New Furniture!

I don't have time to write a really long post, but I did want to let you all know that we've purchased new furniture that we'll have in our front room on Tuesday! We were only shopping for a sectional, but we ended up finding a pretty good deal for a set that included a sectional and a swivel chair that we pretty much fell in love with, so we had to do it.

Would you look at that chair?! I can't wait to get lost in it. And here's a photo of the couch:

There's Jamers contemplating pricing. We bought the set from Value City and can't wait to see how it all looks in the nearly complete room! It's finally all coming together.


After furniture shopping, we went to celebrate two of my sister's birthdays. Ashley turned 11 and Stephanie turned 7. Where has time gone? So we hung out with the family for a while and watched the girls open their gifts.

I can't wait to see Steph in that dress. She'll look adorable!


Last night the HR department went out for Kate's birthday and we had a fabulous time! We started at Kilroy's then headed to Cadillac Ranch to dance the night away.

I love my co-workers! 


Today I took it easy and spent the majority of the day at the pool with my mom, just relaxing and catching up. I've been so busy this summer that I've had very little time to go to the pool and I really enjoyed it, expect for the fact that there were a ton of bees! But at least the weather was bearable and the water felt awesome.


For dinner tonight, Jamers and I tried something new: Avocado & Egg Pitas

Recipe (makes 4 pitas)

-1 avocado

-4 T of chickpeas

-pinch of cumin

-salt & pepper

-4 eggs

-4 whole wheat pita pockets

-cilantro, chopped

-lime juice

All you do is mash the avocado and chickpeas together and season with cumin, S&P. Meanwhile, hard boil the eggs, then peel and slice them. Then you just divide the avocado mixture among the four pitas and top with some of the hard boiled egg. Add a little cilantro and lime juice to each pita and you're done!

These were super easy and tasted pretty good! Each pita packed a lot of protein from the eggs and beans, so after eating two each we were pretty satisfied.

Now off to finish the weekend with a little TV-watching and getting ready for the week.

Until next time!

A Day of Celebrations

I'm so glad it is finally the weekend! I'll start by saying I completely over-indulged today and my tummy is paying for it now, but I will get to that more in a moment.


Backing up to yesterday, I started my morning with a whole wheat bagel thin topped with strawberry jelly and a side of banana slices. This breakfast was definitely on the sweeter side, but it did a nice job of filling me up regardless.

For lunch I finished off the chicken salad I made on Tuesday along with some celery sticks and fat free ranch dressing. 


The day kind of escaped me without doing a workout class, so Brooke and I decided to do a brisk walk to the Circle and back. While we did stop to enjoy ice cream cones at South Bend Chocolate Co., we felt it was justified due to the fact that we committed ourselves to walking in the extreme heat. I can't be for sure, but I'd be willing to say we sweated off the calories from the ice cream and then some. Or at least broke even?! ;-)


Last night for dinner I made the Greek Chicken Satay I meant to make on Wednesday. This is the second time this week that I've used our grill pan, and I'm slowly getting the hang of it. I still kind of burnt the chicken and I can't get the smell of it out of our house, but all and all the dish was pretty tasty.

I made couscous and put the chicken on top of it along with some feta and lemon juice. The chicken was marinated in a mixture of Greek yogurt, ranch dressing and chopped dill. I mixed extra marinade into the overall dish, too.


Today's breakfast was just quick oats and a banana, but since tomorrow is Kate's birthday, we all went out for lunch, and lo and behold, we had Greek food at Santorini's Greek Kitchen. It really didn't phase me to eat Greek food two days in a row since I'm such a HUGE fan of it!


We started by ordering one of the restaurant's best known dishes, the saganaki, also known as their famous 'flaming cheese' which is goat cheese that they light on fire (at  your table!) and everyone yells 'Opa!' Quite fun.

Ha, okay that picture makes it look as though there is just a random fire happening, but the other server is behind that pole. 


For my lunch I ordered one of my favorite foods, hummus! I got the small plate along with a bowl of Avgolemeno soup - this was a lemon-based soup with eggs, chicken, broth and orzo in it. Everything was delicious.

The whole group had a great time at Round 1 of Kate's birthday. We're all pumped to go out tomorrow for the real shenanigans! 

So, when we got back to work, we not only celebrated Kate's birthday with angel food cake with whipped cream topping and bananas, but we (somewhat sadly) also celebrated Brooke's last day in the HR department. She is staying with the company but moving to another part of the company and we're going to miss her SO much! :(


The artist of our group, Karlee, painted a canvas for Brooke that contained a 'Cuppie' tree. In HR we refer to cupcakes as 'cuppies'. 


We all signed a branch and called it her 'HR Family Tree.'

We also gave her a card and each wrote a favorite Brooke memory that Kate read aloud to her. There were definitely some tears but overall we're very happy for her and proud of her for being brave and trying new things!


So, of course we also had cuppies to enjoy and I made some guacamole. I didn't think anyone would eat it after being so full from lunch, but the bowl was practically licked clean, which made me pretty happy!

Guacamole Recipe

-3 avocados, seeded and mashed

-1 tomato, chopped

-1/2 of a red onion, finely chopped

-1 jalapeno, finely chopped

-small to medium handful of cilantro, chopped

-1 T. of kosher salt

-a generous squirt of lime juice

Just mix it all together and enjoy with your favorite tortilla chips!

So now you can see how I over-indulged today. I actually didn't eat any of the angel food cake, but that doesn't really make it much better. I think I'm going to have little-to-no dinner tonight, which I realize is bad, but my tummy is hurting! Oh well, I will get back on the wagon tomorrow.

Until next time.

Good Eats

Good evening!


I have come to the conclusion that Tuesdays are not my day to blog. I don't know why, but they seem to be my worst day of the week. I think it's because on Mondays I'm well rested from the weekend and ready to tackle the week. Wednesday is hump day which typically means hump day treats, and that's always enough to make it a good day. Thursday means the the weekend is just around the corner and Friday, well...Friday is Friday! 


Yesterday started with me promptly spilling coffee all over my shirt which resulted in me having to wear my 'super stylish' gym clothes all day. It did not make for a good beginning of my day! Luckily, I work for a company where wearing gym clothes is acceptable (and more importantly, I was lucky to have gym clothes on hand to wear,) but I hate looking sloppy and unprofessional for the entire day!


But the main reason I didn't get a chance to write yesterday was because Jamers had to work most of the evening, which meant I did not have access to the computer!


So today I'm back in action, and so are my overnight oats! I've had them for breakfast the last two days in a row, and oh how I've missed them.

I shared the recipe with a co-worker today, and she is looking forward to making them, too!


Karlee and I did Zumba during lunch today, and it was SO much fun! Our instructor, Jenny Anchondo, brought her mom to class and we all had a blast! In fact, her mom said we were the most fun Zumba group she had ever been a part of! We were good and sweaty by the end of the hour, but the good news is that Kar and I have our dance moves down pat for when we all go out this weekend for Kate's birthday. (Stay tuned for that!)


Last night I made a big batch of chicken salad for Jamers and me to bring for lunch the rest of the week. I love making this in the spring/summer months because it's SO refreshing. 

Chicken Salad Recipe

2 cans of cooked chicken, shredded

1 stalk of celery, chopped

1/2 bunch of green onions, chopped

1 apple, chopped

2 C red grapes, halved

1 1/2 C of pecans, chopped

1 C of olive oil mayo

1 T of curry

Mix everything together, and serve on toast or with your favorite crackers!

Voila! Lunch was delicious. I ate it with a side of chips and homemade salsa from a recipe I found here on Pinterest. Seriously. Make this salsa today! You won't regret it.

I came home and started dinner thinking I was going to make Chicken Satay with a Ranch-Greek yogurt sauce but I realized it had to marinate it for several hours so I got it marinating and instead decided to make some Chicken & Red Bean Gumbo.

I had a recipe to follow from one of Sandra Lee's cookbooks, (I'm slightly obsessed with this woman. Yes, I realize it's extremely weird!) but I ended up just kind of throwing things together with my sous chef, Jamieson. :-)

Here's were the basic ingredients:

I cooked the red beans and rice separately from the chicken, kidney beans, diced tomatoes and chicken broth. Then I mixed it all together and served it with warm, crusty bread.

It actually turned out quite well for basically having thrown it together!

I can't believe tomorrow is already Thursday! This week is flying by and before you know it, the weekend will be upon us. Hooray!

Until next time.

New Carpet & A Special Birthday Gift

Hi, everyone!

It's a very happy day in our household, as we finally have new carpet in our front room and dining room! This may not seem like a big deal to most, but after dealing with awful, dirty white carpet for almost three years, this is quite the event. 

As you can see, Andy was pretty excited himself. I don't know if his excitement stemmed more from the new carpet or from the fact that the carpet installers were gone and he was no longer locked in the bedroom wimping.

Call me weird, but I am really looking forward to being able to see vacuum lines again - they are oh so gratifying!

Breakfast today was nothing special. Oatmeal, banana and coffee. Tomorrow I am finally bringing back the overnight oats! I've missed them.

At lunch I did Pilates class and it felt great. Tammi continued with more back strengthening today, which I really appreciated. I love leaving that class good and sweaty - never fails.

When it was time to actually eat lunch, I finally finished up the Greek Spaghetti & Meatballs from last week's post, which was really just orzo and marinara at this point because Jamers had eaten all of the meatballs. I ate a side salad as well as cottage cheese and a fruit medley.

After coming home and enjoying the carpet a bit more, I got to work on dinner. I threw together a dish I thought would deliver on both flavor and crunch. It doesn't really have a name because I've never made it before, but it was just Johnsonville Apple Chicken Sausage with brown rice and grilled veggies.

The veggies included both red and green peppers, red onion, zucchini and squash. All I used to season them was EVOO and S & P. I used an indoor grill pan on all of the ingredients (aside from the rice, of course) to get tasty grill lines like this:

 

I mixed it all together and this is what I got:

Are you drooling yet? Because you should be! This, along with a couple pieces of baguette bread, made a perfectly pro-portioned meal. Jamers devoured his after his softball game!

So, I think I may or may not have mentioned recently that Jamieson will be turning the big 3-0 in a couple of weeks (August 5th!) so I surprised him tonight with a special gift. My husband is originally from Toledo, OH, which means he is a big Detroit Tigers fan, so I got us tickets to a game on August 4th! I have never been to Comerica Park myself, and I know Jamers is always down for a good ball game (esp. when it's the Tigers!), so I thought, why not?! He seemed pretty pleased with the gift. :-)

Hooray for surprises and weekend 'get-a-ways!'

Until next time.

Carpet is gone

The remodeling of our front room continued today with ripping up the carpet and padding as well as painting the trim and front door. Thankfully, Jamieson's parents were so kind as to come down from Toledo to assist us with the work!

It was not pretty underneath, and now we have nothing but concrete in our front room and dining area until the carpet is installed on Monday. In the meantime all of our furniture is being housed in the garage and Jamieson has a truck load of disgusting, 20-year old carpet to haul off. 

Ah, the life of do-it-yourselfers. :-)


Our trim and door look awesome. Instead of dingy, smokers' off-white (which is weird because the previous owners did not smoke,) we now have a crisp, fresh coat of stark white paint that makes a huge difference and completely lights up the room!


Andy was as confused as he always is when we're doing projects. But he did enjoy the cool concrete floor in the heat of the summer.

Speaking of Andy, the poor little guy seems to have something wrong with his left ear. When I pet him of the side of his head earlier, he yelped really loud and then would not let any of us touch his ear without crying. :-( We'll have to get him in to see the vet in the next couple of days. I can't imagine what is wrong, but I just hate to see my precious boy in pain!


After we were done working for the day, Jamers and I took his parents out to dinner at Chatham Tap. We were also celebrating my father-in-law's birthday! The weather was actually quite nice today, and not the unbearable humidity we've had for the last few weeks, so we ate on their patio and had a great time!

Of course we all had to share an order of their amazing fried pickles, and I opted for the Smoked Gouda Apple Melt with fries. Everything was wonderful.

Then we went home and had German Chocolate Cake to celebrate both Duane and Jamieson's birthday. Jamers turns the big 3-0 in two weeks! I can hardly believe it.


Well, after a hard day of work, we're enjoying some R&R on the couch, so until next time!

It's the Freakin' Weekend!

Welcome to the weekend, folks! I think I read this somewhere on Pinterest, (where else?) but isn't cruel how Monday is so far away from Friday, but then Friday is so terribly close to Monday?! Oh well, it doesn't keep me from being excited every single Friday, this one included. 


I realize I'm a bit behind on my posts. Yesterday was a busy day that didn't end until close to midnight and, sadly, left very little time for writing. Backing up to dinner on Wednesday, we ate a beautiful meal that consisted of an Italian dish with a Greek twist, Greek Spaghetti and Meatballs! 

One would think there was a special occasion going on at our house with that table setting, but it was just your typical Wednesday evening! The dish was made with lamb meatballs and orzo as opposed to the usual meal and pasta used in spaghetti and meatballs. As you can see to the far left, Jamers and I buy feta cheese in bulk Costco and use it in practically everything we eat...

There is really no reason for the above photo, other than to showcase the cuteness that is my husband!


In traditional Jamieson fashion, there was enough food to feed an army which meant there were plenty of leftovers, including some for my good friend, Rob. :-)


For those who read the blog and may not know Rob, I feel I should explain why I am constantly bringing lunch to this person. Rob is one of my co-workers, (more importantly, one of my good friends) who never eats unless food is brought to him. He's one of two men in our ~10 people HR department, and all of us girls are constantly getting after him for not eating lunch. So I decided to take some action by just bringing his lunch to him (sometimes), and low and behold, it works! 


Anyway, on Thursday I finally got back into a fitness routine, thank goodness!


I began the day with my 'Elvis' special, PB & B on a bagel thin. A Tabby-pleaser as per usual!

The quality of some of my photos are quite poor, my apologies. Sadly, this girl is not getting a new phone anytime very soon. Apparently I need to believe the rumors of an iPhone 5 coming out soon and just hold out for that. C'est la vie.


I went back to Boot Camp yesterday, despite the back problems it caused me last week. Warm ups were outside and it was not pleasant. I'm not going to lie and said I gave 100%, but at least I finished class this week. We did stations again, and I'll admit that I had to lower my weight on some of the stations. For example, the leg press had 180 lbs on it, which I can usually do, but I cut that in half yesterday. The pain just isn't worth it!


I'm actually looking into restructuring my workout plan and I'd ultimately like to get to a point where I can get up and workout in the morning before going to work. That is a huge commitment that I've never really been ready for, and I'm still not ready but Jamers and I have definitely discussed the idea. I just think it would be a good start to the day and I'd love to not spend my afternoon in the office looking like a sweaty mess. But, hey. That's why we have a gym where we work, right?


Anyway, after Boot Camp I was hungry as always and I was rather pumped for my tuna salad lunch with Triscuits and (duh!) black grapes!

A big YUM. 


After work I went to my friend Jackie's house to finally see her new baby girl, Isabella, who was born on May 17th (my mom's birthday!) We spent some time catching up and chatting, and since I was in the area, I stopped at Yats to get dinner for Jamieson and me. 


For those who live in Indy and haven't dined at Yats, you're missing out to say the least. They serve Cajun Creole awesomeness that is perfect on nights like last night when we FINALLY got a big thunderstorm and were in need of a little comfort food!

I realize my plate looks like cafeteria slop, (ha!) but that divine cuisine is actually Chili Cheese Etouffee with crawfish. Plus, their bread cannot be beat. I don't even know what they do to that freaking bread that makes it so good, but it is heaven. 


So that takes us up to today, FRIDAY! My breakfast was boring: Quaker Quick Oats with a banana. But the exciting part was that I failed to set our coffee pot timer at home and I was in such a hurry that I didn't have time to wait for it to brew...sooooo, I stopped at Starbucks!


This is a true treat for me, as I generally can't justify spending $4 on a cup of Joe but desperate times call for desperate measures!

I treated myself to a Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte and I enjoyed every last drop! 


Pilates was on the schedule for today's fitness class, and it was great! Tammi, our instructor, has been incorporating a lot of back strengthening exercises in the last couple of weeks and her timing couldn't be better for me, for obvious reasons.


When I got done working out I ate some of the leftover Greek spaghetti and meatballs for lunch, along with some cottage cheese and a tomato. For whatever reason I forgot to take a picture.


Tonight was fun because we had our friends, Ashley and Kurt over for a calzone dinner from Puccinis. They had an exterminator coming out to their house so they, along with their two dogs, had to be out of the house for a couple of hours. What better excuse for them to come over to play for a bit? It was good to catch up and watch their dogs and Andy act ridiculous. 


So, now we're in full-fledged weekend mode. Relaxing with a couple of cocktails and watching the Tigers game/blogging. I hope all of you are enjoying the start of your weekends!

Until next time.

Mid Week Blues Turn into Weekend 'Woo-Hoo's!'

My apologies for the lack of writing lately. Quite honestly, I've been in a little bit of a funk and I promised myself I'd never blog in a bad mood, because who wants to read about that?!

Today I am doing a little better so I thought I'd catch everyone up to speed.

On both Tuesday and Wednesday I was lazy and had Quaker Oats Quick Oats for breakfast. For whatever reason I have been going to bed too late this week and I've been super tired in the mornings, so a big cup of coffee has been the absolute perfect component to my oatmeal!

Sorry the picture is sideways. Oh the life of an i-Phone 3 owner - whoa is me!

Anyway, I always top my oatmeal with fresh cut fruit -- whatever I have on hand will work, but bananas are my favorite because they fill me up the best!

In Monday's post, I mentioned that I would be creating a 'Part 2' recipe with the shrimp that remained from our Cajun Shrimp Poboys. Lunch on Tuesday was my Cajun Shrimp Avocado Salad creation.

As you can probably tell in the short time I've written this blog, I absolutely love salad, but I am always looking for new ways to jazz it up. What better way to add a little pizzazz than with some shrimp?! Along with the seasoned shrimp and diced avocado, I also added chopped tomatoes and sliced red onion with oil and vinegar dressing. Since I've been on a black grapes kick, that was my side dish. YUM!

Jamers and I were bad last night. We went to La Hacienda for dinner because we had a coupon and because I was feeling sorry for myself and didn't want to cook. (It happens!) This is pretty much our favorite Mexican restaurant and we frequent it on pretty much a weekly basis. Jamers can attest to the fact that they have the most amazing red sauce in Indy!

Moving on to today, the highlight of my day was going to lunch with my three wonderful aunts and my little cousin, Amelia! If I haven't already mentioned it a time or two, she is pretty much the cutest thing on two legs.

Would you look at that face and those big brown eyes?! Plus who doesn't love a toddler with temporary tattoos? She is just a hoot. 

The five of us dined at Sahm's Tavern. Our table consisted of four salads and an order of French fries. One guess as to who had the fries. :-)

I opted for the salad lunch special, which was grilled chicken, red & green apples, almonds, red onion, feta cheese and poppyseed dressing. Yum!

But the best part of going to Sahm's is always the side of coffee cake you get with your meal. It's just a tiny sliver, but it is enough to get you through the hard times, let me tell ya!

Jamers always makes fun of me when I eat desserts at lunch. I don't know about you guys, but I have a BIG sweet tooth and could enjoy a sweet with every meal. Why do you think I always incorporate fruit into my breakfasts?!

Anyway, I am really glad to be over the hump this week, that's for sure! I know I mention this in pretty much every post, but I definitely have the best husband ever and I can't believe my good fortune every time I think about how lucky I am to have married him. He knew what a rough week it has been for me, and this is what was waiting for me when I got home:

That picture was taken with my actual camera and not my phone, hence the good quality! Now if I can only talk this wonderful husband of mine into letting me get a new i-Phone 4...

Until next time. ;-)

Fortress of Solitude

Hello, and Happy Monday to all! Yesterday finished out a fun (and surprisingly productive!) weekend for Jamers and me. 

We got a lot done with the office, which is coming together quite nicely. Jamieson put a display shelf together, we placed some furniture in some places, decided what we wanted to hang on the walls and where, though we haven't hung anything yet, and we bought some odds and ends including a curtain and curtain rod, and a new table that is being put together as we speak!

To the left you'll see the shelf we received as a wedding gift (in September!) and finally got put together. The chair is not our first choice for my 'reading corner', but we jazzed it up with a new off-white pillow that the cat has already grown quite fond of. Plus we bought the magazine rack yesterday to make the corner look a little more inviting. It will look even better once the new table is there. You can't see it very well, but the Colts painting in the middle was a gift from Jamieson's parents that is at least over a year old and needs to be hung ASAP.

This is my quaint little desk area. We bought the chair yesterday at Value City for ~$20! I'm sitting in it now, and it's pretty comfy for such a cheap price!


More pictures to come. I'll be sure to get pictures of all the little details I know you guys care about. :-) I absolutely love what Jamieson and I have done with this room. It is really peaceful and I feel instantaneously happy when I'm here. 


Dinner last night was Cajun Style Pasta Bake that was out of this world! Jamieson made enough to feed an army, so it was definitely packed for today's lunch, too!

The dish was made with bow-tie pasta, chicken breast, red & green peppers, green onions, cream of mushroom & cream of chicken soup and Monterrey-Jack cheese. DELISH. 


This morning I got going with my favorite breakfast dish, overnight oats and a big, strong cup of coffee. I was SO tired this morning. My alarm never went off and I ended up waking up about 35 minutes later than I typically do, but I still made it to work at a decent time.


I did participate in a lunch time fitness class, Pilates yet again and while my back didn't hurt nearly as much as it did last week at Boot Camp, I still feel like I need to take it easy for a few days. I think I will stick to a treadmill circuit tomorrow. Stay tuned.


For lunch I ate my leftover pasta bake with black grapes, an apple and some almonds. 


When I got home this evening, I decided that it was finally time for me to make a dinner since my husband had been doing all the cooking recently. We must be on a Cajun kick because tonight's dish was Cajun Shrimp Poboys! 

Look at all of that beautiful color! This was a simple and flavorful dish to prepare. All you do is heat EVOO in a large pan, toss 2T of Cajun  seasoning with 1 pound of peeled and de-veined shrimp and cook the shrimp for two minutes on each side. The sauce was just reduced fat mayo, pickled relish, capers and a ton of hot sauce. Then of course we got our veggie fix with garnish some as tomatoes, red onion and Romaine lettuce. Put it all on a whole-wheat Hoagie bun and you've got yourself a Poboy!

Wait until you see the Part 2 recipe I put together for tomorrow's lunch. I love left overs! Alright, well it's Monday evening, and you know what that means -- it is time for Gordon Ramsey overload with Hell's Kitchen and Master Chef.  

Until next time, I leave you with a fun print I found on Pinterest that I try to keep in mind at the beginning of every week:

Back in Business & What a Great Weekend!

I'm terribly sorry for the lack of posting over the last couple of days. I know how silly it sounds, but not having a phone really turned my world upside down. I am up and running again, and even though I am 'slumming' it with the i-Phone 3, (I was not about to pay $550 for a new 4S outside of my contract) at least I am able to communicate with the outside world again! And despite everything, I've had an incredible weekend!


Backing up to Friday, the work day went really fast because it was filled with a lot of meetings and phone screening. I didn't participate in a workout class as my lower back was still pretty sore from my workout on Thursday so I worked through lunch and got out of the office at a decent time. It is right around the time I left work that I seemed to misplace my phone. Honestly, I think I left it on top of my car and drove off. :-( But I really have no idea.


Anyway, I had to hurry home because Jamers and I were meeting my cousin and his  girlfriend for dinner at Maggianos. The four of us have a 'Grub Club' in which we try to get together once a month to eat dinner and catch up. We've been pretty diligent about it since December of last year and it is always a lot of fun!


We all had lots of warm, crusty Italian bread and split a bruschetta appetizer. The main courses are HUGE there, so Jamers and I split the chicken and spinach manicotti. Of course, there was also plenty of Pinot Noir going around!

Saturday morning brought forth the 2nd Annual Float Trip on White River! I have to say that I am quite proud of all of my friends as they were all at my house and ready to float by 8:45AM -- on a Saturday nonetheless!

Look how excited/sleepy they are! We had a quick breakfast of donuts and coffee/juice, then headed to White River Canoe Company to float the day away. That's exactly what we did, too! We had so much fun when we did the float trip last year, we knew we had to do it again, and we decided to make it an annual event every year on the second Saturday in July!

Sorry, I would've taken pictures out on the water, but given my bad luck with electrical devices these past couple of days, I thought it was best to leave the camera on dry land. Regardless, it was a fun day indeed, and none of us wanted it to end! The water was pretty low in some areas since there hasn't been much rain this summer, but we were fine with that, because it made our trip last longer since we weren't going as fast!


After the float trip, I went to get my old phone reactivated and then Jamers and I got ready to go to my family dinner for our summer birthday celebration! 


We were celebrating Jamers birthday, which is August 5, as well as my Uncle Bill's and Aunt Cathy's (who both have July birthdays.) My aunt, Leanne and my cousin, Amelia are in town from San Francisco and they came to the party, too! It was so good to see them. My little cousin is growing up SO fast. Every time I see her, I feel like she's changed so much.

Isn't she so adorable?! We were watching Dora the Explorer here while she enjoyed some PB&J. I just love her! 


We had a ton of fun and my family spoiled Jamieson with many gifts, as usual!

Look at all that stuff. He was especially excited to have received several Lowe's gift cards to assist us with finishing up our home improvement projects. Andy even got to come along to my aunt and uncle's house, which he was super stoked about. Amelia enjoyed putting her Dora stickers on him, as well as on my mom and aunt's dogs. 

Dinner with my family never disappoints. All the food was wonderful and I hadn't really had a proper meal all day, so I had a hearty helping of everything! I enjoyed a chicken sausage with onions, relish & spicy mustard, as well as baked beans, potatoes and a marinated veggie salad. All of it was so good!

Then it was time for ice cream cake, which Amelia loved! Oh who am I kidding? We all loved it. Here is a photo of the birthday boys and girl:

I love spending time with my family! Jamers and I went home shortly after and fell asleep pretty quickly. It had been a long, but fun day! Today we are going to take it easy and try to get some chores done around the house. Again, my apologies for not writing more over the weekend. Hopefully my extra long post from today makes up for it!


Until next time.