Our sweet Emma is TWO! I can hardly believe it. I'm way more emotional than I thought I'd be about all this, and I have a ton of sappy mama stuff I want to say to her, but I'll save all that for this month's letter post in a couple of days. For now I'll just leave you with this look back...
Lucky me. :)
How's that for a post title? This past weekend was Jared's birthday weekend and we were supposed to go to the cabin for a long weekend. That is until Emma came down with a nasty stomach bug at school on Thursday and was a total heartbreakingly sick mess the rest of the day. Our friends that were meeting us at the cabin also have little ones, and everyone agreed that it was too risky to have us all cooped up in a cabin together (without running water), so the cabin trip was scrapped. To say Jared was bummed would be an understatement. He'd been looking forward to this trip for months! I promised I would try to salvage his birthday, so we planned a day trip to Annapolis for Saturday afternoon. Now, Emma gets pretty restless if she's stuck in the car for more than half an hour, and it takes a little over an hour to get to Annapolis - so the car ride was less than stellar. But I was still optimistic the rest of the day would be okay. The sun was shining, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, the weather was perfect... except it was freezing cold and our dear daughter happened to be at the tail end of an "I don't want to wear my mittens!" phase. She also happens to be in an "I want to walk on my own but I don't want to hold your hand" phase. Ahhh, life with a toddler. 98% of the time, Emma is a truly awesome and great kid... but that 2% she's not is pretty dang miserable for all involved. We were quite the spectacle walking around the Naval Academy with our half frozen baby being carried against her will. Yep - we were those parents. Did I mention it was Jared's birthday? Yeah.
I will say that Bancroft Hall was really impressive (just a little fancier than my dorm at MSU) and Memorial Hall was somber and powerful. (Thanks for the recommendation, Jill!)
After touring the Academy, we made our way over to the shops and restaurants of historic Annapolis. Emma was still pretty miserable at this point, so we made a stop for something sweet and to warm our bones a bit. Things started to pick up after that, and before we headed to dinner at Joss Sushi (heads up if you go there that they don't have high chairs or booster seats, but are otherwise family friendly) we stopped into an oil and vinegar shop called Seasons. Jared and I are pretty big fans of anything balsamic, and had a field day tasting all the different flavors. We walked out with an 18 year aged Balsamic, an amazing Black Cherry Balsamic, and a Tuscan herb infused olive oil. It was kind of the highlight of our whole day, and we spent a good part of Sunday planning out how we would use our new purchases at dinner that night.
We decided on homemade Focaccia bread to accompany a simple roast chicken dinner, and for dessert - ohhhhh, this dessert... vanilla ice cream topped with fresh cherries cooked in a black cherry balsamic reduction. It was heavenly. HEAVENLY. My mouth is still watering looking at the picture.
So, all in all, Jared's birthday was still kind of a bust... but Emma has worn her mittens every day since Saturday, and we had some seriously kickass food on Sunday night thanks to our Seasons haul. And there's always next year.
This past Sunday was my sweet nephew's 1st birthday, and I was so excited to do the decorations for his party. Zachary looooves monkeys so my sister naturally went with a monkey theme. I busted out my Silhouette and got to work...
Our super talented cousin Emily made all the baked goods, and I added the name cards, wrappers, and toppers. I purchased a set of monkey clip art for the graphics and custom Silhouette shapes. I used the leftover dots from cutting the cupcake wrappers as confetti.
I got this super tall palm tree from Party City to display photos from Zach's first year. The bananas are a Silhouette shape and I used the Xyron to make them into stickers.
Happy Birthday, Zachary!!! :-)
PS... I'm trying out some new photo layouts from Pugly Pixel, and really liking them. The best part is they're FREE! Gotta love the Internet.
Jared's 33rd birthday was a few weeks ago, and it was one of the best days we've had as a family in a long time. We decided to take it as a vacation day, keep Emma home from daycare, and just spend the day together. Little did Jared know that I'd planned out the whole day, and filled it with his very favorite foods. I also stayed up late the night before to decorate the house. Because every 33 year old guy needs a birthday banner. (Which I made with the amazing Silhouette Cameo he gave me for Christmas. Seriously, you need to get one.)
First up on the menu was bacon (of course) and homemade strawberry Pop Tarts. The bacon was delicious, as always, but the real hit was the Pop Tarts. They were sinfully good. (Definitely a special occasion breakfast, totally inappropriate for every day.) I would normally think to make this sort of thing with puff pastry, but this recipe called for refrigerated pie crust, which worked perfectly. It's the frosting that really takes them over the edge, though. They'd be a great weekend breakfast sans frosting, but what fun would that be?
Up next was Jared's guilty pleasure - Stove Top. The man could easily eat a whole box on his own, but thankfully I didn't have to witness that this birthday. I must say, it was a little strange having stuffing on a day other than Thanksgiving, but the processed goodness that is Stove Top didn't disappoint.
That afternoon we caught the "mommy and me" showing of The Muppets at the Kennedy School, where Jared got to enjoy his all time favorite snack food: movie theater popcorn with lots of butter. The Kennedy School is great because they have couches instead of theater seats, and the couches are far enough apart that we could set a blanket down in front of us and let Emma play while we watched the movie. Everybody wins.
For dinner, I went all out and made something I'd pinned for Jared many months ago - Chicken Parmesan Casserole. Jared has his own chicken parm recipe, but this claimed to be the end of regular chicken parm as we know it, and it absolutely lived up to the hype. Trust me on this one... just make it. As long as you have taste buds and like Italian food, you will not be disappointed.
And last but not least, we had Jared's favorite cupcakes for dessert - yellow box cake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles. In the age of fancy cupcakes with filling and piped frosting, there's something so wonderfully simple and nostalgic about these cupcakes.
And there you have it... 33 with a bang. Okay, not a bang - but a whole lot of yummy food and hopefully a great day for my better half (truly) and the best guy I know. :-) If you're trying to figure out something to do for your significant other's birthday this year, I highly recommend the whole playing hooky eating all your favorite foods approach. Jared ended up feeling special the whole day, not just when he opened his present, which is exactly what I wanted (and what he deserved!)