Celebrating 5 Years + Chase’s First Halloween

Good morning! I hope you guys had a fun and festive Halloween weekend! Our weekend included both a Halloween celebration and an anniversary celebration, so it was a good one all around.

Celebrating 5 Years

On Friday, Ryan and I celebrated our five year wedding anniversary with a date night out! Initially we figured we’d probably just stay in and keep things low key, but we both felt the itch to do something a little special and decided to head to Restaurant X in Davidson for an early dinner with Chase.

I love that picture of Ryan and Chase! Chase looks like such a happy little ham. I, on the other hand, got Stone Cold Baby Face…

Followed by some sweet grins!

Restaurant X was the first restaurant we visited when we drove to the Charlotte area when Ryan interviewed for his new job. We revisited the restaurant on our anniversary last year, so it’s becoming somewhat of a tradition to head to there to celebrate!

We made sure to pack a bottle and WubbaNub for Chase just in case he got a little fussy (and we went super early to avoid crowds) and Chase ended up sleeping through all but the last 10 minutes of our date. It felt like a treat for us to have a meal together where both of us could eat with two hands. It’s the little things!

Our date night began with his and hers drinks – beer for Ryan, wine for me – before we ordered shrimp spring rolls to share for an appetizer.

They were deliciously crunchy and I ended up taking charge of that plate! The rest of our meal was equally delicious and I happily dug into an ahi tuna soba noodle dish that tasted wonderful.

Before heading home for the night, we swung by a custard shop that caught our eye. Ryan and I both share an intense love for ice cream, soft serve and custard so we knew we had to give Whit’s Frozen Custard a try.

We split a cup of the cookie monster custard which was a creamy vanilla base swirled with Oreos, cookie dough and a chocolate ribbon. Heaven in a cup! (FYI for locals, Whit’s is selling frozen pumpkin custard pies for only $9 for Thanksgiving! Ryan and I immediately ordered one to pick up over the holidays when we were there.)

When we made it home, it was time to exchange gifts! I got Ryan five small gifts – one for each year of marriage – though his main gift fell under the “wood” theme associated with five year wedding anniversaries. (We try to stick to the traditional theme gifts for our anniversary presents, but still keep things rather small-scale.)

I had a map of Lake Norman framed in a wood frame for Ryan and gave it to him with a little note explaining that the map is more than just a map. It represents our home, a place I love so much because of him and the life we have created here together.

Ryan’s gift started out on such a sweet note (literally)… He had a mini replica of our wedding cake created by a local bakery!

I was so surprised and the cake was not only incredibly thoughtful, but also incredibly delicious! We love red velvet cake with buttercream icing (rather than the traditional cream cheese icing) and the recreation of our wedding cake tasted fantastic, though I think we both ate a little too much and ended up in a bit of a sugar coma that night!

The “wood” gifts he gave me included two wood wick candles (they smell heavenly) and a ridiculously cute wooden truck toy with Chase’s name on it. For a last-minute anniversary celebration, it ended up being a good one!

Halloween

On Halloween morning, Ryan headed off to the gym for an early workout while I hung out with Chase and ate breakfast before it was my turn to hit up Burn Boot Camp for a Saturday sweat session. The workout was a team cardio workout and once I was done with my workout, I swung by the grocery store to pick up our food for the week. I made it home around 10:30 a.m. and did a little bit of food prep for the week ahead before we headed out for a family walk with Sadie. (Stay tuned for a food prep post soon!)

Call us super lame but the only real plans on our agenda for Halloween included a trip to Verizon for a new phone for me. For the past two weeks, my phone has been on its last leg. I wasn’t receiving texts or incoming calls and only a small portion of my texts and outgoing calls would make it through. It was incredibly frustrating and since I was due for a new phone anyway, I picked out the newest rose gold iPhone 6S at the store and instantly fell in love.

I was worried it would feel too huge (I joked to Ryan that I’m now carrying an iPad around with me…), but I am already a fan. I love the bigger screen and the fact that I can actually communicate with the outside world again is a definite plus! I missed some important updates from friends this week and felt so disconnected, so it is great to feel back in the loop.

Before driving home, we popped into Waterbean Coffee for a quick mid-afternoon pick-me-up and ordered lattes to go to fuel us for an evening of Halloween fun. We had a ton of candy ready for trick-or-treaters and assumed we’d see lots of cute kids dressed up in costumes in our neighborhood. Well, we ended up getting ZERO trick-or-treaters! I was so bummed. What the heck!?

We still had fun with our party of four (can’t forget Sadie!) and dressed Chase up as an adorable lil’ pumpkin before curling up on the couch to watch Hocus Pocus.

I owe a big thank you to my mom for making Chase’s costume! She actually gave us three costumes for Chase during our mountain vacation (a duck costume I saw at TJMaxx with her when she was here, a bumble bee costume that used to belong to a doll my sister had and the pumpkin costume) and Ryan and I both agreed the pumpkin costume was too cute not to use! Plus, I loved the homemade feel!

And now that I’ve shown you some of Chase’s happy (or at least calm) Halloween pictures, here are a few pics I’ll call “Halloween: Real Life.” Chase tolerated his costume pretty well (and even ended up napping in it!) but he definitely reached capacity after a couple of pictures and the tears flowed. Sad lil’ pumpkin.

I’m sorry, buddy!

He was a trooper and I told him his reward for tolerating his costume will be some Reese’s peanut butter cups that will be coming his way via the Mommy Breast Express soon.

I hope you guys had a great Halloween! I’m already excited for next year’s festivities when we will have a little toddler on our hands! (Oh my gosh time needs to sloooow down.) Enjoy your Monday!