Happy Birthday, sweet boy.

Harbor's 25 today! We're just about to go out for dinner, so I'll update about this week later. But I just really wanted to post the photo of him blowing out an Anthropologie candle at midnight, with Matilda by his side. Sometimes you've got to get creative.

Birthday week!

I love birthdays. I love them so much that I rarely ever confine the celebration to the literal day of birth. This Wednesday is Harbor's birthday, and we've started his b-day celebration week off right!

I surprised him with a trip up to St. Augustine last night, and it was a blast! The original plan was to head to Nalu's for fish tacos, walk around a bit and grab paletas at The Hyppo for dessert. Turns out, Nalu's wasn't open (or maybe they just have shorter winter hours?) so at first I thought we may have to hop over to our staple restaurant Pizzalley's, but THEN I was struck by a genius idea. And off to The Floridian we went!

The Floridian is the cutest little restaurant that serves local, seasonal and sustainable ingredients and seeks to support community farmers, producers, etc. You can tell because the flavors are so intense, and surprisingly, the prices are way inexpensive for the quality and portion size. Plus, they have the most creative menu ever, and it's constantly changing with the seasons to ensure freshness.

I enjoyed a glass of red wine in their bar (past "The County Line" -- literally, the restaurant sits on the country line and since it's too expensive to get a liquor license for both parts of the restaurant, you have to walk to the back bar and enjoy your drink) before we were seated. We had fried green tomato bruschetta for an appetizer, then enjoyed some of the local catch for dinner. Harbor had fish n' grits (polenta cheese cakes, sheepshead, and fancy collard greens in a beet sauce), and I had a cornbread stack (blackened sheepshead, a HUGE piece of yummy, cake-y cornbread and pickled veggies) and a side salad. Portions are huge there, so don't expect to go home hungry at all.

Then we walked just down the road and got paletas at The Hyppo -- a new, very popular gourmet popsicle joint. Paletas are Mexican popsicles, traditionally made with tons of fresh fruit and spices. They are so dang good. Last night I got "honey honeydew" (blended fresh honeydew with real honey) and Harbor got "horchata." (Probably in honor of Vampire Weekend.)

All in all, we had a blast. Had some quality time chatting in the car, scrumptious food, amazing desserts, and lots of cute moments.

He doesn't know what I'm cookin' up the rest of this week in celebration of 25 years of Harbor. So, to be continued... :)

K

Weekend Awards!

The past two days have been really, really low-key and relaxing. Yesterday I got to sleep in (finally!) then spent the day hanging with my friend Carra, icing cupcakes, watching Harbor play a show, and eating way too many salty snacks. Today I enjoyed church then headed over to Sonny's BBQ to eat lunch with the boys before they drove to Tampa for their show tonight. So now I'm full of salad and cornbread (aaand corn nuggets) and ready to tackle some projects I've had lying around for too long. But, first.. it's time for this weekend's cutest-ever projects!

Cutest Nailpolish Award goes to...

The Clothes Horse. I stumbled across this blog post while aimlessly reading this week. I thought they were beautiful and wanted to try them myself, but I had just painted my nails a pretty grey color. I decided to give it a go anyway.

Mine didn't turn out nearly as pretty, but I'm excited to try again with black nail polish soon. (And, before you ask, I bought that ring during a lunch break for a quarter.)

Cutest Collaborative Journal Award goes to...

Katie Licht! This lady is super talented. I met her through Elsie and Rachel's "Tell Your Story" Art Journaling Course almost a year ago, and have been an admirer of her work ever since. I love logging onto my Flickr or Tumblr account and finding her work. She's really sweet. I love her style, her eye for design and composition, and her cute doodles. Plus, she's got the best collection of ephemera and odds and ends. (Check out Katie's Flickr, and her Tumblr too.)

Best-Idea-I-Didn't-Know-I-Was-Already-Doing Award goes to...

Little Tiny Photo of the Week! The Dainty Squid makes Project 365 so much easier with her 52-week Instax Photo version. "52 Weeks of Instax" is a fun way to incorporate your Fugi film love with a neat memory project for 2011. One of my goals for 2011 was to take more (high-quality) Instax Mini photos, and I love the idea of taking one every single week. And, thanks to Harbor, I have a brand new Instax Mini-print photo album (thanks, Photojojo!) to store all my memories in. I highly encourage this project if you're into instant film too.

Today's goals:

1. Make/bake cupcake pushpins

2. Finish up my Haiti "thank you" notes

3. Create some sparkle bracelets for friends

4. Figure out how the heck you're supposed to turn granny squares into a blanket! I can't tell you how excited I'll be when I'm all curled up and granny chic.

Hope your weekend is restful too.

K