Jessie Turns 30!!!

I flew out to Georgia to spend the week with my sister for her 30th birthday on Wednesday!! What a fun week it has been! We showered her with gifts all day long. We had cake & balloons, and we went out to three different restaurants all in one day!

We surprised her at work when I showed up wearing a sandwich board announcing her birthday and loaded with pictures of her as a child! We sang Happy Birthday to her in the lobby of the doctors office and even offered some of her cake to the patients!!

Then, we took her to lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant where we gave her more gifts, of course!

When she returned home from work, we went out to eat at The Last Resort - a fabulous Athens restaurant - where her friends Beau and Angie joined us as a surprise to her!

Then, after dinner, we decided to walk over to Hiwire, a nice new bar downtown, and surprised her with 20 of her "closest" friends waiting for her in the back room! It was such a fun day and night!


Happy Birthday, Jessica!! We love you!

Enjoying May

It has been so pretty here, lately! We've tried to enjoy being outside as much as possible! We're really looking forward to getting our new patio finished next week - hopefully!!

Growing Up

After a few years of use, my children have all decided they are too "big" for these cups! (sigh.......) Every little step towards independence is both exciting and sad. I'm so proud of who they are becoming, but these little things remind me of the little people I'm going to miss! :(

Bridging to Brownies

Mary Frances' Daisy scout troop bridged to Brownies last week. We had a fun party to celebrate their accomplishments after the ceremony!Each of the flower buckets (yes, I did reuse them) had a portion of the Girl Scout Law sticking out of it to remind us that we are girl scouts at every stage!

The girls actually walked over a bridge to symbolize the transformation.
As they walked over and received their Brownie Pins, they removed their Daisy smocks, and we placed them on the railing of the bridge.
Check out our new "Batch of Brownies"!!

Rodeo Carnival (lost post)

Somehow, this entry never posted...so here it is...

After several years of wasting my money on rodeo/concert tickets for the kids, I decided to only take them to the carnival! Mary Frances didn't get to go, as I mentioned in an earlier post. So, each of the boys was allowed to take a friend!

I love this one!

Mom's Munch 2011

For FOUR years straight, I have had the wonderful pleasure of attending Mom's Munch! It is our preschool's celebration of Mother's Day. Chase has been looking forward to it for months! He could not wait for me to come to his school so that he could shower me with handmade gifts and serve me breakfast!We had a great time together. We are all starting to get a little sad about him graduating from preschool this year. We decided to put him in the Bridge program instead of kindergarten this past year, and it was a great decision! He could have gone to kindergarten before, but I KNOW he is ready, now!

His class consists of only 7 boys (no girls) and their precious teacher, Mrs. Zarazee. The boys have all grown this year, but one unique thing Mrs. Zarazee has given them is a unique awareness of surviving breast cancer! They all know what the little pink ribbons are, and most of them even enjoy wearing pink just to make her happy! I don't know how she will be able to let this group go!!
Mom's munch was a blast. I loved spending time with Chase and his friends, and I received a beautiful flower pot with some seeds to grow some flowers!

My Latest Event...

I recently planned a 50th birthday party for a past bride and groom! I had such a great time planning it and wanted to share some of the pictures with you!

After traveling an hour and half from Houston, it was more than 5 miles down a dirt road with lots of twists and turns! So, it was necessary to guide the guests with 6 or 7 different signs pointing the way. I placed a sign everywhere that I originally stopped wondering which way to go. They said, "not yet", "almost there", "keep going", "next gate", etc. I got great response from the guests saying there was a sign every time they started to wonder if they were going the right way! :)

I had custom water bottle labels printed that said, "Happy Birthday, Susan" and had a big 50 on them! They looked great on the boxes of baby wipes we used to clean our hands after eating the messy crawfish!
The band, Zydecane, performed all evening. They were great! Their voices were wonderful, and they certainly kept the party alive!
Silver, Purple, and Black were the colors for the evening. Purple, because it is Susan's favorite, and black, because it was her 50th! Silver was the best compliment color to go with them!
So, we used galvanized buckets to plant purple impatiens for the tables. The table cloths were burlap material. It made for a very unique look!
I put up as many purple lanterns as the wind would allow before I finally gave up! The wind was brutal! It's amazing that the entire centerpieces didn't blow away!
The happy couple - married for less than a year!! They have been such a blessing to us and our church. Their love for the Lord and obedience to his requests is an inspiration!

Out of the mouth of babes....

I found this "story" in Mary Frances' folder this week! Apparently, some of the neighbor's think it's funny to use the word to rhyme with their baby sister's name! Needless to say, I was slightly embarrassed that she wrote this story at school!

Last preschool payment

I gladly paid my last month of preschool today! I will greatly miss Foundry Faith Academy, but I am looking forward to having all my babies at one FREE school!!