Are you there, Spring? It's me, Rachel.

Hello? Spring? Where arrreee youuuu?!

We're knocking on April's door and the weather is anything but spring-like. I'm having flashbacks of wearing a long sleeve shirt to the beach last Memorial Day weekend and wished I had worn sweats...do we think that this year will be any different? This weekend we will have all of the Easter festivities, and it would be really nice if we could be outside for at least some of it. I haven't checked the extended forecast, but I don't have high hopes!

How was your weekend? Ours was productive and fun and I'd be lying if I said that it didn't fly by way too fast. Friday night we ordered in dinner and watched Justified, and I think I was asleep by 10.

On Saturday, Penelope was up bright and early - 5:30 to be precise - and so it was a loooong day. Shaun and I spent most of the day tidying up the joint and I entered into the black hole of cleaning out Penelope's closet. It started with just reorganizing her snack shelf, and ended 2 hours later with a full closet and dresser detox. I'll be posting an update on how we use her closet now that she's a toddler soon!

 

In the afternoon, we walked around the corner to a friend's 1st birthday party! So fun to spend the day with friends from our building, and I always love having a very Jersey City weekend.

 

Though we were spent by 5pm when we arrived home, Shaun and I had secured a babysitter for date night! Back in early February, I vowed that we'd try to do this once a month and we squeezed this one in just under the wire for March. We ventured to downton Jersey City and dined at Talde, a newish restaurant that opened recently. In short, it was A-mazing!

With lots of small plates on the menu (my favorite), we dined on pretzel pork dumplings, mc bao (a bao-style McRib --->love this!), fried chicken, crab fried rice, tuna tartar spring rolls and more. I enjoyed a glass of plum wine bellini with my meal and it was super refreshing.

 

After dinner, we went next door to Carrino Provisions, also by Dale Talde, for a drink and dessert. Like a mini-Eataly, we really enjoyed changing scenery to something a bit more casual to wind the evening down. It was so very cold out on Saturday night that we really didn't feel like walking around anywhere else afterwards. We hit up Duane Reade because Penelope needed some Desitin, and called it a night. You know you're a parent when Saturday evening date night ends with picking up butt cream for baby.

 

Sunday Shaun was out for the day, so Penelope and I cooked and baked for most of the day. I'll be sharing some of that with you, hopefully tomorrow! We also attended a goodbye party for friends of ours in our building who are moving this week. We are really bummed!

So that was our chilly weekend in a nutshell. Can we please all band together and insist on good weather for this coming weekend? Do you hear us universe?! It's time!

I'm looking forward to a short week (I took Friday off for the holiday!), and hopefully sharing some really fun stuff with you later this week! Make it a great one!

How was your weekend?

Is it spring where you are?

Weekend

How was your weekend?

As I mentioned on Friday, Shaun was away for the weekend so Penelope spent Saturday and Sunday at my parents' house. It was nice to get out of the city and our apartment for a couple of days. There is nothing like being a kid again with my parents to take care of me...even with a kid of my own in tow.

My whole family, including my parents and sisters, are doing the Dukan diet and so we had a long weekend of cooking and prepping and I came home last night with enough food for the entire week, which is a great feeling.

On Saturday, my mom and I took Penelope to a local park to play. They had a perfectly Penelope-sized play area with slides that she could go on and baby swings separated from the big kid swings. Though Penelope has had complete meltdowns the last few times we've tried to put her on them, I wanted to give it another try because, let's face it, a life without swings is really no life at all. I quickly put her in one and started swinging and she ended up loving it! She was laughing and screaming and we had a blast pushing and laughing with her.

After swing time, we went for a nice long walk around the park and headed home. For dinner we dined on loaded cauliflower pizza with ricotta, peppers, onions and turkey pepperoni. I had a few glasses of wine which is definitely not Dukan approved, but sometimes, on a Saturday night, a girl just needs a glass of wine, youknowwhatimsayin? Red wine (preferably Malbec) is my drink of choice, there's no doubt about it.

We also discovered a show on ABC called Sing Your Face Off...have you guys heard of this?

It's so bad that it's good. I am not a fan of singing shows, but this one is really something else. Essentially, it pits various celebrities against each other in a singing/impersonating competition and then are judged accordingly. In this episode, Lisa Rinna impersonated Dolly Parton and Britney Spears, while Sebastian Bach channeled Adam Levine. It's epically bad TV and I kind of loved it.

On Sunday, Penelope slept in and so I slept in and it was glorious. I food shopped early so that we could have the whole afternoon to barbecue and relax, which we did. Dukan'ers rejoice for bunless burgers and hot dogs!

Afterwards, Christine showed off her hula hoop skills and taught Penelope how to log roll.

Then we cooked our hearts out in prep for the week. I made a turkey meatloaf (we are testing it out today so I'll share it if it's good!), a Dukan cinnamon tart, Dukan muffins and more.

We arrived home so late last night and so there was no Game of Thrones for me. We were just too tired and I know it's a huge episode, so I want to be in full functioning form for it! I'm actually heading out of town today on a business trip and won't be home until late tomorrow evening, so it looks like we won't be watching it until Wednesday night! Not my favorite, but it is what it is.

I'm heading out today for New Hampshire, so I have a long car ride in my future! I hope you are having a great Monday and a fabulous week ahead!

How was your weekend?

What is your poison of choice?

Kinky Boots

Hi Monday Friends,
How was your weekend? Mine went by too fast as usual and with a crazy busy week ahead, I'm relishing a little bit of quiet today before the storm.

Our weekend started bright and early Saturday morning, though Penelope gave us a small reprieve and slept until it was light outside, which meant 7:30. Can't complain about that!

For Christmas, Shaun's parents had given us tickets to see Kinky Boots on Broadway and Saturday was our showtime matinee. They came over to watch Penelope and we headed into the city for a day of fun.

We had a coupon for parking and so we drove in and parked at a lot in Hells Kitchen. With a little time to spare, we grabbed a slice of pizza to hold us over until dinner time. It's been so long since I sat in a New York pizza joint and enjoyed a slice right out of the oven. There's really nothing like it.

We ended up running to the theater and arrived just in time for the curtain call.

I didn't do any research on the show beforehand so I didn't know anything about the story in advance, aside from the fact that Cyndi Lauper wrote the music and lyrics {and with that in mind, how could it be bad?}. Oh and that it won Best Musical at the 2013 Tony Awards.

I really loved this show. It was just...fun! The music was instantly enjoyable and the story was so charming. Not to mention the uh-mazing costumes and boots (!!)...oh and Billy Porter as the drag queen performer turned shoe designer was phenomenal. I could just watch him, all day long.

At intermission, we took advantage of being out solo for the day and enjoyed an adult beverage, served in a classy travel cup.

I did end up getting a coffee mug to take home because I loved the logo so much.

After the show, we headed out into the New York City snow. New York in the snow - especially the light dusting that we got - is so wonderful. There was just something so special about walking around, hand in hand with my love, with snowflakes dotting our eyelashes.

It was a pretty great New York moment.

We had plans to go to Danji for dinner, but with a long wait in a small space, we opted to venture out into Hell's Kitchen and see what we could find.

After a drink, we ended up at Alfie's, a pub with fantastic food (including pork belly with blood orange compote and pine nuts).

Our last stop for the evening was Amy's Bread for some take-home dessert goodies (as if we needed any more food) and some Nuts 4 Nuts for the road.

We arrived home late (for us parents), relieved our babysitters and passed out on the couch. Such a great day and I was super excited to wake up to my little snuggle bug on Sunday morning! I love having a day out, but I do inevitably miss her terribly.

How was your weekend?

What's the last play or musical you saw?