Anniversary Weekend Recap

My absolute favorite picture from our wedding day.

One year ago today was the best day of my life to date. (Although after the next 8 weeks I think we will have this day beat.)


Today, May 15th is our first wedding anniversary! It is honestly crazy to even think that it has been a year. We’ve had our fair share of ups and down, challenges, surprises, and many ‘firsts’ as newlyweds. (Can we still be called newlyweds after the first year mark??) But with each day that passes we become stronger, closer and more in love than ever.


This past weekend we headed down to Rehoboth Beach for a little mini vacation. Since I'm at 32 weeks, travel is a bit restricted for us. But this was the perfect getaway that we needed. Just me and the hubby.. oh and Lyla. Yes, we brought her with us. We are still undecided whether or not that was a good idea. Lyla isn't the best traveler. She spent most of the weekend nervous and jumpy. 


Although I brought our camera with us, we were too busy to take many pictures.

I snapped this shot of my babies napping while I took a quick shower.

After dinner Saturday night before we went out on the town.

When we checked in Friday night it was already about 7:00 so we hopped in the shower and headed over to Dos Locos for dinner. Mexican food is our weakness, so this was a must. We split mini tacos as an app, Jordan got the Pork Tomatillo Burrito and I ordered the Sante Fe Quesadilla.


Saturday after grabbing breakfast at a local diner and taking the pup for a long walk to tire her out, we spent the rest of the morning and afternoon walking around town and along Rehoboth Ave, checking out all the shops. It was pretty overcast and too chilly to enjoy the water, but we did walk along the boardwalk until the rain started. So we ran to Greenman Juice Bar & Bistro for a dry place to grab lunch. Jordan had the freshest apple juice either of us have ever tasted and I had the Greenman juice - a mix of apple, kiwi, cucumber and spinach. We each had a delicious organic sandwich. 


A nap and a shower later, we went out for our anniversary dinner at The Pig and Fish. Dinner was amazing. Jordan imbibed in some Dark and Stormys (the staple drink of Bermuda where we went on our honeymoon) and we each pigged out on some of the best food we've ever had.

Cheese pierogies with bacon, herbed sour cream, sweet onions and truffled pomme frites.

I need to recreate these at home someday. 

Any kind of cheese plate is a staple appetizer for us. 

I had salmon for my meal (the one seafood I allow myself to eat while pregnant in moderation) with sweet mashed potatoes, black bean and corn salsa and a cilantro sauce. Jordan had the BBQ braised pork shank with spinach and mashed potatoes. We were beyond full after that. Another long walk for the pup after dinner and we went out on the town to Irish Eyes. 


Although it may sound like a low-key weekend, it was absolutely perfect for us. We got to spend some time just the two of us doing one of our favorite things to do together: eat at some great restaurants. We relaxed and laughed all weekend and didn't bother to look at the clock once. We were on our time. 


Now we are home and both Jordan and Lyla are taking a long , much needed nap. We exchanged gifts after we got home. Here is a peek at the gift I made for Jordan. I will post more about it in detail tomorrow, but just to give you an idea:

We also stopped at my parent's house on our way home and picked up the top layer of our wedding cake. We will be digging into that later tonight. :)

All in all a great weekend. :)

For fun, check out my posts about our wedding, honeymoon, and even one about some of my favorite details about our wedding day. I know I’ll be flipping through pictures and reminiscing with my hubby tonight.

Decorating shelves

I've been playing around with decorating our new shelves in the living room. I don't want to fall into the same decorating rut I had with the bookshelf. So I turned to my trusty friend Google for some photo inspiration.

Frames filled with family photos are a must.

apartment therapy

Fun pops of color for sure.

margot austin

White, white white will definitely be incorporated.

the lovely lifestyle

I plan to add monogrammed, personalized pieces.

real simple

Some pretty glass pieces will help balance out without making the shelves look too crowded.

young house love

I love the mixed style of frames with tiny accent pieces.

me oh my

It will probably take me some time and a few shopping trips until I'm completely satisfied with the shelves. Until then I'm just enjoying the new open, brighter space in our living room.

Back in Business and a Living Room Update

Between trips to NY, mother's day, planning our anniversary, and me starting to train my temp replacement at work, we have been very busy in the DeMaio household. But I am finally back and have some projects in the works this week to update you all. First was the bookcase project I mentioned in the past few updates. We finally got around to doing it! 

A few months ago....

Me: I just thought of a great idea for the living room! One corner of it actually. Where the bookcase is.

Jordan: Do I even want to know?

Me: It would involve giving you the bookcase for your man room. You can put DVDs and baseball memorabilia on it. Does that help..?

Jordan: I'm listening...

This is the said bookcase. Making a bookcase look attractive without losing its practicality has always been a challenge for me. As you can see I start strong on the top shelf or two and by the time I reach the bottom I'm just shoving the leftover books and junk that have no other place to go. 

This beauty will be relocating to the man room in the basement. 

What man room? 

Well it isn't quite there yet. Now that we have a baby on the way, we've pretty much realized we are here to stay for a few more years. We have plenty of room in this house and it's the perfect size to maintain with our busy schedules. I've always promised Jordan the basement as a man cave of sorts, and it wasn't until recently that he's decided he wants to take on the project. He always figured we would wait until we got into our 'permanent' house to put the money into a man room. This will be a work in progress as we need to replace lighting, put in carpeting and fix the paneling on the walls. But we've got a spare room/office in the basement jam packed with all sorts of Red Sox/baseball memorabilia waiting for a place to call home. 

Here is how the corner of the living room has looked for the past two weeks with our new floor:

One thing that has frustrated me about this corner is how dark it is with all the furniture. Now that we have ripped out the carpet and replaced it with hardwood, it is even darker than before. But I came up with a plan. That bookcase is outta there. Booted to the basement. In place of it - three white Lack shelves from IKEA. By choosing white shelves we can break up the space and the dark corner of the living room. I have plans to add plenty of colorful accent pieces to keep things fresh.

We've had the shelves for about a month now, but never had a chance to put them up. Initially our goal was to try to hang them before the carpet was replaced, but time got away from us. This weekend we finally got around to hanging them. 

We chose the 46.5" Lack wall shelf - $19.99 each.

In the next week or so I will play around with decorating the shelves. I'm afraid to put many books on them because of the weight restriction. The instructions claim that these shelves can hold up to 33 pounds depending how you mount them, but I don't want to push the limit. 

My plan is to mix and match different sized and colored frames with some bright decorative pieces as well as some clear glass accents. I'm already loving that corner of the room. Without the dark, tall bookcase the space is so open and light. It completely breaks up the room and adds that pop of white that I've been craving.

We have a busy week ahead. Tomorrow we have our first class - Infant CPR. I also have a mini project to work on for Jordan for our anniversary. He's going to a soccer game Wednesday so my plan is to work on it while he's out, but won't give you the details until after we celebrate this upcoming weekend. Since traveling is somewhat restricted for me, we decided to have a simple weekend getaway down the beach. We live about an hour and a half from the Delaware beaches and have booked a hotel for Friday and Saturday nights. Our plan is to enjoy the gorgeous weather with long walks around town, a little shopping, great dinners and no interruptions.

Hope you all had a great weekend and a beautiful Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you mommies and mommy-to-bes out there. 

But most of all, happy mother's day to my beautiful mom.

Weekend Recap

I'm always a little sad on Sunday nights because it means that the weekend is over. I did have a great three day weekend with Jordan so I really shouldn't complain. We went to NY Friday morning to attend the wedding of a girlfriend of mine who I went to college with. It was a gorgeous ceremony - she looked amazing and the two of them seemed so happy all day. The food was insane and the reception was a complete blast. It was the first wedding we had been to since our own a year ago and we really enjoyed the night away. 

I wish I could have gotten better pictures, but here are just a few: 

 Me and my girls with the groom.

Happiness <3

The rest of our weekend was spent relaxing at home with the family, lots of naps, dinners out and grocery shopping. 

A new week means a fresh start to tackle some projects that I have seriously been slacking on. I'm coming down to the last 10 weeks of my pregnancy and still have so much I want to get done before she comes. I have been in full on nesting mode the last few months, but took a break the last week or two to relax and enjoy some alone time with the hubby while we still have it. 

I have a lot of small touches I still need to add to the nursery including some paint touchups, a mirror and wall art. The bookshelf is still in our living room, and we've continued to put that project on hold, but hopefully will be done this week. I also want to take some time to work on our dining room - specifically reupholstering the chairs, finding some great pillows for the bench and finally getting a rug for under the table.

And of course, two weeks from today marks our first year wedding anniversary. I have yet to get hubby anything, although I have had it on the brain for the past few weeks. My plan is to keep with the traditional first anniversary gift of paper. I have three ideas, although I'm not going to mention them here in case Jordan takes a peek. But time is flying so I need to get my butt in gear.

Here's to a new, productive week!