I had a lovely 41st birthday celebration. It started the day before when Jes and KK came home with these pretty flowers for me.  They walk by a flower shop on the way home from school everyday and KK loves to go inside the refrigerated room to pick them out.

This morning, Peanut woke up bright and early at 6am to greet me as I brushed my teeth.

After dropping KK off at school and sending Peanut off to the park with Mimi, Jes finished up his morning calls and then we went to lunch at Chez Panisse in Berkeley.

The last time we ate here was right before KK was born. It was nice to have a grown-up meal without interruptions or picking up food off the floor. I had a tasty beet and tomato salad with fried capers and the house-made rigatoni with chanterelle mushroom ragu.

We also had dessert, which was bourbon-pecan ice cream with gingersnap cookies. Perfect.

For dinner, I opted to stay in so we brought home pizza from Amici’s and picked up an Oreo ice cream log from Safeway.

It was more for KK because she was telling us the night before how excited she was for my birthday and that we were going to blow out the candle. So, that’s what we did. Couldn’t disappoint the 4-year-old, y’know.

It was nice to have the day off for my birthday and this may be a new tradition from here on out.

I also ordered my birthday gift a couple weeks ago and it should be arriving in another 2-3 weeks. Can’t wait to play with it!