Happy Birthday to Me

Personal birthdays are seriously not my favorite thing (though I do love a good b-day celebration for anyone else).  It's just that when I got sick at the age of 21 I never in my most horrible dreams thought I'd be sick every single day until the age of 26.. or 27... or... now.... 28.  It is a fact that I'm horribly reminded of every time my own, personal description number goes up.

So as January approached we did what any normal person would do to prepare for a depressing week- we researched to find the best local bakery, planned a week so full of activities that I couldn't possibly have time to sit and think, and I chopped off all my hair.  Strangely enough, all three things still make perfect sense to me.  Until I try to explain them out loud. 

I have to admit, the week was a perfect success.  As much as I just wanted to sit around and have a pity party, I just couldn't.  We were having way too much fun!  In fact, by the time my next birthday rolls around I might just be able to start looking forward to them again...

We got all dressed up for dinner at La Jolla Groves- seriously so good!  I do, however, feel like a beast in these pictures...  I just can't get away with heels next to Doug- if you look you'll see he's even sneaking up on tip toes.  What would it be like to feel feminine and petite?  I'm afraid I may never know.

Rather than getting an entire bday cake for both of us we got these pastries from a local French bakery.  They actually looked a lot better than they tasted.. unfortunately... our search for the perfect bakery continues!

Our plan for no bday cake didn't pan out well, since my Grandpa Stacey suprised me with this one!  He is so sweet!  Do you like how there are dinosaurs around my cake?  I just finished making the pattern for them and am a sucker for color cordination.  I just couldn't help it- they matched the plates so well!

Farewell 2011

My big plan for the day is to sit down and work on our Blog Book for 2011.  I love having a printed copy of all the things we did each year.

Last year when it came time to compile the year's entries I thought it would be fun to make a list of all the our favorite things of the year- favorite shows we'd watched, books we'd read etc.  I soon found that, though we really did love a lot of things through the year, it was hard to actually remember those beloved things when the time came to write out a list.

So for 2011 I added some lists on our sidebar to prepare for this year's Blog Book.  It's been fun to add things throughout the year and even more fun to have a complete list to look back on.  Before I take down the 2011 lists and start fresh with the ones for 2012, I thought I'd write out a few of our VERY favorite things of 2011-

Shows/Movies: Psych, The Young Victoria, The Help

Restaurants: Sweet Tomatoes, La Jolla Groves, Fuddruckers (the one in Orem closed!  I am so sad), Shoots, Kneaders

Games: Dominion, Carcassonne, Agricola, Puerto Rico

Books:  A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, The Help by Katheryn Stockett, Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, Lucia Lucia by Adriana Trigiani

I'm excited for a whole new year and the chances it will bring me to find all new items to add to our lists!

Merry Christmas

I've been pretty sick the past few weeks, and so our Christmas was necessarily simple.  We did manage to spend time with Doug's brother and parents, watch Charlie Brown's Christmas with Andrew and Lauren on Christmas Eve (the only Stacey tradition that has seemed to stick with me) and have a delicious Christmas dinner catered by the amazing chefs at Costco.  I might not have cooked much for it... but I did have fun setting the table.  (I love living by DownEast Home and adding to my collection of monogrammed linen napkins....)

All in all it was a good Christmas but to be honest I'm kinda happy it's over...I'm way too tired for all the holiday events that come with December!