The Most Special of Weekends

I think I'm still high off of this weekend. The past few days have included so many special moments and I feel just so fortunate to be blessed with such wonderful family and friends who show such love and thoughtfulness. How's that for the start of a blog post? ;)

So let me take a step back a minute. My birthday and Mother's Day typically fall on the same weekend every year, so it's always an extra special couple of days for me. Matt is such a great husband that he makes a big deal out of both days rather than skipping one or the other since they fall at the same time. This year was no exception, but we had an extra special surprise in between as well.

Birthday celebrations started last Thursday night (my actual birthday) with cupcakes from Crumbs Bakeshop at my office in the city, followed by mini cupcakes and ice cream sandwiches from my favorite ice cream shop at home with my boys. And birthday presents of course!

Sugar overload!

One of my favorite perks of my job is that we get our birthdays off. I love that! I didn't take my actual birthday off since it's my weekly day in the city, so I took Friday off instead. I spent the morning with Riker, then spent some time at my in-laws, and then dropped Riker off there so I could have a few hours of "me time." I got a bunch of annoying phone calls crossed off my list which I've been procrastinating on, and then it was time for relaxation.

Starbucks, a prenatal massage (using a gift card I've had for TWO years, crazy!) and then a movie and a nap back at home. I can't remember the last time I took a nap. It was glorious. Just as I was about to lay down, the doorbell rang - which annoyed me at first, until I answered it and was greeted with a beautiful bouquet of roses from Riker (aka Matt). I adore getting flowers unexpectedly. And they are still in bloom in my bedroom 4 days later.

The festivities continued that night with a birthday dinner with my best girls at one of my favorite local Asian restaurants. Can't have a bad evening when I'm with these people!

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On Saturday we had plans to go to a surprise graduation party for Matt's mom, who went back to college two years ago and is getting her degree next week. We were looking forward to an afternoon with the family, but were totally shocked when we walked in and everyone yelled "surprise" to US. We were super confused and thought they had mistaken us for Matt's mom, but nope...our families had gotten together to throw us a surprise "sprinkle" for baby girl.

I honestly couldn't have been more shocked, and was so overwhelmed with how thoughtful and generous it was. The theme was also super cute (and you know how I am about themes) - it was a tea party complete with fancy tea sandwiches, salads, scones with homemade lemon curd and jam, and about a million desserts.

Not to mention pink flowers and decorations galore. So adorable!

They even had favors for everyone - bags filled with jars of local raw honey and homemade jam from our favorite local organic farm. My sister-in-law is so talented - I would've just stuffed the goodies in a plain bag, but she glued on pink bows and little sparkly jewels. So cute.

We have a most amazing family and I am thankful for them every day.

What a wonderful day it was, not to mention we came home with a car full of baby girl clothes, blankets, stuffed animals, books and other necessities that I haven't had a chance to go buy yet. Such a big help!

As if the weekend wasn't already filled enough with celebrations, on Sunday we got to spend some extra time with Amanda and Justyn who spent the night at our house after the party (which gave us plenty of time to start talking about wedding planning since they just got engaged!! Woo!). Matt also surprised me with a few sweet Mother's Day gifts, after which we met up with his parents to spend the afternoon on the boat - our first boat day of the year.

It was 80 degrees and sunny, and a great day to start the boating season.

I honestly can't imagine a more perfect couple of days. I went to bed Sunday night feeling like the luckiest girl in the world, and am hanging onto that feeling all week - through the work stress and the sore hips and the tired nights as I try to get everything ready for the baby's arrival in just 4 short weeks. We have so much to be thankful for.

Speaking of sore hips and tired nights, this girl is off to bed to get some rest. Enjoy your evening!

Weekend Highlights 2

Time for another edition of Weekend Highlights! It was a busy but really fun one, especially with all the great weather we've had the last few days. The big item on the agenda was Matt's cousin James & his fiance Ali's wedding in Philly, which meant we spent the whole weekend with family out in PA.

But backing up, on Friday I skipped my usual work-at-home day and went into the city for a Social Change Summit at the United Nations. It was a neat little treat for a work day, and we got to hear case studies from some big guns like Dove and Invisible Children (the org. behind the Kony 2012 video campaign).

They also fed us a really nice lunch in a room overlooking the river. I had vegetables aplenty during the salad and entree course, so took down the chocolate mousse & mango cake with no guilt.

We got to Philly around 8:00 that night and spent the evening catching up with my sister Amanda and her boyfriend Justyn. They live only about a mile from where the wedding was on Saturday night, and were watching Riker for us while we attended, so we figured we'd save the $ on a hotel room and just bunk with them instead. Plus, it gave us a chance to hang out all day Saturday as a family. Amanda found a great spring/Easter event a few minutes from her house (almost everything was free!) which was a perfect way to spend a sunny Saturday.

They had an Easter egg hunt, pony rides, petting zoo, face painting and all kinds of other stuff. We were hungry after all that, so headed into the cute town of Manayunk for an outdoor lunch at the local brewery.

I loved getting to sit outside and soak up all that sunshine! We split zucchini fries for an appetizer, and for my lunch I had a jumbo lump crab cake (I ditched the roll and just ate the crab cake with the salad).

A long uphill walk back to the car and then a cat nap back at home, and then it was time to get ready to watch James & Ali get married!

More on that in an upcoming post - too many details for one weekend roundup. :) It was a fun evening for sure, though.

***

Sunday started with morning tea at my sister's, followed by lox bagels and killer iced coffee at the cutest little coffee shop in Manayunk.

Lox = love. Bellies full, we met up with Matt's parents at the park where James & Ali got married (it's a huge park where Matt loves to go mountain biking) for a morning hike. This place is so beautiful. I'm not in prime hiking mode right now being over 7 months prego, so had to go fairly slowly, but it was some good exercise and fresh air nonetheless.

We got back home around 2:00, picked up Butters from the kennel and the rest of the afternoon included some digging for the new patio...(okay, actually me laying on a blanket and ordering groceries online while Matt dug)... 

...and takeout sushi (cooked for me) and summer rolls for dinner.

Such a perfect Sunday. Entire weekend, really. And I'll tell you, the taste of warm weather we had made me seriously ready for summer!

How was your weekend? Did you get to spend some time outdoors?

Wonderful Life

Eek, another whole week since I've posted. With the holidays in full swing and work being busy, it's been tough to find any bit of extra time lately. But with the unexpected blizzard Jersey got yesterday, Matt had a 2 hour delay at school this morning which meant I could steal some time away from my usual morning mom duties to catch up with you all.

All last week we spent our evenings decorating in and outside and doing some Christmas shopping here and there. The house feels so warm and cozy now!

(Riker is so excited about the holidays this year and it just melts my heart.)

Cooking time was sparse, so to get us through the week I made a big pot of escarole, cabbage and tomato soup, which honestly I ate for lunch and dinner at least three times. It was really good, especially when paired with an Ezekiel bread and Cabot cheddar grilled cheese, but it's safe to say I'm done with it for a while.

Friday came around quickly, and I have to say it was a really good one. It was one of those weekends where I felt like we got to do a little bit of everything - home time, family time, friend time - and I woke up this morning feeling happy and refreshed.

On Friday night Riker was a little tired and went to bed early, which meant dinner & a movie for me and Matt. I made our favorite shell-less tacos, and we ate them on TV trays watching Christmas Vacation. It's not the holidays until we watch it!

While grocery shopping this week Matt spotted a new Guy Fieri chipotle salsa he wanted to try, and I'm so glad he picked it up on a whim. This stuff was seriously good and it made the tacos. It was smokey with a kick but not too much heat, so it didn't overpower all the other fillings.

Saturday was a really busy day, jam packed from 7 am until midnight. I mentioned last week that Matt totaled his 4Runner, and our insurance only paid for a rental car until Friday, so we were under the gun to buy a car like, that day. Can't have just one car in this crazy household. We originally had plans to visit family in south Jersey, so we looked up some dealerships in that area and made an appointment down there so we wouldn't have to miss any family festivities. Ambitious, huh? Well, we made it work. We left here at 8:30 on the dot, dropped Riker off at my in-laws' for the morning (they met us down there in the afternoon), and drove the 1.5 hours south to go car shopping. After 4 hours at the dealership - it's never a quick process, as much as I'd love it to be - we drove away in a Chevy Equinox mini SUV. It's definitely smaller than the 4Runner was, but it still has plenty of room for Butters and all our ski equipment and it has waaaay better gas mileage than the big old Toyota.

Side note: It was most definitely the car salesman's idea to take a picture of us in front of the car. I declined multiple times but he insisted. Cheeseball, I know.

Car shopping done, we met up with Matt's extended family in his aunt's town for a little Santa meet & greet for Riker and all his cousins.

Clearly Riker wasn't really into the whole "sit still for a picture" thing.  It took us about 50 tries to get a family shot, and it still came out blurry. :/

We had an early dinner back at his aunt's house before hitting the road again. I didn't snap a pic, but I had a helping (ok, two) of homemade mac and cheese, a bunch of salad and a gingerbread cookie. Yum. All of Matt's cousins were there and it's been a while since we've seen them, so it was fun catching up. It's also so nice that all the kids are old enough to play together on their own now, while us adults hang out in the kitchen doing our thing. Love it!

And thennn we got back in the car for the 1.5 hour drive home, just in time to head out to Seaside for a night out with friends. 

One of our good friends' girlfriends unfortunately had a bout with cancer over the summer, and she's been such a trooper fighting it tooth and nail. She was recently declared cancer-free, so everyone got together for a big celebration. I can't think of many better things to celebrate!

This is the picture on the invitation we got. Tell me this girl isn't amazing. 

Such strength and beauty. You're awesome, Casey!

 ***

Since Saturday was so busy, I was really looking forward to a relaxing Sunday, and it was perfect in every way.

Coffee and homemade banana walnut pancakes for breakfast.

Christmas shopping for all of Riker's presents (my MIL took him for an hour so he wasn't there for the gift choosing), and walking out of Toys 'r Us to this. My love for snow is unreal.

A family lunch with Matt's mom and Missy.

(That would be Riker and my MIL listening for reindeer.)

Wrapping presents and watching Elf while Riker napped, with the snow falling outside.

Playing in the snow and watching Riker's joy as he tried to build a snowman and make snow angels.

And topping it all off with Riker's very first mug of hot chocolate, ever. I loved pulling off all his cold, wet gear, hanging it to dry and then sitting him on the counter to help me make the cocoa. It just seemed like the epitome of parenting, and I remember how much I loved those moments when I was a kid.

It's a wonderful life. <3

***

Time to head upstairs for work now. I hope you had a great weekend!