Jeffery's First Birthday

We spent the last weekend celebrating Jeffery's first birthday with our wonderful friends and family.I had so much help pulling this off, that I would like to send a shout out to those of you that helped...you know who you are!
The weekend started out with sweet Aunt Hollie coming in for the festivities and bringing with her the most adorable and delicious cookies. Here are Wylie and Mary Grace's special cookies.

Here are the ones for Jeffery's party! If you like these, you really should visit her Tumbler site. Hollie's Hobbies.


We started the next day bright and early getting ready for J's party. Here he is opening our present to him, which is the coolest thing. It was a Bonzai Baby Splish Splash Pool, and it is the greatest thing ever. There are pictures of it below.

Mom and Dad with the birthday boy!


For the party, we got our huge slide and let the kids play. For the little ones, we used J's new toy.

Greatest gift ever! It's basically a really shallow baby pool that squirts water, and has all of these inflatable toys. He loved it!

The cakes!



Jeffery wasted no time digging in, once he figured out what was in front of him!


All cleaned up and ready for presents.

What a wonderful day! Thanks to everyone who was there!

Book recommendations!

This post is not really about my family, but really more about me on the quest to find a good summer book to read.
I was in the grocery store the other day and walked down the aisle that has the magazines and books, when I caught a whiff of the paperbacks. You know that smell. It immediately brought back wonderful memories of spending summers with my nose stuck in a glorious page turner. I realized then how much I wanted to find a really great book to read, and to find the time to read it! I started, of course on that aisle in the grocery store and was quickly disappointed. Seriously, I am not at all interested in a book about some kid's right of passage or blood sucking vampires! I guess as I have gotten older and wiser, or more cynical, I am just not up for wasting several weeks of my life on something that is not life changing.
If you have any good recommendations, please send them my way. As I have said before, I am not really a Nicholas Sparks fan, or a Danielle Steele fan. I am taking my kids to the public library today so maybe I will have some luck!

Mary Grace's First Dance Recital

Last Friday was Mary Grace's first dance recital. I thought it was pretty ridiculous because the recital was at Georgia Tech, yes, all the way in town. Not only that, there was a dress rehearsal, at that location, and, I had to hire a sitter to watch Jeffery and Wylie while I took Mary Grace all the way in town to Georgia Tech to practice. I also had a really hard time dealing with the fact that I had to pay for; the monthly lesson, the costume, the tickets, the $40.00 DVD of the show, the flowers, AND the sitter to watch Jeffery and Wylie during the show. Did I mention that she is only 3?
Having said that...it was ALL totally worth it!
It was such and incredibly special night! She did very well, and we were all very proud of our little girl.

Here are some pictures of MG on stage at her dress rehearsal. The theme was Alice in Wonderland, and Mary Grace's class were the white rabbits.





The night of the show. Here we are about to leave at 5:00 in order to get down there for the show that starts at 7:00.

Changing into our tap shoes before the show.

Flowers, hugs and photos after the show.



Ahh... the final reward...chocolate!


It was definitely a night I will always remember!

Scool's Out For Summer!

Last Friday was Wylie's last day of Kindergarten. I can't believe the year has gone by so quickly!

We had a Luau for the end of the year party. I think the teachers were pretty good sports!



Wylie on the first day. What a difference!

Mary Grace's Last day of preschool

Here are some shots from Mary Grace's Last day of school last Friday.

They got to bring their bikes for a cute party. They had a drive through, a car wash, and a drving school where they would get a driver's license. Somebody should seriously revoke Mary Grace's though.

Here are the pictures from the first day and last day. My how they grow.

Mother's Day and...MY NEW CAMERA!!!!!

For those of you who have been following my blog, you know that my main complaint is my horrible camera. I have posted many funny blogs highlighting my hatred of this terrible and mean spirited creature. I am happy to post that for Mother's Day, my wonderful family gave me a new camera! Hurrah! I am excited to be able to blog using photos that actually capture fleeting smiles of my family. Now I just have to figure out how to use it:) Here are my first attempts.

These are some of my first shots that morning.

On the boat, on our way to brunch.

Before brunch. Finally...a decent picture of my family!

I love these!

Thank you! Wonderful family. this is the best Mother's Day gift evah!

Pretty Proud of Myself!

I spent the last part of this weekend making window treatments for our newly painted Den. I am very proud of the way they turned out. Granted they are just panels, but I thought surely they would be crooked or hang weird. Alas, they turned out decent, and I even lined them! I love this fabric so much that I could drape my entire house with it. I think I am ready to tackle the roman shades next!