c's 72nd week

This week has been quite the busy week.  We started by celebrating Apo's and Matt's birthdays.  If that wasn't enough, the big news is that Uncle Bert is here and will be around for the next two weeks.  My brother is in town because my grandmother isn't doing so well, which really isn't the best reason for him to be here for a visit.  However, we are so greatful to have him around as we haven't seen him since C's birth.

May 13 - May 19

Hanging with Uncle Bert!

Our little baller!

The food was so yummy, C wanted to get every last taste off the dish!

Bath time!

Happy Birthday Matt!

Yummy pasta!

Happy Birthday Apo!

...All About C...

C has been such a trooper this week as things have been hectic due to my grandmother not doing so well.  We've had lots of late nights and busy days at the hospital.  The only good thing about all of this is that C has gotten to hang out with a lot of relatives who are in town to see my grandmother.  

(Linking up with Our World Tuesday, P52 Sweet Shot Tuesday, Wednesdays Around The World, Little Things Thursday, 

Photo Story Friday, Favorite Photo Friday, Practicing Simplicity, Simple Things Sunday, and Sunday Snapshot.)

c's first birthday

The super cool invite Matt made based on something I found on the internet! 

Best husband ever!

We held a big First Birthday Bash for C on his actual birthday, January 1st.  It was such a wonderful day filled with lots of love and laughter.  We had a bunch of C's friends come to the party as well as some of our extended family.  It was really nice to have so many show up to celebrate our little boy.

C was the star of the show and was definitely spoiled rotten! He partied the whole time and then some. He played with his friends, was doted on by his relatives, and given some spectacular gifts.  Our boy was loved on and we are so thankful.  It was truly a special day.

I am not much of a party planner, so this was quite the undertaking for me.  The first thing I learned is that every party apparently needs a theme and this party was no exception.  I made it easy and went with C's first word and had a BALL themed party.  It made everything easy as we based all the decor around it.  I could have gone crazy trying to make everything related to balls, but luckily for Matt, time slipped away from me and I could only do so much.  However, I must say that what we did get done was for sure a team effort with Matt doing a lot as well as both of our moms helping out.  Working together, we made one fun event that C enjoyed.

Of course, every party needs a cake, and boy was I nervous about this as I don't bake regularly.  Thankfully I had an awesome friend help me out with making 50ish cake pops and my MIL helped me out with the cupcakes.  This said, these ladies made me do the work, so I can actually claim them as my own, which makes me quite proud of myself.  However, I guess I can't take all of the credit, as Betty Crocker did assist with supplying delicious vanilla cake batter and frosting.  HA! 

We really enjoyed ourselves at C's first birthday.  The only thing I'm bummed about is that I didn't think of what sorts of photos I wanted of the day as there were many missed opportunities.  Thankfully I had a thoughtful friend who snapped some fabulous photos from the party and who kindly shared them with me! I guess the beauty of this means that we were all present for the party and enjoyed every minute of it rather than worrying about capturing things on camera.  Next time though, there will be a couple more shots! :) 

Birthday Boy!

Playing outside!

All of C's monthly onesies hanging in a row.  The only one missing is his 12 month one!

Fun presents for C and goody bags for his guests.

A sign I found online for free! Thank you internet!

We also printed up a bunch of his monthly photos to show the guests.

I MADE THESE and people LIKED them!

Yes, this statement deserves the caps as I do not bake.

Team effort in blowing out his first candle!

Hmm...what is this sweet stuff?!?

After tasting the sweets, he wanted more carrot sticks instead!

 

C liked the cakepops but didn't really get into the cupcake.

C loves ripping tissues, but apparently isn't so keen on wrapping paper.  After the first couple of presents, he was not interested at all, especially since he got some awesome new balls.  Thankfully his friends stepped up to the challenge and helped us open the rest of the gifts! C was gifted with so many terrific toys, super cute clothes and shoes, beautiful books, and even some cash!

The only group shot we took with our mom's and friends.  

We are terrible at not having taken more photos...so sad.

C and his friends!

I want to say a BIG thank you to the guests that came.  This party wouldn't have been as much fun without your presence.  Thank you also for all of the wonderful gifts you blessed C with.  We so appreciate your thoughtfulness and generosity! 

(Linking up with Our World Tuesday, P52 Sweet Shot Tuesday, Wednesdays Around The World, Little Things Thursday, 

Photo Story Friday, Favorite Photo Friday, Che and Fidel, Simple Things Sunday, and Sunday Snapshot.)

Matt = 35

A big Happy 35th Birthday to my wonderful husband.  

I love you. A Lot.
I'm so thankful that I get to share life with YOU.

Our most recent photo from the week before.

I wanted to write about how fabulous Matt is, but it's been one of those weeks for both of us.  I'm pretty sure y'all know that I think he is the BEST, so it's all good! Matt's birthday fell during production week in the Middle School, so he's been busy singing and dancing all.day.long.  In order to not let him crash and burn too hard, I kept things fairly low key.  We celebrated Matt by going to watch the Avengers (finally) and eating out (no cooking...yay!).  It was simple, easy, and perfect!  

Matt driving us around Koh Samui.   

(Linking up with Sweet Shot Tuesday, Tuesdays Around the World, Our World Tuesday, and Catch Your Self.)

birthdays

As a kid, I grew up celebrating birthdays in a big way.  They were always a huge deal with lots of friends and family over for hours on end.  You could always count on tons of food being available.  There usually were some games or different activities planned to keep people moving about and talking.  And let's be honest...it was always about the presents! ;) As my birthday usually fell during the end of the school year, I did think that it was extra special.  After all, school was out and the party was just getting started!

I got older, moved away from home, and my birthday slowly went from being this awesome event that I looked forward to, to something I began to dread.  I began to get all tense and anxious around the big day and would end up in tears one way or another.  It got to the point where I was so stressed out by pleasing everyone else on my birthday that I often ended up disappointed and just plain old sad.  Sad because no one had taken the time to make me feel special for the day.  The anthem slowly became..."it's my party, I can cry if I want to, cry if I want to, cry if I want to, you would cry to if it happened to you!"

When Matt and I celebrated our first birthdays together, I felt a lot of pressure to make his memorable.  That said, when it was his turn to throw a bash for me, I just didn't want anything to do with it.  I didn't give him a chance to make it anything but awful if truth must be told.  However, I'd like to say that in the four birthdays that we've shared together, I have gotten better.  He has let me work my way through my anxiety to a point where I was actually looking forward to my birthday this year.  I wasn't ready for the big party with tons of people like I once had when I was a kid, but I also didn't balk at the thought of going out with a couple of friends and spending time just celebrating me.  I am getting older, growing wiser, and letting go of those old fears...and that is a good thing.

Here is a run down of our birthdays thus far in case you were interested...and no...I am not keeping score! :)

Matt 31 - Shangri La buffet and bowling

Matt 32 - Elephant Nature Park

Matt 33 - Shanghai

Matt 34 - Wagyu Brunch, Ocean Park, Olaa Dinner

Melody 26 - crappy lunch and crappy movie

Melody 27 - Flight of the Gibbon

Melody 28 - Isala Lunch with friends 

Melody 29 - Olaa Lunch with friends

At Ocean Park on the cable cars with Claire, Nick, Angie, Morten, Matt, and myself!

It is all about dreaming BIG and reaching for the SKY this year!

Oolaa - Matt's birthday dinner and my birthday lunch spot this year!

28th birthday

I don’t like celebrating my birthday.  Don’t get me wrong though.  I do love birthdays and celebrating peoples birthdays…just not my own.  I used to love it and I couldn’t wait for it, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve not enjoyed it as much.  The problem is that when it comes time to plan my own birthday party, I tend to stress out and worry about what everyone else around me wants.  This just takes away from the whole experience as I end up trying to please the people in my life at the time.

Due to all of this, I didn’t plan anything for my birthday this year and decided to just skip it.  Thankfully I have an amazing boyfriend and some pretty wonderful friends who wouldn’t let it go and got me to go out and enjoy my special day.   I had a perfectly low-key day with Matt, Angie, and Morten.  We met up for lunch at Isola, a fabulous restaurant overlooking the skyline of Kowloon.  Then we walked around and shopped a bit.  Finally Matt and I took the ferry over from Central to TST, which was something we had not done before.  All in all, it was a truly wonderful day and a great start to a fabulous new year of life!

33 in Shanghai

Matt and I went to Shanghai for an extra long birthday weekend during the middle of May.  We stayed with friends of Matt’s from his days in England and had a really great weekend doing lots of cool new things.

The first cool thing was visiting the Shanghai World Expo.  It was really neat to see all of the pavilions.  We got into a bunch of them, but they were mainly the countries that weren’t too popular including Nepal, Morocco, and North Korea.  All of the popular countries had really, really long lines and we decided that waiting for three hours to get into just one pavilion just wasn’t worth it.  Either way, it was a fun day, if you don’t take into account the cold and rainy weather!

China Pavilion

UK Pavilion

Morocco Pavilion

The second fun thing we did was to check out some of the big buildings that make up the Shanghai cityscape.  We went up the tallest one, the Shanghai World Financial Center, and got to check out the city view from the top.  It was way cool seeing the elevator go up to the 100^th floor, which is at about 492 meters!

View

Top down

Happy Birthday!

A final new experience we had was something called cupping.  Matt and I decided to try this traditional Chinese massage for fun without really knowing that much about it.    Wikipedia says that cupping is when a cup is applied to the skin and the pressure in the cup is reduced by fire so that the skin is drawn into and held in the cup.  Essentially, the masseuse took a cup, put a lighter in it to get out all the oxygen, and then placed it on our backs.  This happened not just once or twice but several times until there were cups all over our backs.  Then the nasty part happened which involved our skin getting suctioned into the cups and turning nasty shades of red.  It was NOT so fun and actually quite painful.  After about 30 minutes, the cups were taken off and then we were left with nasty red rings for the next week!

Before                                     After 

Overall we had a wonderful time.  It was especially great as we were able to celebrate Matt’s 33^rd birthday with friends and with new experiences.