Mother's Day 2011

Aside from life being routinely busy as usual this time of year, we are also getting ready for Vince's 3rd birthday this Friday! We decided to have a joint birthday party for Vince and Zoë this year. Zoë will be one on July 7th (wow so quick!), so their birthdays are pretty close together. They talked it over..... and both agreed that it would be ok to share birthday parties together, but we'll see how long we can do this before one of them realizes what's going on here.

I'm PRAYING for good sunny swimming weather, as we are planning for a large group of friends to come over and hang out in the back yard to swim all day. It's looking very iffy right now, so I'll keep hoping.

Ok, now for continuing to get more up to date on the blog....really, am I still this far behind with blogging?

Wanted to give a quick chronicle of our wonderful Mother's Day brunch at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. Having brunch here on Mother's Day has become a tradition for us. Joining along with my Godparents, I always remember how we would sit ourselves down for what seamed like hours and enjoy the buffet and champagne with orange juice.... finding it hard to get up and leave when it was time to go! After wards we'd walk around the hotel, enjoying the beautiful grand ballrooms and other party rooms where they have hosted past Oscar and Tony Awards, as well as other big name social functions. The halls are covered with pictures of "old timers" (as my mom would say) like Jimmy Stewart and Clark Gable enjoying dinner and dancing to Big Band music. Then we'd also hear the inevitable, "things just aren't the way they used to be".

Since I've lived in MA, I haven't been able to get back to LA for Mother's Day, but this year we were able to make it happen. And it was so special because it was my first time being a mom myself. Being able to bring Vince and Zoë to the Biltmore for Mother's Day made it the most special Mother's Day ever! (as well as the most hectic... but that's ok)

View of the buffet area from above

Some nice ice sculptures around the buffet

good looking desserts!

Here's our best attempt at getting everyone in a picture at once

Vince spent most of his time under the table, playing with trains

Luckily my mom never noticed that we had Zoë sitting on the floor playing for most of the time
(hey, whatever works.. she was on a blanket at least)

Vince is excited for this week and his birthday Friday. We'll be picking up my mom at the airport on Wednesday so we'll be busy!