MeeMaw's Birthday Party

On Saturday, we had a great time in Columbia celebrating Jason's grandmother's 85th birthday. Her family planned a surprise party for her, and she was definitely surprised! Jason got to see all his aunts, uncles, and cousins, and Camryn got the see her grandma and grandpa so everyone was excited! It's always so much fun for us to spend time at big family gatherings like this one since we feel like we are so far away from everyone on a day-to-day basis. Here are some pictures from our fun day.

The very surprised birthday girl

Camryn and her Great-Papa "sword fighting"

Camryn and her cousins playing with bubbles

MeeMaw, Papa, and their children

MeeMaw's grandchildren with their spouses

Jason cutting up with his cousin, Marshall

MeeMaw's great-grandchildren

Wonders Pets Remix

This morning while I was fixing Camryn's hair, she was playing with her Qtips ... she likes to hide them in her pants legs so that I have to find them before I clean her ears. Crazy kid. Anyway, she all of a sudden said this:

"Hop in the flyboat Wonder Pets! We got a baby Qtip to save!"

Then she sang:

"Wonder Pets, Wonder Pets, we on our way. To save a baby Qtip and save the day. We're not too big, and we're not too tough but when we work together we got the right stuff. Gooooo, Wonder Pets! Yay!"

Then she ended with:

"Thank you Wonder Pets for saving my baby Qtip."

I called my sister this morning to share that with her. I asked her if she thought it was funny enough to be blog fodder (that's for you SE!). She said of course! Any time you're saving a baby Qtip, that's humor!

Like A Big Girl

About a month ago, I walked into Camryn's daycare classroom to pick her up. I noticed a large bag in her cubby and asked her teacher what it was. She said it was her sippy cups. I'm sure I gave her a confused look and she said, "We don't use sippy cups in this classroom. We drink from kitchen cups." Wow! I didn't know she had been using a big girl cup! So, we have started using big girl cups at dinner and even went out and bought some special Camryn-sized cups. She gets a little overexcited and spills water down the front of her shirt pretty often, and, of course, we have had one overturned cup so far, but I am really proud of how well she is doing!



Also, Jason and I were standing in the kitchen earlier tonight talking and all of a sudden heard, "Uhhhhhhhh ... I stuck." We walked into the den to find this:



We both got a really good laugh out of it!!!

Quick Dinner Idea

I was shopping in the weekly special section of Publix the other day. They had Kraft salad dressing buy one get one free. I came across a bottle of Tuscan House Italian dressing and marinade and decided to try it on some chicken. I thawed the chicken overnight and poured about 3/4 of the bottle of dressing over the chicken before I left for work the next morning. It marinated all day, and then Jason grilled it that night. It was really good! I know marinating chicken in Italian dressing is not a new idea, but this particular kind was extra yummy! I served it with sour cream and chive mashed potatoes, broccoli in cheese sauce, and biscuits. Both Camryn and Jason really liked it! Of course, Camryn was more interested in the bicuits. She's my little carb queen.

I also found this site while lurking and will check it often! It's a group of mommies who are blogging recipes together!

What A Weekend!

We had a BUSY but awesome weekend! Friday night we had our first performance of "The Gospel." I had butterflies in my stomach standing outside in the dark hallway waiting to go in and begin. Jason has been working on this program for a year now, and the choir, cast, and crew had really put so much time and hard work into it. Everything went great! Jason's parents came to the Friday night performance and then brought us breakfast on Saturday morning and visited for a while. Camryn loved having Grandma and Grandpa there and kept them hopping with everything she wanted them to see and do! She loves having so much attention! Not long after they left, we had an abbreviated naptime and then went back to church for the 3 pm and 6 pm performances. We had over 800 people come to the three performances, and I was especially pleased that three ladies I work with traveled to Anderson to see the program. It was really important to me that two of them were there to see and hear the gospel story, and I was touched that they made the effort to come! After cleaning up the set and helping put the sanctuary back in order for Sunday morning, we all came home and crashed.

Easter morning, we dressed up for church, and Camryn was so excited to tell everyone about the new shoes Mommy bought her. She has a thing for shoes - every time she "goes shopping" at home, it's always for shoes. And, if I ever try to try clothes on her, she hates it. But, if we ever need to try on shoes, she's all for it. Anyway, I thought she looked like a little doll. We came home and saw what the Easter bunny brought her - hairbows, a book, Play-Doh, stickers, and cookies - and then had the rest of the day to relax and spend time together. What an awesome weekend!

March Madness

Jason and I both fill out brackets every year. It's our marriage building project for the month of March. Ha ha! He takes his picks very seriously and then gets a serious laugh from my picks. I don't watch basketball, so I never really know anything about the teams as I'm filling out the brackets. There are exactly three things I knew this year: North Carolina is #1, the Tigers made it in (boo!), and my Winthrop made it in (hooray!). I also filled out three different brackets this year just for the fun of it. One based on my "instinct" as to who would win each match-up, one based on which mascot/school logo I liked best (such a girl way to choose), and one based on the highest ranked team with a couple of upsets here and there because there are always a few. We'll see if Jason's or my bracket(s) end up being better. He's always amazed at how my "instinct picks" or oh-so-scientific mascot picks end up winning!

As a side note, we also tried to get Camryn to fill out a bracket this year. We just asked which mascot she liked best. She is such a stinker, because if she doesn't understand or know the answer to a question, she refuses to try to answer. So, since Tarheels and Eagles and Huskies don't make any sense to her, she just gave us a look and asked where her phone was. Maybe next year she will join in the fun!

Invitations

This Friday and Saturday, our church will be presenting an Easter program called "The Gospel." Anyone and everyone is invited! We have close to 150 people in the cast, crew, choir, and drama team, so this is a big event for our church. Plus, my husband is the director and has put a lot of hard work into it, so I think it's going to be amazing .... and I'm not biased at all! :)

And on to a shameless personal plug ... my friend Kelli and I are hosting a Tastefully Simple party on April 3. Even if you are not able to attend, you can still order online and help us earn free stuff. If you haven't tried Tastefully Simple before, it's really good!!! The basis of the food is you only have to add one or two simple ingredients to have great food. Some of my favorites are the potato soup, corn & black bean salsa, caramel creme latte mix, and the honey teriyaki sauce. There's tons more other great stuff, too! If you are interested, leave a comment, and I'll send you an online invitation.

Saturday

Saturday our church Easter Egg Hunt got rained out. 20,000 eggs all going to waste! Thankfully, we had not hyped it up too much to Camryn, so she really didn't notice that we didn't get to go. She was just happy playing with her new Easter basket. We also had dress rehearsal for our Easter presentation Saturday afternoon. However, we ended up only making it through about a third of the practice because of the tornadoes in the area. We all had to move to the hallways for 10-15 minutes while the bad weather blew over, and then spent the rest of the time sitting in the sanctuary with the emergency lights on because the power went out. Crazy. I have to say, I was pretty proud my husband didn't completely freak over not having a whole rehearsal right at crunch time since this is his big project that he has planned for a year.

Saturday night we went to Edwards' house for Jeff's 31st birthday dinner. Sarah Ellen made roast, carrots, potatoes, asparagus, broccoli, and macaroni and cheese. She also had Tastefully Simple appetizers and a Marble Slab ice cream cake for dessert. You could have rolled us out the front door by the time we left. After dinner we had a mini Easter egg hunt around the house for the girls. Allen and Kelli didn't want the girls to be disappointed over the canceled egg hunt, so they bought 3 dozen eggs and stuffed them with stickers, candy, money, and hairbows. It was so much fun watching Alyssa, Camryn, and ClaraRose (SE and Jeff's niece) stuff eggs into their baskets. WHY don't I ever have my camera for the really good stuff??

Pregnancy

I have realized I am surrounded by pregnancies! Two of my very best friends are pregnant, girls that I lived with at Winthrop have either just had babies (as recently as Monday!) or are pregnant, 2 girls I work with are pregnant,and I know of at least four people who are currently trying to get pregnant or are planning to start trying later this year. It's enough to make a girl start catching baby fever!! (Just kidding - but it does make your heart melt a little when you buy the shower gifts and start seeing all those sweet baby things!) Until recently, I never really realized how precious a healthy, easy pregnancy is. I guess I just took for granted that if you wanted to get pregnant, you just did! I never really knew anyone who didn't have an easy time getting pregnant. I even had such a great pregnancy with Camryn and am beyond thankful that carrying her was so easy! But, I have seen many people around me struggle with miscarriages, issues that keep them from having healthy pregnancies, and struggle with trying for sooooo long without results. It is really heartbreaking to watch people you love deal with these things, especially when you know how much they would love a child and what a good home they would provide. But, I have also seen that God has a plan and blesses families in His perfect timing! Two of the girls I mentioned above have healthy boys (one on the way!) after miscarriages. I can't wait to meet all of these sweet babies. Many of their mommies and daddies are so very precious to me, and I know these little ones will steal my heart as well!

The Weekend

We had such a great time this past Friday night. Our friends Allen and Kelli hosted Allen's 30th birthday party at Frankie's Fun Park. I had forgotten how much fun that place can be! Even though it was too cold and rainy to go outside, we still had a blast eating the Frankie's food, having birthday cake, and playing in the arcade. The highlight of our night was playing the Deal or No Deal game for tickets! The birthday boy was the big winner of the night and got 200 tickets. Jason and I got 104 or something like that ... we took the deal! I could never play that game with real money! I was freaking out over just tickets! Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera, so there are no fun or incriminating pictures from the night!

Here are a few other pictures I thought were cute. The first one is Camryn dressed up for church in her USC dress Aunt Alison bought her for Christmas. She is all Carolinaed-out, down to the bows in her hair, although you can't see them. A poor, misguided Clemson fan at church told us he was going to take pictures and turn us in to DSS for dressing her like that. I told him if that was the case, DSS would probably call to beg us to foster some children since we are one of the few families in the upstate who don't mistreat our child by dressing her in orange!

The other picture is my favorite from Camryn's party. My brother-in-law got the perfect picture of Camryn and her best friend Alyssa. I can't tell you how many times Kelli and I have tried to get the perfect shot of the two of them, and Justin didn't even have to try! They just saw him taking a picture and cheesed it up for him! These are the sweetest little girls in the world!

The Cake Tragedy

I started planning Camryn's birthday party in December. By the time we went home for Christmas, I already had my cake picked out and visited the lady who made Camryn's cake last year to ask her to make the one for this year. It was a three tiered cake (just what every 2 year old needs, right? Yes, sometimes I go overboard!) that was red and white with stripes and polka dots. I even bought little Sesame Street figurines to place on the cake to go along with our theme.

Camryn's party was on a Saturday. My mom picked the cake up on Thursday evening and traveled with the cake to Charlotte on Friday morning to meet my sister and brother-in-law so they could all ride together to my house. Around 4:00 pm on Friday - LESS than 24 hours before the party - mom calls and says, "I have bad news about your cake." She went on to tell me the entire bottom tier had collapsed, causing the top two tiers to fall into it and over into the cake box. The bottom was basically demolished, and the decoration on the second tier was ruined. The top layer was fine but would only feed a handful of people. I was just totally in shock and didn't even know what to do. After feeling completely helpless for a few minutes, I went to a local bakery to see if they could help me at all and recreate any part of the cake. No luck on such sort notice. I came back home and just sat on the couch in a daze. Finally, Jason gave me a little dose of tough love and firmly told me to get my rear end off the couch and go to Publix.

Long story short, the incredibly nice girl at Publix told me at 6:00 pm, after I told her the story of my ruined cake with huge tears in my eyes, that they could make a cake for me in time for the party the next day. I was at my breaking point by that time, so she must have thought I was a major nutcase, but the Publix bakery people were my heroes for the weekend and saved the party. Plus, they made a cake that I thought was just precious!

Camryn's Birthday Party