at this time 26 years ago, my mom had only been a mom for 20 hours. i was born at 1 a.m. at mount sinai hospital in baltimore. a few weeks ago, joe saw the pictures of me as a baby and a young child with my cute smile and thick, wavy hair. oh to be that young again when all i had to worry about was time to play with my toys. but getting older is great too.

i had a fabulous birthday weekend, which began yesterday with the traditional birthday lunch with my parents, brothers and grandparents. on the sabbath before each birthday we celebrate by letting the birthday person choose the meal and have the “special” plate, a red plate that says “you are special.” by the way, the almond wedding cake was *fantastic*. last night, joe and i went shopping for tim and mindy’s wedding present, and we bought cake mix to make my birthday cake, but only got so far as baking the two cakes (it’s a round, layered cake) before heading to bed around 12:30. at 1 a.m., joe’s alarm went off. “happy birthday, sweetie,” he said before we both fell back asleep.

this morning, joe made me waffles for breakfast and gave me my two smaller presents: the movie fever pitch and an 80s compilation. we love 80s music. my big present, a kate spade purse i’ve been wanting. i love kate spade, and i’ve been so into purses lately. my next plan is to save up for a gucci purse. 🙂

this afternoon was spent at tim and mindy’s wedding. i hung out in the groom’s room with the groomsmen, and leah, the other groomsman’s girlfriend, and i made a snack run because tim hadn’t eaten all day, and the other boys were hungry as well. the photographer they hired was unbelieveable. one of the first things she said was, “bear with me, i’m new at this.” that was painfully obvious by the way she stood in one place to shoot the boys playing pool in the groom’s room or tim and mindy’s first dance. she also forgot to take a picture of the wedding party. joe had to remind her of that as she told everyone she was done. the wedding was really pretty though. i enjoyed it.

after the wedding, we stopped by joe’s parents’ house to pick up some goodies, chat and change, and then headed to olive garden, my *favorite* restaurant for dinner. we were *starving* by the time we got there because we’d had only a few doritos for lunch. it was delicious, and we had such good conversation ranging from our wedding photography to more serious issues. one thing i love about our relationship is the deep discussions we have together.

now it’s home to watch our regular shows, desperate housewives and grey’s anatomy, decorate the cake, blow out the candles and eat a slice before heading to bed. a perfect ending to yet another perfect birthday.