Twenty-Five.

It started with kindergarten birthday greetings, shouted at 8:30. Playdough shaped like tulips on the table, a colorful banner above my things. Handmade cards and a happy chapel. A mid-morning visit that let us take a break from ten frames in favor of playing with Toby. Freshly baked gluten-free cookies and brownies at snack time from the world's best co-teacher. A cold Starbucks delivery during recess. An armful of flowers as I left our classroom. A breezy, sunny afternoon drive home. Laughing over old home movies with my brother.

Sometimes, bodies aren't aware that there should be a celebration going on so they shut down a little bit. Mine is notorious for this, so I haven't been able to taste any of this beautiful, mom-made cake yet, but hopefully soon! And speaking of being "Grown Up"… I actually acquired another cake last night from two very special realtors, as well as the keys to our newly purchased home! :')

Twenty-four was monumental for sure…
but twenty-five is already one for the books.

The Getty Center.

Since my mom's birthday is coming up, this weekend we set aside a day to celebrate as a family. She mentioned that she had really enjoyed getting to visit the observatory when we went a few months ago and asked if there was anything else in LA that my brother and I thought she might like, so I suggested The Getty Center and it was a hit!

We walked around the gardens (although the spiral hedges were under construction - such a bummer!) and explored a few of the exhibits, admiring the architecture and people watching too, of course!

Also, just wanted to share this picture to remind my brother, that when YOU are the person who calls out, "funny picture!" 

and then you're the ONLY one who doesn't make your face look like a ridiculous mess… 

You're the one who looks like a fool, bro. ;)

Birthday Boating.

My brother turned 19 this past week!

I will spare you the paragraphs I could write about how proud I am of him and how much I love him and just say this : he's the most humble, considerate, and hard working kid I know and he deserves all possible happiness this year and always. 

For his birthday celebration, he wanted our family to rent a boat and ride around Balboa (stealing the idea from the me and the girls!) with some dinner and music. So with my dad as our boat's captain, we made our way through the water, enjoying a delicious dinner that my mom prepared for us, listening to The Beatles and just relaxing with bits of silliness in between. 

Oh, and house hunting - those huge beachfront properties sure are fun to dream about!

If you're wondering, that's a homemade dark chocolate and almond butter cup in my hand right there! Seriously, I know I say it all the time, but my mom is amazing when it comes to making sure I never feel left out during meals with all my restrictions. You're the best, mama - thank you!

After our little cruise, we strolled along the boardwalk, watched the sun set, and headed home. 

Did you do anything fun this weekend?

Have a happy Sunday and a great upcoming week!

Twenty Three.

I think today has been the happiest birthday I've ever had.

This last year of my life was a doozy, but I feel blessed by the outcome.

Hope to be well and to do good (big!) things at 23. :)

Goodnight, friends.

I Will Have My Cake & Eat It Too.

Since Nolan and Weston both have to work on Tuesday, we had a little family dinner tonight, all together, to celebrate my upcoming birthday. We sat around the table eating deeeelicious white bean chili (from a recipe made special for me by my sweet friend, Sara!) until the sun went down.

Then we used our backyard screen to project some old home videos of when Nolan and I were growing up. It's kind of a birthday tradition at our house. Or a Saturday night tradition. Or an every time we're all together tradition. I don't know, we just really love reminiscing at the O'Connell home.

And for my (almost) 23rd birthday, my amazing mom figured out how to make a delicious, gluten-free, corn-free, dairy-free, soy-free birthday cake.

And it was the sweetest thing. In every way.

moonrise kingdom birthday party.

i turned twenty-two yesterday.

it's been funny because i keep thinking i'm turning 23, so i've kind of been freaking myself out about how quickly life is moving and then i realize i'm a year ahead of myself somehow. hahaha although, weston did pull a gray hair out of the top of my head the other day. :( just call me grams.

i've been wanting to throw a little party for a while and my birthday gave me a good excuse to plan something cute and have friends over. i decided to go with a moonrise kingdom theme because 1) it's one of my favorite movies, 2) it came out on dvd last week, and 3) it's fun and childlike and will remind me that twenty-two is still stinkin' young and i need to stop complaining about my one gray hair.

all of the decorations were either things i had at home, things i borrowed, things i made, or things i bought from the dollar store. my dad constructed an awesome 'camp ivanhoe' sign out of tree branches that had coincidentally been placed in our yard after a neighbor trimmed one of their trees last week. my dad also made a really cute little tent that toby thought belonged to him, but that actually turned into more of a photo prop.

and thus, the night before my birthday was spent like this.

weston concocted a really delicious sangria that is a mix of a few different recipes he'd read. i was in and out of the kitchen as he was mixing but i'll ask him what the recipe was and share it here because i think it was that delicious. 

 my mom is amazing. every year she asks what i want my cake to be like, i tell her my vision and she makes it a sweet and tasty reality. i think this is my favorite cake yet - so simple and pretty.

my birthday is only a week away from halloween and i've never once utilized that - so after getting positive feedback about possibly having a dress-up party, i decided to finally go for it. everyone dressed in clothing inspired by the movie. there were knee socks, peter-pan collars, and plaid galore. plus a couple 'khaki scouts' and my brother dressed up like bruce willis who plays a cop in the movie. everyone looked so great!

after it got dark enough, we sat around the firepit and roasted marshmallows while the movie played on our outdoor screen. i had been worried that it would either rain (ominous clouds all morning!) or it would be too cold, but with blankets and the fire, everyone was nice and warm. my mom also made one of my favorite meals - her potato cheese soup, adding to the coziness.

after the movie, bryan showed up with a bottle of champagne, made an inappropriate toast (as expected) and we sat around the fire until after midnight, when the group had dwindled down to just my family and weston and it was officially my birthday.

here's to another year.

thanks for celebrating with me, friends.

birthday cake {made of fruit!}

i am a dessert kind of girl.
if i had my way, it'd be apple pie for breakfast. chocolate cake for lunch. and maybe a brownie or two for dinner.

so you can probably imagine the crestfallen look on my face when i asked weston what kind of a birthday treat he wanted me to make for him last week and he said 'salad.'

salad.

of all the sweets in the world, weston wanted a salad.

'wait.. salad?' i asked him
'yeah.. or i don't know.. something healthy.. maybe like... a fruit salad!' he said excitedly.

but since i couldn't stand the thought of a birthday with no cake... i respected his fruit salad wishes... in cake form.

(in hindsight, i wish i'd taken better pictures, but this will do!)

i took a medium sized watermelon and cut the edges off, then trimmed the rind off until the melon was flat on the top and bottom and circular on the sides. i used toothpicks (a lot of them - be prepared! haha) to stick the different fruits onto the sides : mango, raspberries, blackberries, kiwi, grapes, and strawberries, spread a 'frosting' layer of pomegranate seeds on top of the melon and topped it off with some blueberries for the '25.' it was time consuming but super easy once i knew how i wanted it to look.

while i worked on the cake, i also had some cupcakes baking in the oven. since weston had to work on his birthday, i popped some of the extra fruit onto the cupcakes and surprised him and his students with them at their drumline rehearsal. 

so it didn't end up being a TOTAL dessert loss. :)

and i guess it's good that one of us has nutritional boundaries. 

happy birthday again, weston. you're the best and i love you.

even though you think salad is an appropriate birthday treat.

monterey.

hello again!

this morning, i got all bajillion of my pictures from the weekend whittled down to a few that i thought would be fun to share, so here they are! :)

as an early birthday present to weston, i planned a john steinbeck (weston's favorite author) inspired trip up to the monterey area this past weekend. we left early on saturday morning and drove until mid-afternoon when we arrived in salinas to visit the national steinbeck center and the steinbeck house.

the drive to monterey from salinas was beautiful and we got to our hotel just before sunset. after dinner at a greek restaurant downtown, we explored the area for a while (sans camera, as you might be able to tell by the lack of photos) before it started to rain.

i slept with my fingers crossed, in hopes that the next day would bring sunshine and tadaaaa! it was bright and beautiful! sunday started off with pancakes at an organic cafe (obviously weston's call) and then we headed over to the monterey bay aquarium. 

 and of course we all knew i would say this, because i'm such a nerd about these things...

but the aquarium was amazing!! especially the jellies!!

 i think we ended up spending about 4 hours inside the aquarium, enjoying everything that there was to see! at first, i had been a tiny bit apprehensive about spending so much money on tickets (they're like $30 a pop!) but afterwards we agreed that it was definitely worth it. super fun!

when you exit the aquarium you get plopped right out onto cannery row, so we walked up and down the street, grabbed an early dinner, and tried our best to avoid the shade, and stay in the gorgeous sunshine.

the rest of the day was spent exploring cool places that we had heard about, but my favorite place was one that i noticed as we were driving right past it. after i excitedly (and accidentally loudly) blurted out 'oh my gosh, can we pull over and hang out here?!' we got out and walked along flowery grass to a wooden bench with a beautiful view.

and life just felt pretty much perfect right about then.

i am a big supporter of weekend getaways.

short, little road trips to pretty places with people you love.

doesn't get much better than that.