Preds & Pops

Ok, so these pics make us look like something special like we got to go down on the ice and take our own shots at the goal or something. Awesome, right??? Reality is, we had these taken for FREE in front of a green screen. We were all VERY impressed at the quality of the pictures and the fact that they printed them in like 10 seconds. We really REALLY enjoyed the game, made most enjoyable by a sweet victory over the St. Louis Blues 3-1. I think the birthday boys really enjoyed their special outing! What a fun night!!! (Thanks to Nana & Papa for watching Josie!!)

Also for our birthday weekend celebration, I attempted my first batch of cake pops. I got a cake pop maker for Christmas (just like a waffle or sandwich maker, except it makes cute little round balls of cake!). It only makes 6 at a time, so halfway through the tedious process I was thinking this was all entirely over-rated. But the finished product came out so cute and delicious!!! I guess there's a learning curve to the process. I'm planning on making some more for Josie's valentines....we'll see how that goes!

Happy Birthday Lane!!!

Yesterday we celebrated Lane's 34th birthday. For his "big" present, we have tickets for great seats at the Predators game this Saturday night. My sister and her husband are going with us and my parents are keeping Josie. So, it'll be a great time! But I wanted him to have something to open on his actual birthday. I saw this idea for the Micah 6:8 painting on Pinterest and loved the idea. So, Josie and I made that for him with her handprints and footprints.

He's going to hang it in his office.

Josie really wanted to get him a "daddy" cup, so we painted one of those for him, too.

Every year I make his favorite cake: cookie cake. This is this year's edition. Mmmmmm....yummy!!!

The Gingerbread House Fiasco

A couple of weeks ago, I saw and bought a Gingerbread House kit for Josie and me to work on together. In my mind, I imagined it as this wondrous moment of mommy/daughter bonding time in which we smile lovingly at each other and take turns putting candy on our beautiful gingerbread house. It's what our favorite Christmas memories are made of, right?
WRONG! This "experience" totally did not meet my expectations (which, as usual, were probably set a little hight). In hind's sight, I don't know what I was thinking. I know it's ludicrous to place a 3 year old at a table surrounded by sugar and expect her to 1.) decorate the house in compliance with my OCD standards and 2.) not eat it. I wouldn't mind if she had some, but she just kept on pushing my buttons. Needless to say, my "happy memory making time" turned into me yelling at her to STOP EATING IT!!! (It was by far NOT my greatest parenting moment.) When she swiped her finger across the roof of our house and licked the icing off her finger, I'd had enough. She sat in the time-out chair while I finished the house. I guess I'll chalk this one up as a FAIL. Maybe we'll try again when she's 10 instead of 3.
On a positive note, we did complete the house and it is beautiful. :-)

Do you see the mischievous look on her face??????
She KNEW she was getting on my nerves and she was doing it on purpose!!!

Christmas at Opryland

Tonight we went with some church friends to eat dinner at Cock of the Walk and then on to the Opryland Hotel to see the Christmas lights. For my Texas friends who have never been to Opryland: let me just say that the pictures do NOT do it justice. The hotel has 3 different "conservatory" type indoor garden areas that in and of themselves are spectacular with water falls and plants and hidden pathways. It's like a fairytale world. But at Christmas....it's extra special. We had a great time walking around looking at all the lights. There must have been a million poinsettias planted throughout the hotel. It was absolutely beautiful! What a fun night with new friends. We are so blessed! Merry Christmas!!!!!

Josie and Rachel in the giant rocking chair at Cock of the Walk

Rachel, Josie and Jonah

"Wow!!!!"

It's an elephant! Roll Tide!!

A giraffe! My favorite!!!

Our group at the Poinsettia Tree

Outside the hotel

GW Ladies Night Out Wreath Project

Last night our Ark Builders group at church had a Ladies Night Out event. We enjoyed a meal together at California Pizza Kitchen and then went to the church building for "craft time". We all brought our own supplies to make these wreaths by stringing Christmas ornaments onto a wire clothes hanger. We had a lot of fun and everyone's wreath looked great! It was interesting to see the different ornament selection everyone brought and everyone's unique creative taste.
This is how mine turned out. (I'm so proud of my bow!)

Recent Sewing Projects

Since we've moved I've had more time and space to try more sewing projects. By no means at all am I a master of this craft! But I'm practicing....and I'm very proud of the things that I have made. My mom actually bought the fabric for this pillowcase dress. We were on the same brain wavelength one week. She had seen dresses like this for sale at a consignment shop for $30+, decided to make one, and bought this fabric. That same week, I had ordered a pattern to make "pillowcase" dresses and shirts. We never communicated about our ideas until.....Josie and I went to their house to visit that weekend, and what do you know....she had the fabric and I had the pattern! We put our "projects" together for this dress! It was SUPER easy! We had it cut out and sewn together in 2 hours while Josie took a nap. For my next project, I appliqued Josie a "pumpkin" shirt for the fall.
Since it's football season, she definitely needed an Alabama dress. Roll Tide!!!!
Next, I decided to applique a turkey shirt for Thanksgiving! I was going to make his "feathers" out of ribbons, but I found this fabric and thought it was too cute! Now, moving on to Christmas projects.....

Nashville 1/2 Marathon

This morning I ran my first 1/2 Marathon. It was the Nashville Half Marathon sponsored by Hard Rock Cafe and "I Run for the Party". (There was a block party at the end sponsored by Michelob Light....because everyone feels like downing a beer after running 13.1 miles, I guess. Ha! And no, I didn't have one.) I was really nervous because I did it all by myself. But once I got there and the race got started, I was fine. For the first 8 miles or so, my pace was in the 8:50s. I even passed the 2 hour pace girl (she holds up a sign and runs at a pace to finish in that time). Then our route went out to Shelby Bottoms and mile 9 was coming up out of the park. That hill about killed me. It was awful! So, I had to stop and walk some. Then I was fine until mile 12. The last mile was really hard because I was running into a very gusty wind and I had an EXTREMELY full bladder! (but I didn't want to stop!) Lane and Josie were waiting for me at the finish line. I didn't realize it until the finish line, but a friend from church, Melanie Neal, was right behind me. Her finish time was 2:12. My official time from the results website was 2:10:46 with a pace of 9:59. (Still faster than a 10 min. mile!) However, I honestly don't think the course was mapped correctly. I've been running with my Nike GPS for a while on my IPhone. I've never officially calibrated it, but it's always matched what I clocked with the car and what I mapped out on mapmyrun.com. It says I ran 13.5 miles at a pace of 9:44. I just think that's a big difference. My phone would tell me I'd completed a certain mile long before I could see the mile marker flags. Hmmmmm..... Regardless, I FINISHED and at a somewhat decent time! Based on the results, I was ranked 45th out of 182 in my age bracket (30-34 females).
Will I ever run one again??? We'll see....not any time soon! haha