weekend shenanigans

This weekend came and went in one big flash! I got hardly anything done that I said I was going to do. Basically just cleaned the kitchen floors and did laundry. Oh well. At least there was some productivity, right???

Friday, my boss was out of town, but told my co-workers to take me to lunch for my birthday. We decided on Back Forty Brewery. Because when the company is paying, you order the delicious beers!!! I decided to be good and get a poke bowl…and save my calories for dinner. It was freaking DELICIOUS!!! So surprising for a brewery, really.

I just love the scene of Sloss Furnaces across the street.

Chris had given me a Kitchaid Mixer for my birthday a few weeks ago, but he surprised me with a fit board, two sweet cards and some M&Ms Friday morning. I love that he remembered me saying a few months ago that the fit boards looked fun. He is so thoughtful when selecting gifts. I am happy to report that those M&Ms haven’t even been open yet. I think I will save them for when we have company, and let them eat most of them hahaha.

Chris also surprised me with cookie cake Friday night. We grabbed Moe’s BBQ to eat at home while we binged on Blue Bloods and it was perfect. Zoe enjoyed her cookie after she ate dinner too.

On Saturday morning, we were up and out early to hit up the Bargain Hunt in Hoover and the one on 280. After all that hunting (with nothing found) we decided to have some lunch at Chuy’s. I think we have decided if we can’t sit on the patio there, we will lunch elsewhere. It is so loud inside!!! Buy we managed to have some fun anyways. Zoe and I split some tacos. This girl loves Mexican food. Duh.

On our way back, Chris wanted to go through Moody to go home. Which meant traveling through Leeds and right by the outlets. We popped in Michael Kors real quick and I found the most perfect pair of sunnies 🙂 Zoe was hilarious in there, trying on all the sunglasses and checking herself out in the mirror.

Saturday night, we headed to Publix to pick out some steaks for dinner. Chris chose a NY strip and I grabbed a filet. Delicious!!!

After dinner, we enjoyed some macarons that I picked up from Lette. I cut each one in half and we share them so we can taste allllll the deliciousness!

Sunday morning, Zoe and I headed to Target to get our grocery shopping done. She asked to right in the seated buggies, instead of the regular one. I obliged since they weren’t that crowded. Those carts are no joke trying to maneuver around the store!!! I liked it though, because she has thing about wanting to walk and help push the cart lately. This tricked her into thinking she was helping me push the cart…while keeping her contained. She also finds no problem just making herself right at home at Target, obviously. I am thinking we probably should have picked up those sunglasses for her, they looked so cute!

After nap time, Zoe and I had some fun with bubbles, took a ride in the wagon, and she climbed the front steps making me a nervous wreck too many times to count. And we watched Secret Life of Pets” (or as Zoe calls it “peets”) about five times.

For dinner, I made Whole 30 compliant Chick-Fil-A nuggets with Chick-Fil-A sauce and homemade sweet potato fries. OMG. SOOOOOO GOOD!!!! This is the second time I have made this recipe, and it turns out amazing each time.

It was a fabulous birthday weekend, spent with my wonderful little family. Thank you everyone for the sweet birthday wishes! I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Linking up with Biana.

Hey there friends! I am not even sure what is going on with my life right now. I feel like I am barely floating above water. Work takes up far too much of my days, and when I am home I am trying to spend as much time with Zoe as possible….and get shit done whenever I can spare an extra minute. I felt off all last week. Zoe woke up Monday with a fever, so off to the doctor we went. I guess she just had some sort of virus that hung around for a few days. Monday was supposed to be her first day of school for this year, and I hate that she missed it. I stayed home with her Tuesday as well….and we were back to reality on Wednesday. She was so cute for her “first day” picture.

I kicked off my weekend with a trip to Trader Joe’s to grab a few things, and stumbled upon this Smoked Salmon Poke Bowl. OMG!!! It was only $5.99 and it was so fresh and delicious! I cant wait to go back and get another one ASAP. I checked on Weight Watchers, and it is only 7 points for the entire bowl, so really not a bad way to spend lunch!

Saturday morning, my sister and her crew were over at our house bright and early to help us do a few things around the house. Words cannot describe the gratitude and appreciate I have for their time and hard work. My BIL spent several hours on a VERY tall ladder painting our foyer area mostly by himself. It looks SOOOOO good now that it is all done! I got a lot of boxes packed up (home decor and stuff from our guest room) while my sister and the boys hung out with Zoe. I feel like we really knocked a lot off our to-do list with them. And Zoe absolutely adores my sister and had so much fun playing with her and the boys. She cried every time my sister left the room and it was hard for her to wave good bye as they drove off in the late afternoon.

In order to get to the very top of the wall over our stairs, we had to use this handy little paint brush holder contraption. It was pretty cool watching my BIL do it so patiently and perfect!

To thank them for their time, I made sure we had lots of snacks available! I had gotten some dips and other fun things at Trader Joe’s, and Chris went out and got Landmark BBQ and brought it back for everyone. This Spinach Kale dip from TJ’s is low in calories and only 1 WW point per serving. It was seriously SO GOOD and everyone liked it better than the much higher in calorie sour cream spinach dip. Get you some!

Also not to be missed, is the caramelized onion and feta cheese pastry puffs. These things were divine! As Zoe said, mo peas!

Other weekend things included getting rid of a trash bag full of stuff from the master bathroom and two trash bags out of our bedroom. Why do we have so much shit??? All the cabinets in the kitchen were organized, cleaned and purged. The pantry was half way cleaned, I will get to the rest of it some time this week. The guest hall linen closet and laundry room were re-organized. Now we have the big stuff left…like tackling the garage and moving stuff to a storage unit. Fun times.

Zoe and I made a Target run Sunday morning and ran into two daycare friends there. Funny how we all end up at the same place at the same time. When we got home, Chris was laid out on the couch with a really high fever. 🙁 He was miserable all day yesterday and staying  home from work today. I hate to see him down. And I also hope that whatever he has doesn’t spread to the rest of us! It doesn’t look like much fun. This week I am just going to focus on knocking out as much as I can a  work during the day, and doing all the cleaning that didn’t happen this weekend a little at a time each night this week. I really hope to clear out the guest room and paint it next weekend. Right now that room is full of all the boxes I packed, and a bunch of other stuff!

I hope you all have a great week! Linking up with Biana. 

It sort of feels like we only  have one last weekend of summer left, since school will be back in session next week! Though, we know the summer weather will hang around well in to at least October here. It has gone so fast! Just like this past weekend did, right?

We started deep cleaning our house Saturday during Zoe’s nap. We tackled the master bathroom, and Chris was a huge help going deep with some bleach. Then, I went through all of my dresser drawers and part of the closet…trying on and getting rid of a huge stack of clothes. When Zoe woke up, her and I headed to Pubix to grab some steaks and sides since “Uncle J” was coming to visit and watch Tomorrowland with us. Look at this deliciousness!

Zoe had so much fun riding around in the car cart at Publix and eating her sugar cookie. Probably a little too much fun, as she kept demanding that I “go” anytime I would pause to get something off a shelf. Got to love toddlerhood, right?

Sunday morning after breakfast we all headed out to do our grocery shopping at Target for the week. When we got home, Zoe had her lunch and went down for naptime. As soon as her head hit the pillow, I finished my clothing purge and cooked up a yummy lunch for Chris and I. The rest of the day was spent hanging around the house and bubbles outside. Always bubbles outside. In the ridiculous heat. She is lucky she is cute.

Last night we made some flatbread pizza’s with the low carb high protein flatout wraps and watched Blue Bloods. And now here we are, back to reality today. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Linking up with Biana.

As I was driving in this morning, I was thinking about how we really only have about two weeks left before school traffic starts back up. That is insanity! It also makes me realize I need to get my life back together again so that I can make extra time for all the madness again. Also, when I dropped Zoe off at school this morning, she saw one of the older boys who used to be in her class walking in and so she looked at me and said, “No mommy. Walk.” A little piece inside me died. She is such a big girl these days. So much so, I ordered her a toddler pillow…and…*gulp*…a potty. Cue the tears.

I kicked the weekend off Friday with lunch at Urban Cookhouse with my old Friday Lunch Club. It had been far too long and was wonderful seeing them again.

Friday evening, we stopped by Chris’s parents house for a little bit. On the way home, we grabbed some Publix sushi and I stayed up late trying to get some cleaning done around the house after we got Zoe to bed.

Saturday morning, Zoe and I hit up Target and Publix super early to get snacks and some play-doh for our fun day planned with Laura and her crew! She got to ride in the fun car cart at Publix and was loving every second of it.

We also picked up a stuffed Bingo to go with her Rolly, who she has to carry around everywhere.

I just barely beat Laura back to my house. They were coming over to hang out and watch Tomorrowland with us. Which obviously needs to be an annual thing for them to come over now, because we had so much fun!!!! The kids played together so well! They went down for naps shortly after they got there, so Laura and I made some Frose and enjoyed some jams downstairs with the guys. My one glass may or may not had me feeling pretty damn buzzed.

When the kids woke up, we got them a snack and brought them downstairs to dance it out. They loved it so much!!! Chris had it on our projector, and he had his old DJ lights set up. It was like we were right there at the festival!

Laura and I decided that we worked up enough of a sweat dancing around with the kiddos, and headed upstairs to let them watch Boss Baby. Look at these two!!! Poor Sheffy. He just wanted to watch the movie….and Zoe kept trying to talk and bother him. Just like how Laura and I are with Chris and B. Then she gave up and put her head on his shoulder. We are saving these pictures for them to look back on when they are married. Because that is obviously going to happen.

We had such a great time! We even got to introduce them to our favorite local BBQ place! And then proceeded to snack on that BBQ the rest of the weekend because someone ordered way too much!

Sunday morning, my sister came over with one of my nephews and we all went grocery shopping together. It was nice having her at Target with me so that Zoe had some entertainment and I could get everything we needed without making her sit back down in the cart and threatening her life every five seconds. Seriously, why do kids have to do that???? Zoe was on a mission in the toy section to collect as many balls as she could. Somehow I managed to escape only having to purchase the one.

We stopped and got Zoe some new shoes while we were out too. First pair of Nikes! Baby Nikes are the cutest thing ever.

Tracy brought Zoe a Puppy Dog Pals book with all the characters from the show, and she had so much fun playing with them!

After nap time, Zoe was ready for some bubbles so we headed outside. Of course, she had to chose the largest bow possible for her hair before going out. It lasted about 5 minutes.

Last night, we had some BBQ with a spinach salad and watched some Blue Bloods, calling it quits pretty early.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Linking up with Biana.