the weekender

We had such a fab weekend!  Saturday was my birthday, so my parents picked up Claire for a 24-hour baby break and we sort of did all my favorite things in St. Louis. 

First we hit up Olio, an adorable Spanish wine bar in our neighborhood, to have lunch and drinks.  Olio is in an old gas station converted to a restaurant and bar, and it's one of the coolest spaces ever.  

 

(We took outfit shots of this at the restaurant outside, but I linked the details in the widget below this post!) 

 

Not one of these bottles was recognizable to me!  They're big into artisanal and small batch ingredients at the bar.  

 

 

 

Then after lunch we popped over to Chouquette, a french bakery next door.  These cakes were astonishingly beautiful to me - I think Claire might need to have a princess themed party just as an excuse to have one!  We just picked up some macarons on this trip.  

 

I wore this simple grey minidress and lace up heels to dinner, but it was kind of dark out so I just selfie-d on the way out the door!   We went to Modesto for tapas, it was so delicious, and my sweet friends that couldn't make it had champagne sent to the table!  We got ice cream after dinner and then ended the night early at home, we were in bed by 11 I think! 

The Southwest Diner bus never fails to amuse me - it's their "waiting room" on busy brunch days and there's even a bar on board.  Waiting is basically half the fun at Southwest Diner.  We went there for brunch Sunday morning since it's my absolute favorite. 

 

(I'm currently obsessed with these jeans, but definitely size down one or two - these are size 25 and I'm normally a 26 or 27.)  

I don't think Claire missed us at all!  She didn't even want to come see me when my parents arrived with her, preferring to hang out with my dad instead!  I hope you all had a great weekend as well, at least the coming week is short and ends in a holiday!  

If you are wondering about anything I'm wearing in this post I linked to it in the widget below, or something similar!  

xoxo

The Hayes Family

rooster south grand

On Sunday night we were faced with the question every family is forced to address around 7 pm: cook....or get takeout?  Darrell & our neighbor had taken over the kitchen since 4 with home-brew beer bottling (a venture I support entirely because homemade IPA for me, at all times.  Happiness.)  It was clean, but we hadn't even begun to create any kind of meal, so we decided to go out.  Rooster, a St Louis institution for brunch just opened a second location in our neighborhood, and they added dinner service!  We were eager to try it, because their crepes can't be beat, so it was an easy group decision.  

The restaurant itself is really beautiful - they turned an ugly old 60s style bank into a really contemporary space.  The food was delicious and amazingly well priced considering the portions.   The wine list is short, but the beer list is long (also, cider!)  

Claire wanted to join our meal, and I happily obliged.  She gets better and better at this all the time, I'd daresay no one even noticed I fed her.   

Potentially my favorite part was the art on the walls - local kids drew their interpretation of a rooster and the result are surprisingly, well, professional looking!  Really, you would never know they were done by children.  So you can say it seriously the the next time you go to an art gallery and think "my 5 year old could do that."