Weekending: It Was All About the Birthday Party

Tee (here)  //  Gap Jeans (here)
Yep, I still have my tin skull banner up... =)

Another great weekend in the books and this one was extra special because it was ALL about our Cruz man. Just like it should be.

{Thursday}

We celebrated his actual birthday with a little Jason's Deli - we are big JD fans around here - and a trip to the toy store where we let C pick out a few gifts. It was one of the most amazing things watching him run through the store from toy to toy. Everything was, "mama, I just gotta have that!"

We settled on a Home Depot drill he had wanted (that or we continue to let him play with our real one and that doesn't seem smart), a Melissa & Doug fishing pole set (turns out it's kind of lame), a racetrack that looked awesome, but was waaaay too advanced (it was age 8+...and basically took up half of our living room so it will be going in the Toys for Tots bin) and this shark boat. We're talking about the boy who is deathly afraid of alligators and sharks...and he picks this out. And hasn't stopped playing with it since. 

I will never understand kids.

{Friday}

Thankfully grandma came to town to hang with little man while I put some of the finishing touches on the party. We had Cruz's room painted this week (more to come on that) and finally put up his Vintage Marquee Lights "C" (via Zulily and the sale on these ends tonight!). I am loving it.

I also took an old shirt he is about to grow out of and ironed on some letters so he had a "firefighter" shirt to wear to the party. I had been eyeing one on Etsy, but to have it personalized it would've cost me $30. This was $5. Even if it was close to being a midriff shirt because it was like a size 24 months. =)

Then I finished some decor in the basement, set up tables & chairs and started on the food. 

And there were these. 

Yep. We made matches with pretzels, almond bark and red sprinkles. It was a lot of time (hence, the mason jar with vino) but I love how they turned out.

{Saturday}

We had loads of family and friends over for his firefighter birthday party. We have taken to making Cruz's birthday a great chance to celebrate not only little man, but also spend the day eating, drinking, watching football and just hanging out with all of the people we love most in the world. It's a win-win in my book. And this boy was in absolute heaven with everyone doting on him. He barely sat down once all day. There was just too much to do and too many people to play with.  And getting him to eat anything other than sweets? That wasn't happening.

Of course he was spoiled with all of the gifts..and now I'm certain we need to buy a bigger house to store them all. He got SO.MUCH.STUFF.  Tractors, cars, a bike, camera, trucks, racetracks, more tractors, Hunter boots (yep - he has a pair & I don't), legos, tools, sports stuff. You name it, I'm sure he got it. 

But good kids get good stuff, right? And he is such a good kid.

A little weird, but a good kid. =)

Him: Gap Jeans (here)  // Me: Shirt (here), Jeans (here), Yellow Fitbit band (here)

More about the party later. There are just too many fun details to share!

{Sunday}

I swear I could've slept in until Tuesday. 

What is it about planning parties and playing hostess that is just so tiring?

My parents and bro/SIL & their kiddos stayed over, helped clean up and got breakfast for us in the morning. Now who's spoiled? And I got to snuggle with this this guy. Hudson is just the best little baby. Nick & I were asked to be his godparents and we couldn't be happier! I mean, seriously those cheeks and that little bald baby head. Love.

After everyone left, Cruz passed out for the majority of the afternoon which allowed me time to get groceries, clean up my closet (the little girls had too much fun trying on all of my shoes), made more chili and meatballs & marinara for my two guys to eat this week while I'm out of town and then it was all about catching up on some work, while Nick & Cruz watched football.

Now we are back to reality.. and the new week. Hoping it's just as good as the weekend!

Of course, linking up with my gal Biana.

Weekend In Pictures

Another great weekend in the books. I am loving this weather and all the fun activities going on in the city. Here is a little snapshot of our weekend.

{Friday}

Morgan & I met up after work for a some outdoor spinning at Village Pointe.  Beautiful weather and people watching, plus it was right outside the Bravo Italian patio, so we had a captive audience. I have to say there were times I would've traded places with them to be enjoying some breadsticks and vino.

After I got home it was time to play, so little man and I made a fort. We spent a good hour in there laying on our pillows reading books and spelling our names in the air with different colored glow sticks.

{Saturday}

Cruz's newest online shopping purchase had arrived the night before, so we had to model his new dinosaur slippers. I love getting new pieces of his fall wardrobe almost daily in the mail. Can you say online shopping addiction?

While he napped, I finally put up our wall collage. Two of the frames house Halloween prints & one his Halloween costume from last year - I will swap these out with each season. Nick calls this our Cruz shrine, but who else would I rather stare at on our walls?

My parents came to town for a couple hours that afternoon, so Cruz and I met them at the St. Patrick's school carnival. He loved it because he got to play games, bounce it out and see Papa, Grandma Dianne and the Lynch's. 

Later that night, we had a big 60th surprise party for Nanu. Suffice it to say he was surprised when he showed up to a basement full of his friends and family. 

The birthday boy and the brothers.  A handsome group if I do say so myself. (Being that I'm married to one, I should say that!)

This mama is not cut out for partying like she used to.

 {Sunday}
We woke up bright and early and headed to the Henry Doorly Zoo for the Zoo Run. It was a gorgeous fall morning and the backdrop made for a great run.

Afterwards we took in some of the sights. Cruz was obsessed with this gorilla who followed him everywhere.

Cruz also seemed to pick up a new phrase this weekend...."how yoouu doin'?" he will ask. We may watch a few too many Friends reruns around here.

We had a really great weekend. How about you?

via

Weekend In Pictures

Another great summer weekend in the books.

I absolutely love Cruz at this age and he continues to amaze me with his growing personality. He is just turning into a little man right before our eyes.

This weekend started a bit early for me, on Friday to be exact. I had the day off work for our Angels Among Us golf outing at Tiburon. Nanny J had to cancel because she was sick, which put me in a bit of a tizzy right off the bat wondering what we were going to do with little man for the day. Thankfully Grandma C saved the day and dropped everything to drive to Omaha and watch C man. (She is so, so good to us.)

While we were waiting for her to get to town, I took Cruz on my morning run. I can't tell you how different it is running while pushing a stroller with a growing 25+ lb boy in it, but he definitely made the 45 minutes breeze by with all of his questions and excitement at the birds, deer and water....except that is when he decided he needed to "iisten" to mama's headphones and stole them for the remainder of the time.

The day only got better from there. This is what I was doing at 11am. Yes, drinking an ice cold beer at 11am on a Friday can only be described as um, well, awesome. (Remind me of this when I get to Saturday and the fact that I was deathly hungover all day at work.)

Our family and friends have helped us put together a couple of teams every year for the tournament since I started on the Angels board almost six years ago and each year we have a kick ass time. This year was no exception.

Tessa's wound from the day

The dream team
L to R: Grammy J, moi, mom & Tessa

We continued to drink our way through 18 holes and by the time we got to the last few holes, our team had grown by 4 more and there may or may not have been some inappropriate "dropping like it's hot" over the cup on the last couple of putting greens. 

The awards banquet was next and our table had the honor of sitting with Colton, one of the kiddos who has been affected by cancer. What an amazing little guy he was. He and I hit it off and were fast friends - having cheese and tomato eating contests and talking about meeting up to play golf sometime soon. I cannot wait to find some time to get together.

Most of the group headed to Shevy's (our favorite little watering hole) afterwards for more cocktails and shenanigans, which resulted in dancing, karaoke'ing and a massive headache on Saturday morning. Nothing a Firehouse sub and an extra large soda couldn't cure.

While I was at work, the hubs played in a softball tournament and little man spent the day with his cousins and Grammy and Nanu - they went out for donuts, checked out the fish at Bass Pro Shops, went to the movie Turbo and then swimming. You can imagine Cruz had a great day.

On Sunday, Cruz and I got up early to check out Gretna Days and our guys playing some softball. These are the days that bring back great memories of my childhood and being schlepped all over northeast Nebraska for my dad's slow-pitch softball games.  I loved running around and playing with my friends back then and couldn't have been happier to see Cruz doing the same yesterday. One of the other guys on the team had a little guy just five days younger than C, and they didn't leave each other's sides.

I can't wait for a couple more of these great weekends while the summer comes to an end. This is exactly what I envisioned when I found out we were having a little boy....well, maybe without the inappropriate dancing on the golf course, but you get the idea.