may milestones all over the place

 the rest of our may was full of all kinds of silly stuff.  like, this was the bean’s final art project - a giant fish modeled after a funny pencil case they’d picked up on our trip to japan last summer:

inside his mouth there were more handmade props - an anchor, a water tower, a shipwreck.  it was all really cool and very detailed and i’m sad i didn’t get pictures of them, but suffice to say the bean was given a very well-earned A on the project.

the old lady had been given one of those hollow chocolate bunnies for easter that had just been living on the counter for a few weeks.  we decided it was a good idea for her to snap the head off, pour some coffee in and chug-a-lug.  comedy.

my “7ish at 7ish” sunday boot camp crew took no breaks for mother’s day.  and for our efforts, our trainer brought flowers for us.  we give him a lot of shit (which he takes very good-naturedly), and we were amused that his wife was the one who brought them into the gym, but we also thought it was a very sweet gesture.

the month of may has always been about the old lady. she doesn’t love her birthday like i do, but this year it was different because it was a milestone.  i still can’t believe my firstborn is a full thirty years old.

of course, we turned to our favorite bakery to order a cake for this most special occasion.

the old lady’s most favorite thing to eat in the whole wide world is pasta, so i turned to instagram for ideas on where to take her.  i remembered a restaurant in l.a that she’d sent us in the family group chat that supposedly makes the best red sauce in the city, so i looked for the post and somehow managed to score us a reservation for that weekend.  it’s called donna’s, and when we arrived (right when they opened for business!), there was quite a line for walk-ins.  without a reservation, we’d have had an hour wait, easy.

it’s cute inside, and we had a nice table right in front of the bar.

was it really the best red sauce like, ever?  i’m not sure about that, but we did enjoy our meal.

on another day, we headed out to the americana in glendale and came across the dr. jart pop-up.  i’d seen it posted on social media and over the weekend they’d had some crazy long lines, but because it was a random weekday mid-morning, we walked right in.  scored a few samples, some snacks and a fun drink:

my cousin’s daughter - the one who’s a week older than the bean - graduated from high school this year.  she’d opted to go straight into kindergarten while the bean took a year of TK, so she’s always been a year ahead in school.  i picked up this cute hello kitty plushie to give her:

and about an hour before i left the house to head to her graduation ceremony i managed to put together this fun sign that was a decent size but not too big that it would be confiscated by security.

it’s still so amazing to me that these kids are so grown-up, because weren’t they just toddlers yesterday?

this year also marked my beloved gram’s 100th birthday.  ONE. HUNDRED. YEARS. OLD.  amazing.  and isn’t she cute??

and to end the month, we busted out the ol’ chalkboard to commemorate the last day of junior year.

and as soon as the last day of school was done, they got packed up to go on a fun road trip with their boyfriend and his family.  they were gone for about a week, flying up to seattle for a night before hopping in the car to check out a couple of national parks and do some hiking.

it was a good month, may was.