Happy belated birthday to me!

Hi everyone! I just had my 23rd birthday over the weekend! Saturday night, the family I nanny for offered to host my parents, boyfriend and best friend for dinner and birthday cake, which was lovely and delicious. My wonderful "boss" (I always hesitate to call her that because she feels like a friend/ family member, not a boss!) made us all boeuf bourguignon, and I of course made a crazy cake, a tradition in my family (although we always add a teaspoon of almond extract to ours to make it extra special). I know a lot of people think it's funny that I make my own birthday cake, but I love doing it and wouldn't have it any other way.

Me and my boyfriend

After dinner, we met up with some friends at a pizzeria/microbrewery in Wicker Park called Piece, where we go often on Saturday nights to do live-band karaoke! My boyfriend and I were both celebrating our birthdays, since his is only 2 weeks before mine, so of course we sang "Birthday" by the Beatles. Later, I sang "I Want You to Want Me" by Cheap Trick (I ain't afraid to go solo!), and then "Mother" by Danzig to relive some high school memories with my old band. I got to catch up with a bunch of cool people, and we had such a blast!

Last night, on my actual birthday, my lovely boyfriend took me out for a delicious steak dinner. We had some issues with the food, but we had a good time anyway. It just goes to show you that life is what you make of it: we could have complained about the problems we had but we chose to enjoy each other's company and have a wonderful evening instead!

Best birthday present a girl could ask for: someone who loves her as much as this guy right here!

Unfortunately, I totally ran out of time to photograph my makeup and nails before it got smudged, sweaty, and chipped. Although I don't have a photo, I can tell you that I wore OPI Excuse Moi! from the Muppets collection on my nails because it is THE most adorable birthday polish I can think of. It just makes me so happy. It looks like a pink glittery cupcake on my nails. Also, as you can see in the second photo, I purchased a Conair YouCurl curling wand to create loose curls in my hair, and I'm in love with the results. It's so much easier than trying to create waves with a flat iron, although I'm still trying to get the hang of it. I might do a post on it soon! Lastly, I received a Conair Reflections magnifying mirror from my best friend as a gift, and I love it! It has a 1x/8x dual sided mirror and a touch-control lighted ring. It makes applying my makeup in my dim bathroom SO much more precise - so precise, in fact, that after I filled in my eyebrows for the first time using it, I had to muss them up a bit afterward because they were so perfect they looked like they had been tattooed on!!

Anyway, sorry there's no detailed beauty information in this post, I just wanted to say that I had such an amazing 23rd birthday weekend, and a big THANK YOU! to the people I love that made it so special :)