Family Friday {M's 2nd Birthday}

Yesterday we celebrated the 2nd birthday of our Little M. Already at age 2, M was full of anticipation for the big day and all the special to him treats that were planned. At breakfast, it was pancakes with his very much loved m&ms, whipped cream & berries. 

He fell immediately in love with his new dino "pig-a-bang" and let out several approving "roar, roar, roars".

The next stop was a trip to All Aboard Diner for a birthday lunch via choo choo and a healthy dose of train table time.

 

When the restaurant broke out in song for M's birthday it was almost too much for the little man to take. Thankfully the site of the the vanilla cupcake on the train car was enough to hold off the tears. 

After naps and Belle's return from school, it was time for presents. This year Peanut & Belle both bought & wrapped gifts for their baby brother. 

 A toy key car from Peanut and a "zee-bra" from Belle.

From Mommy & Daddy a new ceramic cup & plate, the complete anthology of Winnie the Pooh, a dino bank and dino stamp set.

Upon opening the mug, he commented "for smoothies" as M is the only one who shares my love of green smoothies for breakfast.

I then attempted a quick photo session and remembered why a good child photographer is worth her weight in gold.

Finally, dinner time rolled around and the much anticipated "dino potty" began. The dining room was decked out for the festivities and we had the opportunity to use the new dining table sitting all 14 of us together to eat the birthday boy's requested dinner of pizza and salad. 

 

When it was time for cake, I added a triceratops to the Busy Bee cake M selected earlier in the day.
To round out the dessert table were the birthday boy's favorites: m&ms, ice cream and cookies.

We wrapped up the night watching M's 2nd year slideshow, opening gifts and enjoying family time. 

A whole hearted thank you to all our family who came to celebrate our baby boy…it meant the world to us. We love you!

Happy Birthday sweet, strong-willed and vibrant M. We are blessed beyond measure to have you in our family!

Want It Wednesday {Got It Edition: New Shutters & Dining Table}

Things have been hectic around here and it is about to get a whole lot crazier as we are less than 24 hours away from the B family birthday extravaganza: all 3 littles' birthdays all within 3 weeks for a grand total of 5 separate celebrations! So please excuse me if my presence is intermittent until mid-March.

We have been making some major progress around these parts. I am thrilled to say that the craigslist Duncan Phyfe dining table I blogged about was a complete home run. As soon as Hubby returned from a business trip, I carted him & the boys off to check out if the deal was too good to be true. And low and behold it was a legit 98" long Duncan Phyfe with a full set of table pads!



We happily handed over $250 and carted this beauty back home.  The photos just don't do the space justice and at this point in my life I have neither the time nor talent to improve them so you all just have to trust me…the table is bananas!(To those of us who are into these things…to everyone else it is just a grandma table that I am thrilled about.)

The second piece of big news is that the office & living room windows now have shutters further solidifying my granny style of decorating. I was adamant about having colonial shutters on these windows despite countless designers telling me otherwise.

In fact, I couldn't even find a local shutter company to make them for me. Plantation shutters, not a problem. But, 1 inch louvered colonial shutters were no where to be found. Until, one last google search turned up these bad boys at Lowes.

I will save you all the run down of what a royal pain these turned out to be. But my heart was set on these, so come hell or high water I was bound to make them work. (Insert gigantic hugs to Bestie H for her Eureka moment when it came to aligning the shutters & to Bestie B for keeping all the positive texts  coming my way during the install).



I am truly **in love** with the look. I will eventually have curtains made to mirror whatever treatment I put in the dining room, but for now there is no rush. It is nice to enjoy every little step and relish my DIY/ Thrifting victories.

I'll be back Friday with a recap of my baby boy's 2nd birthday! I can not believe I just typed those words.

Valentine's Recap

Valentine's day was jam packed for us this year. Peanut headed off to school in PJs in celebration of the 100th day of school and Belle only had a half day. Capitalizing on this opportunity, the **plan** was to do our Valentine's day celebration at lunch.

After school the littles found a kitchen table piled with presents, sweets & heart shaped pizza.

Hubby came back from the bus stop with a giant delivery from the florist. The boys sent Belle & I flowers this year just as Hubby has ever since Belle's first Valentine's day.

After lunch we opened presents. Each kiddo received a pillow envelope with a "ticket" to dinner at the LEGO Movie that evening. To say they were excited is an understatement.

We passed the hours until the movie with Belle's piano lesson, nap and some fun Valentine games. 

Finally it was time to head out to the movie, we were late as usual (does any family of 5 ever run on time?) and got to the theater just in time to purchase the last seats in the theater in the 1st row…deal breaker. Enter change of **plans**. We quickly ran by Chick-fil-A and grabbed milkshakes to lessen the blow of no movie and promised a fun movie night at home. 

Back home, Hubby & I quickly whipped up Shrimp (for Belle) and Chicken (for the boys) Scampi, a salad and fresh bread for a satisfying & simple meal in the dining room. We all snuggled on the couch and enjoyed one of our library movies and thanked our lucky stars for this house full of love. 

And fear not, we had Sunday dinner with the LEGO Movie thanks to seats we secured online *prior* to arriving at the theatre. Lesson learned! Hope you had a memorable Valentine's day with the ones you love.

Want it Wednesday {Dining Room Dreams}

I'm jumping the gun on this one, but I'm just giddy with excitement and can't help myself. After nearly 2 years of searching, I think I've located a dining room table.

The sweetest couple in their 80s has listed this Duncan Phyfe table for sale. When I spoke to the seller on the phone, she mentioned it belonged to her sister and that the sister's townhouse was being sold in March and they needed to get rid of the table asap. Hubby & I have plans to go see it tomorrow morning. If it works out, I'm quite certain I'll need to make some sort of sacrificial offering to the home decor Gods (perhaps some of the girl scout cookies I posted about on instagram last night).

For now, let's just hope for the best and have a look at what I'm envisioning in this potentially new space:

Crossing my fingers things finally work out!