And Another One Bites the Dust

Or just turned 30. Either way! This past weekend, we got to celebrate a very special YOUNG lady, my cousin, Stacey. I absolutely love this girl to pieces and I was so happy to be there to celebrate her and her entering a new decade of her life. We had lots of fun and I hope that her day/weekend was super special.

Saturday night, a group of us girls hit up downtown Pensacola. The birthday girl requested a night at the Symphony and dinner at the Global Grill. We are just fancy like that! She had me at hello. Food and music. I'm there!

(I'm going to give a huge shout out to my girl, Courtney whose photos I totally stole from Facebook, because I'm too lazy to upload my own!)

 

Between all of us, we had 2 Ashleys, 2 Brandys, and 2 Elisabeths! And of course a Stacey, Courtney, and Libbie. Thankfully we kept everyone straight.

 

 

We had a delicious meal of tapas, then the real treat came out. Courtney brought a strawberry cake all the way from Edgar's Bakery in Birmingham. It was so good!

Courtney emailed me about the candles for the cake. Should we do just a 3-0 or do 30 candles? We decided it would be more effect with 30 candles. That cake was on fire!

 

The best part was that Libbie asked the entire restaurant to join in with us to sing happy birthday. There was a table directly behind us with several retired naval fighter pilots. Two especially got into it and sang Stacey their own rendition of Happy Birthday. It was so sweet. We ended up giving them all the rest of that divine strawberry cake and got a few pictures with them. And oh yeah- they were headed to the symphony as well.

After dinner, it was time for the big show. The Symphony was at the historic Saenger Theatre downtown.

It was a GREAT show and the pianist was phenomenal!

 

Me and the birthday girl!

Sunday, which was her actual birthday, we kept the party going with a family birthday. My Aunt Susan did a good job. Everything was so cute! She even did a little poster of what was happening back in 1983 when Stacey made her debut.

Happy Birthday, Stacey Suzanne! Welcome to the Dirty Thirty club!!

xoxo



For Us Old Gals

This weekend someone (cough, Stacey, cough) will be celebrating their big 3-0 birthday. In honor of that fact I thought that this video was perfect timing.

Sad thing is that I'm staring 32 in the eyes in a few months. But that's ok. Cause Stacey's coming right up behind me!

So for all of you gals out there in your dirty thirties- embrace it!

xoxo

ps- I'm totally impressed with the chick rocking the 90210 sweatshirt
pss- I think they followed me around when they made this video. ha! I may not go to bed at 8:00. I do stay up to the respectable hour of 9. Then I go to bed- to watch Full House. Loser alert.
psss- I am also baffled at the acne and wrinkles. It's quite depressing and doesn't seem right at al
pssss- And I guess Stacey is really in her 30s- cause she has a cat now too :-)

90 Years Young

This past weekend, our family got to celebrate a very special milestone- my grandmother's 90th birthday. I have been blessed with two of the best grandmothers in the world and it is always a joy to celebrate them!

Mama Bernice with her two sons

My mother went all out to decorate for this special occasion. She did an outstanding job!

 

 If you can't tell, my grandmother loves pink, so we made sure to have it extra pink for her party!
Here she is on the morning of her birthday, when she was finally allowed to look at what all we did for the party. Her reaction was priceless!

Mom found some cute bird place card holders that we turned into photo displays. I went through some old albums and pulled out a few pictures from when my grandmother was younger.

Mama Bernice is the blond baby in the picture. Photo is circa 1924

I liked this picture, because it was taken on her 36th birthday in 1959. The little blond boy on the right is my daddy :D

 Of course, we ate way too much food and had too much cake! But it was all so good!

 Barrett was confused when he saw only 3 candles on the cake. He exclaimed "She's not 3, she's old!" and just couldn't understand. We said that each candle was for 30 years of life.

 We finished up the evening with some music. Mama Bernice loves to sit and listen to the guys play their guitars, so they played for her.

All in all, it was a wonderful party for a very special woman. I am truly blessed to have her as a grandmother.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MAMA BERNICE! LOVE YOU!

December: The Month of Celebrations

December is always a busy month with all of the Christmas festivities that happen. However, my family has taken it upon themselves to make December the month of birthdays. Add David to the December birthday list, and you are partying all month long!

First to celebrate this month is David. He rang in the big 3-1 on the 4th. I had every intention of traveling to Savannah this past weekend to celebrate his birthday, but I got knocked to the ground by an ugly cold. Therefore, my sweetie decided to come to Thomasville to help make me feel better. Which I am glad that he did, because I would have hated for us to not celebrate his birthday at all.

Because I was sick, we never even left the house all weekend. But that didn't stop me from making the birthday boy a cake. He requested a lemon cake- which of course I have never made before. So I tried a recipe. I have to say it was a bit blah in my book. But then again, me whipping up a cake high on cold medication and sleep deprived might have contributed to it not turning out all that great!

Happy Birthday David!

With David claiming his birthday present, that now means I have zero presents under my Christmas tree. I really need to get cracking in that department!

Moving on along the party train....

Next up is my brother Brad. I went and stayed in Blountstown to help celebrate his birthday, as well as my father's and my cousin's birthdays. But I guess Brad was the main attraction for the evening.

Check out my mother's ghetto cake. Guess how old Brad was turning?

Let's see... left over candles from Barrett's 2nd and 3rd birthdays + 2 regular candles = 34.

Git 'er done, Cathy! Ha!!

 After the birthday cake, the real fun began. Barrett got to give his daddy his "birthday licks" and let me say he took his job serious. He was only allowed to do it, if he could count to 34...and he could! So his choice of weaponry was the wooden spoon. He had an intensity that I have never seen come out! Think he enjoyed getting daddy back for all the times he had been in trouble :-) I have a feeling Brad's feeling a bit sore today for those licks that didn't land on his wallet. Cause Barrett didn't hold back!

With my dad's birthday coming up on Thursday, Barrett has the opportunity to get the birthday licks in. He's already proved he can count to 59. So, be ready, Papa!

We finished up festivities with some fire fun down at the campsite down at the creek.

 My father and my two cousins, Brandon and Colton, sure have made it um, festive down there.

My father brought in a lovely Christmas tree to the location and promptly decorated it with colored lights and pine cones that he spray painted. I accused him of spending too much time on Pinterest!

And oh yeah- you see that lovely manager scene? The boys thought it would be a nice addition to the scenery. SMH... the camel even lights up! That's my father, ladies and gentlemen and I wouldn't trade him for anything in this world!

Elisabeth and Heath- The Wedding

This past weekend, a very special event took place in our family. A very special woman entered into our family by marrying my cousin, Heath. Words cannot express how happy I am for Heath and Elisabeth. Heath finally found his other half- his forever. The wedding was absolutely gorgeous. I hate I didn't take any photos of the setup. I hardly took any pictures at all at the actual wedding. I'm still kicking myself for that one. Guess I was too busy having a good time!

Friday evening, we kicked off the wedding celebrations at the Rehearsal Dinner. My Aunt Susan and mom really out did themselves on the decorations. The room was so beautiful!

Here I am with the man of the hour. I love this guy so much!

I think I enjoyed watching him during all of this the most. He was so excited and happy.

Here I am with my beautiful mother and Aunt Susan. They both looked stunning!


I was glad that David made the journey all the way from Savannah to Atmore, AL for all of the wedding festivities. He's a trooper for coming all that way! 

 Stacey and my Uncle Brett. Don't they clean up nice? I wish I had taken a better picture of Stacey all dressed up. She looked fabulous!




 The monogram on the buffet table was a labor of love for my mother. She went and collected cotton from my dad's field and hot glued the bracks onto styrofoam letters. She burned her fingertips more than once getting those cotton bracks on there! But it turned out so nice!

I made her pose with her creation. I will have to do a full tutorial to show how she made it at a later date!

I played photographer before we left for the Rehearsal Dinner. I wanted to capture Heath getting ready.

That last picture cracks me up. I made Brad do the "prom" photo of helping his date into the car :-)
Finally the big day arrived on Saturday. Heath was so super excited. The wedding and reception were gorgeous. Simply gorgeous. I'm still mad I didn't take any pictures. Most of these I have stolen off of Facebook. Ha!

So here's to wishing the happy couple a lifetime of love and happiness. Love you Heath and Elisabeth!