J A K E. forty-two

Happy 42nd Birthday to THE best father & husband that we could ever ask for! We love him so much. He loves each of us so well.

Jake requested Orange Zest Scones by Lily

Opening gifts after breakfast

The kids picked out all of Jake's favorite snacks, and probably some of their favorites too - hoping he will share. His bag of snacks included: Twizzlers, Chex mix, microwave popcorn, Reese's, Dorito's, beef jerky.... 

We had a full day on Saturday. We started with celebrating Jake and having his birthday breakfast followed by presents. Mid morning we went to pick up Jake's birthday cake and drop off Ella. Ella had a friend's birthday party to attend. Bekah, Jake's sister, flew in at 1:30pm. Then the party started!! The kids had a playdate that afternoon and once the friends were picked up we headed down to Wrightsville Beach for dinner at Poe's Tavern. 

Jake requested a sampler of Nothing Bundt Cakes for his birthday dessert. We tried red velvet, lemon, vanilla, chocolate chocolate chip, lemon raspberry & snickerdoodle. Jake recommends the sampler.

Happy Birthday - We love you!

Cooking with Lily

Lily loves these cooking graphic novels from our local library. This week she planned & made us a meal from them. It took some planning ahead. Sunday we hit our local Asian Food Market - very fun. Then Tuesday she made us ramen with dashi broth from "Let's Make Ramen" paired with Soy Beef from "Cook Korean." The beef had a very flavorful marinade and then Lily added snow peas, green onion and chili bamboo. There was also soft boiled eggs, chili bamboo and green onion to complete your bowl. We all loved it and are hoping she will cook dinner again soon!

thinking back

 

Eight years ago, we met this guy. He has changed our lives. What a gift Benny is to our family. Today we celebrated BENNY by starting our day with donuts. As the kids say, "go nuts for donuts!" Remember when we celebrated Benny & Wren's adoption with donuts at the park - so fun! We love you Benjamin Lee Flaming.

F O R T Y

Today we celebrated my Mom & my birthday. It was so special to have her here and we could celebrate our shared birthday's together! We haven't been together on our birthday since 2008. 

I started off my birthday how I start every weekday - 5am at Burn Bootcamp. I had an old tie dye shirt that I wrote on. The front said "give me a high five" and the back said "today i'm 40." It was fun and YES, I did my 40 birthday burpees, a BURN Bootcamp special!

Back to breakfast with the family... 

Cinnamon Chip Scones made by Ella

We were showered with gifts, cards. and art. It was so sweet.  Some local friends stopped by to wish us a Happy Birthday throughout the day - really special! We enjoyed our birthday dessert for a mid afternoon snack.

Coconut Macaroon Pie made by Lily

This mug is very special. It was given to my Dad when he turned 40. My Mom threw him a surprise party back in Pennsylania.  They saved the mug all these years.  Dad & Mom surprised Lindsay with it a few years ago on her 40th birthday. It was then passed to Emily and now to me.

That evening, we celebrated with our birthday dinner at Indochine. This is probably the best restaurant we have here in Wilmington. They have wonderful Thai food.

As always, the food was amazing!

Fun with Grandma

We have been having SO MUCH FUN with Grandma here! She rode back with us, from Georgia, on January 1. She flies home on January 18; this time has gone by way too quickly.

Typing lessons with Grandma. 

Grandma has also been such a help with homework, listening to kids read, helping with meals & clean up. We have forgotten to take photos more times that we can count. Some other fun that is NOT pictured is: attending Lily's basketball game, dinner at Islands, kid dates with Grandma, lots of games played and walks taken. We took Grandma to Surf City one day, had lunch with BSF friends another day and drove to Cary another day to visit with a dear friend. We have shown her most of our local shops we love and enjoyed coffee at a few of our favorite local coffee shops.

Saturday morning we all headed to the Fort Fisher Aquarium.

We tried a new place for lunch - Crofton's Pretzels. They just moved to a new location and we have had it on our list to visit for a long time. We intended to take a picture when we got all of our stuffed pretzels, but we were rather hungry. Some of the kinds we ordered were: plain, cinnamon sugar, mac & cheese, buffalo chicken, cheddar & jalapeno, nutella & marshmellow, and cheese steak. I did get a quick pictures of Benny with his last bite of macaroni & cheese stuffed pretzel. Yum!

 

Lily's Art Show

Tonight we were able to take Grandma to Programs Night at school. This featured different middle school programs that the school offers. Included was an art show. It was really fun to see all of Lily's art so far this year. She really loves and excels in art!