Happy Birthday Sarah Katherine - School Edition

On September 9th my "baby" girl turned 3 years old! This of course calls for multiple celebrations, so here is post 1 of 3 birthday bashes. :) First stop was for mommy to bring PINK cupcakes to school. Yes, they must be pink because that was all Sarah Katherine talked about! So, I was super pumped to get off work a bit early, go grab some super healthy cupcakes :), and head over to her school. We had lots of fun singing happy birthday, eating some wonderful Publix cupcakes that were hot pink and lime green, and then putting stick on tatoos on all her friends (sorry mom's and dad's, but it was fun!). In her class of 12 there are 4 other kids with birthday's within 10 days of each other, so next year we have plans to get our acts together and combine some of these festivities. Can you say SUPER PARTY?! Oh the party planner in me cannot wait until next year already, but the momma in me says let's take this super slow - I am loving my little 3 year old!

Happy Birthday David!

You are going to see a "happy birthday" trend over the next few posts. August and September are some hopping months when some great people were born! One of those is my fabulous husband who turned 35 this year! I think this year freaked him out a bit, but he handled it gracefully (mostly!). We usually go places rather than give presents, and this year was no exception. We packed up and headed down to the beach for Labor Day weekend. We usually go down around this time every year and I guess it was finally our turn to hit the yucky weather weekend. It rained the whole time we were down there, but we still had a blast! A couple families we are friends with came with their kiddos, so there was always something going on. SK and I were able to sneak about 20 minutes of sand time in before it started sprinkling and my friend was able to get it on film before we had to dash back inside. :) Happy birthday honey - can't wait for the birthdays to come!

Happy Birthday to Daniley!

My friend and I had babies within two weeks of each other and these gals have been able to grow up together, get into all sorts of fun stuff together, and pull on our hearstrings together! This year for Daniley's 3rd birthday she got two fun parties! The first was during the day when her grandmother (who is also a photographer) hosted a fancy tea party for a few girls where she also took pictures. This was such a wonderful idea, and you know my prissy girl had a BLAST with that! Below are some pictures from the shin dig, can you tell SK is eating up every sassy minute?!

Then, that night Daniley had a party at her house where we got to watch Tangled outside. It was a beautiful night and Sarah Katherine had an especially fun time tromping around in her new shoes that light up! I didn't think about that when we were getting ready, but for future reference a drive-in or any outdoor movie is not the best time to let your kid wear the Sketchers sparkly shoes. :) I learn a new lesson every day!

Thanks so much do our friends the Connells for letting us take part in the festivities! We love you!!!

Happy 85th Birthday to Granddaddy!

On August 6 my Grandfather celebrated his 85th birthday! Dad got together a lot of the extended family and we all met up at the Red Lobster in Auburn for a big birthday lunch. We got to see family that we haven't seen in YEARS and SK got to meet several "new" cousins, aunts, and uncles. It was so great to see Granddaddy enjoying himselft, as I know he has been a different man since my grandmother passed. They were married for almost 60 years! So, Happy Birthday Granddaddy - we love you so much!!!!

How to Entertain SK

I officially have a super - duper girly-girl! You have her undivided attention and she will sit perfectly still if you offer to do her nails or fix her hair. :) If this is her at 2, I am quite interested to see 16. I must admit I totally love it though, I have my very own doll to fix up and she loves it: win-win for SK and mommy! Here are some pic's of two of her MANY hairdo's.

Mini Nashville Trip

Our friends Heather and Kyle told us they had never been to Nashville, so of course if David hears that a road trip is definite! So, we packed up and headed up to Nashville. David always has a hotel hook up, plus our McWane Center membership gets us in free to a science museum up there, so it is adding up to be a fun time already! The museum there isn't quite as nice as McWane, but SK still had a blast. I am learning the hard way that my "baby" is growing up. She is now much less scared to run off and try something new - with or without mommy right next to her. She even climbed up a huge play ground and slid down a slide that is like two stories up! Of course when her daddy saw she could do it he had too also. I tried to get their pictures coming out of the slide, but you can see I'm not the best photographer in the world.

For dinner we wanted to go to the Spaghetti Factory, but a two hour wait and to toddlers are NOT a great combination. So, we went a few doors down to a place called Dick's Last Resort. David went in San Antonio and has talked about it a TON ever since, so he twisted our arms into going. The theme there is all the waiters are rude (not sure how this became a successful business model, but so it is). The food was good and the wait staff wasn't super mean, just pretty funny. They make "hats" out of butcher paper with goofy sayings on them. Below are Kyle's (I got more action in prison) and Jackson's (Jailbait). I got a hat too, but somehow my picture got messed up and we don't have any proof - um I mean memories!

We also walked through the Opryland Hotel - it is SO pretty! David always says we could be in the middle of the dessert and I would run into someone I know, it happens almost everywhere we go. Well, this weekend couldn't be any different - we ran into my cousins who were up taking a weekend trip too! What's funny is we live in the same town as my cousin and never see her here, but we trek to Nashville and there she is with her whole family. :)

8 Year Anniversary

For our anniversary this year we actually got a baby sitter and went out for a grown up night! A girl that went with us to Ecuador and lives here in town is a wonderful college student looking for funds for her next mission trip, so we were happy to employ her for the evening. :) Samantha came over and stayed with SK, then David and I went to stay at the new Residence Inn downtown and to dinner at a French place call Cafe DuPont. It was such a nice evening! The restaurant had a "sampling" option where you could order any 5 things from the menu and you could try lots of things. It was all fabulous! Then because David knows one of the managers at our hotel we got the "romance package" for free. I was a little sketched out about that when I first heard it, but it just meant we got a bottle of house wine and two chocolate cakes for free. You know I like a bargain, so anything free speaks to me! :)