If you’re family is anything like mine, you just can’t get enough celebration around the holidays!  To add to the mix – my mom’s birthday is the 28th, so we have Christmas, two days off, Mom’s Birthday, two days off, and then New Years Eve – CRAZY! 

Saturday we went down to the Westside Market together to pick up the cupcakes I had ordered  – but my mom didn’t know that, she just thought we were taking a trip for fun!  Here’s what we got for her:The 6 in this box were:

• 1 M&Ms
• 1 Chocolate Mint
• 1 Chocolate Covered Strawberry
• 1 Cookies’n'Cream
• 1 Carrot Cake
• 1 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup

The 6 in this box were:

• 1 Red Velvet
• 1 Pumpkin
• 1 Strawberry
• 1 German Chocolate
• 2 Wedding Cake Vanilla

Here’s the whole spread:

After we went down to Grumpy’s, in the Tremont area of Cleveland to get brunch.  I got the “Egg Skillet“, which was a whole bunch of eggs, cheese and veggies, all thrown over some potatoes:

It was so delicious!  They roast the broccoli that they throw into the medley and it was honestly the best tasting broccoli I’ve ever had! 

We headed back over to my parents later in the evening to watch the UFC fight, and I decided to test out an English Cider I’ve heard really great things about:  Strongbow.It was amazingly sweet – I wasn’t expecting that.  A friend had described it as tasting like “beer, champagne, and wine all mixed into one”  – and I think that’s a fairly accurate description.  After reading the ingredients, I realized how I would describe it (fermented apple juice was the main ingredient) – it tasted like Mott’s Apple Juice with some carbonation and vodka added! 

In an effort to get things back on track, I had an awesome breakfast Sunday morning:

It was 2 egg whites, 1 full egg,  some 7 grain salad from the Westside Market, and vanilla yogurt topped with Kashi H2H and pom seed.  My body was quite thankful to be back on the healthy track after two straight weeks of indulgence.   On top of that, I headed to the gym to test out my new iPod nano, and pounded out 2.5 miles on the treadmill.  It really feels nice to be getting back into the swing of things.  Don’t get me wrong – I know everything’s  gonna go back down the drain Wednesday and Thursday of this week, but still…for the time being, it’s nice to be back on track.

For my Mom’s birthday lunch – we went out to eat at Moosehead Saloonin Olmsted Falls, and I got the most fabulous turkey reuben I’ve had in a long time:

It was HUGE, but so very very tasty – my only complaint is that there was a lot of butter on the bread, but I guess you have to expect that when ordering a grilled sandwich.  I ate half (and stole a bite or two from the other – and then passed it along to Mike)  Instead of fries on the side, they serve the most AMAZING potato chips with french onion – not the healthiest side, but so tasty they are worth every single calorie!  

For dinner, I volunteered to cook since everyone was still home for the holidays, and I wanted my mom to relax.   The boys liked the turkey enchiladas I made two weeks ago so much, that I figured those would be safe for the whole family to test out this time – so I went with the sure bet:

And fresh out of the oven:

Everyone said they liked them, but the tortillas were really hard on the bottom this time.  I think it was a combination of using a new brand, and not having enough enchilada sauce to thoroughly coat everything.  Either way – I think my mom enjoyed her birthday, which is of course, all I wanted! 

For those of you who have to work this week – hope you are having a good week – only two days and then you have off again – right?