Celebrating Turning 60!

Welcome to Thinking Out Loud Thursday where I talk about something I'm thinking about and invite you to link up and do the same.  Today I'm reflecting on my recent birthday.

Back in November, I celebrated a big birthday.  Turning 60 still seems a little unreal to me.  I swear I was just turning 40 a couple years ago.  But here we are and we decided to celebrate big.

We celebrated my birthday for most of the month of November.  We kicked off the month-long celebration with a weekend in Kansas City orchestrated by my friend Linda.  I blogged about that wonderful weekend HERE.  

The celebration continued by going on a Virgin Voyages cruise with our son and daughter-in-law.  A post on the cruise will be coming at some point, but let me say it was a blast! 

We wrapped up our celebrations with a party at Boarding House Bistro.  This cute little place is a favorite of ours and we were so glad they allowed us to take over a portion of it for the party.

Blouse   |   Pants

I waffled on if I wanted to do something like this for my birthday.  I'm so glad Eric talked me into having a party!  Celebrating my birthday with friends was a joyous and memorable occasion filled with laughter, warmth, and shared moments.

The staff at Boarding House Bistro put together the most delicious grazing table.  We munched on it all night!

My daughter-in-law, Kayla, baked the most delightful almond cake with raspberry filling.  

Every good party needs a signature drink or two.  For the birthday party, we served the Berry Old (red sangria) and The Golden Girl (bourbon apple cider sangria).

We needed minimal decorations because the elegance of the location was beautiful enough.  I brought in a few centerpieces just to add a pop of color.  We also put a look back sheet of the year I was born on the tables.  

The wine wall made a perfect background for photos.  We used these for our Christmas cards.

The guests took home a bag of my favorite flavored popcorn thanking them for "popping" in.  

As the celebration drew to a close, I had such a sense of contentment and fulfillment, knowing that we shared this special day with the people we love.  The shared joy, laughter, and camaraderie created lasting memories that I'll carry with me always.  

Now it's your turn - what are you thinking out loud about today?  Link up and share!

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My Baby is 30!

Welcome to Thinking Out Loud Thursday where I share something on my mind and invite you to link up and do the same.

This week my baby boy turned 30 years old!  When I gave birth to that adorable little boy three decades ago, I had no idea how he would weave his way into my heart and make life so much more than it was before he entered it.

I want to believe that I savored every ounce of Ian's childhood, but I know in reality there were days that stuff got in the way of me doing that.  But I can honestly say we made a ton of wonderful memories and I don't have one ounce of regret for the evenings I chose to play outside tossing a ball back and forth or going to the park instead of staying inside doing the dishes right after dinner.  

Our evenings and weekends were always full of sporting events and other extracurricular activities.  Some of our best conversations were in the car, driving to one activity or another.  

Ian made our lives even better when he married his wife, Kayla.  She fits in our family perfectly and we couldn't have picked a more perfect daughter-in-law.

We celebrated Ian's birthday with dinner at our house.  Eric and I gathered 30 gifts of some of Ian's favorite things growing up.  It was a fun trip down memory lane brainstorming what 30 things we could get.  

These past 30 years have gone by in a flash!  Hold on to your babies friends - they grow up way too fast!    

Now it's your turn.  What are you thinking out loud about today?  Link up and share!

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Weekending - February 7, 2020

This weekend was packed with fun times and Monday morning came a little too quickly!  I ramped up to the weekend by hosting the neighborhood girls on Wednesday night and then going to the St. Louis Blues game on Thursday.  To say I was going into the weekend a bit tired would be a very true statement!

Friday night we went to the monthly game night our son and daughter-in-law host.  Pictionary was the game chosen to play and it was such fun!  It had been ages since I'd played and honestly had forgotten how much I love it.

One of the highlights about game night is we get to see our daughter-in-law's nephew.  He's the sweetest thing!  He even managed to get in a little nap while we were whooping it up drawing pictures and yelling out our guesses.

Saturday morning Eric and I both headed off to work.  I went straight from work to my home town to celebrate my niece turning four.  She was just a tad bit excited!

I loved the centerpiece made out of cotton candy.  It was pretty obvious that the kids loved it too!

Our family has a lot of boys, so it's fun splurging on pink every once in a while.  

Just about the time the sugar high was hitting all the kids at the party, I had to leave to get to my next event.  A friend from work was being surprised with a 60th birthday party.  It was held at Favazza's on The Hill in St. Louis and the food was to die for!  Such a fun day celebrating!

Eric and I were pumped to watch the St. Louis Battlehawks XFL game on Sunday.  We went to church and got some errands done in time to get home and settled in for the game.  Did you watch any of the XFL games this weekend?  It's exciting to have a team with St. Louis on their chest once again.  Way to bring home a win team!

Overlapping with the game was the Red Carpet for the Oscars.  I was doing some major channel flipping!  Did you watch?  I was a little disappointed overall with the show.  I did appreciate the excitement Bong Joon Ho (Parasite) had for his wins.  

And that's a recap of our weekend.  It sure seemed to go by fast!  We have a busy week coming up.  We're flying to Vegas to see the St. Louis Blues play the Las Vegas Knights.  It should be a fun Valentine's trip!  Then I'm hosting a girls' get together on Sunday and Monday.  Pop back in to read all about it!  

Weekending - February 9, 2018

I swear there are fewer hours in a day on Saturday and Sunday.  This weekend was way too short and we managed to do as much as possible!  Here's how it went down.

Weeks ago I was contacted to see if I would be interested in helping with the decorations for a Kate Spade themed bridal shower.  Heck yes I was interested!!  The shower was Saturday, so Friday night I finished up a few details before heading to the shower location to get things set up.  It was so fun working with the hostesses for this event.  I'm planning to do an entire post on the shower, but here are a few sneak peek photos ~

After the set up of the shower, we watched our taped version of the Olympics Opening Ceremony.  Gosh, I love the Olympics.  The whole thing with the drones was super cool.  I think even more than the sports, I love hearing the human interest stories.



Saturday morning we ran back over to the shower location to finish up a few last minute things.  Everything was well in hand there, so we scooted off to have lunch with Kayla and Ian.  Our day kind of fell apart from there.  We went by the movie theater after lunch and the show we were hoping to see was sold out, so home we went to watch more of the Olympics.

As the afternoon progressed, the weather forecast started sounding more and more ominous.  We were supposed to travel about 40 miles west to a Sweetheart Soiree.  A Soiree we had been looking forward to for months mind you!  Just about the time we were planning to leave, a light mist started falling and the prediction of freezing rain looked like a real possibility.  We made the hard call to not go to the party.  And I was a total grump for the rest of the evening.  Darn winter!  And poor Eric.  I was not great to be around!

Sunday morning we woke to our subdivision roads covered in ice, but the main roads were okay.  We headed to church and then high-tailed it to my home town to celebrate my niece and great nephew's second birthday.  It was a fun afternoon spent chasing toddlers around trying to take their picture.

Wrapping presents is one of my favorite things to do.  I matched the Disney theme and personalized both their gifts.  Thank you Silhouette for making this job so easy!

My sister-in-law and niece had the cutest decorations!

One of the kids liked the cupcakes more than the other one did.  Can you guess which one loved them?!?

My niece make the birthday kiddos shirts.  They were absolutely adorable!

Somebody has Uncle Eric wrapped around her little finger.

On the way home, we stopped in a Marcus Theater and saw The Post.  Both of us truly enjoyed the movie.  Added bonus - one more Best Picture film crossed off the list!  Six down, three to go on my quest to see all the Best Picture nominated films.

The rest of the evening was spent engulfed in the Olympic coverage.  Did you watch any of it over the weekend?  What were your favorite moments?

Hope your weekend was fantastic and your week is off to a good start.  I'll be back to share more details of the Kate Spade themed shower later this week.  See you soon!

Check out what others were up to this weekend.

B Loved Boston

Over the Moon

Hello Monday

Thinking Out Loud Thursday - February 16, 2017

Hey there!  Glad you popped in to Thinking Out Loud Thursday.  I have something fun to share with you today - my niece's first birthday party!  It was last weekend and I'm still thinking about it.  I had every intention of doing a weekend post and sharing it with you then, but life happened and here it is Thursday and I'm just getting around to putting my thoughts in writing.

So little Nevaeh turned one and had the cutest princess party ever!  Our family is full of boys, so when this little girl came along it was a whole new world for us!

I have really gotten into using my Silhouette Cameo for enhancements on wrapped gifts.  I fancied up Nevaeh's gift like this ~

My contribution to the decorations was the banner.  The colors her mom choose were so fun to work with and looked great together.  With only having a son, I hadn't had the opportunity to work with pink, gold and lace before!  :)

Here's some other highlights from the party ~

Look at those crown sandwiches!

She was adorable with her smash cake!  Oh, let's face it - she was just flat out adorable all day!

We all got goody bags to take home with chocolate covered popcorn and rice krispie treats in an adorable bag.  Ours didn't make it quite all the way home.  We scarfed it down in the car on the way.  Man, I love birthday parties!  

It was a great day spent with family!  Kids grow up so darn fast and I feel so blessed to live as close as we do to my niece and nephews to see them on these special occasions.  

So what are you thinking out loud about today?  Would love to hear from you.  Link up and share your thoughts.

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