You Put the 'Grand' in Grandparents

Two days in a row! I should really try to be a better blogger...

Aaaaanyway, let's talk about my grandparents. If you know them, then you can go ahead and count yourself blessed. My Grama has her own opinion and if your opinion isn't the same, it could start the next world war. My Grandaddy on the other hand, is as go-with-the-flow as you can get. Some people disagree {the ones who choose to have nothing to do with them}, but they are perfect for each other.

On March 2nd, they celebrated their 50 year anniversary. 50 YEARS! That's crazy stuff. The Sunday before, my Grama went into the hospital expecting to find out she had pancreatic cancer. After lots and lots of tests, it was determined that she had ulcers, which caused her pancreas to be inflamed, making it look like she had a mass. Whew! While we were still waiting for the results, my Grandaddy told the doctor,
"You've gotta get her home to me by Friday - it's our 50 year anniversary!"
How super cute is that?! She was able to go home Tuesday night, so he was a happy man. :)

We had planned on going to Captain George's with our whole family {aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.}, but we had to postpone that due to a possible cracked hip. However, we still wanted them to have some sort of party. So, we {being their favorite} got our party shoes on headed on over there.

We rescheduled their Captain George's night to March 23rd, but now my Grama has to have surgery that day, so I have a sneaking suspicion that that isn't going to work out either...

Now, we are sitting at the hospital waiting for my Grandaddy to be released. He had a heart procedure done because they were thought he had some major blockages. Again, God is good and everything came out clear. You know what I always say {always meaning right now}, a couple who is {practically} hospitalized together, stays together. ;)

Like I said, there are people who purposely put my grandparent's out of their lives, but there is no way I could ever do that. They mean so much to me and plenty others. God gave me the best when he gave me my Grama and Grandaddy, and I could never ever be more thankful for them.

Reunited! :)

On Friday, we had our first Game Night in a few months. I'm not gonna lie, I was incredibly stoked. Instead of telling you all about it, I'll just show you. It's much more fun that way. :)

Oh, and pardon my terrible iPhone quality pictures. 

I was going to bring my camera, but last time, I was called a creeper and such. So, these will have to do. Anywho, I love my friends. :)

Elmo's Po.. Well, You'll See. :)

Last night, I was suppose to babysit from 6 to 11. First of all, it's been a gorgeous week. We've had weather in the 70's and it's been perfect park going days. Yesterday started off the same, but then it got super windy. That resulted in a tornado warning. Then around 8:00, we were suppose to have severe thunder storms.  Now, if you know me AT ALL, you know that I have a ridiculous fear of storms {except snow storms..they're okay ;) }. Think about this equation: 1 babysitter {me} scared out of her mind, trying to take care of 1 seven year old {Ben} whose scared out of his mind, and 1 baby {Caleb} who doesn't care. Yes, I understand that I sound like I'm not old enough to babysit, but I promise I am. :) 

As the wind kicked up and the sky got darker, I had the brilliant idea to call me best friend. She is one of the people who know just how terrified I am of these things, and she agreed to come with me. After all, it's always more fun with a buddy. 

Katie went to get dinner while I put the kids to bed. When she got back, we made our spaghettio's and started a tremendously epic night. 

Watching kids so much, you tend to lean more towards their "picks" than the adult ones. So when we decided to watch a movie, we went straight to the children's selections. Actually, I had the movie picked out already. It's one I've watched for the past three days. Which one? Elmo's Potty Time! 

I know this sounds incredibly weird, but it wasn't. It was hilaaaarious. Like I said, I'd seen it before and I told Katie about it, but just me telling her didn't do it justice. She needed to see it for herself. We grabbed the doughnuts {she LOVES doughnuts} and put the movie in.  

I know what you're thinking. 

1. "This is the stupidest post I've ever read."
2. "These people are beyond dumb."
3. "I'm killing brain cells right now."

Well, you're about to kill some more! :) The whole reason we watched the movie was so that she could hear this one song. Warning: It kind of lays it all out on the table, but what do you expect? It's a child's potty training movie. If you're anything like us, get ready to laugh your face off. 

Alright, so that was it. Fantastic, right?! I'm certainly buying my kids this movie. So pretty much, it was a great Friday night. And guess what?

It didn't even storm. 

Next Great Baker... Or Not.

Yesterday, I felt like baking a cake. Other than Tuesday night, I had done nothing but lay on the couch. So when my mom and Lydia went to the DMV, I broke out the Better Homes and Gardens cook book and found a cake.

It was just a vanilla cake, but I felt a little bit more legit since I was making it two layers. I was about to put it in the pans, but I couldn't get over how wrong the consistency of the batter was. That's when I realized I put a half a stick more butter than I should have. Oops. What do ya do...

By this time, I had decided I would do a cake for my brother whose in the police academy. Believe me, all of those people need encouragement. Anyway, I was going to make it his favorite {I know, I'm a great sister}, so I got out the stuff to make cream cheese frosting. I was pouring the last cup of powdered sugar in when I realized something. His favorite frosting is buttercream. He HATES cream cheese. Too late now.

The cakes cooled and the icing was made. I stacked two little buckets and put my cake plate on that. Ya know, so it was eye level. I wanted to try to do a basket weave, so off I went. For my first time, it wasn't too bad, but certainly not too good either. Then I changed tips, changed colors, and did the edges. Then I was feeling brave and thought I could do a badge. Hey, it's not the worst you've ever seen. Or it could be...

It was fun. I've always been into baking, but now I'm into decorating too. It's a good thing. :)

Valentine's Day

Growing up, when asked what my favorite holiday was, Christmas was always my answer. Obviously, I never had a Valentine. 

Last year, Sebastian was sick on the most popular date night of the year. He had bronchitis and couldn't do anything. What did we do? Got Chinese take-out and watched a sappy love story. I didn't mind at all. This year, I was sick. Not as bad as bronchitis, but still bad. 

Yesterday morning, Sebastian came to my house with roses and a "what I love about you" book. It's pretty much the cutest book in the world, and if you love someone, I highly recommend it. Just buy it here. ;) Anyway, he made my day start fantastically. 

A couple hours later, I had to go to the doctor. I frequent that place way to much. So, we got into our room and the nurse looked at Sebastian and said, "Is this dad?" He was sitting next to my mom and across from me. Does he look like my father? My mom's husband? That lady was  c o n f u s e d. After we explained that he was my boyfriend {MY future husband}, she tried to play it off and failed miserably. It was slightly humorous. So, after we got my medicine and all, we left. Oh, and everyone said the beard is what threw the lady off. Oh well. 

Last week, my wonderful boyfriend bought tickets for The Vow. Sick or not, we were going. After tossing around the idea of getting Chinese and going home until the movie, we decided we would still go to Red Lobster. After all, it was Valentine's Day. We got there at 5:50 and was told it would be a 45 minute wait. We almost went somewhere else to make sure we would be at the movie on time, but I had my heart set on shrimp, so we stayed. By 6:40 {fifty minutes later} we were already sitting down, we'd eaten our salad's, and were working on our food. That's one of those things that just makes you happy, ya know? We had enough time to eat, get to the theater, and STILL get good seats. Faaaantastic! 

For the record, my iPhone has terrible picture quality. Anywho, if you like The Notebook, you will probably like The Vow. However, if you set the bar as high as The Notebook, you will be incredibly disappointed by The Vow. I'm pretty sure nothing will ever beat The Notebook, but The Vow was still pretty good. Alright, now that I've given you my mini-movie review, you can all go see it. Oh, and if you're only going to see it for Channing Tatum, don't go. 

I love my Valentine. Can you guess what my favorite holiday is now? :) 

Baby Kaden!

This is a very after-the-fact post, but I got to hear my nephew's heart beat last week! Jesse {my brother} had to work, so I took Lydia {my sister-in-law} to the doctor. 24 weeks down, 14 weeks to go. He'll be here before we know it. :)

When we got back into the room, a doctor came in and informed us that they had scheduled her wrong. Way to goooo. She's using a midwife, so all of her appointments should be with midwives. Oh well, they all do the same thing. 

After spreading goo all over her stomach, he got out this little hand-held machine and started doing an ultra-sound kind of thing {but not}. Now, neither of them seemed worried, but I didn't hear anything. I was expecting him to set the thing on her stomach and a loud, strong heart beat would fill the room. So, when that didn't happen, I had my own mini-panic attack. Every once in a while, there would  be some knocking sounds, but I was thinking, "OH NO! HE'S NOT THERE!" You can tell I've never gone through this. ;) After a few minutes, he said she was good and everything was right on schedule then left. I was still confused about the whole heart beat thing...

It's alright guys, the baby's there. He's kicking all around and growing fast. He's gonna be an all star one day. Ya know, around May 30th or something... :)

I can't wait to meet that little guy.





Just A Little L O V E

For the past three weeks, our youth group has been selling carnations. They were $1.50 for one, $8.00 for six, and $15.00 for twelve. My first thought? NO ONE is going to pay $1.50 for a flower that may not even make it to the person's house. Yeah, I was wrong. This lady would buy a flower for that girl, that old man would be one for this old woman, and so on and so on. They would write a little note on a slip of paper and put who is was to and who it was from. There were the cute old men who had no shame, and the other younger guys who didn't want to loose their man card by writing something sappy. It was a good mix, though.

Last night/this morning, we punched a hole through the note, taped a little heresy's kiss to the front, and tied them to the flowers. After finding out we weren't given thirty of our carnations, we went to buy more {an hour and a half before service} and did the routine over again. Finally, we were done.

Church started and my dad announced that we'd be passing them out. People had bought roughly three hundred flowers from our fundraiser, and some people even made donations just to help. I say that to say, we had lots of passing out to do. There were six buckets and six of us to deliver them. And so it began...

Twenty minutes later, we were done. Seeing the looks on people's faces made everything that much better. Men and women who have already lost their spouses were so surprised to see that other people are thinking about them. Turn that frown upside down? It was all over our church this morning. :)

Valentine's Day is one of my favorites, but for a lot of people, it's one of their least favorites. I think everyone should take a day to show other people how much they are loved. It doesn't need to be just a "couple's day", everyone deserves to know that they matter.

After all, the world could use a little more love.