Sandy Pages: Celebrating My Birthday- At Home Edition

When I started to sit down and write this post about my birthday I realized I probably needed to separate it into to My Birthday At Home and My Birthday Abroad. I am not one of those people who celebrates their birthday for a whole week; but since I have a Holiday Weekend birthday sometimes I get more than just one day or we celebrate on days that aren't actually my birthday. This year my birthday seemed to stretch on for most of the week and it was actually a lot of fun.

Anytime Notes from a Mom in CH or The Stir Crazy Moms' Guide to Durham post about something Noah & I make it our mission to check it out too. They have the best ideas and give you all the dirty details, so it's fair to say I hang on their coat tails often. When one of them checked out Dead Broke Horse Farm I knew this is what I wanted to do for my birthday. I rode horses from age 5 to 13 or 14 as my 'sport.' I love horses and have ridden on my birthday with the Editor in the past. Dead Broke Horse Farm is only 30 minutes away from us (toward Raleigh but actually a Durham address). We bought a Groupon for a Hand Led Horse Ride and arrived at 10am on Sunday morning. As far as you could see were beautiful rolling hills and horses! Horses in pastures, horses getting saddled, horses getting sprayed down. They also had dogs, cats, chickens, pigeons, rabbits, mini horses, and who knows what else! You know how some people are dog-people or cat-people, but not people-people? These people are horse-people not people-people. We just looked around for about 15 minutes before anyone acknowledged that we were there and had us sign away our lives. Finally it was time to ride. We got Noah outfitted with a helmet (I chose to forgo... if I fall off while someone else is leading us I've got some issues), and I jumped up on Julie. Noah immediately reached up his arms and said, "Baby riding too?" We had been preparing him for this moment all week, "You are going to sit on a horse' back." But you never know what you are going to get with a newly emotional two year old. We seemed to have lucked out on this particular day. Toddler was in!

Dead Broke has big saddles and we both fit really comfortably into the saddle. Noah was calm and so relaxed on the horse! Bailey, our teenage guide, led Julie through the woods for about 40 minutes telling us about Dead Broke and all the horses (130 acres with over 100 horses!) We went up and down hills and even got to 'jump' a fallen tree branch. I had the best time; I really love horses. It was also really nice not to have to worry about the horse at all because Bailey was in control of her; I only had to worry about Noah. And bonus points because Noah loved it! He had a great time too and even a week later when I say, "We're going to do something fun today, " he asked if we were going to ride horses again. The Editor could have ridden with us or walked beside. He chose to walk and take photos. There is no doubt in my mind we will be back. I'm ready the next time anyone wants to check it out. (For the 2yr old crowd you have the choice of doing Hand Led ride with a parent or a Trail Ride with your toddler accompanied by a guide.)

On Monday, I didn't do anything birthday related, but I had requested some homemade baked goods for my birthday this year. The week before the Editor and Noah had a few quiet moments downstairs (I presume trying to decide what to make). I don't love surprises and lucky for me when I came downstairs that day Noah proudly exclaimed, "Cake! Cupcakes!" If I could just get him to be a little bit more decisive he'd be completely in my corner. So on Monday I pulled my beloved Kitchenaide out with a few instructions to the Editor and retreated upstairs. I heard a lot of banging and a few, "Don't touch!" but I was released about an hour later and the house smelled great! Noah and the Editor baked Lemon Blossom cupcakes with a lemon drizzle on top. And of course, we had to eat one right away. They tasted great, especially since the Editor has never baked before. I'd love for this to be a yearly tradition but I'm not sure the Editor agrees.

Tuesday was actually my 32nd birthday and we had a regular day planned, as in it was a Noah day. We were going to give Kindermusik a try with a friend in the morning and had playgroup after lunch. We did make dinner reservations at a favorite of mine, Acme in Carrboro. Lucky for me, they have a Tuesday special, $12 Tuesdays where all entrees are $12 on Tuesdays (was that self explanatory?). We started the day with presents, which is the best way to start! Noah gave me a book for us to read together about a day out with mom, Noah & the Editor gave me an inital necklace I've been eyeing for a long time with an 'N' in it, and Tucker got me a new vacuum. I kid, I kid. The Editor got me a new vacuum and yes I know as a woman I'm supposed to be disgusted by this blatant symbol of my role in the house blah blah blah. But my vacuum has been slowly losing plastic pieces, and I've hated it since day one. Honestly, I cannot wait to test out my Dyson Animal and have a whole new vacuuming experience.

Our day went really well until it was time for dinner. We had the first reservation (5:30 pm) because we are taking a toddler to a more grownup restaurant. Well we got stuck in some major traffic. In fact it wasn't just regular UNC traffic, there was an accident. So we were running way late. We called Acme and they gave us their spiel about giving up our reservation after 15 minutes; if we got there after 5:45 they would seat us outside. Okay, no problem, it was a gorgeous day. Well we got there at around 5:53pm and they sat us inside with an "oh, it's no problem' attitude. Good thing too because there were only about 3 tables occupied at the time. Crab cake dinner was excellent and we did a little walk around Carrboro for ice cream after (let's face it the 6 cucpcakes were all but gone at this point anyways).