Our Weekend - The One with Brian’s and Olivia’s Birthday Celebrations

We had a busy weekend with lots of celebrating so let’s get right to the recap!

Friday B took a half day at work, so we picked the kids up from school together and then spent a quiet afternoon at home.  We headed downtown in the early evening to grab dinner at our favorite Brew Pub and then we walked around downtown for a bit before stopping to get ice cream.  The weather was perfection, so we wanted to soak it all up since we’ve been stuck inside from lots of rain. 

We have several murals downtown now and the kids always love to stop and take pictures at them like I do.  Well, their favorite one is actually not even technically supposed to be there because it’s just graffiti but we stopped to take a picture by it anyway.  Lol. 

B and I ended the evening with A Star is Born and I bawled most of the way through the end.  What a fantastic movie!  If you haven’t seen it already, do see it!

Saturday morning my SIL dropped my niece and nephew off at our house so we could watch them for the day.  We made some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and then headed outside because the day was warm and not rainy for once.  The sun wasn’t exactly out either, but we were just relieved to be getting some fresh air. 

The kids did sidewalk chalk and played with bubbles in the back yard while I fed and played with Chyler on the back porch.  After a good hour and a half outside, we all came back in and Chyler got in a little nap while Jacob, Olivia, and Tucker watched The Lion King. 

Chyler's nap was pretty short and when she woke up it was time to eat and play some more!  Olivia asked to feed her and my heart just burst into a million pieces.  She was tired after about two minutes and then I took over.

We had plans to go to an afternoon dinner with my father-in-law to celebrate Brian and Olivia’s birthdays so the hour leading up to leaving was spent getting our two kiddos ready, feeding the baby, getting Tucker ready, changing diapers, packing a diaper bag (for the first time in years!), and getting everyone loaded up.

We headed to one of our favorite Mexican places for dinner and B and I walked up in there with four kids under the age of seven – a 7.5 year old, a 5 year old, a 2.5 year old, and a 4 month old.  Lol.  It was a recipe for disaster since B and I were so incredibly outnumbered, but I was pleasantly surprised that everything went great!  Everyone behaved, Chyler played happily in her car seat for a lot of the time, and it was a good evening.

After dinner we headed back to my father-in-law’s house to have cake and open presents and we spent the rest of the evening there.  My SIL and her family who live a couple of hours away from us were supposed to be coming in town to celebrate with us, but my nephew has the flu (EEK!) so they obviously didn’t come.  And my other SIL and her family had a baseball game get moved so they couldn’t come either.  Bummer.  It was a great night celebrating two of my favorites, though!  And there was cookie cake… you just can’t go wrong with that.  ;o)

My SIL picked the two kiddos up later that evening and I have to say, I was not nearly as exhausted as I thought I’d be after watching four small kids all day.  It went pretty well!  Time to have another one!  #Totally100PercentKidding

Sunday morning Olivia got all dressed up in her birthday outfit (again) and we took her five year old chalkboard pictures.  After her pictures were done, I had B snap a few of us together since I'm rarely in pictures because I'm always the one taking them.  ;o)

Sunday afternoon we were off to my MIL and step-FIL’s to celebrate B and our girl again and they cooked a spread of all of our favorite things for the birthday peeps – cheesy chicken, mashed potatoes, fried okra, pineapple casserole, scalloped corn, and homemade bread – and then we had another cookie cake (Olivia’s request) and she and B opened their gifts. 

The day was beautiful – warm-ish and sunny!!!! – so we spent a good long time in the back yard at Nana and Poppie’s before heading home for a bit to rest before heading to Pop and Cokie’s (my parents’ house) for Sunday dinner.

Momma made spaghetti per B’s request and then we had Olivia’s unicorn birthday cake that I had ordered from our favorite bakery.  They did a fabulous job and she loved it so much!

B and I ended the evening putting together Olivia’s bicycle (her birthday gift from us) and watching the Oscars.  The bicycle took FOR-EH-VURRRR to put together, but at least there was something good on TV!  Did y’all see the performance by Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga?!  OMG so good.  I got all the chills!

Monday was Olivia’s actual birthday, but it was pretty much business as usual since it was a work/school day.  She had ballet after school and then Jacob had soccer practice after ballet, but she did get to pick dinner (Mexican), open her gifts from us, and eat a giant piece of cookie cake one more time.  #AllTheCelebrations

At the Mexican restaurant, Jacob said, "Mommy, it's Olivia's birthday!  That means they could put the hat on her and sing to her!"  So we asked her if she wanted them to do that and she said, "Yes."  

When they came out singing to her she acted like she didn't know what to do, though, even though she'd seen it happen to other people a thousand times.  She looked like a deer in the headlights.  Haha.

Happy Tuesday, y’all!