A Wonderful Weekend!

This past weekend was a ton of fun and I was very thankful that we had three whole days to enjoy it. There was so much to do! It started with a little of this:


and ended with this...


Mmmmm! Wanna know what happened in between? All right, I'll fill you in.

Thursday night after work, Jeremiah and I decided to eat out for an early birthday celebration. We decided on a new restaurant-- Charleston's. It was AWESOME! We really enjoyed it. We got spinach and artichoke dip for our appetizer, Jeremiah got a steak and baked potato for his meal

Birthday Boy Dinner

and then we ate the delicious dessert you saw at the beginning. Yum! It was an "Ice Cream Sandwich" which was made up of two fudge brownies sandwiching vanilla ice cream, laying on a pool of raspberry sauce, topped with a whipped cream/mousse and then chocolate shavings--WOW! And we ate it all. You heard me, the entire thing, even after all the other food we had because it would have been wrong, WRONG I tell you, to leave any of it on the plate. We felt no regrets as we walked, maybe more of a waddle, out of there, with our doggy bag in hand, not able to fully stand up (that may have just been me) due to our extremely full, taut stomachs. It was the perfect kick-off to our weekend.

On Friday, baking ensued. I had a dozen cupcakes to make for someone who had won one of my gift certificates. So I made her these Easter cupcakes:


I was able to pawn off the rest of the cupcakes to some friends and was thankful. I was feeling just a twinge of guilt about the food-fest from the night before. But obviously not more than a twinge because I did try a cupcake before sending them off. Hey! I can't just give away sub-par cupcakes, right?

I also baked the birthday cake during this time and was happy that I was staying right on track with my timeline for the weekend :) In the afternoon we went to Wally's Party Factory and Dollar Tree to buy decorations and paper products. Then we went to Aldi and got a good portion of the food for the party. I even had a coupon for Aldi, so I got $10 off a purchase of $40 or more which was definitely a blessing! I bought three packages of strawberries to set out with my fruit dip for the party. I was happy because I got them for $1.49 per 16 oz. container. Then we went to Kroger and what did I see? Strawberries were on sale for $.99 per 16 oz. container! I couldn't believe it! I turned to Jeremiah and put on a big smile and insisted that I would happily use up all that I bought, plus my hands were already pulling them from the shelves-- four more boxes worth! With my new found sale, I decided to make strawberry jam-- what better use of beautiful berries? We finished up our shopping excursion and headed home briefly. I decorated the cake and it went much faster than I planned and I was quite happy with how it turned out. It was a Hello Kitty cake because our friend Carrie loves her and Jeremiah doesn't really care what it looks like, as long as it tastes good. We worked in the nursery that night during the Good Friday service and then played some Mario Party on the Wii once we got home.
Saturday, Jeremiah's 25th birthday, I woke up and made him a birthday breakfast. Monkey Bread and Coffee :) Sad, but true, I didn't even really make the coffee. He had it all measured out the night before, so all I had to do was push the button because honestly, I don't know how to make coffee. Sure, I could read the label and figure it out, but everyone likes their coffee in different ways: strong, medium, weak. For each of those, how much coffee do I put in? How much water? So I *pushed* the button on the coffee maker :) and made the monkey bread. It was the first time I'd ever made it and it turned out splendid! See for yourself!


Then I stuck in a candle and carried it in singing "Happy Birthday" in my best 7:55 AM voice. Ugh! Probably not the best rendition...but this made up for it... I think.


We walked the dog, then Jeremiah, poor guy, headed off to work and I went to take a 5-mile run with my friend Courtney. It was a rough one and we even stopped to walk for a while, but it was good just to get out there and exercise admist all the eating that had already taken place and was about to continue in t-minus 7 hours. I got back and started decorating the apartment. It was a lot of fun and I was able to take my time since I was right on track with my time-line (yeah, I really loved that thing!) I bought pink and lime green streamers which I thought went very well together. But they didn't show up in the pictures. Here's a little look into the decorations:


I liked how this area turned out!


Then I took a shower, ate a little, and got started on the cooking. I cooked up some breakfast sausage and onions to make the queso dip and hamburger, bacon, and onion for the calico beans. I got those put together in their respective crockpots and then *gasp* I had time for a break. So I played some more Mario Party! It's a fun game! Our friends let us borrow it for the birthday party. Then I dumped the rest of the hamburger ~7 lbs. into a big bowl, seasoned it, and made them into 23 patties! Then, ok, wait a second, maybe I'm going into too much detail. I used to do this as a child, and I guess I still fall into old habits. Let's see if I can just take one step back... hmm... I made the hamburgers, got on my party clothes, and then our first friends arrived. They came early to help us grill and do last minute prep. I was so thankful! We had a grand time. There were 15 of us crammed into our tiny apartment, but it was definitely fun. We played Super Mario Bros., ate supper-- the queso dip was a big hit and gone by the end of the night!--, played the Easter Egg game I came up with, Apples to Apples,


had cake and ice cream and we even had ice cream cones!!



Then the birthday boy and girl opened up a few presents and we chatted. Some guests had to start leaving about this time, but a few stayed and played the game, The Last Word. Then most everyone else left except for a couple of couples :) We talked for awhile, then they headed out around 10:45 pm. I was very happy with how everything turned out. I really enjoyed hosting all those people at our place. It was a blast!

Finally on Sunday we got to relax. We watched Jeremiah's new movie "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and took a nap. Then I made two batches of strawberry jam!


I'll find out tonight how it turned out because it needs to set up for 24 hours. I'm quite excited to try it. And now we have, hopefully, a good six months supply of jam! I'm hoping to make another batch so it will last us through most of the year and I'd also like to try a new kind--Raspberry-Peach Jam. Doesn't that sound wonderful? I found it as a suggestion in the Sure-Jell box. I'm thinking if I make a batch of that to add to the mix we could be set on our jam for the year. Hooray! We love jam! And I hope you love this post because I sure had a fun weekend making memories for it. To Life!