sean's bday celebration

In our little family (me, Sean + Cami) we like to stretch out celebrating birthdays since we are both so busy with work and Cami is always busy being cute and lazy. Sean's bday was on May 7th and I thought it would be fun to make a Sean + Caroline's Chicago themed celebration for him.

I visited my favorite place in the world, Paper Source, and found some manly looking materials to make this banner and present. I then printed out pics of our little family and hung everything up in Sean's mini man cave area in our dinning room. He was working late that night so when he came home I was already asleep and he was so surprised! It was cute when he woke me up and was all excited. :)

As little side gifts I got him this frame because he is always saying "I love you more" to me (he's amazing right!?) and then of course got him his favorite treats from Trader Joe's. He LOVES pesto so I made him a pesto dinner for his bday, which is one of the hearts on the banner. Then our two week celebration included going to our fave restaurants, shopping, going to the dog park, watching basketball (go Bulls!) and baseball (go Sox!) games, and seeing STAR TREK (best ever)!

Cams and I love this guy so much and he works so hard, he definitely deserves it!

happy love day!

Our new neighbor is this old man named John and he likes to decorate his door for EVERY holiday. I'm going to try and snap pics of every season and post here for you. So we will begin with Valentine's Day! Cute right?

And here is what I got my sweetie. We don't do a big Valentine's Day so we always do something small but cute. Sean got a promotion at work, he is Pub Manager now, which means he is basically in charge of all aspects of the bar and alcohol inventory. I think it's perfect for him and fun too! Well he has now been working even longer hours and I thought he could use some of his favorite granola bars from Trader Joe's. He LOVES these and I do too, but this box is only for him. I am not allowed to touch it! Ha ha...

And one of our favorite movies is I Love You, Man and if you have seen it you know why I bought this card! Plus the city looks like Chicago!

trader joe's challenge

One thing Sean and I like to do together is make challenges for ourselves. And we have come up with a new one that I am really excited about doing. Why you ask? Well...it involves food of course!

Challenge! We are going to only shop at Trader Joe's for the next four months! Trader Joe's is a really great grocery store here in Chicago that has an uncomplicated selection of everything you need, organic meats and produce, and great wines. But the big thing about this store is that it is really cheap!

Sean and I are slashing our budget in half for the summer so we thought this would be a great way to save money but we also just wanted to see if we can do it! No more V8 juice and Hot Pockets for Sean and no more Lean Cuisines and Fiber One bars for me!

Another plus to this challenge is that Sean got me this great Trader Joe's cookbook for Christmas. Everything in the book is from the store and it shows you what products go well together. Check out this website where you can find the books and other fun cooking things to look at!