Sadie Turns 10 and Chase’s Dedication

Our weekend wasn’t wild and crazy but it was such a good one! I love simple weekends at home and the pure normalcy of the past couple of days left me feeling rejuvenated and my heart filled up. We celebrated Sadie’s birthday, had the most amazing dinner with wonderful people in our home on Saturday night and Chase was dedicated at our church on Sunday morning. But I’m getting ahead of myself! Let’s back up a bit…

Saturday

On Saturday, Sadie turned TEN years old!

Our little sugar-faced sweetheart makes us so happy and while she’s definitely more content to curl up on the couch than she was five years ago, her energy level is still high and she’s just as excitable and joyful as ever!

A few of you asked about Sadie’s annual birthday challenge last week when I mentioned her upcoming birthday and OF COURSE we had to keep the tradition alive this year! We opted for a Birthday Challenge: Breakfast Edition and placed bets on whether she’d pick sausage or bacon as her first go-to birthday treat. Based on Sadie’s past reactions when I’ve made various breakfast casseroles, my money was on sausage but bacon seemed to be the popular vote on Instagram Stories, capturing about 65 percent of your votes!

As usual, we let her sniff both plates and then Ryan backed her up and we sang Happy Birthday before releasing her toward her birthday treats to see which one she would eat first. Sadie kept us guessing with this year’s challenge because she immediately ran over to the bacon, sniffed it and then veered toward the sausage and went to town.

Sausage wins!

In addition to celebrating our special girl, our Saturday morning included a workout! I’m not sure why I love Saturday morning workouts so much, but I think it’s a combination of warming up with Ryan (it takes me back to our pre-baby workout days!) and beginning the weekend on an active note.

With a few days of gym closures last week due to snow days in Charlotte, I was craving a good workout on Saturday and took myself through a leg and booty workout that looked like this:

I rounded things out with my mini band booty workout (a short but serious booty burner) and called it a day.

Once we collected Chase from childcare, we made our way to Chipotle to grab burrito bowls for lunch before we spent the next hour or so at Barnes & Noble. We bumped into some of our friends at the bookstore and it was so nice to catch up while our boys all played at the train table together.

We made it home about 15 minutes before my mom pulled in the driveway! She drove in town from Florida to celebrate Chase’s dedication and he absolutely lit up when he saw “Mae” walk through the door! Chase talked Mae’s ear off and we played for a bit before I tried my best to settle him down for a nap which shockingly worked. (Nap battles are somethin’ fierce around here right now.)

Chase slept for an hour which gave us a chance to shower and get cleaned up before one of Ryan’s coworker friends and his wife came over. Ryan’s coworker, Matt, used to be a professional chef before switching to the corporate world. In the past, when Ryan has brought leftovers home from a work function or two and the dish was one of Matt’s, I’d rave about it for days because his food is INCREDIBLE. Matt made the amazingly generous offer to prepare a three-course dinner for us in our home with his wife for a mini dinner party. We bought all the groceries Matt needed to make the most incredible seafood-themed feast for our group of five (plus Chase who dined on a fancy schmancy box of Annie’s mac and cheese).

Matt’s first course included a fresh green salad with a homemade dijon vinaigrette dressing and the creamiest lump crab risotto. I think we all licked our plates clean!

The entree he prepared was pretty much my PERFECT dinner: A bouillabaisse packed with fresh shrimp, scallops, potatoes, salmon and sole.

Matt was such an animated and exciting person to talk to and his wife could not have been friendlier. I loved picking his brain and learning all about his training and experience and his fascinating cooking tips. I asked Matt if he has ever considered becoming a private chef for dinner parties and he said that while cooking is his passion, he prefers to leave it as a hobby because he loves being able to kick back, have a drink and relax with the people he cooks for and enjoy the entire process.

The dessert course was right up my alley and Matt prepared bananas flambé with butter-grilled pound cake, maple cinnamon whipped cream and salted caramel ice cream. Heaven!

Sunday

Sunday morning was a special day I’ve had on my radar ever since Chase was born and we finally made it happen! Our church organizes family dedications a couple of times a year and Chase was dedicated at the first service on Sunday morning along with a few other babies and children.

I had a few questions about a dedication versus a baptism on Instagram Stories and from my understanding, a dedication is often performed in non-denominational Christian churches instead of infant baptism. A dedication at our church welcomes a child into the church and indicates a family’s desire to raise their child to know God. It was a meaningful day for our family and Chase seemed to love being on stage! I wasn’t sure if he’d be nervous but he handled it like a champ and even gave our pastor an enthusiastic high-five!

After saying hello to friends and enjoying a small reception and some cupcakes, we made our way home for a relaxing Sunday afternoon. My mom encouraged Ryan and me to get out and take Sadie on a long birthday walk, so we wandered all over our neighborhood and covered about four miles with our girl before heading home.

Chase was napping by the time we made it back, so we flipped on some football and hung out on the couch together. I began typing up this blog post with Sadie curled up by my side until we dug into a big spread of breakfast for dinner thanks to Sadie’s birthday challenge leftovers.

I hope you all had a great weekend and enjoy the week ahead! Thanks for stopping by the blog today!

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