good workout (so i could feel less guilty eating all the food i knew i would consume later in the day).

3) after the gym, i dressed in a fun, summer dress and sat in the sunshine in the yard and read my book for almost an hour.

4) when ella woke up, we packed her bag and j. and i drove her over to momby's. when we arrived, j. gave me my first birthday present--a hardcover copy of elenora's 1st-year baby book, made from this blog on blurb. it is the most amazing present, and so much fun to look through. it has all the photos from her first year of life, and all of the blog entries from before i was pregnant until her first birthday. now i'm so excited to make year 2!

5) when j. and i came back home we decided to enjoy the weather and take a long walk. while out walking we passed by some fisher price toy kitchen appliances and snagged a toy rolling pin, a measuring cup, and a saucepan for elenora. (today i went back and grabbed the toy sink/dishwasher, and put it in my kitchen so that ella can wash her dishes while i wash mine! can't wait to put some actual water in her sink with suds and let her go at them!)

6) got all dolled up and went to duckworths for dinner. i had champagne and we split a shrimp and prosciutto salad, then split a lobster risotto, then we each had half-portions of our entrees so that we would have enough room to split a banana cake dessert. yum. j. and i had so much fun together.

today i slept in a bit, but i went to the gym after ella went down for her nap this afternoon, and now j. is doing the dishes for me! what a sweetheart. i really do feel very special.

tonight we're going to momby's for a family dinner party. elenora is very excited about it.

i do miss having cake. i mean the chocolate cake with chocolate frosting like my mom always made for me. nobody in j.'s family likes cake much, so i just requested pie for dessert tonight...but i find myself nostalgic for the good old chocolate chocolate. where's my mother???

i had so much fun with s. and k. the other night. indian food is amazing. i would eat it every day. and the girls gave me such thoughtful presents. they really made me feel special. k. gave me gorgeous earrings from the village silversmith of rockport, and she gave me a wallet that was made with such beautiful fabric and ribbons. i told her it makes me feel grown up, and she said "oh you ARE grown up baby." s. gave me a framed piece of artwork that takes me back to vermont every time i look at it. it is very folk-artsy, with cows and farmland in the foreground and mountains in the background. i told ella it's a picture of where i grew up.

the weather is amazing these past few days. cool, sunny, crisp, lovely. it's funny to think that in the space of 5 days i went from dressing ella in a t-shirt for bed to dressing her in her fleece jammas.

last night j. and i were thinking about ella's second year of life, and we realized that there has essentially been nothing bad that has happened to our family this past year. reading back through some of those months of ella's first year of life, you can hear the struggles we were going through with ella's sleep and j.'s job situation. but this past year j.'s had a good job and ella's been sleeping great. my job is still good (i'm up for a raise this week--fingers crossed), and i've really found a great balance between work, family, homemaking, friends and me-time. the past few days when elenora wakes up, her first question is "where are we going today?" or "what are we going to do today?" we have amazingly fun times together. i'm so lucky.