WINNER and stuff, like a Birthday!

That was my attempt to get Anika to Pick a winner. ha.

Anyway, I picked the one she dropped closest to me, and the name is...

DANIELLE!   Danielle, email me :) you win the Amazon gift card my friend.
(I just watched this video and she looks like a complete brat, but she isnt...well, actually she has kind of turned into one lately...) We need to start cracking down since she is almost ONE!!

Last week was my Birthday.  The day started out when I went in Anika's room, I found a card on her changing table. 

It was from Anika.  It said that my birthday was awesome like the same day I had her.

Then, I went downstairs and there was a card from Andrew on the kitchen counter. It was also telling me how awesome I am :)

These next photos are out of order from my birthday, but worth mentioning,..you know, since I loaded the photos from my camera card and I need something to do with them! lol.  I cant put them on FB.

I ruined our dining room table...with my cleaner and I scrubbed too hard with the brush.  Luckily this table was a hand me down, or I would have been A LOT MORE upset.

So, it used to look like above...

We made a quick fix by taking out a leaf or 2 and put a table cloth from our wedding on it. ...

I hate when Andrew leaves his jacket on the chair, by the way.

It works for now...One day we will get a whole new set...ONE day.

This was from a girls brunch a few weeks ago....Just thought I would post my outfit. ha

Piri likes to smell me.

This was a dress I got at TJ max for $15 and wanted to wear in our family photos....So I had Andrew take a pic to see how I looked in it.

Or this one...(I was going with blue)

 We had our family photo shoot this past weekend, and I wore the first option.  I brought jeans and a top as well, but never changed into them.

Ok, back to my Birthday...

I left work a little early and came home to hang with Anika.

Andrew brought me home some flowers....And he brought a little bouquet home for Anika.  HE said he waned to be the first to buy her flowers.  SWEET. She grabbed a daisy, pulled it off the stem, and tried to eat it.

Andrew's other gift to me is to pay for the rest of the photos.

Then, my mom took Anika for the night and Andrew and I went to meet a couple friends for dinner at a place that does a special Wine Down Wednesday...all bottles of wine are half off.  When we walked in, there were MORE friends than I expected.... a bit of a surprise!  I guess my friend Anna had tried planning the surprise, but then I kept inviting people anyway :) Some had told me they couldn't come, but they were there. I got some awesome presents too.  It was a good time and since Anika was at my moms for the night...I had a lot of wine :)   It was VERY hard getting up the next day. This was the 3rd night Anika has stayed at my mom's house.

My man.  This guy has been awesome.  Just wanted to say that!

This is way out of order, but its from LAST weekend when we were skiing. Anika likes to get in people's ski bags and pull hats out. She is obsessed with the word hat and hats. Our friend put her in the ski bag. ha.

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Other updates...

Lets see.  Free range/grass fed meat is getting expensive! I cant get away from spending any less than $200 a week on groceries.  I am trying to cut down our meat and fish consumption and make more vegetarian dishes.  I'M cool with that, but Andrew likes more substance. He is not a fan of lentils and beans.  My friend Lauren gave me some recipes and the veggie burger recipe is a hit. It took me a LONG time to get through it (A lot of steps and a lot of time) but they were GOOD!  She had given me a couple she made to sample first ;) This past week, my bill was way down! I also stopped buying a few other things.

It is also really hard to avoid dairy....for Andrew and I...so we haven't been! lol.  I just try not to overdo it. 

Anika is enjoying coconut milk yogurt... A LOT.  I bought every last one on my grocer's shelf! They stopped selling it,  so I bought the rest and have frozen some.

Anika had a week of separation anxiety. Cried every day when I left her at the sitter. IT seemed to be getting better by the end of last week, so lets hope it does!!

Andrew has been doing really well. I got an email from an old blog friend last week! She has IC and I even COMMENTED on one of her posts a couple years ago when she wrote about it! I never put it together.  She wrote me a really sweet email and I shared it with Andrew. Again, the blogging community is just amazing.  Andrew has cut out a lot of foods and he has been drinking a lot more water. He still goes to a lot of doctors, but he is between "flares" right now.  It sounds like people with IC can go years between flares, so lets just hope that it is a VERY long time! 

I leave you with this video...totally not safe, but I thought it was funny.  We don't really put Anika in font of the tv often, but I have tried to get her to watch baby signing time a few times....we watch it with her and do the signs too.  She usually loses interest though.  Well, Andrew gave her this old infant seat to sit in to watch....I walked away and she was sitting in it watching (Which shocked me). I came back from the kitchen and she was CLIMBING!  She just wont sit....HAS to be moving. lol.

I said excuse you, because she farted.