The fruits of our labor...

I now know how much hard work goes into a garden! But when you are rewarded with things like this....it makes it all worthwhile! YUM!!!! Now to learn the art of canning from my dearest Suz Q!

Another thing that I learned is that gardens aren't just for veggies!! You can throw some beautiful flowers in there and they will make the whole place a little more colorful!

Here is a picture of Callie in her new playgym that she got for her birthday! It was the first night that she saw it. We got the initial excitement on video and I'll try to post it sometime when I figure out how to do that! HA! She is enjoying it immensely and so are we! Now if we can just get her to come down the big slide without holding our hands so we can sit on the back steps and drink ice cold adult beverages!! We need a deck though....Sitting on the back steps is hard on the toosh! :-)

Couple birthday pics!

Here are a few pics...I won't even bore you with a 500 word essay! :-)

Giving Elmo the 'what for' - You can tell by the look on his face that he isn't taking it too well! LOL

FOOD!!!! And plenty of it!

Gift table before everyone really arrived! That is the table/chair set that my mom got her. Everyone wanted to know where it came from. It was totally cute!

Fun in the bouncy house!!!

Elmo cupcakes for daycare! I don't have a good pic of the actual party cake!

Playing in the water at the aquarium! Trying to pet some sharks but she was nowhere near tall enough!

Short and sweet...

This post will be short and sweet!

Callie's 2nd birthday party was a great success! Probably 30+ peeps there and way too much food and loads of fun. The kids LOVED the bouncy house and Callie went up and down the slide at least a hundred times. I am so so happy that she enjoyed herself. I will post pictures later! We even got video of her sliding. So cute!

On a sour note though....My aunt has been really really sick and in hospice care for the last month or so. She died just about 2 hours before Callie's party on Saturday. So that did change the mood of the party a little, I think...and also a few people didn't come. I guess they just weren't in the partying mood after all of that and I completely understand. We did really appreciate the people that decided to rally around us and put on a smiley face even if they were hurting! MY.FAMILY.ROCKS!!!!!

I will be out of work tomorrow for her funeral and then Wednesday is Callie's actual birthday so we are taking her to the aquarium. So I won't be back at work until Thursday. I will try to post some pics and/or video from the party then!!

Toodles!!!

One more thing....How could I forget?

I posted this on E...so those of you who may have seen it there can probably skip this one!

I know my commute is hell but sometimes I do see entertaining things.This morning I was coming up on a small town (you know...the kind you blink and you miss it) and some oncoming car was flashing his headlights at me. I figured it was a cop so I slowed down. I got on up the road and could see a slew of cops and rescue trucks, fire trucks etc but still couldn't see any type of incident. It was sort of around a curve...so I got up there and I see a tractor trailer layed over on it's side. GREAT! I look to see if it is bad and it doesn't look too bad so I just assume he missed the curve or something.

Here's the good part. As I got to the back end of the truck I could see these white things laying all over the ground. FINALLY a little bell went off in my head and I realized they were chickens and they weren't moving. Oh.My.GOD! DEAD chickens laying all over the road! I called DH and of course he had to crack a joke and say that I should have grabbed a couple for dinner! UGH! LOL Things like this made me so sad anyway. I am sure they were headed for a processing plant but still....What a way to go! LOL How many chickens you know that die in car accidents? LOL Not many, I would bet!But talk about a mess!!! I could not peel my eyes away from this sea of white feathery little lifeless bodies laying all over the road.

Should I admit that at first I thought they looked like soccer balls? LMAO

A couple funnies and one sad....

Let's deal with the sad first. My aunt was diagnosed with ovarian cancer about 1 1/2 year ago. She was doing really well until the last couple months. We always knew the outcome wouldn't be good but I guess even knowing the end will be soon still just doesn't prepare you. She hasn't actually passed away yet but she has been turned over to hospice care and the doctors have said it could be at any moment. So my mom is at the hospital to be with her and the rest of her family. Getting old sucks. There are days that I wish I could teleport back about 20-25 years just so everyone would be well again and young and having fun and that's all we thought about. We weren't concerned about death and dying and people being sick. Again...getting old sucks!

The funny stuff. Having had all of this stuff going on all weekend....Callie's comic relief has been much needed! She has such a huge personality! Saturday morning we were getting ready to go to Sams and Michael was getting in the shower. She was standing on her stool and looking in the mirror with me so he was just going on about his business behind us. She likes to put on makeup when I do. As I lay things back in the makeup box she will pick them up and mimic me. Anyway...without missing a beat she turned around and pointed at his azzz and yelled CRACK!!! She immediately turned right back around started putting on eye shadow! LOL WHERE did she learn that word? I don't think I've ever even said that in front of her! It sounds like the work of a certain Nana that I know! LOL Along with saying SHOOT! or OH FLITTER! when she drops something. Except Flitter comes out sounding more like pitter and shoot...well....yeah....the 4 letter word! LOL

The second funny is that now she absolutely hates to go to bed. She can be walking death and she will fight you to the bitter end! Last night she was sitting in her PBK's chair in the living room brushing her teeth and I was in the recliner. I started getting up from the chair and she stopped brushing and started yelling BACK! BACK! and pointing for me to scoot back in the chair again! LOL TOO CUTE! She is killing me lately with the WHY? HOT HAPPENED? ISI OK? (usually about Winston) TWIT (!!) is also a new one that we hear often. It is what I think is supposed to be quit! She will fuss at Winston and say TWIT TI TI! She calls Winston, Ti Ti! LOL

I LOVE that she can carry on a conversation now but oh man....she jibber jabbers nonstop now!

Oh...and my mom bought her a purse on Friday. She has carried that thing everywhere so far! AYE YA YA!!! She is starting early! She was packing it around yesterday and I offered her lunch. She marched over to Michael and said 'Hold purse, Gaggy!!!' LOL

Gardening is good for the soul (and more birthday stuff!)

So I know most of you have heard me talk about having a garden this year! We have been thoroughly enjoying it. It is A LOT of work! Don't get me wrong. Next year we will probably try for a bigger one. It is definitely addictive! This year we have corn, 2 different kinds of beans, about 4 or 5 different kinds of tomatoes, 2 kinds of cucumbers, green peppers, watermelon and cantaloupe. Here are a few pictures...

So far we've only had some cucumbers and cherry tomatoes. Soon we should have beans and lots more cucumbers and tomatoes! The watermelon and cantaloupe are a work in progress!! LOL If they don't do anything I'll be fine with that too. We mostly planted both of those for Callie.

As for birthday stuff! Let's talk presents first! My mom got Callie the CUTEST LITTLE TABLE EVER!!! She will just love it. She is crazy over chair and I think she'll love that she is getting a pint size table and chairs of her own! I haven't seen it yet in person but my mom called me the.absolute.second that Michael walked out her door from assembling it and sounded tickled to death with it. So that makes me happy. I picked it out and orderd it online with her credit card (HA!) so was really hoping she would love it just as much as I think Callie will! My mom wanted to put it in her garage and I told her I would rather she didn't because I figured it would get nasty before her birthday. So she put it on the bed in one of the bedrooms and covered it with a sheet. LMAO I am totally sure that Callie will nose around and I can just hear her saying 'hot happened?' 'hots dat?' 'onna see!' LOL My mom will probably cave and give it and let her see it. If she does I will kick her azzz from here to the next county! I want to see the look on her face when she comes into her party and sees it for the first time!

I have wanted a toy box for Callie for a long time. Michael's dad is ridiculously handy with woodworking! So I found a plan on ebay and he is currently building it. I'll post a link to a picture from the plan. I haven't seen it at all yet. We are going to paint it red and stencil or do something with her name on top of it. I thought about getting her name from wallwords.com but haven't looked any further into that option yet. I think she will love this as well. It will be sweet that he made it for her too. He has been so concerned with getting it done before the party. They are going on a cruise (leaving the 4th of July) and won't be back until right before the party. Them on a cruise is a whole other topic for a whole other day. Funny funny funny!

And lastly....the gift we got Callie. I just ordered it yesterday. Who knows whether it will be here in time or not but if it's not then that is ok too. She'll have plenty of other stuff to occupy her time. I think she will love it. Michael wanted to get one of the big fancy wooden slide/swing combos but I honestly don't think she would use that too much just yet. I mean...how good is a big ass fancy swingset if she can't even climb up to the slide, etc. At least with this one we can just turn her loose and she can play by herself while we relax on the deck sipping cold drinks!

Not sure about plans for the weekend. Michael mentioned the lake and I told him he was nuts....too many OOT'ers for my taste. Holiday weekends always brings out the crazies!! So maybe we'll just chill at home or BBQ or something. I know we have to make a sam's trip to get food for the party next week!

Pictures.... Table first...

Toybox ---> again...will be painted red and her name stenciled on top in a yellow gold color.

Little Tikes Playground

Birthday party planning HELL!!!

I actually enjoy planning parties for the most part. But WHY do I wait until the last minute to remember things or think of things, etc? This is the 'HELL' part of planning. Now I have to worry if things will get done, if they will ship in time, etc.

So here's what we have so far. The invitations are out and the theme is Elmo and it's going to be July 11th. We've rented a bouncy house. This one to be exact. So the location and major entertainment is covered. So I am going to order the cake on Friday. It's just the big azzz Elmo head that you've seen everywhere. Nothing fancy there. As for the menu...I am scaling back from last year. You may thing WHA?? when you see the list...but yes, friends....this is scaling back to me! LOL Last year I served a full meal. This year I am giving them a 'sandwich' type option and then just appetizer/finger food stuff.

Here is the menu so far - pulled pork sandwiches, hot dogs, BLT pasta salad, asian slaw, spinach & artichoke dip, mexican dip, fruit tray, veggie tray, couple kinds of chips, and drinks!! Hopefully this will be MUCH less trouble and expense than last year. Course, the guest list was cut in half this year too! So that's that!

I ordered the CUTEST little dress and hairbow you have ever seen!! Here is the dress and bow.




Here is a link to the ebay listing of the favors that I ordered. That was one of the things I was a little slow on. These are super cute and I hope people like them. I will probably print out some type of label or something that says 'Thanks for coming to my party! Love, Callie' Hopefully I can get it all worked out!!