azalea turns 11, baseball begins, cat cafe

 i made stuffed peppers for dinner last monday night. i haven't made them in a long time and they always sound good, but i feel like they usually come out bland despite putting a lot of different seasonings in. this time was no different. any one have a good recipe for them?

 

 

last tuesday it got to 64 degrees in seattle and it was glorious! i've been able to sit on my deck quite a few times in the last week in 60+ degree weather and it makes me so happy! 

last friday i got my (semi-annual) hair cut. i always love when i get to have cute, styled hair for a couple of days...because my own skills are lacking in that department. 

thatcher went into the office on friday and then went straight to his friends' house for the evening, so it was just the kids and me. i decided to take them to mcdonalds. it was our first time eating inside a mcdonalds in over 2 years. it was even remodeled during that time, though the play structure isn't open yet. but we had the whole 'kid' room to ourselves. when we got home we watched alvin and the chipmunks. 

saturday was azalea's 11th birthday! i know i say this every year, but how are we already here?! i made a collage of pictures of her from the last year and i always love to look back at them. she's becoming such a little lady. 

her birthday festivities spanned the whole weekend (as they should!). on friday she brought mini bags of chips to hand out to her classmates at the end of the day - an idea she got from another kid's birthday. she had a futsal game bright and early on saturday morning and she wanted to bring a treat for that too, so we picked up brownie bites for her teammates. they won their game, so she was happy. when we got home we watched sing 2 as a family. we would have gone to the theater, but none of the times worked. in the afternoon i took her with me to pick up a DQ blizzard cake in edmonds. it's the closest DQ to us and it took 40 minutes to get there. that's some serious dedication :) ashford finally had his first baseball practice of the season (two of them were already rained out). thatcher took him and he had a great time. about half the team is kids from last year and half is new. 

 

 

azalea requested chipotle for her birthday dinner, so we went there to eat. yum! when we got home we had a zoom call with thatcher's parents, my mom, my brother, and cedar's family in beijing. we couldn't make the timing work for anders' family in prague so we zoomed with them separately on sunday. it was nice to see everyone's faces and they enjoyed watching azalea open her gifts and blow out her candles. 

 

she got 8 mini squishmallows, a couple shirts, a purse, some pouches, an add-on for her animal crossing video game, some jewelry, and money. lucky girl! 

i had never had a blizzard cake from DQ before (only the regular kind), and it was delish! 

sunday we relaxed at home in the morning and then in the afternoon i took azalea and 3 friends (and a couple of their moms) to a cat cafe in wallingford called seattle meowtropolitan. it's basically a coffee shop with a side room that houses over a dozen cats to play with. some are also available for adoption. it was our first time going there and i knew azalea and her friends would love it, so it was a perfect birthday activity. the cats were really cute. some were very affectionate/playful and some just slept the whole time :) we ordered drinks and the girls had a blast. 

we only had 60 minutes at the cat cafe, so the girls came back to our place after for leftover ice cream cake and video games. after a whirlwind weekend it was nice to just relax on sunday night.