My Sarah is getting married!

Tomorrow, my best friend is getting married.  Sarah has been my best friend since 8th grade when she moved here.  I remember the first time I met her when she came to summer basketball camp and I thought to myself, "We are going to be best friends".  That was that.  And that was before I even knew she loved crafting!  Ha!

sunburned BABIES....

I know how lucky I am to have such a close friend.  We have been through many things in our more than 15 year friendship. I am so happy that she is getting her happy ending.  She deserves it more than anyone I know.  

Some fun facts about my Sarah!  

1.  She is a very terrible driver.  TERRIBLE.  She rear ended me in high school and I had to take her home because her car needed to be towed.  I, to this day, RARELY ride in the car with her.  She knows to just hop on in my jeep.   

2.  She doesn't forget anything, ever.  This is awesome and totally annoying at the same time.  We all know to just ask Sarah if we can't remember when something happened or who we were with or whatever.  And she isn't scared to bust you out if she remembers an embarrassing detail about you.  She really enjoys it actually.  

3.  She and I pretended to be lovers at a wedding one time.  I could leave it at that but I feel like I need to explain a little.  There was a random older guy and he WOULD NOT leave me alone and just didn't seem to get the picture.  I finally told him I was there with Sarah, grabbed her hand and kissed her on the cheek.  We held hands the rest of the reception and danced our booties off.  He left me alone after that!  

4.  She is an excellent trash talker.  Maybe this is because she is so sweet and you don't expect those things to come out of her mouth, but seriously, she can talk shit with the best of them.  She is very competitive (we all are) so this talent of hers get used quite frequently...especially during football season.  

5.  She is the strongest person I know.  She has been through some major stuff yet has never become negative or cynical.  She carries herself with grace and everyone who knows her loves her and her happy personality.  

I could go on and on with silly things about her and the crazy things we have gotten into but that would be boring for you guys.  Basically, I just want y'all to know how awesome she is.  She has ALWAYS been there for me when I needed her.  When I started to freak out right before my wedding (because of all the people..not the actual marriage!) she stripped me down, made me take off my spanx so I could breathe and poured a glass of champagne down my throat.  When we secretly did our FET last December she did everything for the Christmas party that I had already planned at my house so I could be on bed rest.  When I had Blakely she set up a dinner delivery so I had meals brought to me for months.  She is the best.  Like for real.  

I still smile every time I think about how we used to "cruise" in town with our music (probably MASE) turned up way loud and singing/rapping at the top of our lungs.  Wait, maybe we still do this?  Anyway, she is getting married tomorrow.  This makes me super happy because she definitely found her match.  He loves her and appreciates her like she should be appreciated.  He is a good one, no doubt.  

And wish ME some luck getting my sweet girl to walk down the aisle and then be quiet during the ceremony.  The rehearsal tonight didn't go so well.  She may scream NO MOMMY the whole time but at least she will be cute!  It is going to be a crazy fun time!  Happy weekend!

Dusty

Things are pretty crazy around here leading up to the big wedding on Saturday.  But I wanted to check in and say that I am still here with lots to blog about but no time to do it!  Hopefully after this weekend I will have some time to sit down and write about a few of the things we have been doing.  

But right now, I have a heavy heart.  My sweet little dog, Dusty, passed away Friday.  Boo.  

He was my first baby and he was almost 12 years old.  About two weeks ago he started this weird coughing thing (almost like asthma or something but would only last a few minutes) and I took him to the vet after about a week of it.  They diagnosed him with congestive heart failure and put him on medicine.  Now, I worked in the medical field for many years.  I know that doesn't just go away.  I knew eventually he would succumb to his heart troubles.  

After being on the medicine for a few days he got much better.  He was running up the stairs and playing with Blakely like usual.  I thought once he got better that we were going to get a few more years out of him.  He was 12 but shih-tzu's live forever.  My mom's lived until he was like 18!

I took him to the groomer on Friday because he was in bad need of a cut.  Helga is our groomer and she is like the dog whisperer.  It has always been a nightmare to get Dusty groomed until she came along.  He loves her and would sit there and let her do whatever (except for the toenails..he always HATED that!).  

Anyway, she called me and said that he was breathing weird and she thought he may need to go back to the vet.  I said I would come get him.  I was at the grocery store and started that way.  A few minutes later, my phone rang and it was my aunt.  She works right next door and Helga came to get her when Dusty started acting funny.  My aunt told me she thought that Dusty had died.  I was like....no.  WHAT?  Are you sure?  She was sure.  

I was in the car with Blakely and basically lost it.  But I quickly realized I could not do that.  I had to get it together because Blakely was frantically saying "MOMMY!  MOMMY SAD!  OH NO!  MOMMY?"  Not fun.  Hard.  

I'll save all the details but, yeah, he died at the groomer.  Sweet Helga is just the best.  She even performed doggy CPR with mouth to mouth.  I mean....  She tried but it just wasn't happening.  I called and thanked her and told her that if Dusty couldn't be with me when that happened that I was glad he could be with her because I know she loved him too.  

So that is pretty sad.  I came home and put B down for a nap and had a good cry about it.  And now writing this I am getting sad again.  Sigh...

Duster was a good dog.  Not the smartest (as Lonnie would say!) but super sweet and always cuddly.  I got him right before I started x-ray school because it was my first time to live alone and I was lonely.  He slept on my pillow every night until we moved here.  

A good dog.  Our little family will definitely miss him.  We already do.  

Random things...

It has been one thing after another here lately and I can't seem to find the time to sit down and blog.  Here are a list of random things for your midweek!

• Blakely is in the "obsessed with bandaids" stage.  You can usually find her with one on each cheek and she will be carrying a princess that is covered in them as well.

• We had our wine dinner last night and it was super fun.  I love getting dressed up and going out with my husband!  No pictures because it was a mad dash to get ready and get out of the door.  I will say that I was about 6'2" with my shoes on...but still shorter than my Lonnie.  :)

obsessed with these.  may wear them to every holiday party...

• Lonnie was off last week so we had a lot of family cuddle time.  It was cool and rainy most days so we got to build a fire and watch movies each night.  Blakely watched The Li.ttle Merma.id which she LOVED (we've watched it 3 times now) and Cin.dere.lla which she liked but not as much as Ariel (Ay-dull).  I have waited my whole life to watch movies with my baby girl.  It makes my heart smile.  Lonnie even looked over at me and said "you are so happy right now"...he was right!

• Since Lonnie was off Blakely just got a whole bunch of Daddy time.  She loves it but probably not as much as he does!  Here are a couple more from the week...

he wore those stickers on his face the whole time we were at breakfast.  and he let her crawl all over him so I could eat.  he is the best.  

• I am getting so pumped up for Christmas.  I have already started working on some Christmas presents for family.  And I am in the process of making the Christmas Countdown list too.  MERRY MERRY!  
• Lonnie and I are having a party this weekend for Sarah and CJ who are getting married in a few weeks.  Once that party is over the Christmas tree is going up!  
• Do your children love to be naked?  I can't even tell you the struggle it is to get B dressed in the mornings.  And the second we get home each day she screams "ME NAKEY" and starts stripping down.  Fun.  
• Aaaaaaaand Lonnie has taught her how to pee outside.  Which she thinks is the coolest thing ever.  I have to say, it is pretty funny and she is darn good at it!  Ha!

this was right before she showed me how she "pee pee out-shide grash!" 

• We had to cancel our family pictures because of the rain last week.  Totally sad about it.  We haven't had family pictures since B was born and I was really looking forward to it because the leaves have been so so pretty this year.  Lonnie isn't off again until mid December so we rescheduled for then.  So, winter family pictures?  I guess so.  Weird.  I need to think of what we are going to wear because our "fall" outfits just aren't going to cut it.
• In one of my fantasy leagues I am 10-0.  Did you hear that Kalyn?  Undefeated...can't even believe it!  
• I'm off to go pick up my baby girl and take her for ice cream!  

A Colorful Weekend!

This weekend we celebrated my bestie Sarah's bachelorette party.  For the whole weekend.  It was crazy fun.  Some much needed girl time was had and I am so happy that we were all able to step away from our lives for a bit and just enjoy being together!   We started planning this weekend in like JUNE.  The logistics of planning for a girls weekend out of town for 15 girls.  Well, I'm glad I don't have to do it again any time soon!  Ha!   

The shenanigans started on Friday.  We all drove to Little Rock (about an hour away) and checked into our hotel downtown.  Bottles may have been popped at this time.  Then we went to Painting with a Twist.  I am sure you all know what that is but just in case....you go there (bring your wine and food) and they "teach" or "lead" you through painting a super cute picture that never turns out as good as it is supposed to!

We decided to paint flowers and a great time was had by all.  

Then we went back to our hotel, dropped our paintings off and headed out to find some food and music.  We went to a little pizza place that had live music and the pizza was amazing.  The music was good too and we ended up dancing to a few songs.  We headed back to the hotel to hang out and be good girls because we were supposed to go to bed early.  You can guess how that turned out.  ;)

Saturday morning we all ran (didn't run) in THE COLOR RUN.  It was the first time it had been here and there were so.many.people.  I haven't checked to see a final count but it was seriously packed downtown.  We had an absolute blast and I still have blue boogers.  (When will that go away?)  I will definitely do that run again if they come back!  

before and after

this was at the start of the race...LOVE it!

After the race we went to THE FLYING FISH right downtown and chowed down.  Showers and naps soon followed as we were all tired from accidentally staying up too late the night before and we had to rest up for the big night!  

The theme of our night out on Saturday was "We are wiggin' out for Sarah's last night out".  It was a perfect theme and went right along with our colorful weekend.  We all brought a wig to wear and all of this was a secret from Sarah.  It turned out great and we looked pretty hilarious walking around all night in our wigs.  I had a long purple wig and I can't tell you how hard it was to get all of my hair under that thing.  Also, I should never have bangs.  

We went to dinner at a little Italian place (you know, so we could load up on carbs) and made friends with the owner.  I mean, how could you resist this group?  He demanded a picture with us.  

Then we headed to a dueling piano bar.  Lots of fun there and lots of laughs.  After a while though we were ready to shake our booties.  

Downstairs they had a big dance floor and a DJ.  All 15 of us took that place by storm.  We danced for hours.  I can't remember the last time I danced that much.  At some point we all tossed our wigs because it was so very hot.  We closed that place down and then walked back to the hotel.  Someone in the group was demanding Taco Bell (I won't name names) so two of the girls got a cab and brought back an insane amount of tacos, burritos, crunch wraps, mexican pizzas, etc.  All of it.  And it was amazing.  LOL!  Since we had rooms together we hung out in the middle room so we wouldn't wake others up.  I'm pretty sure I saw 330 on the clock before heading to bed.  Oops.  

Not many pics to share after we went to dinner.  You know...girl code and all!  But we all had a great time, especially Sarah as you can tell from the picture below!  

The next day we all woke up and headed back to our "normal" lives.  It was an amazingly epic weekend and I am so very happy that we were able to do it.  As we all get older it is much harder to plan things like this.  The girl time was much needed for us all and I am so thankful for great friends to make these memories with!  Now bring on the wedding!!  

Blakely's Alphabet Party!

I decided on an alphabet theme for Blakely's party.  She is pretty obsessed with letters and has been for a few months.  Anytime she sees a sign or letters on anything she yells "ABCD!  ABCD!"  So I thought this would be an easy theme and one that she would actually like.

Once I decided on that I needed to figure out the colors.  I found some cute fabric at Ho.bby L.obby that I like and I used that as my inspiration.  It has cream background with oranges, grays and turquoise. {you can see it in the fabric bunting}

We did the same type of party that we did last year.  Mostly our families with some of my friends and their kids thrown in there.  We did it at our house which I like because it forces me Juanet to do a deep clean and to get rid of some clutter.  We had a great turnout and I was happy with how everything turned out.  I didn't go as crazy as I did last year with the decor and food mostly because of time.  It was a lot easier to craft and plan last year when my little would quietly play at my feet.  This year was a bit different as she wanted to "help" which also meant destroy everything.  HA!  Last year I made most of the food and I told myself there was no way I was doing that this year!  Too much...just too much.  

We had the party on Sunday, October 13th, her actual birthday.  I was going to do it on Saturday but it was getting a bit difficult to plan around the home Razorb.ack game.  I know, we definitely live in the south.  So I moved it to Sunday afternoon and I am glad that we did.  

I'm just going to photo dump the pictures with a description by some of them!   

I wrote the alphabet in sidewalk chalk on the road leading to our house.  I did each letter different and at the end I wrote Happy Birthday Blakely.  It turned out cuter than expected and it was a last minute addition.  I did this about 20 minutes before the party and only because I had a little bit of extra time.  

really tough to get a good picture of this!

entryway.  hard to tell but those are peices of chevron-burlap with the letters P-A-R-T-Y

invite.  

I did iced sugar cookies as favors.  Since there were mostly adults at the party I didn't want to do different favors for adults and kids.  Who doesn't like a cookie?  I got these at the same bakery I got the cookies from for her party last year.  

This is the table in my dining room.  I sewed that fabric into a tablecloth because I couldn't find anything big enough that I liked.  I also sewed the turquoise, orange and gray fabric together and cut it to look like fringe.  This was easy.  I do not sew much but I may do more now because it was super fun!  

I made this fabric bunting.  It was super easy as well but it did take some time.  I cut all the strips of fabric first.  Then I tied them around some burlap ribbon (you could use anything, wire, cord, another long strip of fabric, etc.  I used the burlap ribbon because it left a bunch on each end to hang the bunting up with).  

Once that was done I hung the letters that I painted with gray yarn.  Here is a close up so you can see a little better.  

I tried to go with food that reflected in some way what Blakely likes to eat.  Dip is high on that list!  I had three different dips (crab dip, vegetable dip and creamy cowboy caviar) with different chips and crackers to go with.  I made little signs for each food item and put them in frames.  This one says "D is for DIP".  These were the same frames I used for her party last year only I spray painted them to match this color scheme.  I was actually able to use quite a bit of stuff from last year!  

P is for PASTA

S is for SNACK (goldfish, Annie's cheddar bunnies and squares)

And then I had "T is for TREAT".  My MIL made the rice krispie treats with alphabet cookie cutters.  I had grand plans to stick some of them on a skewer and put them in a vase as a centerpiece for the table.  It didn't last long though because they kept falling off because they weren't hard enough.  Maybe if you let them get too hard to eat that idea would work!  

Petite fours with letters on them.  

 I think this was actually my favorite thing about the decor.  The picture doesn't do it justice and you'll have to ignore the horribly ugly chandelier (new one still sitting in the box in the garage!) but I felt like this just made the table and the decor in the dining room.  I painted the chip board letters and then hung them up with some yarn.  It was so cute and Blakely still loves picking out the letters! 

I  made this last minute because I realized I needed something that said Happy Birthday!  I literally made it a few days before the party and I was so over it when we tried to hang it up that I didn't care that it was not super perfectly even!  

Now that you have seen all of the decor I'll tell you about the actual party!  We had it at 2 which was right after nap time and seemed like a good idea.  Well, I planned it that way before my child decided she hated sleep.  So she refused her nap that day but it worked out fine since she had so much to entertain her.  She got a bubble bath instead of a nap.  Who doesn't want to start their birthday party with a bubble bath?  

Once everyone arrived and we all ate we did a mini cake for B and sang Happy Birthday to her.  She pretty much loved that.

Then the fun part.  Opening all the presents.  She did pretty good with this.  I mean she loved opening them but she wanted to get that present out and play with it immediately.  Who can blame her? 

Then she opened up some shoes.  Two pairs of shoes actually.  Snow White shoes and light up Minnie shoes.  No way was she sitting down after that!  She strutted around in those things and didn't give a second look to anything else for a while!  

She also got a big trunk full of dress up clothes.  That has been a big hit although we already need a bigger trunk  :-/

It was a great day for everyone and B really enjoyed her party.  She walked around pointing to all the letters I had around and telling people what they were.  She loves when all of her peeps are here.  She kind of shows off when she has everyone's attention.  It is cute but I think I am in trouble there!  Ha!  

After everyone cleared out I gave B a present just from me.  It was this princess nightgown and an Ariel doll.  She immediately had to put it on and we went outside and played on her swing set for the longest.  I'd estimate that Ariel went down the slide 45 times!  

 Then we snuggled all evening.  I can't believe my baby girl is 2 years old.  I know I will be saying that forever more but seriously...2?  How?  

Blakely's First Birthday