top o' the mornin'

Yesterday was Chicago's St. Patricks Day. I say "Chicago's" because the city celebrates it the Saturday before St. Pat's day every year. It is close to New Years in size of celebration and brings thousands of people into the city for the weekend.

In the past 7 years of living here for this holiday, I've enjoyed many celebrations for this holiday, all involving copious amounts of green beer. I've done the bar thing, the party thing, and for the last three years, the trolley thing. After years of spending our time crowded into overly packed bars spending way too much money, a group of my friends and I got wise and rented a trolley. Geniuses we are, we discovered we could have a party at someones house to start the day off bright and early. Then jump on a trolley filled with booze and ride around the city like crazed green leprechauns for three hours and have the best time ever.

This year, however, things have obviously changed for me. Not that I have a problem not drinking. I'm fine with that for the most part. What sucks is being around every other drunken idiot that I usually am, while sober. Honestly, I was dreading St. Patricks Day. Not only is it my favorite holiday, its my husband's too. My husband that doesn't have precious cargo in his belly. Being the great man he is, he vowed to stick with me for the day and be low key. But, being the outgoing people that we are, sitting inside all day just wouldn't do either.

So with that, we decided to head to our friend Nicole's for the traditional "pre-trolley" party. Because every party needs a pre-party. I knew that before the trolley, stories would be less likely to be repeated over and over again to me and no one would spill beer on me. I'm so glad we went. We got to see some friends we haven't seen in a while and I got to eat a bunch of food. Adam also got to get some of his "party time" out.

 Belly rubs from auntie Jamee

Belly shot with the baby daddy

After the pre-trolley party, Adam and I walked back to our place to rest up for a bit. Yes, all that crazy partying I did was kind of exhausting. Adam had borrowed a carry on suitcase from Nicole for our trip to Phoenix on Thursday, so this is what I got to walk home with. I laughed the entire way. 

Oh hey, anyone need a beer? I got a suitcase full.

Then it was time for my kind of party to start. Let me tell you, shit got crazy over here. I gathered all the ingredients for my homemade healthy shamrock shake and started blending away. I even threw in a hunk of dark chocolate to make it extra dirty. OMG. Heaven in my mouth. The recipe comes from the blog Gina's Skinnytaste. Check it out if you ever have a hankering for a healthier shammy shake. 

My terrible photo doesn't do it justice. It also has avocado in it. Yum!

To top our day off, cousin Emily stopped by to head out to dinner. We walked down the street to stuff our faces with burgers. 

This was the 10th shot. The camerawoman loved taking these. 

Yes, things have changed. But in most ways, they're for the better. I've lived those crazy days of St. Pat's and I'm sure I will again some other time in the future. But for now, I'm fine with my excitement revolving around shakes and kicks from my little peanut inside me. 

A Night on the Town

Last night, my sister in law, Nora came down to visit A and I for the evening. She brought with her the cutest little birth bracelet as a gift to Baby B and I. Love!

 It has a footprint and says "Due in July".

Cousin Emily got wind that Nora was in town and wanted her hair trimmed so she came over to take advantage of Nora's visit and then decided to join us for dinner out. After having some cocktails at our place, we ventured out into the cold to a restaurant A had made reservations at. Fail. Major fail. We walked in and the whole place was empty except maybe 10 others. We sat down and then quickly agreed we needed to bolt. Instead, we walked down a block and went to another place which ended up hitting the spot.

A, Nora and I had been here before, but it had been about a year. Nora love mussels as much as I do so I was excited to have her there to split an order with. The place stepped up an even higher notch when I discovered they make something called a "mommy-tini". So while everyone else indulged in their wine and beer, I got to sip on my mommy-tini. Yum!

To be honest, I'm starting to realize the smart restaurants have already created a mommy friendly drink. They mix fruity juices into some sort of sweet sounding concoction, give it a cool name such as "mommy-tini" or "mommy juice", and then charge $4-$5 for the drink when I otherwise would've just stuck to water. Even so, I'm definitely sold on the appeal of having even a fake drink to sip on when I'm out and about.

 Babes and I out on the town. 

Em and Nora, our lovely dates. 

Cheers!

Pregnant....not hungover

This is what my entire weekend has looked like....during the day. At night, A and I have been all over town celebrating the holidays. Starting on Friday with my work holiday party and on Saturday with a Christmas Trolley. As soon as reality set in that we were pregnant, one of the first things that hit me was: how am I going to get through the holiday madness without drinking!?!

By that I don't mean "OH MY GOSH I CAN'T DRINK?!" I mean, my friends and I enjoy our share of cocktails, wine and Miller Lites...its going to be blatantly obvious if I'm just "not drinking tonight" over and over again. So began operation "Lets fool everyone into thinking Kelly's drinking". This operation revolved around drinking "vodka" mixed with soda water, ginger ale and La Croix over the last few weeks. Discreetly filling my glass with just the mixers and sometimes adding a sliced lime in the cup to keep nosy people out of my way. As one of my friends who we told early on stated, "You're going to deserve an Academy Award after these last few weeks". And I agree wholeheartedly.

I'm a-ok with the not drinking thing. It honestly sounds gross to me at this point. But what exhausting is faking it. I find that to be the most miserable experience of all. I'm so much louder and more obnoxious when I'm drinking...unfortunately now I'm totally aware of just how obnoxious I have to act just to fit in. In addition, I also happen to be the worst dancer known to man since the Elaine on Seinfeld made her debut. Normally, liquid courage allows me to flail my arms and legs to and fro with such reckless abandon I've been known to knock anyone within a 4 foot range off their feet.

This was put to the test twice this weekend in which my moves made their debut, sober style. A got a kick out of it of course and continued to snap pictures left and right to truly capture the moment. This beauty is from my work party Friday night. Pure class.

After all this "partying", I'm completely worn out. So in order to recover, I've been doing what the drinkers do....moaning and groaning all day on the couch watching trashy reality TV. Only I'm not hungover, I'm pregnant. To really take the hangover feeling up a notch, this Sunday has also been my first bout of real "morning sickness". I am so not ready for that. Although, it has really helped to justify my lazy hangover ways the last two days.

Keep calm and fake party on!

K