Rick's 29th Birthday

Rick's 29th Birthday is today! Happy Birthday to Ricky. He had to work of course, but for the rest of the day his wish was to play golf. So he got a buddy from church and they golfed all afternoon. He had a great time. He had birthday brownies and blew out his candle when he got home. :)

Like most people, we try to go to a nice restaurant for birthdays. Rick's favorite food is Thai food so that's what he chose this year. We went to Oishi Thai two years ago on his birthday as well and it was as good as we remembered. Rick is a creature of habit, if he gets something once and likes it, he gets it every time. He repeated his order this year and got cashew salmon. He loved it and ate it all, which is rare for him. I got a filet mignon with Thai basil sauce. It was tender and spicy. Our food was DELICIOUS! We will definitely be back.

We went to Baskin Robbins afterwards for Rick to get his free birthday scoop. I get emails from them every month and they send me coupons for a BOGO ice cream flavor of the month. We love our desserts.

So, Rick had a good, relaxing birthday. Woohoo!

My Valentines

I love my two Valentines, Rick and Fiona. We got to celebrate this week together. Here are a few recent pictures of Fiona first:

Fiona was given a balloon at Publix during our shopping trip that day and loved it. She played with it a long time.

She's so pretty in yellow.

Picnic in the park with Daddy. This is my favorite T-shirt she wears. The color shows off her eyes and it has a panda with a pink mohawk playing an electric silver sparkle guitar. :)

She started walking along the walls this week! She is going to be walking in no time. I heard her coming into our room and when I turned around, I expected her to be crawling, but she was walking into our room! And yes, it is that warm in February that she's wearing that onesie by itself.

My other Valentine and I went out on a date this weekend to celebrate Valentine's Day. We went downtown to a fun place we went to last year, Lola's on Harrison. We had a fun time.

Rick got the lamb neck with polenta. He wasn't a huge fan but was glad he branched out.

It got the ricotta gnocchi with mushroom sauce. Yum!!!

The view from our seat. Not a great picture but it was nice. We could see the bustling street outside.

There is a bakery just a few blocks away that we really enjoy on a special occasion. After dinner, we walked over and enjoyed some pastry. I would never guess in a million years Rick's favorite thing at this bakery would be anything involving fruit, but he loves the fruit tart at Chocolada. Rick has even said to me, "If a dessert doesn't have some kind of chocolate, what's the point?" Yet, there he was eating that tart. I got the vanilla eclair and we shared. It was delicious. Meanwhile, right outside the bakery, there was a live performer, as do many restaurants downtown. Fortunately, south Florida has outdoor seating about 10-11 months out of the year because of the very warm weather, so the music never stops. :) We had a wonderful time together.

Our Life This Week

I, Stacy, with two other women (mothers and also good friends of mine) head up a Mothers of Young Children group at our church through our Women's Ministry. We started recently and decided this year in 2012 to do an achievable "resolution" every month for every mother in the church with a child 6 and under. This month, since Valentine's Day is coming up and February is known as the month of love, we did a challenge for the moms and kids. The kids are making a valentine and sending it to one home-centered member of our church. The moms are doing a love challenge. :) They are all married so we decided to do something centered around love and marriage. One of the moms on the committee said she has a "craft" that she's done before and she and her husband enjoyed it. You get red and pink paper, ribbon, and envelopes. You cut the envelopes in half to make a sleeve. The colored paper gets two holes punched in the top of each slip and ribbon tied through the holes. There are 14 slips of paper with 14 sleeves to hold them. You write something on each slip that you and your spouse have to do that day and put it in the sleeve. For example, tell each other 5 things you love about each other today, play a game together, watch a movie, have a picnic, etc. Numbers are written on the sleeves and you can put them anywhere. I chose to tape them with painter's tape on the wall in our room so we would remember to do it every day. It's easy, fun, and quick to make. Against all odds, I finished putting it together yesterday just in time to start this with Rick this morning. I think it's going to be fun.

We had some friends over this weekend for dinner. We had a nice time together. We always enjoy entertaining and spending time with people we really like. I always end up making something for dinner I have never made before. Not smart, Stacy! So it's kind of hit or miss which is not a good idea when you are entertaining guests. This time, Rick grilled an apple bourbon marinaded (I got the pre-marinaded kind this time) pork loin, and I made a stewed apple and butternut squash side. It was good! Success! I saw the recipe on Food Network one day. It sounded so good so I got the recipe off their website. It was surprisingly simple and cost effective. It is good for any day but also tastes like a holiday dish. One of our friends that frequents our home is allergic to gluten so we always make our meals gluten free when she comes over. That can be a challenge but one that is fun to take on. So, every thing was free of gluten for this meal. I also made a flourless chocolate cake and whipped cream for dessert. Food Network website, of course! It actually turned out well and tasted really good for having no flour. It wasn't that complicated either and I made it during Fiona's nap time. Now that I'm a mom, I have to make it snappy and simple or it doesn't get done. Rick, myself, and our friends always enjoy playing some kind of game after dinner. It gets rowdy and funny. We had a great time.

Our little girl is growing and changing before our eyes. Here are a couple of pictures of her from the past week: