Celebrations

It was a really great weekend in the Dowd household.  For starters, we bought a new car!  It's a beautiful blue 2013 Ford Explorer (the color is my favorite part, haha).  I'm hoping that actually having the new car will help me start to heal a bit from the accident.  It'll probably take me awhile for the jitters to disappear entirely, especially on the highway, but at least I feel safe driving the new car.  It's also the first car Stephen and I have bought together, and the first NEW car Stephen has ever bought, so it was definite cause for celebration.

Also cause for celebration -- Stephen and I were both offered promotions at work last week.  Exciting new jobs call for wonderfully indulgent dinner dates, so we had a great evening at Embers in Kenwood, complete with champagne (of course).  It was awesome, and Gavin rewarded us that evening by sleeping eleven straight hours.  For the first time EVER.

On Sunday, we had a big pancake breakfast (which Gavin loved), went grocery shopping (which Gavin did NOT love), and enjoyed the beautiful weather.  In the evening, we went with another family to a local sunflower field to take photos.  I've loved sunflowers since I was a little girl and I've been driving past this field for years, so it was especially fun to get the camera out and snap some photos.  Afterwards, we went to our neighbor's house for dinner and had a great time chatting while our kids played.  It was a perfect way to end a wonderful weekend.

My boys are so handsome.

Our neighbor, Amy, took these family photos of us.  It's rare for us to have photos with all three of us in them, so this was really special.

So in love with my little family!

We oftentimes feel like we're flying by the seat of our pants during the week, so the weekends are usually when we play catch-up.  We put away the piles of laundry, we vacuum the tufts of cat fur off the floor, we reorganize cabinets and shelves.  This weekend, we did none of that.  There are still baskets of laundry sitting on top of the dryer and tumbleweeds of fur adorning the basement -- but sometimes you just need a weekend to relax as a family.  We have a lot to celebrate, so celebrate we did.  :)