Yesterday I saw a baby. Being born.

That's right. And I took pictures of it too. My sister in law had her perfect little boy in the four o'clock hour of yesterday morning. It was a long night but I'm so lucky they included me. Naturally, I have lots to say on the subject. Just as naturally, I haven't written it yet. Just in case you were wondering, I am not going to give you a rundown of her labor. Not my story to share. 

Here is a picture of beautiful little Desi. One I don't think my sister in law will mind me putting up.

Are you in love? 

My Na

My sister Na (Renee, but I don't know the last time I called her that) was next in the birthday line. My Sha na is one of my favorite people in the whole world. It's so easy to be with your sister/best friend. I'm in a listing mood so check it, things you can do with your sister, if your sister was my Na.

1)Sit on the grass/bench/curbing and judge the public's fashion choices. We're nice and quiet so no hurt feelings. And we almost always end up with grass stains or wet derrieres so karma doesn't let us escape unscathed. If you can't shake your head at front butt with your sis, what do you have?

2)Take 10,000 photos. You want a photo shoot partner? Call my sister. Camera whoring will commence. There will be duck face. There might be jazz hands. We'll probably argue over who gets to stand on the left.

3)Eat Asian food. You think you can do this with anyone? Fine, you can, but it won't be the same. We have favorite waiters at favorite restaurants. We know what the other person orders. Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Indian. And we always share appetizers. Gah, we're so worldly.

4)Steal each others clothes. You might be able to convince me the whole reason God decided to create sisters is so they could double their closets. He wants us to be happy, right? Too sacrilegious? Probably, but it's true. I dare you to disagree with me. Wait, I take that back. But if you had a Na, you'd know I speak the truth.

5)You always have a singing buddy. If I feel like belting Friends in Low Places at the top of my lungs, Na's got my back. And we do the best version of The First Noel at Christmas. We'll invite you to our open house this year, but bring your tissue. It's touching.

I will go on. We find magic shoes. We can watch Law and Order marathons all afternoon. She'll recreate Starbucks Caramel Apple Cider for me if it's not available. We tell each other secrets. She gave me a foot massage while I was in labor in the hospital. She helped my husband with my wedding ring. She'll watch White Christmas with me..or not. We have a pact to buy up all the houses in our favorite neighborhood. She loves my baby.

Sisters are presents you aren't always nice too but they forgive you anyways and then will tell you if you have a booger. And even if they're prettier than you, they'll tell you the wish they had your body. But with only half the butt.

Happy Birthday my Shanana. I love you.



Also, sisters don't mind when you hijack their birthday post to stick a couple more pics of you favorite dress up. Cause I love it when Lesco takes decent pics. We make out to celebrate so it's a win win.

In a family this big, you blog about a birthday every couple days.

We have five birthdays in my family this month. FIVE. My Dad kicks it off on the eleventh and Dorina, our Albanian sister/daughter/auntie closes the month on the 29th. In between we have a Steve, a Na and an Endri. That's a lot of cake.

Maybe we can convince someone to go the pie route. I love pie. Crap, now it's almost midnight and all I'm thinking about is how I've let my relationship with lemon meringue dwindle. I miss us.

Focus Mel.

Have I mentioned my parents are young chickens? Young chickens who love parties. So pictures, because this post is going no where.

Blogging about birthdays while watching serial killers

Which is a bad idea because I'm a total wiener when it comes to these things. I can't handle the dark. I just know that right this very second there is a killer under my bed or in my closet, possibly the linen cupboard. He's waiting til I go to bed.

Little does he know I have a knife under Jared's pillow and a rolling pin below my night stand. I'm not even going to tell you where I hide the mace. Just know it's always readily available. Dude is going down.

Little do I know, Mr. Killer has a smart phone and is reading this post. He will move my weapons of justice before I ever get to the bedroom.

I can see it now. The intro to the 48 hours about my murder will have some girl reading my blog. "I'm scared I'm going to die tonight...."

Dudes. Don't let them do it. Someone send them some better material.

Really though, I have either lived alone or had a part time husband for the last decade and I'm still scared. Tell me I'm not the only one.

Let's talk about happier things. Things that don't include premonitions of my death and bad writing.

My Grandpa turned 80. This is how we feel about it.



We have been lucky to live in the same town as my grandparents. My Grandpa is amazing. He was a sports rock star in college and well known insurance agent during his career years. He is a generous and loving patriarch to our family. There was more than one occasion where his name got one of us out of a speeding ticket. The last couple of years have been hard for him. 80 is a milestone and he was on point tonight. Making fun of my baby sis with the rest of us. It was good times.





Just try and tell me my Mom isn't adorable. Oh, your lips won't cooperate? They can't lie.





You know it was a good party when your Dad steals your coconut bra for a hot pose.

I used to think that I would never, ever be one of the people who cared about getting older, but I care. I just want to freeze time. It's all going by so fast.

The death of my youth will not stop me from enjoying a birthday. I just had one and it was pretty great. Maybe more than that. Maybe it was one of the best birthdays ever.

Beautiful birthday flowers. Giant meatballs. Homemade gifts from the heart. Thoughtful chocolates from my dad. Stripper money.

One of these things is not like the other.

Lesco spent two hours taping one dollar bills together for me to pull out of a box. Wanted to send me on a little shopping trip but a gift card just won't cut it for my Lesco.



I'm not sure if I want to take those ones to Forever 21 or the bank. Who do you think will judge me less?

My sister thinks I need to be cleaner in the kitchen. I do and now I'm going to look all fashionista while I do it.



I hope these boys grow up best friends. Right now Phin is just the super adorable, genius of a third wheel. It'll change. I hope.



That little boy makes getting older worth it. My handsome, best friend who's along for the ride makes it worth it. Everyday I pinch myself.

You ever see a baking disaster this bad?

Usually I'm a pretty handy girl in the kitchen. I can follow a recipe.

It was my birthday on Monday so I made myself a cake. Problem was, Jared was out of town and Phin was/is teething. My favorite little human ever doesn't do so well with the freeing of the teeth ritual so he has to be held pretty much non stop in the evenings. Baking a cake and soothing a babe (really I guess a toddler but you can't get me to go there) kind of go together like best friends but the exact opposite.

Here's what I was going for.




aaannnd here's what I ended up with.



My co worker compared it to a melted candle. See the fork? Yup, it was delicious.

As ya'all have heard...

The world didn't end Saturday so it was a pretty rad weekend. Lesco wasn't home, but ya know, you win some you lose some.

We hung out with Uncle Steve and Auntie Kari along with little cuz Simon and some buddies. We ate at the absolute WORST pizza place in Reno, appropriately named Reno Pizza. It was seriously some nasty frozen pie heated up. Except my piece wasn't even that warm. Or pizza-y.

Was the bad pizza a sign of impending doom? Only 6pm would tell.

Ignore the crotch hold on poor Phin. He's such a squirmy babe that I have to lug him around that way all the time.


Kept our eyes open for signs of rapture.





Took my hair down after walk and it looked like this.



Was pretty convinced fire storm was on the way after that mess. Lucky for me, shower+bumble & bumble + blowdryer saved the day and maybe the world. Phinny and I survived and we were happy.

See.



Today was good. My baby sis turned twenty freaking one. Did you hear me say baby sis? Not the one right below me or the one below her. Do you know what that makes me? Seriously old. (And by old I mean still young and glamorous and 'throw my head back and laugh while holding something sparkly and drinkable' but relatively old)

What happened?? Did I mention my sisters are gorgeous? Here's the birthday girl.

A Monster Party

I felt so grown up making cupcakes for my Phin's birthday. I felt even more grown up taking extra strength Tylenol after it was all over.

(lack of) Party Planning

We are closing in on the big day and Phin is busy prepping for his party. He wanted to get at least three months of riding lessons in so he could pull off a few tricks during the pony rides and EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. we pass a frozen pond he just has to pull out his skates for a few minutes to brush up on his triple axle. He must impress the guests on the ice skating rink we rented. For our backyard.

Actually we are low key party people. So I have not been planning a bash for months. My goal this year has been surviving and making sure Phin Phin does too. We are just having family and a few friends over. We will eat good food and probably cheer and clap as my brand new walker toddles around the room. I ordered some fun monster themed things and if Phin decides to sleep more than five minutes this week I might engage in some crafty decoration making. I just want the people that know him the very best lovin on him and laughing at how crazy it is that Jared and I ended up with the cutest child ever.

Of course there will be cake. Lotsa cake.

And presents because who doesn’t love watching a one year old eat paper and totally ignore the thing you just spent $40 bucks on?

Most of our gifts are warm weather themed because we are total optimists. In the mean time some more classic Phin moments from his first year.

This was his first summer hammock nap. Daddy was out of town so it’s a crappy from above picture. Best part of this photo is how you can see Liza on the right. She insisted on napping with us.

This second one is pretty self explanatory. His first board meeting. The man runs a casual office.