Justin and Trish's Wedding

The day after Thanksgiving we were up early to get ready for a trip to Philadelphia for my cousin Justin's wedding. When Claire woke up and came into our room, the first thing she said was, "It's wedding day! It's wedding day!" She was soooooo excited!!! After preparing and packing up, we drove to Philly. My husband's expert driving skills enabled us to get to the hotel in 2 hours and 1 minute. The Black Friday traffic was no match for him.

We met up with my parents, grandma, brother, sister in law and nephews in the lobby of the gorgeous Omni hotel in Center City where we had to wait a while for our rooms to be ready (Don't even get my mom started on the early 1:00 check-in she was promised!). Once in our room, we quickly got dressed and made the first (2:15) shuttle to the church. The church was so beautiful. We didn't mind having extra time waiting in the church for the other guests to arrive since there was so much to look at. The ceremony began shortly after 3:00. A violin and a cello beckoned the bridal party down the aisle. My cousin's fiance looked amazing in her sparkly strapless gown. My cousins looked so handsome decked out in their tuxedos -- actually, everyone looked amazing! The ceremony was perfect and there were many tears of joy shed in our part of the church. : ) I'm sure my Aunt Karen was looking down from heaven with a big smile on her face and joy in her heart. Papa too.

Following the ceremony, we took the shuttle back to the hotel to freshen up (I re-curled Claire's hair a bit.) and relax in the lounge area before taking the shuttle to the Downtown Club for the 6:00 reception. We had a nice time at the cocktail hour, enjoying lots of delicious tidbits. My husband told my cousin (the groom) that he didn't get to eat at the cocktail hour at our wedding (We were busy taking pictures.), so he was going to fully enjoy this cocktail hour. He did!

Ryan teaching Claire everything he knows about bus safety on the shuttle.

  

Ryan, Johnny, Claire and Peter

The reception was filled with lots of fun -- TONS of dancing, great food, drinks, a photo booth, a fabulous Venetian room filled with delectable desserts and lots of family time. Claire was scared to go on the dance floor by herself at first, but once she got her groove on, she was a dancing machine! She especially loved dancing with the flower girl (Rylee) and the junior bridesmaid (Makena) who were such sweet, sweet girls! She also enjoyed hanging out with Ryan and the ring bearer (Johnny). Peter took a short nap, but he was up for the majority of the reception. He is quite the party animal at 7 1/2 months! Everyone commented on how well behaved all of the children -- Claire, Ryan, Johnny, Peter, Rylee -- were.

Claire and Trish

We left at 10:30 pm, shortly before the reception was over. The children (and adults!) were all very tired from the day's events. On our short walk back to the hotel in the cold we -- all 10 of us including my 90 year old grandma and 7 1/2 month old nephew -- saw the Liberty Bell! Claire was thrilled! It was a nice way to end the evening!

Saturday morning came way too soon, but we wanted to make sure we spent some time at the family breakfast hosted by the Trish's mom. It was casual and relaxing.

We wish the new Mr. and Mrs. a life filled with love and happiness!

Thanksgiving 2010

For the past seven years we have hosted Thanksgiving at our home. My husband and I loved planning the menu and making everything so nice for our family and a few friends who have joined us over the years. This year, however, my cousin is getting married in Philadelphia the day after Thanksgiving. We were in a quandary: Should we cancel Thanksgiving altogether? Go to a restaurant? Host our traditional Thanksgiving? Then a brilliant family member had an epiphany: We should have a very casual, nontraditional Thanksgiving featuring appetizers only!! We have always said that the best part of a wedding is always the cocktail hour. Who's with me on this? The pigs in a blanket, shrimp cocktail, sushi, bacon wrapped scallops, raw bar, crab cakes, "lollipop lambchops," etc. Delish! So, a Thanksgiving with fun appetizers would be filling, fun and fabulous! Not to mention, the clean up would be much easier than roasting a whole turkey and all of the trimmings. So, that's exactly what we did! Of course we had to have very traditional desserts. It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without my mom's pumpkin or apple pie!!

Playing "Pin the Hat on the Turkey."

Naturally, I felt slightly guilty about having a turkey-less Thanksgiving, so I made one following the tutorial here. When I saw this idea I fell in love with it! Sooooooo cute!!!

First Fire of the Season

For the last couple of weeks Claire has been wanting us to light a fire in our fireplace. There have been many reasons why we didn't (My husband was away and I don't light fires. The wood on the woodpile was too wet. She asked too close to bedtime...). Tonight, however, was the perfect time for a fire (after a quick trip to Home Depot to buy wood!).

A Gymnastics Party

We had a really nice time celebrating Claire's friend Maya's birthday today! It was a gymnastics party. Claire had so much fun doing warm-up stretches, swinging on the rings (then jumping off), jumping into the foam pit, climbing up a giant blow-up slide, then sliding down and doing parachute activities. The center had a great viewing area for parents. After the kids were tired out from all of the gymnastics activities, they retreated to the party room for pizza and cake!

During dinner I asked Claire what her favorite part of the party was. She answered, "When we sang Happy Birthday to Maya!"

Planetarium

After swimming lessons this morning, we headed over to the planetarium at our local community college for a showing of "Shapes in the Sky." It was a really cute show narrated by a very enthusiastic storyteller/astronomer. There was even live music! We met some friends at the planetarium and enjoyed watching the show together.

 Jammin' on the drums before the show.

 Relaxing in the reclining seats waiting for the show to begin.

Anatomy of a Playdate

Before

After

Bake Something Pretty Playdate

The Treats!!

Lately, I've been having this creative energy. I feel like I need to bake something gorgeous, build something or play some kind of musical instrument. I'm not sure where this need is coming from, but it could be because I read lots of cookie, cupcake and decorating blogs and the masterpieces the bloggers/bakers make are just so irresistible! Also, my cousin, Jaci, is inspirational - she makes beautiful cakes and cookies for all kinds of occasions.

So, after talking to one of my mommy friends (Gillian), I decided to host a "Bake Something Pretty" playdate for my moms group. This was the description:


Bake Something Pretty Playdate

If you've ever been inspired to bake and decorate beautiful cupcakes, adorable cookies or another dazzling, sinful treat, but never had the perfect occasion to serve them...this playdate is for you!

Please bake some delicious, beautiful (or just plain cute!) treats to show off and share. We can all admire everyone's artistic talents, then feast on the gorgeous goodies! The kids can play, eat and make their own adorable "s'more" snacks which will surely impress all of the mommies!

Only four mommies and their kids (7 total) were able to attend the playdate (Claire has a bit of a cold, so some mommies declined to come because they didn't want to catch it and a couple of other kids were too sick to come. It's that time of year!). We had a great time eating Nicole's cupcakes, Gillian's cake pops and my decorated sugar cookies! The kids played so nicely together.

We also made adorable owl s'mores!!! I found the directions here. Irresistible!!

Owl S'mores

My Cookies
Decorating cookies with royal icing is a lot harder
than it looks! This is what I was able to create.
I definitely won't quit my day job!