Yay for birthdays. I just love ’em. Saturday was Simon’s, as per my earlier post, and we had a marvelous weekend. On Saturday, he enjoyed a long workout and I stayed home and prepped a few things for the afternoon. Then, he drove me down to a friend’s baby shower and he and Jude went to hang out at his Grandma Jo’s house. At 4:00 on the button, they were there to pick me up and off we went to Norman. As OU grads, we love to live up the nostalgia and hit up old favorites from our college days in Norman. It was surprisingly calm in Norman despite the loss to Texas (a really big deal – OU/TX weekend). I was glad that it wasn’t too nutso.

I love the old red phonebooths on Campus Corner.

Jude does too.

We had dinner at Victoria’s on Campus Corner. It was a carb-apalooza. Italian food for all — me, Simon, Jude, my brother Earl and his family, my mother-in-law Linda, sister-in-law Carolyn, and Simon’s Grandma. We rolled on outta there in a cheese-and-pasta-induced coma. Then. We stopped at Maggie Moo’s to pick up Simon’s request — red velvet ice cream. Red velvet is his most favorite kind of cake, hence the creation of the red velvet whoopie pies. And then we descended upon his grandmother’s house with pies and ice cream in tow.

Here’s the birthday boy himself holding the whoopie pies. Ok, side story. Do you want to hear something totally gross? I had some cream cheese frosting at the house to fill the pies with, but I had gone to the store and thought that I better pick up another thing of frosting just in case we ran out. Well, inevitably, we did run out, and so I opened the pantry and pulled out my can of frosting. When I opened the lid, a sick smell assailed my nostrils. UM WHAT?! The can was OPEN AND EATEN OUT OF AND HAD GONE SOUR. But then whoever did it decided to go ahead and put that foil seal back on so it looked legit. NASTY NASTY NASTY. Who knows how long it was sitting there on the shelf? And what are the odds that I would be the person to buy that one can? Gross!

Here’s my brother Earl, on the left, with Amelia (behind him) and Jude in the center, Noah on the right, and Grandma Jo. We were singing Happy Birthday, or as Jude likes to say, “Happy Bum Bum.”

I was also concerned about not having enough red velvet whoopie pies to go around, so I made a batch of vanilla with a vanilla Sprinkles cupcake mix from Williams Sonoma. They did not turn out nearly as fluffy and dense as the red velvet ones; I think it’s because the vanilla mix only called for 1 egg and 2 egg whites, as opposed to the red velvet that had much more. But they still tasted good.

Here’s Noah giving us an impromptu concert. He is quite the pianist and we are so very very proud of him. You should ask him to play Coldplay’s Viva La Vida. It’s pretty rad.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Blythe and Jude were in the bathroom, washing their hands and getting into mischief.

Grandma Jo was so kind to let us have our little party at her house.

We laughed that we were going to submit this photo to AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com

And there you have it! A birthday weekend of fun! I wish Jude was looking at the camera in this photo.

Bye!