Busy weekend

[rockinlibrarian]

... busy AND fun. And always involving food, which is always a plus.

My cousin Matt's wife Paige just opened a coffee shop/hangout (athough there is still nothing at that website yet) in Bellevue. Here's the address so you can go patronize it:
Mojo Bistro
172 Lincoln Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15202
412-761-2828
It's like if you go up Ohio River Boulevarde from Downtown, turn right when you get to the McKees Rocks Bridge, and then it's the next two lefts I think. Anyway.
So they had a sneak preview/practice run for friends and family this weekend (officially opening to the public today). Jason and I decided to go in in the mid-afternoon for an early dinner, wondering when anyone else would be showing up, but as it turned out just about everybody had turned up at the same time a little earlier and were all basically hanging out all day (except my sister who had to work). Brittany and Courtney kept trying to be waitresses. It was indeed a good hang-out spot, so hopefully cool customer types will discover that too. Also, the food was awesome. I had this almond-crusted-chicken salad. Baby loves two proteins in one! Most of it was prepared by the chef they'd hired, a young guy with a one-year-old baby who came in to visit later in the evening and was fun. But Paige herself made this soup which was also awesome-- it was spicy enchilada soup. I'm not usually a soup person, but that soup is worth going out of your way for. Also, some curious neighbors wandered in even though it was just a friends and family trial run, but of course Matt and Paige are cool and quickly made friends out of them, so I imagine they will be back!

Then yesterday was Baby Shower #1, which was small because it was just Jason's family, which is smaller anyway. There were these finger sandwiches, like, but the best parts of the food were a pea salad with some sort of creamy dressing and bacon and cheese and junk, a fruit salad that included fruit like strawberries that had been frozen since last year when they were in season, so that was awesome; and two cakes by Aunt Lynnie, an oreo cheese cake and a carrot cake. Everyone of course raved about the cheese cake, which was awesome, but I swear the carrot cake was even better. Most silly people didn't even get around to trying it because they had to try the cheese cake. I of course had no problem making room for two desserts. Now that I have thoroughly discussed the food, I'll move on.

For me one of the most fun things about the shower was that it was attended by several of J's younger cousins (once removed, except in one case), whose growth reminded me exactly how long I'd been around in the family now! Meredith, his first cousin, who was a rambunctious 8 year old when I met her, is now a confident teenager, chatting and joking with the adults like, well, a young adult. Then a couple of his once-removeds, Kamie and Brooke, who are in third and second grade respectively-- Kamie had always been advanced for her age so had seemed older when we first met, but I remember Brooke as a barely-verbal toddler-- now she was playing all the shower games and won one of them! I ate with them, and it was fun listening in on-- occasionally participating in-- their discussions about school. Kamie's mom is the one who's also expecting a boy in April (oh, and we both had to wear TWO name tags at the shower-- the babies each got their own too!)-- I can see her doing some double babysitting in the future.... she's just one year younger than I was when Danny was born. I wonder if she's discovered The Babysitters Club yet? Seriously, good reference books.

As for presents, I think the best was the Jumparoo! from Kamie's branch of the family (ie her mom and grandma and aunts), which is exciting mainly because it's the only Non-Essential I REALLY WANTED, and since it's a non-essential it would have been really hard to make myself buy it if nobody DID get it for the shower, but it seems SO FITTING for this child who obviously already has a whole lot of energy-- so of COURSE it ended up being bought by people who had watched his dad grow up! Jen (J's cousin) said, "I saw that and thought 'CONTAINMENT!'" We also got the bedding set (you must click if you haven't seen it yet, it's that cute) from Aunt Lynnie and family (although Meredith also tied a fleece baby blanket-- to match the blanket she tied for our wedding gift that gets loads of use still!) and Bethany got us some sheets. That was all we got that was actually on the registry (not counting the bath seat we got from tigger18325 in the mail last week that was very cool-- thanks again Leah!-- too bad that linked page doesn't have a picture of the box on it-- the baby on the box cracks me up, she's just looking right at the camera like, "Hey, there's a camera, I'm going to show off for it") ...which is kind of scary, because if people are really in the habit of buying cutsie things instead of useful things, that's more we have to buy that we can't afford! We got a really soft little teddy bear that I imagine could turn into an Inseperable Buddy; some outfits, a few packs of Onesies-- add in that we also took home all the hand-me-downs that had been hanging out in the in-laws' basement, I'm serious now, we HONESTLY DO NEED NO MORE CLOTHES! Even got Jason's old Baptism outfit, which was the only piece of clothing I realized we didn't have before, something for a Baptism. Now it will be a Catholic baptism instead of Presbyterian, mwha ha ha ha ha! Anyway, what else? Oh, possibly the coolest non-registry gift wasn't for Baby at all, but Mim-mim had gathered up a huge pile of pictures of Jason as a baby/kid "for comparison purposes," and they're all very adorable. In every one of course he's got this huge grin! Got a couple other bears too, which were centerpieces on the buffet table, and the one was holding this huge chocolate baby that was pretty freaky looking, but we had a lot of fun with that chocolate baby.

After the shower we were waiting for the guys, who were meanwhile fixing that outlet in the garage, so we now have a freezer in the garage! Time to start stocking up for don't-feel-like-cooking time! Anyway, while we were waiting we were talking, and I found out that neither my mom nor his mom ever felt the need for ANY sort of pain medication in ANY of their labors, six total-- here's hoping for the power of good genetics for easy labors! Speaking of genetics, I have to go watch "Heroes" now. Dang serial shows. THAT is why I don't watch TV. It's evil I tell you.

Comments

[majellen.livejournal.com]

I'm glad your first shower was good! Wish I could have been there. I'm sorry I'm not getting you anything off of your registry, but I promise, our presents really do rock. One will be done probably by the end of next week, the other has to wait until it gets a good bit warmer. I hope that's not too disappointing?


I'm glad someone else I know is absolutely hooked on Heroes. It is, in my opinion, one of the best serial shows out there on TV. Does Jason watch it? It seems like the type of thing he'd enjoy, but of course, he'd have to tape it or something. :(

But don't feel bad, at least he's in the country.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I can't decide if Jason would actually like Heroes (no, he doesn't watch it OR tape it), only because I don't know if he'd have the patience for all the multiple storylines and how something gets set up one week and takes five more weeks to happen and so forth. He'd probably enjoy it if he had the whole series on DVD and could watch it all at once. Then again, you can watch the whole series streaming on the NBC website if you want (I've had to resort to that a couple times).

[majellen.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I think Sean and I decided on a green and safari theme for our nursery, no matter what the gender of the baby is. Of course, we'll pick girlier stuff if it's a girl, like..I dunno, pink monkeys?

I just want an excuse to hang monkeys from the ceiling.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I think ordinary brown monkeys will do. Maybe some of them can wear pink bows on their heads?

I do think the jungle theme idea is really cute.

[tigger18325.livejournal.com]

sounds like a fun shower. The bedding set is really cute. And you are very welcome for the bath seat.