As soon as the 1st March rolled around my stress levels went into overdrive! I knew the busiest month of the year had rolled around for us in terms of birthday parties (we had 3 to go to) our anniversary (6 whole years woohoo!) milestone birthdays (my dads 60th and 2 friends 30ths) and our little daughter Olivias 2nd birthday, mothers day and my father in laws birthday to round the month off. And Breathe. Busy might not cover it infact maybe totally manic might be better 🙂
OLIVIAS BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS
This year for Olivias birthday we decided against having everyone round to our house. We had everyone for the 1st birthday party and while it was really good we felt this year having 10+ kids of different ages running around our house would not be exciting for us or them . We booked a party at Scallywags instead. This seemed to go down a treat as the kids could run around and go wild to their heart’s content plus scallywags provided the food and we brought along our own cake and made some party bags. When we arrived there were a lot of kids so I did kind of panic a bit that it was going to be hectic but after all the text messages I received telling me how their little ones slept for 2 hours after the party I knew it had been a success!
I literally cannot believe she is two years old. It sounds strange to say but at times it seems like she has been with us a lot longer and not in bad way, it’s just hard to imagine a time when she wasn’t in our thoughts and running circles around us! She is the light of our lives and we have learnt so much about ourselves over the last 2 years as both individuals and parents – its been a learning curve that’s for sure…2 years later and we are still making it up as we go along!
As if two parties wasn’t enough for the birthday girl we travelled to Dublin for an overnight stay on Monday to visit Dublin Zoo for Olivias actual birthday. You can read about our overnight adventure here.
MOTHERS DAY
Mothers day was just as hectic for us. We had our parents and my grandmother round to celebrated Olivias birthday with family. Any excuse to have another birthday cake 🙂 When Chris asked me what I would like for mother’s day I didn’t beat around the bush; I didn’t want chocolates or any of that fuss I simply wanted some flowers and to have my engagement, wedding and eternity rings cleaned (wild I know!!) but in fairness two people have commented on how brand new they look and its only been a couple of weeks :):)
Olivia also made me a flower with the sweetest poem on the back at her toddler group which was so cute..
OUR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
Never mind 2 years with Olivia I don’t know where 6 years has gone since we got married! We do try to make the effort to do something on our anniversary even if it just means going out for dinner or even a special lunch. Olivia arrived 4 days before our anniversary in 2014 and we still managed to get out for something to eat and I enjoyed my first glass of wine in 10 months…I still remember it…total BLISS! This year for Christmas we got tickets to go and see Dynamo the magicians live tour in Belfast which we were super excited about.
It was a really good show although I am a bit funny about magic and magicians because if I cant figure out how the trick is done it drives me bonkers! A lot of his tricks were fantastic but so fantastic that I googled them afterwards – sorry couldn’t help myself!
Thanks to Granny and Granda we even got to go out for dinner beforehand and stay the night in Belfast. Childless and mixing with other adults in public and not a nappy bag in sight…CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!! PARTY TIME!!
Before the show we had a meal at Stripjoint which is a restaurant owned by the Made In Belfast franchise. There are so many great places to eat in Belfast but after several recommendation from work colleagues we thought we would give it a whirl and it certainly didn’t disappoint. We both had mussels to start which were to die for followed by steaks as it is their speciality. I had been eyeing up the dessert menu but after a 12oz sirloin I couldn’t have managed it 🙁 When we go back again I might sacrifice the starter to try a dessert as they looked so good!
MY DADS 60TH CELEBRATION
The day after our wedding anniversary was my dads 60th Birthday and while we were stuck in dreary Northern Ireland he was sunning himself in Tenerife with my mum, auntie and uncle…and rightly so 🙂 By the sounds of things he was fairly milking the old birthday and the celebrations havent stopped yet! Our family went out for lunch together this past sunday for more birthday antics and cake ! Chris, Olivia and I are taking my parents away on a 2 night trip to Lough Erne Resort in April as his birthday present so hopefully that will put an end to it, just a month later 🙂
The bulk of our March festivities are over and we are gearing up for Easter antics up the North Coast in Bushmills. Hope everyone has a great Easter and thanks for “keeping up with the Hennings” 🙂
