Thank You

I want to say, I had one of the best birthday's ever!  I want to thank my hubby for taking me out on the town.  Mamaw and Papaw for watching the kids!  All my friends who took me out for laughs and fun (Crystal, Dean, Melanie, Jordan, Jennifer, Kevin) love you guys!  NC State for losing to my Tarheels (lol!).  All jokes aside it was so much fun!  I got lots of wonderful cards and FB wishes and I want to say THANK YOU to you all!!  I definitely felt the love!!  Michael and I have decided to throw a themed party in a couple of months (the first Saturday we will be available) and there will be MUCH more to come on this!  Also, I have decided to do the Dress A Girl pillowcase dresses in honor of my 30th.  I have decided to make 30 dresses.  I think I have collected about 5 or 6 pillowcases so far.  I know I have been asked about the pillowcases.  I know they can't be see-through.  They need to be pretty tough because the girls wash them in a river with rock.  They will literally go beat the dress with a rock until they get the dirt out.  If you would like to donate something I would be happy to take it (other things are double fold bias tape, 1/4" - 1/2" elastic, ribbon or anything to embellish the dresses).  Thank you again everyone for making my birthday so special!

Valentine Performances

I just learned that the video of the performances for the banquet are on youtube. So here are the three videos of my performances. If you would like there were three other singers that were amazing you could watch too. The first was Agua De Beber, 2nd was If I Ain't Got You, and Funny Valentine was the last. Enjoy!!

Go Heels

Enjoying the game!!!

Happy Birthday to Me

Well it is official I'm 30! I got to kick off the celebration with Mamaw (poor Papaw was sick in the bed, thinks he has the flu), the kids, Crystal, Dean and Mike singing Happy Birthday with cake and ice cream. There were all 30 candles on the cake...not sure how we didn't burn down the house. Then Mamaw watched the kids so Crystal, Dean, Mike and I could go to The Comedy Zone and then dancing. So much fun!! Today we are off to Chapel Hill for the UNC vs State game and then dinner with college friends. More pics to come!

Service

Imagine being 11 years old and already a mother to a one year old.  Crazy right?!?  Today we had a guest speaker from Dress a Girl.  Something about this ministry just spoke to me.  What is Dress a Girl?  It is a Christian based ministry that takes pillow cases and makes dresses for girls all over the world that can't afford to own a piece of clothing.  One of the places in particular that she (the guest speaker, Lisa) was passionate about was Haiti.  In Haiti there are hundreds of girls that are constantly being raped because they don't have any clothes on, literally walking around naked because they own NOTHING.  A pillowcase dress (up to $3, cheap as $0.25) could help solve that problem.  Since I have made quite a few pillowcase dresses and know how simple it could be to make one, again this ministry just spoke to me.

In a few days I will be turning the big 3-0.  For the past month I have been looking for something to get involved in.  I just want to leave my mark on the world somehow, even if it is small, I want to do something.  I'm not certain how involved I want to get involved with something.  I'm just looking for a way to make a difference.  My original plan was to do 30 days of Random Acts of Kindness.  Unfortunately I haven't been consistent in doing them every day.  And while I feel that some of the kindnesses have felt great, I just feel like I could do more.  I'm not sure exactly what I want to do with this, but I really LOVED every bit of this.  The ministry is 100% toward going to clothing girls around the world.  All the "workers" are volunteers that make dresses.  They send dresses with missionaries that were planning on going to places already (so no shipping costs).  For more info here is their website: http://www.dressagirlaroundtheworld.com/.  Some of my thoughts were to make 30 dresses myself to donate; ask family & friends or even church to donate pillowcases; or volunteer to do something.  There is also another ministry associated with Dress A Girl that is wonderful too that I also could get involved in.  I have decided to pray about this the next day and decide what to do.  I will keep everyone updated.  For those that are still reading this please say a little prayer for me too!  Thanks!!

Consignment Time

If last week wasn't stressful and busy enough I decided to add to it. Yes, I'm crazy!! All day (minus the snow fun) Saturday and Sunday I worked on tagging and putting in clothes for Spring/Summer consignment. This season I have decided to try a different locale. The percentage was better and I loved that everything was keyed in online. That way if something is sold I know immediately. We will see If this is somewhere I want to come back. I wasn't impressed or happy with the way drop off went, but hopefully I do well. The picture below is to show you how many clothes I tagged in two days. By the way this pic doesn't show two bins already taken down and filled. I ended up tagging 210 outfits. I had tons more but didn't have the time to key them in...next sale!!

Snow Family

Thought I would share our family self portrait in the snow yesterday.  We had so much fun!  It literally was the perfect snow.  Just enough to play in and make snowmen, but nothing stuck to roads and we didn't have to worry about black ice this morning!  Just perfect!

Snow day

Well the unthinkable finally happened. It snowed here in Mooresville! All morning I had seen posts all over NC of snow falling but we had none. Around 3 pm all of us had fallen asleep. Apparently sometime before 4, there was a loud clap of thunder and then the snow started falling. It went from nothing to a few inches in less than an hour. So we all got out and played in it! It was so much fun!!! The kids helped build a snowman and then they stated eating it.

Valentine's Jazz Banquet

Last night was the jazz banquet I have been gearing up for for the past month and a half. It was so much fun! I had a blast dressing up in 40's style and singing and dancing! The kids had spaghetti and then went downstairs to play in the kids room so mommy and daddy got to dance a little. The beginning of the night my hair was perfect, but by the end my hair got bigger and bigger. I thought it was funny!!

Dance Floor Lights

I am so proud of my latest project that I decided to share on my family site and party site (details will be on my party site).  A few months ago I was asked to sing at a Valentine's banquet for our Preschool.  I said I would love to, but do you need any help decorating?  When the director said sure I immediately was on Pinterest gathering ideas.  I came across a dance floor lighting that I fell in love with this picture.

I then ran across this blog on a tutorial for how to do it on the cheap (my kind of project!).  My issue?  I needed my poles to be upright indoor.  So after much collaborating with anyone that would listen, I got the idea from my dad to fix my problem.  So here is what mine look like.  (Sorry the lights weren't turned on.  I'll try and sneak a pic tonight.)

I "Mustache" You a Question...

Today was the kids' preschool Valentine's class party. I can not take credit for the idea. I got it from Maddycakes Muse! It was completely last minute due to the banquet being tomorrow night and I am gearing up for it! So I saw the idea and thought..."hey self, you have mustache candy molds already. Do this". And so I did. The kids LOVED the mustache chocolate suckers. Ms. Jennie got everyone's picture with the suckers. It was so cute. They had just enough time for a game. I had given all the kids a pair of chopsticks and some conversation hearts and tried to see if they could put as many hearts in a cup they could. There was one little boy that did it in less thanks a couple minutes. I was super impressed. Maddie was pretty good as well! The theme was "I mustache you question, will you be my valentine?" Sorry about the pics. They are all on my phone and I didn't start taking them until after we had started eating. Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Spoke too soon

Well...I think I jinx myself! Today Zack had another round of breakouts. I saw him today after he went outside. It was not pretty!! Since he no longer has a cold, mommy is probably going to be calling around to find a second opinion!!

Happy Valentine's Day

Cupid made a visit here! First we put on our shirts from Mamaw and Papaw. Maddie's has hearts and says "Love", and Zack's is Mickey and says"Ladies Man". Maddie and Zack then opened their cards from all the grandparents and then from us. They got a book that has figurines to play with in the back (thanks Aunt Amy for showing us these). They came in handy today because we stayed after school for a couple hours while mommy decorated for the Valentine's banquet tomorrow night. Once mommy got home she had surprise from daddy. He got mommy an edible arrangement. I love those things!! Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!

Happy News

So I'm crossing my fingers that I'm not sharing too soon, but yesterday was the first day that Zack did not have any breakouts. When his teacher put him in the car I asked and Ms. Jennie was happy to report no! Wooohoooo!! I am praying this was not a fluke and whatever it was that was wreaking havoc on our boy is done! Three weeks of "bumpers" as he calls them hopefully have come to an end! I will keep everyone posted as more days pass!!

Carolina Girl Shower

As promised I am posting a collage of the baby shower a few weeks ago. For more pictures feel free to visit my party site!

Early Valentine

Yesterday Mamaw and Papaw came up to deliver some things. In particular they brought the kids a few Valentine's treats. They got a shirt to wear on Thursday, some candy and sweets. While they were here Mike and I roped them into helping us install a shower door in our bathroom.

For over a year now we haven't used our shower because the "smart" builders of this house built a walk-in shower without a door. So when we took showers with a curtain it would dump a ton of water on the floor which ultimately ended up downstairs in our kitchen, yup..fun times! So after considering on how we should fix the problem (back and forth about tile vs door) we bought a door and we now can finally take showers in our bathroom. Hooooraaaaay!! Thanks Mamaw and Papaw!!!

Mardi Gras

Last night Mike and I were invited to a Mardi Gras party. It was so much fun!!! It was very authentic and the couple hosting even ordered cakes especially from New Orleans. We had a blast! When we left for the party the kids saw us all dressed up and begged for us to let them dress up to. Enjoy the picture of us all decked out!

Dress Up Day

Today was "dress up as your favorite character from your favorite book" day at preschool. Zack went as Lightning McQueen (I know shocker, right?), from Cars book. Maddie dressed up as Camilla the Cupcake Fairy. They were a hit at school today!

Sneak Peek

This past Saturday I helped decorate for a baby shower. Sorry I haven't posted pics yet. I do have a sneak peek of the theme. Can you guess? By the way...I do have to brag that I did come up with the theme: