The big 2-9 and a stool sample

My birthday was this past weekend, and it's been a nice, long, drawn out celebration (that isn't finished yet!).  I worked Wednesday, and my mom stayed that night again to watch the boys so that Stuart and I could go out to a residency dinner.  Free food and drinks!  I actually got there quite late after my shift ran long (busy day!), but I was able to enjoy a little bit of adult downtime with Stuart.  We stopped by the Cheesecake Factory on the way home and picked up dessert (and some for my mama, because she had a bad, poopy day with the boys at home... I could share details, but it's just gross!  Though, it is a part of my birthday story... Read on).

Thursday morning, my mama hung around for a while, so I got to run some errands by myself.  She offered for me to go get a haircut and be pampered, but I went to Lowe's and bought plants instead (priorities!).  Thursday evening, Stuart came home a little early and we went out to Only Burger for a birthday eve dinner, and to celebrate Stuart submitting his fellowship application (a big life milestone for us!).

On Friday morning, my birthday proper, I took the little boys and myself to Foster's Market for brunch after Samuel's first nap (side note:  I also collected a stool sample to take to our pediatrician for James during that nap... Never imagined I would be doing that activity on my birthday...).  Everyone was mostly well-behaved at Foster's and it was quite enjoyable!  Then, I got this text from Stuart:

So we had chicken and biscuits for my birthday lunch.  Around 4:30pm, Stuart had to go back to the hospital because he was on call and unable to switch his shift.  Then, I got a phone call from the pediatrician that James' stool sample was negative for what I was most afraid of (C.diff) - so hallelujah for that.  Still waiting on some other results to figure out what is going on with my dear boy's digestive tract... Then, I made cupcakes for myself:



And some girlfriends came over Friday night after the boys went to bed.  We enjoyed drinks and desserts and good conversation!

Saturday I got to do a lot of gardening (got all those plants in the dirt!) and we ordered pizza in that night.

Sunday evening we went out for a fancy dinner with my parents.  The boys wore their Easter outfits and were quite dapper:









We went to Harvest 18, a new-ish restaurant in Durham (their 1 year anniversary is actually the 22nd of this month), but the owner has two other restaurants in Raleigh, one of which my sister worked at for several years.  The manager recognized my dad, and then comped us some dessert at the end of dinner.  All her years of fine dining food service finally paying off ;)







Happy birthday to me!  Stuart and I are going to Hanging Rock this weekend while the little boys stay with Mema and P/paw.  Yay for a mountain get away!