Birthday Video

Triceratopsilicious Good Time!

For Ollie's 2nd birthday, I planned to do a dinosaur party. I think I decided that the day after his first birthday party. Being that I am sort-of homeless and living with my inlaws, I decided that the best thing to do was rent a shelter at a park. The park we went to was wonderful. It had a duck pond, a baseball field, and two playgrounds. The day was beautiful.

For decorations, I brought a couple dinosaur puppets I had borrowed from the library, and a few of Ollie's toy dinosaurs. I bought a dinosaur tablecloth, and napkins and did plain colored green and orange plates. Nana brought balloons and matching party hats.

His menu was as follows: Meaty Megalosaurus Munchers (ham, turkey and roast beef sandwiches), Sauropelta Sweets (strawberries, blueberries, grapes and mandarin oranges), Corythosaurus Crunchers (chips), Volcanodon Veggies (fresh cut up bell peppers, broccoli, cucumbers and baby carrots) and a 3-dimensional Triceratops cake.

Ollie helping me make the cake

My sister and her girls came over and helped with the food. Jade became my master sculpter and I the cake froster. I'm pretty impressed with how it turned out. I baked two boxes of white cake mix in two loaf pans and one longaberger mixing bowl. In retrospect, I think I should have done three mixes because there would have been less cutting. We using one loaf and then another have (sliced the long way) and stacked for the body. Then, the bowl piece was cut in half from top to bottom and one piece was the back of the head. The other half was cut to be the tail and the snout. Legs were cut out of the other half of the loaf pan.

Master Artist

The froster!

Overall, I'm excited about how it looks. The horns are ice cream cones, the frill is half a paper plate and the eyes were done with white frosting and blue M&Ms. I saw this cake online and we used just different cake pans to complete it. Ollie thought it was super cool!

Ollie in his dino shirt with his cake!

I planned three activities, although we only did two. I had the kids make fossils by pressing little dinosaurs into air bake clay. They all seemed to enjoy it. The second activity was to do a dinosaur dig. I had planned to hide little dinosaurs in the sandbox and let the kids hunt for them but it never happened. Oh well! I also brought bread for the kids to feed the ducks. This of course was a huge hit and I should have brought about 10 loaves of bread!

For goodies, the kids each got a sucker, dinosaur notepad and a pencil. Instead of the bags, I simply tied them up with orange curling ribbon.

All-in-all, I think everyone had a good time. Ollie loved the party and seeing all his family together. He received many great gifts and lots of awesome hugs!

My baby is two!

So yesterday, my little man turned two years old. He now can count to 13, sing part of the abcs, all of Jesus Loves Me, and Old McDonald. He also knows his shapes and many animals that most of us have no clue about like Guinea Fowl, Osprey, Gibbons and Alpacas. He has a pretty good repertoire of complete sentences. I have to say he's an amazing kid.

One of my favorite things about him is his smile. He has the sweetest personality and loves everyone. When we go someone, he waves at people and says hi. He also often runs up to other kids and "asks" them to play. I love my kid.

He is amazing blessing and I'm so glad that God blessed us with a healthy, active, intelligent little boy who has rocked our world in some incredible ways. Here are a few pictures!

Ollie's First Birthday

Ollie's 2nd Birthday

My, how he's grown!

Testimony

As many of you know, my husband and I listed our house for sale in June. It has been an incredible couple of months. One day, towards the end of May, Bob came home and said it was time to list the house. He felt he needed to tell his boss. It was scary because he had once told him he didn't believe in two week notices. We were a bit fearful that he would fire Bob instantly. We were pleasantly surprised that he did not. This was our first blessing.

We went to work on the house and worked tirelessly to prepare. On June 14, approximately 3 weeks after Bob gave boss the news, we listed the house. That same day at 1:15, I received a phone call requesting a showing at 3:30. I went to work cleaning, baking cookies and turning on the relaxing music. Bob stopped home around 3 to check in and to pray with me. Bob prayed that God would provide an asking price offer that day.

I got Ollie up and off we went to a friend's house to swim in their pool. At 4:30, Michelle, the pool owner, got a call from Bob who apparently had been trying to reach me. We had received an asking price offer and I needed to bring a couple things to the office! It was incredible.

The whole closing went amazingly well and there was not one issue with anything. We pushed our closing to July 16 so we could attend a dear friends retirement ceremony. about 6 weeks after we made the decision, we were on the road.

I've always thought God was amazing but sometimes He does things so far beyond what we deserve that we find a while new awe. The blessings didn't stop. We made it safely to Des Moines and Bob began looking for a job. He seemed to easily get interviews. On Friday, we were on our way to a wedding chatting about a particular interview he had that we were hoping to hear about on Monday. We decided to pray. We asked that Bob get that job and that it be a great offer and that we hear soon. As soon as we were done praying, he noticed an email with his offer for that job!! We were pumped!

It gets better... we thought the insurance was going to be about $550 a month after the company paid their portion. Bob decided to go in and ask for a bit more money to help with that. We prayed before he left. He went in and found out that the insurance was more like $300 a month and he got a couple thousand more per year! Incredible!

I just wanted to share the abundant blessings we have recently received. God doesn't always work this way and if it had taken longer that may not have been a sign that God wasn't supportive. We have been completely and utterly humbled by what we have received lately. We already had salvation and now he chose to give us the desire of our heart. We longed to be by family and here we are. God is good all the time.

I'm excited to serve him again and to pour out my life because God was and is and always will be worth every second. Here is a song that I LOVE LOVE LOVE! Check it out.

4th of July Weekend

We just returned from a great trip to the mountains. Every time we go, we have an amazing time. If you've never been to Western North Carolina, you really must plan a trip. My parents are on a road trip and decided to make a stop in Western North Carolina. They rented this great house. Ollie hadn't seen my parents since Christmas. It didn't seem to matter. He took right to them and had a great time. As a matter of fact, the first words out of his mouth on the second morning were, "Get Bop-pa. Where Bop-pa?" He ran out of our room and found him. We spent some time walking and sitting on the porch enjoying the scenery. Unfortunately for my dear, sweet boy, he got a little to close to the scenery of a bee stinger and got stung right above his left eye. This was quite traumatic for his mama who thought it got him in the eye and cried. Luckily, he didn't seem to have an allergic reaction. Medical care was quite a drive away. I also had Benadryl in the car. A bit of that and a nap- viola! Good as new!

We also took a trip to visit Dry Falls. After the Falls, we enjoyed a picnic lunch at a nice little park and then checked out the shopping in Highlands.

Although we were only there for 2 days, it seemed like time stood still. It always does in the mountains. It was tranquil and thoroughly enjoyable. I will miss being close enough to go for a visit!

You might be a redneck if...

I'm officially married to the most frugal man alive. My dear, sweet husband bob went out to mow the lawn. A short while into it, he came in and informed me that the transmission had finally gone kaput on the lawnmower. This lawnmower we inherited from our neighbor about 6 years ago. Bob has fixed it and fixed it but it's held up. Well he said he was going to go out and fix it. Not a few minuted later, I hear it crank back up. I just assumed he'd fixed it. Here is what actually happened.

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Yes. He is riding it backwards while sitting on the hood. Clever? yes. Embarrassing? Heck yes! Oh well, at the least the lawn got mowed! Also, you must note that we are moving in less than two weeks and did not plan to take the lawnmower with, therefore it is not worth the time, effort or cash to fix it. Although, I really wouldn't put it past him to ride it like this for an extended period of time!!

update

Sorry I've been so absent! We have taken the plunge into listing our house. For years, we have talked about moving home (The Midwest) and finally decided we would just put our house up. This is risky because now our employers are already seeking to replace us (Bob works for a real estate company- kind of hard to hide that one!). We are not looking forward to leaving our church family here but are really looking forward to being closer to our family at home. If you are a prayer, please pray that we receive a decent offer by or during our open house which in June 27. I'll try to post a few pics of our house soon so you can see!

Also, I'll update about all the fun Ollie and I are having learning our letters as soon as I can.