Dustin's 29th Birthday

I think it's really hard to celebrate birthdays when you become a parent.  It's really more fun that Lyla is starting to understand and get excited when one of us has a birthday.  But, for some reason, our birthdays just don't seem like that big of a deal anymore.  Lyla and I wanted to do something special for her Dad, so we started scheming and planning early.

We decided to celebrate Dustin's birthday before, on, and after his actual birthday.  Since Dustin usually gets up at 4:30am, I knew that if we wanted to make him breakfast in bed, we'd have to do it the Sunday before to catch him at a more decent hour.  After we prepared a delicious breakfast, I gave Lyla the okay to go running into Dustin's room shouting "Surprise! Happy Birthday! I love you, Daddy!" Sunday evening we went to Dustin's parents' house for his birthday celebration and dinner.  Hank grilled up steaks for Dustin, and Sherie made a really good dinner.  Lyla and I made banana pudding for Dustin. He didn't want cake, and this was the compromise. I have a recipe for Magnolia Bakery in NYC's version, and that's one of his favorite desserts. We opened gifts and sang "Happy Birthday" - we kept it pretty low-key.

We made cookies the day before to bring in as another birthday treat. I had Dustin's mom come over to help me decorate the cookies (I was trying a new technique).  It ended up being incredibly time-consuming (it took about 5 1/2 hours from starting to make the cookie dough until the time we cleaned up!), but I was really pleased with the results.  Lyla loved contributing to the decorating by eating a lot of sprinkles and cracking us up.

On Tuesday, Dustin's actual birthday, Lyla and I took the BART into San Francisco to visit Dustin at work and take him out to lunch, as well as drop off our birthday Halloween cookies.  It was fun to get to meet all of Dustin's co-workers that I've heard so much about, and I was glad Dustin had the opportunity to show Lyla off.  Taking him out was so much fun, that might become a new tradition for us!

Friday night was a combo of celebrating my birthday from back in August AND continuing to celebrate Dustin's.  Dustin had bought me tickets to see the Lion King for my birthday, but the show didn't come to San Francisco until November.  It worked out to be a few days after Dustin's birthday, so I had Dustin pick another restaurant he wanted to try in the city and we called it a combined celebration.  I love doing things as an entire family, but I really do enjoy having one-on-one time with Dustin when I can get it.  We had a really great time; I think we can consider Dustin's birthday officially celebrated now!