Weekend Recap

Linking up with fellow bloggers for a Hello Monday post...

Happy Monday everyone! It's an exciting week ahead and going to be a perfect balance of busy and relaxing for our family. We hope you had a great weekend. We are here to share some pictures of ours! xo

Saturday was a long but fun day! Michael had to work until 3, so I wanted to stay busy with my girl until then. We ate breakfast, got ready for the day, and headed to the aquarium. We arrived as soon as they opened.

I loved all the Christmas decor throughout the aquarium, especially this giant wreath at the entrance.

Santa was going to be there from 10:30-4 but I didn't want to torture Ella with Santa for a third time.

But we did take a Momma/Ella selfie. You can tell she's not a huge fan of selfies, haha!

The fake waterfall is Ella's favorite.

Even the fish and penguins were celebrating Christmas... :)

We love taking pictures with these penguins. I am guessing someone tagged them with graffiti because normally there is a gorgeous backdrop... and it was completely painted over white. So sad! I hope they fix it soon.

We got up close and personal with the sea lion. He was loving Ella and stayed so close to the glass and she was SO excited.

He may have just wanted to eat us...!

We stayed for the sea lion show.

We made our way outside to the play area... Ella wanted to play on the fake ship!

She played with the big kids and had so much fun.

Silly girl.

I snapped a pic of the walkway on our way out. I love palm trees and growing up in Maine, I never thought I would ever live in a place that had them everywhere!

After the aquarium, we swung by Main Street in Seal to go to the bank. I had to cash a check and get quarters for laundry. We came home, started some laundry and ate lunch!

Lunch- Banana slices, green beans, quinoa/rice with black beans, egg and zucchini. I had the same thing minus the banana.

Lunch gave Ella just enough energy to be silly and play for a little while longer.

Ella took a nice long 2 hour nap from 1:30-3:30.

While she slept I cleaned up from lunch, did some light cleaning, and put on a Netflix Documentary series to watch for a few minutes. I ended up spending the rest of Ella's nap watching and dealing with the laundry. It was perfect!

Ella woke up around 3:30, and shortly after that Michael was home! We went out for an early dinner!

We went to Urban Plates, which had just opened. I loved the ambience and staff, but the food was disappointing. I ordered the steak with mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts. Michael ordered the lamb and a bowl of seafood chowder. Mine was dry and salty. Michael described his as 'inedible.' So a rough first and probably last experience there. Despite the food not being the best, I love spending time with my little family. And I really enjoyed the ambience of the restaurant.

After dinner, we decided to hang out at 2nd & PCH for a bit.

Ella had fun crawling around, climbing furniture and burning energy.

Some family pictures in front of the tree. I was looking and feeling so tired from our busy day!

A little Boba Guys! Michael got me a strawberry matcha latte. It was a little sweet for me. So I stole Michael's lychee tea and drank that instead.

Ella was practicing her selfie game with my old cell phone while we enjoyed our drinks.

We headed home to give Ella a bath and get her into bed by 7 pm. The rest of the night looked like some light cleaning and Netflix.

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Sunday

Sunday was a lazier day, which was just fine with me!

I was up around 6:30 and drank coffee until Ella woke up at 7.

She started her day with some boiled eggs and blueberries with her milk.

Ella made herself all sorts of comfy on the couch. She likes when we pull out the bed halfway, so she can climb up onto it.

So silly all morning! She changed positions several times while watching her nursery rhymes... and then decided that she wanted to sit on our new bluetooth speaker. Okay Ella, hahaha!

Ella and I both cleaned up and got ready for the day. We headed to Target! My Dad sent us a gift card for Christmas and I knew I wanted to use it to buy Ella a new area rug for her room... The last one got ruined when her room flooded from all the rain.

Me and my cute girl!

I love her little Mini Melissas! She got the for her birthday.

As you can see, most of what I bought is food! But I did get a new rug for Ella's room, and some baskets for organization.

We put away the groceries, had a snack and did some walking outside.

I'm really trying to encourage Ella to practice her walking. She does a much better job when she has no shoes on. Her doctor encouraged barefoot walking as much as we can, but obviously we can't do that outside. She loves walking with her walker but gets sooo scared and falls when she lets go.

We ate lunch with Michael's parents, and Ella had a blast playing with them at their place. She knew as soon as we started walking up that we were at their house and was showing her excitement.

One of our favorite drink places 7 Leaves is on the way home from their house, so we had to make a stop.

I got a matcha green tea with aloe. Michael got a jasmine tea with sea cream and boba.

When we got home, Ella went down for a nap. I started a load of laundry and wrote out some Christmas cards. One of them being for our upstairs neighbors. They have been so patient, supportive and sweet since we had Ella. Not once have they complained or acted bothered what-so-ever. In fact, quite the opposite. We knew we had to do a little something for them...

So we made them some frosted sugar cookies! Just a simple thank-you for being the best neighbors ever. I want to take them out to dinner one of these days too!

Ella woke up just in time to have a taste of the cookies, and she was a big fan! She especially loved the frosting. After our snack, we decided to go for a family walk to the park. It was a bit cool outside, but we bundled up and headed outside.