OK people.

I totally fell off the wagon (oh, and in more ways than one, lemme tell you) on this photo a day thing.

I KNEW this was going to be tough, because well, yeah, I’m me.

So every day that passed w/out a photo, I thought, should I put up an ass load of photos and hop back on the wagon? Set up a lawn chair, with a little table next to it with a nice cold diet coke and wave as the wagon trucked off down the dusty road with all it’s photo goodness?

So yeah, I was on the lawn chair sipping away. But I guess I don’t want to throw in the towel yet, so here goes.. all my missing 366 photos.

As Thursday ended, doom and gloom threatened our nation’s capital in the form of.. ICE STORM A-COMIN! HIDE THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN! and so, since the next day was my birthday, I greased the wheels of corporate america by saying to my boss, “boy, if it’s bad tomorrow, I may just work from home.”

Ahhh, a relaxing day of working at home on the couch in my underwear jeans covered with a blankey with Pride & Prejudice playin’ on the TV.

BUT my plans were foiled, FOILED I tell you by the nation.. well, specifically, my kids’ school also catching the doom and gloom and deciding not to open on Friday. Doh.

So I took the day off and spent it with my kids. Here is my birthday… in photos (and more words, because hey. I’m a wordy bitch.)

First, I woke up, grabbed the laptop, hit refresh on the school’s website, and saw those fateful words: CLOSED.

Unfortunately, I was up anyway. So was James. So I made him go get mE my PRESENTS!!

The kids came in and snuggled into bed, and I opened up my 2 presents.

This one was from me, that I’ve been coveting since before Christmas:

I heart Amy Ruppel. Next year, I’m buying myself a painting instead of just a print. Hopefully before next year!

Next was James’ present for me:

Isn’t this the best? Circa 1951, I am tickled tickled tickled.

I also gave james really good word of mouth with my mom later, because when I told her he got me a vintage doll making sewing book, I didn’t bother mentioning that it was rated high priority on my amazon wish list. Aren’t I a fab wife?

So after we got all that bothersome gift giving out of the way (I do have one more gift coming, it’ll be a late present) we got up and had breakfast of biscuits (from a refridgerated tube) and scrambled eggs. James kissed us goodbye and headed off into the (as far as we both could tell, ice-less) world to work.

So the kids and I got busy and made carrot cake:

Ethan insisted on NOT licking the batter, because it had CARROTS IN IT. He also insisted that he would NEVER taste this CARROT CAKE. “MY GOD woman, you know how to ruin EVERYTHING, INCLUDING CAKE, WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME?!” was pretty much, the epitome of his thoughts on the subject of carrot cake. Jocelyn took his beater and licked it clean along with her own.

I took the opportunity to take some much needed pictures of Ethan lego creations:

Here is his latest. A forklift:

Which can go up and down:

and the platform thingee comes off:

Just for the record, an attempt was made to lift the chocolate soy milk container, but we are still working out the engineering technicalities.

Then, Jocelyn let me play “hair” with her, except that it was really more like, she ordered me to do her hair in EXACTLY the way she prescribed, and WOE UNTO ME if I misinterpret her directions.

She wanted “crazy braid” hair, and pointed very specifically where she wanted each braid:

We had lunch. Notice that most of us (yes, both of them) are still in their jammies. Most of us also have soy chocolate milk moustaches.

Peanut butter and honey for Ethan:

Peanut butter and banana for Jocelyn:

Me? Peanut butter, banana and honey, of course.

Next, I sent them upstairs where they managed to not kill each other and were even reasonably quiet, for 2 hours of “quiet time” while I didn’t get any work done, but instead talked to my mom and my sister while not posting photos on this blog (which was the intended purpose of blessed “quiet time” time).

I finally unlocked the toy room door and let them out. Then I chained them to the couch and made them watch Totoro while I alternated between playing internet backgammon and mah jong.

Then I marched them upstairs and forced them to beat cream cheese, butter and powdered sugar together. I topped it off with making them lick the beaters clean.

Then we frosted the cake, daddy came home, we anxiously awaited the sitter, and we took off, hollering, “SO LONG SUCKER!” for a long night of carousing (japanese way-too-salty tepenyako, with no alcohol) and partying (hanging out in the bookstore until the movie started, watching Juno, and then heading home.)

Yeah! that’s how we party it up for 34. When 35 rolls around, I will probably just head to bed at 8.30 and call it good.