Right here’s a recap of my pumpkin beer tasting get together and Birch’s celebration!

Birthday week (and month!) is wrapping up!
I feel the spotlight for me was at Birch’s get together when he acquired a scorpion LEGO and he checked out me, smiled, and appeared again at his pals and mentioned, “My mother and I are each Scorpios.” He and I actually are two peas in a pod, personality-wise!



I’m completely caked out at this level, which is likely to be good going right into a weekend of sweet! Please carry on the autumn salads and roasted veggies!
My 2026 Bday Get together
Katie and I’ve our birthdays two days aside, so now we have finished a joint get together the previous few years.

This yr, as a substitute of a bar crawl, we determined to maintain issues a bit extra low-key and I hosted a pumpkin beer tasting at my home.

Should you recall my tastings again in 2012 and 2014, this was not my first pumpkin beer tasting. Nevertheless, this one was a bit extra laid again. There was no formal blind tasting, however we sampled and rated a handful of the very best! (Sadly, we couldn’t discover Pumking on the final minute!)

I printed out a bunch of little tasting playing cards, and we wrote the identify of the beer, our ranking on a scale of 1-10, and notes in regards to the style.
We had just a few UVA PhD scientists who determined to compute the outcomes by hand on the spot fairly than utilizing a pc!

The Finest Pumpkin Beers (and Their Averages)
- Schlafly – 8.56
- 2 Silos – 7.77
- Alewerks – 7.6
- Starr Hill – 6.75
- Atomic – 6.66
- Dogfish – 6.56
- Pumqueen Cider – 4.75

In fact, we snacked on cheese, crackers, pretzels, hummus, carrots, and Katie’s epic whipped feta dip.

Ivy The Baker
We’re unsure how severe she is, however Ivy needs to open a bakery, so she provided to make the cake(s)! She made a pumpkin layer cake with buttercream and a key lime cheesecake that had been each AMAZING!









(For many who requested on IG, these are the Quince Bella Denims!)

Afterward, we had just a few karaoke performances after which performed Quiplash and homicide trivia on my TV whereas ingesting a lot of water!


Birch’s Bash
The subsequent day, Sunday, I performed a morning soccer sport, after which Thomas and I celebrated Birch. T obtained a bounce home and these blow-up human balls, and we had pizza and cake. The children didn’t cease shifting for 3 hours straight!





10.26
Then on Monday, the enjoyable continued with my precise birthday! (Birch’s is 10.29!) After all of the weekend celebrations, I merely wished a day crammed with my favourite issues.

Espresso and oatmeal

And a few studying from this e-book {that a} buddy obtained me!


I headed to the health club for Monday morning Flex class.


Maddie obtained me the brand new anniversary ACAC sweatshirt, which is so cozy I haven’t taken it off! And naturally I wore my Scorpio shirt all day post-shower.


I ordered Chopt for lunch and spent a while toggling between somewhat work, researching mobile phone suppliers (ugh!) and enjoyable.

Pleased hour with my favourite drink: an Previous Common!

And takeout Mezeh!

For cake time, we had loads of leftovers. The boys each selected Birch’s cake, and I had extra of Ivy’s pumpkin!


B wished us to sing to him too, so after all we obliged. Birthday month! (He additionally demanded one in all his presents early, haha.)

It was a stunning week of celebrating the sweetest boy!

Now on to Halloween…
