Recovering from a busy weekend

Saturday morning I finally took Little Hugger to Land of Nod to order her bed. On the ride up I warned her that even though we were going to pay for it today we may have to wait weeks for them to deliver it. I forgot that being in Chicago, the warehouse is local, and they're going to deliver it next Thursday. So not only does she get her bed before first grade starts, she'll get it before the last day of Kindergarten. She was eager to get bedding too, but I managed to convince her we should look elsewhere too. Land of Nod has really nice stuff, but it is expensive.I'm planning on a trip to IKEA before the bed is delivered.

I let her pick where we went for lunch, and lucky for me she picked my favorite pizza place - NY Slices - the closest I've found to NY style pizza in this area.

This weekend was our 12th anniversary. We went out for dinner Saturday night as that worked better with the rest of our plans. We had some gift certificates to Lettuce Entertain You so rather than going to the same old steak place, I picked Cafe Ba Ba Reeba. Sangria and tapas seemed like a good way to kick off summer.

After dinner we went to a nearby bar for a couple of beers and then back home where we had a bottle of champagne that had been chilling in the fridge for I don't know how long waiting for a worthy occasion.

Sunday we had some friends over for a barbecue. We grilled kebabs and had potato salad. For dessert, I made brownies and the flag strawberries which didn't turn out as cute as the picture because I overcooked the chocolate but still tasted good.

We had set up a kiddie pool in the backyard for the kids to play in which worked out well as it was 90 degrees. They all had a blast and one of the neighbor boys came over to join the fun.

Our friends have a little girl who is just a couple of months older than our Little Man. She's already potty trained and we're still working on it with Little Man.  At one point the kids all went upstairs to chill.  Little Man needed to use the potty, so I took his diaper off and stayed upstairs while he went.  He peed on the potty and then ran into his room where the little girl was reading.  He squatted down next to her (bare-assed) and said very excitedly, "I peed on the potty".  She briefly looked up at him, and then went back to her book.  I guess she wasn't impressed.

Monday we all got up early to head down to the parade. My husband and daughters were walking with Indian Princesses and I walked with my son and my women's group. There weren't a lot of people, but my son had fun throwing candy to all the kids. The route was about 2 miles long, and he managed to walk about half of it, before sitting in the stroller. We headed home for a while to relax (and forced Little Reader to take a nap because she was so tired from the day before) before heading to another BBQ. This time I made the berry tarts arranged like a flag. They were a little time consuming but not difficult and turned out well. They also happened to be the only dessert at the barbecue so were appreciated.

There were about 16 adults and a bunch of kids. Some good friends of ours and other were neighbors of our friends. The kids all had a great time playing in and outside.  Overall a very successful (but exhausting weekend).  I had hoped to finish my book, but I was too tired to get very far.