Birthday Dinner

The rest of this weekend was spent enjoying more time with family - Matt's side this time. His mom's 54th birthday was last week, so yesterday the family convened at their house around 3:00 for a belated celebration. Mrs. B. always has appetizers waiting when we arrive for family dinners, and we can usually count on seeing some cheese & crackers and veggies with dip or hummus.

I had a handful of parmesan pretzel crisps, a few crackers and a couple celery sticks with garlic Sabre. Love that stuff. I'd been planning to take Riker on a long walk before dinner, but before long it was time to eat. We had an early dinner since Matt's dad had to go to work; he's a control room operator at the nuclear power plant - like a real life Homer Simpson - and right now is on overnight shifts.

Steak and shrimp done on the grill were the main course - shrimp only for me of course - with zucchini and yellow squash, sweet potatoes and whole grain baguettes.

My contribution to the dinner was a big mesclun salad with all kinds of veggies, balsamic-marinated baby beets, goat cheese and toasted walnuts. I of course had a bowl of that as well.

Beets and goat cheese are such a fantastic combination.

Can't have a Baratta birthday without an ice cream cake, and I'll admit I was looking forward to a little slice of that all day.

Happy birthday "mom"! Riker only ate half his dinner, so no cake for him. He managed to swipe some frosting off the top of the cake before anyone was looking, but that's as far as he got. ;-) Sorry buddy.

Matt's mom recently started doing yoga as part of her gym program, so I got her a new yoga mat and gear for her birthday. After opening it she decided Matt's sister and I should join her for hot yoga this week, and I immediately jumped on board. I haven't done hot yoga since before I got pregnant with Riker, and I haven't been to a yoga class since my New Year's Resolution to practice it more. We're all planning to go to a class together on Friday night, which sounds like the perfect way to unwind after a long work week.

We came home in the early evening and Matt and I got a sudden urge to watch Labyrinth...strange, I know, but it's one of our all-time favorite movies and we usually watch it a few times a year. We don't usually let Riker watch TV, but it felt like time for him to meet Bowie and our favorite puppets, so we decided to let him stay up and watch some before bed.

He only watched bits of it in between running around playing with his toys and wrestling with me, but it's safe to say he was intrigued. It's crazy how much of a little kid he is now. He's only a little over a year old, but he is most definitely not a baby anymore. I think the age he's at now is so fun and is my favorite so far, but it's bittersweet to watch him grow so fast.

Finally Riker went to bed and I felt obligated to watch The Oscars for a while. I'm not much of an awards show person - they are soooo loooong - but they're such a big deal so I usually try to watch at least some of them. I fell asleep somewhere in between the animated short films special effects, but woke up this morning to check the winners and saw that Argo won best picture. I loved the movie so was glad to see it win, especially since it's one of the few nominees I've actually seen. Now it's my goal to watch the rest of the nominees, since they all look great.

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This morning started with a strawberry & Greek yogurt smoothie and a sweaty workout.

My weekend workouts got kind of hijacked with the Philly trip and birthday party yesterday, so I woke up extra early this morning to squeeze a few extra calorie-burning minutes into my Monday workout. I started with a Jump Rope & Abs circuit from PBFingers.com to get my heart rate up, followed by some strength training. Great way to start the day. I hear some rumblings from Riker's room now, which means it's time for the day to officially start.

Back to the work week!