an earlyish-kind of celebration

have you had this? well...you should. it comes highly recommended and your tummy will thank you. mmm...gelato. happy birthday to mu-ah, in an earlyish-kind of way.

we walked, we ate, we played, we shopped.

we laughed, we drank starbucks, we celebrated, we gift-opened, we movie-watched, we set up kitchen.

we played peek-a-boo at the park. amongst other things.

as you can see, a bit of all of my favorites this weekend.

for once, it felt like our weekend took it slowly. it didn't feel the need to rush on by without a memory of what it was spent doing. instead, it lingered. it slow-poked its way through with great weather and lots of moments relished. i can't tell you how excited i was...oh, and jessa too...over the little kitchen set. i remember like it was yesterday receiving that for christmas when i was a toddler. shouting towards the sky, "THANK YOU SANTA!" like he was the greatest thing that ever existed, though i clearly understood that he was a fictitious being. when i was back home a few weeks ago, i looked it over on my parent's deck, thinking it was in worse shape. thankfully, my memory didn't serve me correctly. with a good scrub down, it looks almost as good as when i squealed over it more than twenty years ago. jessa has been quite the chef with her handy dish/pan/utensil set she got for her second birthday that we just now opened. i know, sad. finally, she has a place to put her creative cooking skills to play.