Weekend Basics

It was another jam-packed weekend full of festivities for us — I'm sure you can relate this time of year! We were both glad to get back home from our week up in NYC and get a chance to snuggle with this guy (who is still recovering from his extended stay in doggie daycare):

It was our last trip up to the city for the remainder of this year and it was such a beautiful, albeit cold, time of year to take in all the sights and holiday decorations. We did get a chance to get all gussied up for the Etsy holiday party, so will look forward to sharing a few pics on the blog soon.

We also celebrated some birthdays this weekend!

My dad and niece, Virginia, share almost the same birthday by a few hours apart. His falls on the 14th and hers was in the wee morning hours of the 15th — it's always a fun time for us all to get together and celebrate them both. It was also really cute to see Virginia get excited about sharing her birthday with Granddad this year, and there were even 2 cakes brought out, one after the other, so we could sing to each of them. Both Virginia and Dad decided to have big pieces of each to eat. We are definitely related :)

Virginia is really into the Disney Junior show, Doc McStuffins, so many of her gifts this year included something or another fitting that theme. I'm so glad I have young nieces and a nephew to keep me in the loop with what the in things are these days (never thought I'd say that, ha). Tim and I got her a Doc McStuffins puzzle, but the biggest hit was the giant golden number 5 balloon we surprised her with:

It was bigger than she is. I get these balloons from a site called Balloon Maniacs and have used them for everything from the kids' birthdays to Tim's birthday and even our wedding. They're definitely one of those novelty things that will get wide eyes from little kids, plus if you have time to plan ahead and order on the weekends of Tuesdays, you can usually get 20% your entire balloon order.

It's hard to believe we'll have a new little girl in the family this spring. How cute is my sister?

Saturday was a dreary and rainy day here in RVA, but it didn't stop up from going to get a Christmas tree! If you follow us on Instagram, you probably know we trekked out to Farm to Family this year for our tree — the only difference between this year and last year was we actually picked it up as opposed to having it delivered:

While at the market, we got a chance to see and feed the ducks hanging out around back:

After getting the tree home, we let it rest in the garage overnight before mustering up the energy to pull all of our Christmas decorations from the attic and let the decorating begin!

We made some major progress and look forward to sharing how everything shapes up.

We also got around to hanging some framed art around the house we've been meaning to get to for months, so that felt really good. We'll share more from those adventures here on the blog soon!

As far as getting out and about, we did get a chance to check out a new bar/restaurant called The Cask Cafe last night. It's a small and cozy little space in our neighborhood and they were cracking open one of the most coveted beers in town — the Bourbon Gingerbread stout (if you are a beer geek I wish you could try this) from Hardywood Park Craft Brewery in celebration of two local business' 3 year anniversaries, Pizza Tonight and Sausage Craft. I'm not typically a beer drinker, but we had fun checking out the space and sipping on the stout. We're looking forward to slipping back over there for lunch in order to try more from the menu.

What was on the agenda for your weekend? Are you already decked out with decorations or still playing catchup like we are?