A Shower and a Farewell

My baby shower was sort of a bittersweet day for me. 

We'll start with the sweet. :)  

My mom, some friends, and my sister ( who couldn't be there, but provided some awesome designs for it ) created the most perfect baby shower for me.  I, with the help of my oldest step son, came up with a robot theme.  Mom took it from there.  It was adorable!

Mom made all these completely awesome robot centerpieces out of junk she collected.

My dad made this super cool robot lamp.  If you look closely, you'll see a small robot drawing done by little man's oldest brother. :)

My Mother-in-Law brought her gift all decked out like a robot.  So cute!!

And a friend made this adorable and delicious strawberry cake!

I'm still waiting to see the pictures take than day.  I only got these few from my phone.  So many wonderful ladies came to celebrate with me though.  I felt so loved.  :)

I wish I had a picture of the yummy meal we had!  We did a nacho bar with all the fixings.  It was soooo good.

And now for the bitter. :(

The day of my baby shower was also the day I had to say goodbye to the home I grew up in.  My parents closed on their house two days later.  It was really hard to say goodbye.  Dad says it's just a house, but I don't think that's true.  It was home for me for about 16 years.  I have so many memories there.  I'm sad that my son will never get to enjoy it.  He won't get the fun of fishing off the dock or learning to swim in the pool.  I know he will have other wonderful memories, but it's hard to think they won't take place in that home.  When I left the shower, I sobbed half-way back to my house. :'(

I'm very thankful for the years I had there.  It was a wonderful place to live and have people come to visit.  I'm also very glad that I can look back on the memory of having my wedding reception there.  I'll miss that place.

Love and Marriage

Ack, almost a year later and yeah....so life has changed a bit in that time!  

 Guess who got married!
May 31, 2014

I love my ring. :) Check out those teal diamonds.  That was D's idea, and I think they are amazing.

We got married in a little church close to my house.  It was a small, short ceremony, 50 people including guests and wedding party, but I loved it.

The reception was at my parent's house.  I'm so glad we ended up having it there.  It was perfect!

My mom made me a teal lace for the back of my dress.  The wedding was all teal and ivory.  My Aunties came to help make everything beautiful, and they did a wonderful job.  

 As teal is not exactly a natural flower color, I decide to go with something for my bouquet that looked more like I had just picked them from a garden or field.  When my flowers died a week or so later, I was so sad, but I certainly did enjoy them.

 My aunts, grandmothers, and I made these ribbon sticks for people to wave at us as we came out of the church.

And these very special girls all came to celebrate with me.  I don't know what I would have done without a single one of them. They kept me calm.  They helped with anything that needed doing.  They were amazing.

Of course, the best part about my wedding was knowing I get to spend my life with this guy...

 ...that and maaaaybeee the cheesecakes. :D

More news to come!

Writing Prompt #3 - Oldest Thing

In the world of writing prompts, here is number three:


What is the oldest piece of clothing in your closet that you still wear?

Escuze me while I go take a picture.  BRB.  

Ok, so we moved to Florida in 1991.  I was 8, almost 9.  My family was in Michigan.  My friends were in Michigan.  My whole world was in Michigan.  It took a long time before Florida became my home.  I was attached to my roots.  Every summer we would go up there and I would jump in and be right at home.  I was way more involved in my church there than in the one I attended down here.  Even in my early teens, my youth group was at my Michigan church.  That was where I belonged.  That was where my heart was.

During the summer, I would go to camp with my Michigan Youth group.  People, seriously, I went to the bestest, awesomest church camp EVER.  Fa Ho Lo (stands for Faith Hope Love) rocked.  I believe the summer I got this shirt was the summer between 9th and 10th grade, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.  The theme for the year was Fa Ho Lo High.  I have no idea what they did with that theme.  There was always a theme.  One year we were all countries. My group's country was China and we made this crazy song  based on the "We are Siamese" tune from Lady and the Tramp, except it was "We are Chi-a-nese."  Once we were the Yaks and we made up a song based on the Anamaniacs cartoon theme.  Anyway, this particular summer we were Fa Ho Lo High.  I got this tee to remember my week.

 I had everyone sign it.   The signatures have mostly faded over the years, but you can see little hints of them still.  Looks like this one says "Andrea." Very likely, this lovely lady. Must have been before she started going by "Andi." (Sorry, girl, but you are totally still Andrea to me...that or Homey;) )

 

I would say the shirt has been well loved.  I still sleep in it often.  It is full of holes and WAY too big for me, but it's comfy and perfectly worn in.  It should be after somewhere around 15 years!  :)

I think I'll get in it right now!

Beach Bums

It's always fun when D and I get an extra day with the boys.  Their mom had to work, so we got to take them to the beach for the morning. :)  It was a beautiful.  The weather was nice, and the sky was gorgeous.  The water, on the other hand, was freezing.  When we first got there, they boys wanted to swim.  They all got in and wadded out a bit, but I stayed stubbornly up on the beach.  There was no way I was getting into that freezing water.  Or so I though.  Apparently, D had other ideas.  He decided I needed to go in and scooped me up off the beach, walked me out into the water, and dropped me in.  Meanwhile, I was screaming at him and probably telling him completely untrue things like, "I hate you!"  The water was sooo cold!! I did manage to get used to it enough to stay out for a little while, but brrrrrr, it never really got comfortable.  After awhile we headed back up onto dry land where the sun warmed me right up.

The boys wanted to be buried in the sand, but D isn't one to just pile up some sand on them.  He decided they should be buried inside a sand Jeep.  I think he did an awesome job. :D He got a ton of compliments on it as people strolled by. 

I bought this hat for myself from Shelley at Ruffled Flamingo on Etsy.  I love it! It is comfy and it kept me from getting sun on my face (I am totally OK with "pale and pasty" thank you very much.) Check out her shop.  Her stuff is well made, really cute, and very reasonably priced.  I have 2 summer hats, 1 winter hat, and an adorable pair of bloomers from her shop. 

After the beach, we went to Pincher's Crab Shack for lunch

and spent some time playing at a fun park.

Thirty!

Well, I've gone and turned 30. Thirty. My father and brother-in-law were good enough to remind me that I have now entered my 4th decade. It feels a little weird, but I'm not really depressed about it or anything. I'm thankful for the 30 years I've had. They've been good ones. :) I'm blessed.

My sister came down with her family on Friday night to spend the weekend with us.  I spent the night making a strawberries and cream cheesecake.  It turned out to be a great deal more time intensive than I expected due to the strawberries needing to be roasted for an hour and a half (I'm horrible about reading recipes all the way through before I start them.)  I also used a white chocolate chip cookie dough crust (using my mom's famous pudding chip cookie dough) instead of graham crackers.  That was a good choice I think. :D 

Saturday morning I woke up to a "Happy Birthday" phone call from D and the footsteps of my nieces coming down the stairs.  I got started on the bacon wrapped smokies we would be eating later and then got dressed for the day.   D and the boys showed up around 10, and we feasted on the smokies and some delicious french toast made by my mother.  We spent most of the rest of the morning just hanging out.  D and I took the kids outside where they found a coconut. The kids all wanted to cut it open and try the meat and milk (or is it coconut water? Doesn't look very milky to me.)  D cut it open, and let everyone try some.  No one liked they milk.  Most of them spat it right back out.  They had fun with it though.

A while back, D's Sister and I had both purchased some Groupon's for a local ice skating rink.  I thought my birthday might be a fun time to use them.  We also found some extra coupons in a book D had, so we got a pretty good deal on it.  My parents decided not to join us for the skating portion of the day; but my sister, brother-in-law, nephew, nieces, D and his boys, D's sister and her family all came along.  We had a great time! The kids were all very unsteady at first, but they eventually started getting the hang of it and having fun.

My youngest niece loved it!  She has no fear at all.  She kept saying, "Don't touch me! I can do it!"  She did pretty well, too.

I think she's going to be the bravest of her siblings.

Occasionally, D and I got a few moments to skate without little ones hanging on to our hands.

D's sister got me an awesome hat for my birthday.  It kept my head nice and warm while I skated. :)

After skating, my parents met us at PF Chang's for lunch.  It was soooo good!  Click that lunch link for more description on what we ate and some new things I tried. 

After lunch, we headed over to a little playground to let the kids burn off some energy (where does it all come from?!) before walking around at some shops.

In the evening, we all hung out at the house and relaxed.  We ate my mom's yummy spaghetti for dinner, and I opened my presents. 

I had no shortage of helpers!!

Since the kids had been snacking on chocolate chip cookies all night, we decided to put them to bed before we did the cheesecake.  D and his boys stayed the night in the guest room, so we read with the three boys for awhile and sent them all to bed.  

We ended the evening with my yummy yummy cheesecake.  It was totally worth staying up baking till 1 AM the night before. :D 

Yay for Birthdays!!