And The Parties Keep Coming!

So as most of you know, we Swendsens love a good party! So why not have another one? That's just what we did! After celebrating Matthew's birthday down here, we traveled up to my parent's house to celebrate with the other half of the family. We traveled on Matthew's actual birthday and landed just in time to have a wonderfully relaxing and festive birthday dinner. My mom, who is amazing (I swear!) made piadines for dinner. Maybe you don't know what they are, but when I just hear the word, I start salivating. A piadine is a salad that is served on top of a warm pizza crust. You fold the round pizza crust in half and then eat it like a sandwich. There is a restaurant down here called Tomatina and their Chicken Piadine is seriously- one of my favorite foods in the entire world! So can you imagine my surprise when I got off the plane, lugged our stuff into the house, and realized what my Mom had prepared! They were AMAZING!!! Grazie!!! After dinner, Jill and my Mom had made some birthday cupcakes for us all to enjoy. Matthew loved it and picked at it for a very long time (which gave me a huge break to just relax). Again, he balked at blowing out the candle but he still gets and E for effort.

I was excited to have Matthew's party at my parent's because this was the inaugural birthday party in their newly remodeled house. Up until this point, we have had the parties at Jill's house because their house was still in the throws of construction. My mom was as excited as I was and actually pre-made the entree for the party before I came up there. This really freed up our time to just enjoy each other and kind of put the party on the back burner for a few days. We hung around the house for a good part of the first few days and just relaxed. Matthew and his cuz, Kyle, crawled after each other and it was impressive because this was the first time that they didn't hit and understood 'nicey'. They are so close in age (just over 3 months) and really notice when one or the other is not getting attention or if the other one has the 'cool toy' of the moment. Anyway- it is just fun to watch them together. Every time Matthew is around Kyle, he learns something new. This trip, Kyle taught Matthew how to give hugs. I would like to personally thank Kyle for this because now I am the lucky recipient of Matthew's newly learned affection!

While we were up there, I was able to play in a soccer game with Jill and Gina. This is always so fun for me because it is like we have this unspoken language on the field. We watch each other's backs and make sure that no one is being too rough with one of us. We never let the other team know we are sisters and use if to our advantage like a secret little alliance. I really enjoy seeing Jill mow over someone or Gina juke someone and put a perfectly placed ball down the line. The co-ed team we played for unfortunately had a few of the typical 'I Don't Pass to Girls' guys so that made it challenging and frustrating, too. That was another reason playing with them was so fun because if I made a run and was open in the box, Jill and Gina would make every effort to get it there. We won the game despite the fact that it was absolutely freezing. But what I take away the most was a fun night with my sissies and a chance to get away from the kids and have a ball!

The party went off without a hitch. It was so nice to prepare all the food in the new kitchen and to have so much space to move around. People had a good time, milled around, the kids all played together, the food was good, and the chance to catch up with everyone was awesome. Matthew seemed to finally get a little more of the concept that this was his party. We had a darling Curious George piñata (which the two little boys loved), a super cute animal cake, and Matthew got so many wonderful and thoughtful gifts. Matthew again thoroughly enjoyed the cake and we had to let him go at it again just for the thrill of seeing him get filthy! It was a great party and a fantastic way to bid adieu to his first birthday celebrations.

The next day my parents had the BEST Superbowl party! We had just enough time to take down the birthday decorations and get the Superbowl decorations out before people started arriving. Everyone brought some kind of food (I totally overate!) and started buying squares in the Superbowl Score Grid. They had the game on in the theater and in two other locations so everyone got a chance to see the game. People went crazy with the Superbowl grid and were wildly rooting for a chance to have their numbers we the score at the end of the quarter. The prizes were $25 for the first quarter score, $50 for halftime score, $25 for the third quarter score, and $100 for the final score. Being the brainiac that I am, I scheduled our flight for the middle of the Superbowl. Damien was pretty cool about it. When I booked the flights a while back, I was surprised to see the return flight be so cheap! So naturally, I swiped them up with pleasure- that was until I realized WHY they were so cheap. Lucky for us, our flight was delayed which meant that we got to watch the thrilling end to the game in the airport and scream with the other people who probably didn't realized they booked their flight in the middle of the Superbowl, either. It was one of the best games I have ever seen and nothing was better than getting a call from my Dad saying that I won the $100 grand prize! I guess flying during the Superbowl wasn't bad after all!