What the birthday girl wants.....

My daughter wants these for her birthday party at school.



I'm gonna give it a shot. I've already eating 3 oreos and the cupcakes aren't even done baking yet. I'll let you know how they turn out

A bit of Randomness....

Just watched last weeks biggest loser....I NAILED the brown team from the beginning! Always knew the Dad was no good! You can ask my sister...I totally called it! Can't wait to see tonight's episode!

The Hills was so hilarious this week. Spencer just couldn't get over meeting a young man who was still a virgin, didn't drink and planned to wait to have sex until he is married. Spencer was sure the guy was an alien from an alternate universe! Oh Spencer....you need to get out more...OUT of LA!

Are you looking for a good read...not a book...a blog. My friend Beckie is sharing her life story...her love story. She's on part 14...so you can read it all at once instead of having to wait each day like the rest of us. Here is her cliffhanger for today just to give you a preview......

He leaned in and cupped my face in his hands...

you can check out the WHOLE story at her blog....it doesn't dissapoint... infarrantly creative

Cabo....Relaxing Sunny Cabo...

The View from our Room

Um...Can I have room service every morning!!!

Pics from around the resort

Our Day of Fishing.....

The Sunset...there's something I rarely see...I'm a sleepy head!

We saw LOTS of dolphins! So cool!

We also saw LOTS of Pelicans!

It was such a gorgeous day and the scenery is amazing!

The fish weren't biting....but SQUID were!

We caught it....and ATE IT!

Missin' my time alone with my hubby already!!

Today is my birthday!

Happy Birthday to ME! Let's just say I'm celebrating an anniversary of my 29th birthday AGAIN!....but I'm not telling which one!

Here is my virtual birthday cake....



....ya gotta love www.pinkcakebox.com

so...where are my virtual birthday gifts? If you want you can post a pic of my virtual gift on your blog and leave me a comment so I can view my gift!

It's virtual....you can give me ANYTHING! Money is truly no issue!
....so....what's it gonna be?

I'm Baaaack!

I haven't had time to upload my pics yet, so you will have to come back for those....but we had a great time! The weather was fabulous and our room was awesome. We were in the room closest to the main pool and restaurant and we walked out our patio onto the grass and ten steps later we were on the sand. Oh.....I miss it!

I was a bit adventurous....I caught squid. I ATE squid! I ate sushi for the first time! Seriously...I ate RAW TUNA!
Normally I'm not a daring eater. So this was all BIG for ME!

I will tell more when I post pictures.

for now I leave you with this.....

I was LOW on gas today. I had to take my daughter to her CYT class and didn't have time to stop on the way. So I dropped her off and headed for the nearest gas station. I pulled up and realized...I DID NOT HAVE MY PURSE with me!! I was 20 minutes from home people! There was NO way I would make it all the way home! So.....I did it.....I asked the other person getting gas for money! Sooo embarrassing! But she was super sweet and offered to let me put $5 on her card. So...thank you nice person! I appreciated it more than you will know!

Mexico Here I Come!

later peeps! I'm on my way to the sunshine and sandy beaches! I'll catch ya'll on the flipside!

oh...the diet I referred to a couple posts ago....I lost 8 pounds in 8 days! (how perfect is that for the eightcrazy girl!)

Just a glimpse....

here is a tiny little glimpse at what I'm planning for my SIL's baby shower.....

I'm strappin' in and getting ready for the ride!

So, my hubby and I have been pretty intentional about not being a busy family. When my daughter was 5 she played soccer and softball, but at the end of the year we asked ourselves what we were doing and why we were doing it. We decided at that point that eventually life would get busy enough...so why make it busy at a point where it didn't have to be. My daughter is about to be 10 so for the last 5 year...it's been pretty mellow on the activities front! We've done little things here and there...sewing lessons for my daughter and indoor soccer during the day for my son. But we've cherished out calm evening schedules and our nightly dinner around the table without having to rush off to something. It's definitely been nice, but I would also have to say that somewhere in the process I began to develop an attitude of selfishness. I didn't want to start adding more activities because it would be an inconvenience for me. I don't like that crazy busy feeling and so I wanted to do what was comfortable and easy.

But this year we began to step out and add some activities. My daughter played basketball in the winter and my son is going to play flag football this spring. One at a time....that was doable! But then I went to a presentation my daughter did and school and I KNEW that I needed to be open to the idea of letting her join CYT (Christian Youth Theatre). We know people involved. They all love it...and they are all BUSY! So....I always said I would NEVER DO IT!
So, I looked into and realized...HEY...classes are only one night a week. I can do that. So we signed her up and the bonus was that we could car pool with my neighbor!

So we go to the first class and I begin to get emotional. It was this crazy weird experience. There was this obvious sense of family and the level of positivity and encouragement was UNDENIABLE! I basically had to fight back the tears because I KNEW that it was the PERFECT place for my daughter and that she was about to discover something in herself that would be amazing and build her confidence. I was also emotional because of the struggle going on inside! The selfishness I had become comfortable with....I would have to completely let go of it.

We discovered that night that auditions for the plays were the following day...and NEW students were welcome to audition. This was NOT in my plan. CYT is HIGH commitment and lots of volunteer hours for the parents. Not to mention 3 days a week when doing a play with a TON of driving back and forth!

of course she wanted to audition!

so I came home and began to discuss it with my hubby and the tears began to flow. I told him about how perfect it was for her and how I knew that as a mother I needed to start becoming WAY more sacrificial! God was definitely working on my heart and it was great to hear that he had been speaking similarly to my hubby as well. So we were on the same page...we would let her audition.

The next day she auditioned. It was amazing! SHE was AMAZING! She had NEVER done anything like that before and she did soooo good. She got up there without looking nervous...introduced herself and sang her little heart out! She sang beautifully and she had this big bright smile on her face the entire time. She was totally in her element! My mom sat next to me crying and somehow I was able to fight back the tears.

The following day was call backs and today we found out that she made the show. She will be part of the ensemble...and she is super excited! I'm excited for her.

My schedule is about to get BUSY...VERY BUSY! I don't think I even have a clue how busy. Every CYT parent I talk to gets big eyes and says, "it's alot!" Every person who I know who has a friend who is a CYT parent says, "I never even see her the month of the play."

So...I'm really glad I'm leaving for Mexico for a little vacation, because I'm going to need to be completely refreshed to start this new crazy life of mine. The great thing is...I know it will be worth it! My daughter totally deserves this sacrifice of my time. She's one pretty amazing kid.

I'm thankful that I have a God who is constantly molding me and shaping me into who he intends for me to be!

(I do have to say that making the decision not to be a busy family isn't one I regret. It was great for our family...I'm just saying that the time has now come to let my kids spread their wings and discover their interests and talents!)

8 days of crash dieting bliss...

...want to join me?

I started THIS DIET this morning.

I've done it before. Since I have to be in my swimsuit in 8 days I figured now would be a good time to torture myself again. Then when the torture is over....I will enjoy my 5 days of blissful Mexican sunshine by the pool!

wish me luck!

Tea Party Fun!

For Christmas my daughter and I gave my mother, my MIL, and my aunt an invitation to a Tea Party. We wanted to give them a gift that was from the heart. (It was technically my daughter's gift to them)

I've never thrown a tea party before and I will totally admit that I did not study up on what a "proper" tea party should be like. But I did recently go to a Fabulous Tea Party hosted by a friend of mine from church. So, I got a lot of ideas! Here is a pic of that tea party....she had hats for all of us to wear...super fun!





So after going to Christy's Tea I was inspired and was ready to plan mine! Of course I LOVE putting together a beautiful table...but the food was something I needed some pointers on. My friend was so helpful she even baked the cute flower shaped bread for me and brought it over on the morning of the tea! I know Christy is not a blog reader....but THANK YOU CHRISTY!

We had scones with lemon curd and cream. Chicken sandwiches on flower shaped bread. Egg salad sandwiches, fruit tartlettes, and mini cupcakes. We featured English Breakfast and Lady Gray tea from Tinnings.

That's the cute flower shaped bread I was talking about!

One thing that was really cool....I have my Great Grand Mother's silver Tea Set and I got to use it for the first time. I LOVED that!

Aren't the place cards my daughter did cute!

Oh, and my friend Beckie gave me those adorable place card vases a couple years ago and I was so excited to have the PERFECT event to use them for! I used scrapbook paper as the placemats. It was a fun swirly cut out design!

Everybody had fun and my mother requested that it become an annual event!
.....sounds good to me!

My daughter....the dancing queen

It's always weird to do posts about regular old life stuff after my last one...no matter how you swing it. But here it goes....

A few weeks ago was the annual Father/Daughter dance that my hubby usually takes my daughter to. But this year hubby was sick in bed with a fever. He opted not to go to the dance and infect a room full of people. So it was Papa Scott to the rescue!! I think it's great that my dad got the chance to do something special like this with his grand-daughter.

The evening started with a trip to the hair dresser for the fancy hair-do (I'm soooo bad at doing hair...so I leave it up to the pros)





Oh my goodnes...how gruwn up she looks! I can't believe it! She now is officially only one shoe size behind me and she comes up to my nose!



Then we headed over to Papa Scott's house where he was in his best duds and ready with a cute little vase of red roses for his little Emily-doodle!





I unfortunately do not have pictures from the actual dance...but I think my dad worked his hip replacement out pretty good!!!

It's overwhelming.....

I spent the last hour rabbit trailing from blog to blog as I clicked on sidebar buttons that were asking for prayer. I also visited a few caring bridge sites. It's sort of emotionally paralyzing. Even having a friend going through the process of having a child who is fighting cancer, I basically go through my day like any other person. True, they come to mind several times a day, and when they do...I pray for them, but I'm not LIVING it the way the are. The way SO MANY people are in this world.

When I said before that it's sort of emotionally paralyzing...I mean that my mind, my heart kind of want to just shut down. It's easier NOT to care too much. It's easier to quickly click out of the site because it's so heavy and unimaginable.

But those families can't just click out of the situation they are in, and as UNIMAGINABLE as it is...they are living the reality every moment of everyday. For many the reality includes loneliness. So many people with sick children have to go to special hospitals, and often those hospitals are not near where they live. So families are separated as one parent stays with their sick child at the hospital and the other stays home with the other children, or to work. The bills don't stop when your child is fighting a horrible disease! In fact they most likely increase!!

I'm just struck this evening by how crazy life is and how disconnected we are to what's going on around us sometimes. I'm struck by how blessed I am to have two healthy children and how basically I totally and completely take that for granted.

My friend who's son (Luke) is fighting AML is an amazing person who so easily can talk to people and truly relate with them on a personal level. She has a gift. When Luke was in the hospital last time and I would go to visit I often saw her having conversations with the other parents and observed the heartfelt love she gave to them in those brief moments. Over the last year she attended NUMEROUS funerals. Funerals of children. WOW....so many of us are so oblivious. Oblivious to the pain that is going on around us. It's everywhere...and it's overwhelming.

I'm processing as I'm writing this. I guess that's my point in posting about it.

I needed to process my thoughts.