The Big Birthday Weekend

It's been a very nice birthday weekend- especially given that Teagan is still trying to get over her flu. The cough is hanging on, as is some of the congestion. The fever hasn't returned since Thursday night, thankfully.

Zach has been blessed with people who love him oodles and who have given him some fantastic birthday gifts. Christy was the first big winner with Elmo Live- Elmo sings and talks and tells jokes and blows kisses. Zach greeted Elmo with a big old YAY as soon as he opened the gift bag. Brian brought along a Little People dump truck that carries a load of dirt and beeps and lights up and such. Grandma has been passing on our family's love of Winnie the Pooh for years now so it's most appropriate that she bought Zach a DVD of The Tigger Movie- which we watched yesterday and everyone enjoyed. Daddy got Zach a copy of The Land Before Time- we are watching it now and we are all loving it. Funny how the older animated films don't rely on special effects or snappy dialogue. Music tells a lot of the story- and my kids love it. Teagan picked out a Little People Airplane set that both kids have been enjoying. Mimi and Pop-pop came in with a full load of toys and a box stuffed with new clothes- a Colts athletic suit, new pajamas, a dino shirt (I haven't gone through all of it yet- he's set for the winter, though). And the toys!!! Big hits include a tub full of plastic dinosaurs, the Fisher Price Imaginext Spike Jr dino (he walks and roars and laughs), a farm animals toy, and a WonderPets seek and find book.

We ate dinner at a local spot called Casler's Kitchen and Bar. It was really good!! The service started out... meh... When we got there, there was no one else there. We purposefully did an early dinner (5:00) for that reason. I had to get up and go find our server to get our drink order placed. Things improved after that, though. The food definitely made up for it. Check out the link for the menu so you can really understand what all we had. Chicken Satay appetizer, ants on a log, garden sticks (with homemade ranch dressing that was delish), grilled tuna salad, baked brie plate, BLTA, pork tenderloin sandwiches, tarragon chicken salad sandwich, onion rings, cajun chicken salad. The menu descriptions don't really do the food justice- it was super tasty. And some of the menu items were so unique- the baked brie and my salad, for example. It's definitely a restaurant that we will be going back to again!!

Happy Birthday to my little boy. We are so blessed to have so many who love you... to be surrounded with friends and family. You have brought so much joy and laughter to our family, to our home. Here's to many more years of these birthday celebrations!