Flight

This weekend we've been lucky enough to have Doc's parents here with us and all to ourselves. The kids just returned home from camp on Friday and Doc's parents will be picking them up from their mom's house Monday morning to take them to the great state of Indiana for a week.  I have a feeling they're going to have a lot of fun with their Lala and Poppa this upcoming week! Since we were kid-free for the weekend, we decided to go out for a nice grown-up dinner Saturday night. Doc and I decided we should take them to Flight, a restaurant that serves flights of wine as well as flights of every other course of the meal.  It's a great way to get to taste lots of things on the menu!

We all prettied ourselves up for the occasion.

You may have noticed, but my husband is one fine-looking man.

He must get his good looks from his pretty momma. (Sorry, Bill!)

My meal got off to a great start with a flight of wine.

And before we knew it, our table was full of food.

A flight of salads for Pat:

One big salad for Doc:

A flight of soups for Bill:

And a big bowl of soup for me: (delicious!)

Next up were the entrees. For me, veal tenderloin with lump crab meat and asparagus on the left, beef filet and onions over potatoes in the middle, and shrimp and grits on the right. I probably don't even have to tell you how awesome it was. Surprisingly, the veal tenderloin was my favorite.

Doc had (from back to front) lamb chop over spring vegetables, rib eye over au gratin potatoes, and grouper with black rice.  He said the grouper was his favorite.

Patricia had the lamb chops that Doc had, plus the beef filet special with au gratin potatoes, and seared tuna over an asian salad. Is your mouth watering yet?

And finally, Bill had the veal tenderloin like me (in front), the grouper over black rice like Doc (back), and orange glazed duck over rice (in the center).

Good food + full bellies = happy people.

While the idea of having three desserts each sounded phenomenal, we were way too stuffed to go through with it. Plus, there were still cupcakes at home that needed to be eaten.

While waiting for the valet to bring our car, Pat and I took a picture in our semi-matching outfits.

And here's a pic of three people who I'm glad to get to call my family.

Next time anyone's looking for somewhere good to go eat, head to Flight! And if you want company, call us. We'd happily go again!

Family and Frogs

After the impromptu party last Saturday night, and the triple shower Sunday afternoon, it only made sense for us to invite my family over Sunday evening to help us eat all the leftovers. Bren came and brought her momma with her.

And ooooh does she love her momma!

Parker brought his momma too, and he showed up ready to eat!

Bren looked the apples over to decide if they were good enough for her to eat.

Both of these little kiddos really love their Poppy.

Doc and I may have been really tired, but we were very glad to have help eating all the leftover food so it didn't have to go back in our fridge.

I have been telling my five-year-old nephew, Jett, about all the frogs we have in our neighborhood. Some nights, they're everywhere! He loves frogs, so we have been planning a big frog hunt at my house. And we decided last Sunday night was the night. After dinner, we headed outside.

While we got our hunting gear ready, someone tried to escape.

We passed out all the frog holders and were ready to go.

The two little ones stood back and watched while Jett and I chased the fast frogs.

We finally got a hold of one! As Jett said, "Awww, yeah."

We hunted and hunted but we never found anymore frogs. It was still too early in the evening. And for any of you animal rights activists out there, yes, we let the frog go.

Our hunting trail conveniently led us straight to the playground, and the lack of more frogs was quickly forgotten.

Did I mention that it was really, really hot? All of us had sweaty heads before long.

But that didn't stop us from climbing on top of everything!

There's nothing sweeter than seeing cousins holding hands and sliding together.

Bren's playtime took a quick turn for the worst. Can you imagine putting all your energy into climbing on top of the fort,

sitting down and thinking all is right with the world,

only to look over to see your mom pushing your cousin on the swing?

That can tear a little girl up, you know.

How could her mom do that?

Even the thought of going down the slide wasn't helping in this situation.

But finally, her mom came to her rescue and everything was ok again.

That's when we decided we should call it a night, and our third party of the weekend came to an end.

Triple Baby Shower

Last Sunday was finally the day of the Triple Baby Shower that I've been planning for months. In fact, I started planning it in my head back in February when three of my college friends announced their pregnancies. Let's think about that last part for just a second - three of my college friends are pregnant! As in, come September, they'll be moms to the cutest, littlest peanuts on Earth and another human being will actually depend on them for survival. Holy cow! When did we grow up??

Ok, back to the shower. So - 3 pregnant girls, 3 baby bumps, and a whole lotta guests. I had a lot to do to get ready!

First step: flowers.  I love having fresh flowers in my house when we have company. It just makes the world of difference.

I made these cute new vases out of wood scraps.

And I made some red ones, too, to go on both sides of the mantle.

The rest of the flowers just went in regular ol' vases.

Next step: fabric decorations.  My mom and I found the cutest kids' fabrics and definitely wanted to use them somehow. She made a table cloth for my kitchen table and a table runner for the dining room table.

I used some of the fabric scraps to make a banner to hang.

And then: diaper cakes. Two of the mommies-to-be are having a little boys, and the third is having a surprise. So my color scheme became blue and green (for the boys) and yellow (for the surprise). I made a mini diaper cake for each baby.

And finally: food!  I'm not very good at cooking, but I do love to bake. While preparing for this shower, I went through five cake mixes and eight cans of frosting! First, I made three giant cupcakes to match the color scheme and I let the preggo girls take these home.

But, it wouldn't be fair if all the guests didn't get to eat cupcakes too, would it? So I made a big batch of mini cupcakes and of course, made the icing match the theme.

There was lots of non-sweet food there too, made by my mom. Things like a fruit tray,

pita chips and dip, ham and cheese biscuits,

and chicken salad sandwiches.

It was fun planning and preparing for the shower, but you know what really made the party so great? The people!

Here are the three mommies:

And they brought their babies with them too.

Here's Roxy. She's having a baby boy, to be named Rowan Avery.

Dana's having a little boy, too. He will be named Joshua Turner.

And Emily's the one having a surprise. Surely the odds are in her favor to have a little girl, right?

Won't be long before they hear...

It was so good to see so many of my college friends! Look at how many of my sorority sisters were able to make it.

And I think that picture is even missing a couple.

I wouldn't have been able to pull this shower off without the help of my mom. She's the best co-hostess ever!

There were lots of other moms too so it was kind of a reunion for them too.

I may be biased, but I think the shower was a great success. We had a great turnout and the girls seemed to make out with lots of good loot.

So now, we just wait.  During the shower, we had a baby pool set up so everyone could buy the day they thought the babies would arrive.

I'd really like some extra cash, so here's hoping they arrive on the days I purchased!

Saturday Night Fun

Whew! What a weekend! Not sure what you did, but we hosted 3 parties at our house.  One was very impromptu, one was planned last spring, and the other was planned about 24 hours in advance. You could say it was a full 48 hours! Saturday night was the very impromptu party.  I found out one of my friends was going to be in town so I decided to invite another one to come visit with us too.  Before we knew it, we had several friends over! I was gross and in major need of a shower, but your real friends don't care about that, right?

Speaking of real friends, only they would cheer you on as you make giant cupcakes. Yep, as they watched one disastrous cake stick to the pan and me have a mini panic attack, they cheered excitedly as the replacement cake slid out of the pan perfectly. I gotta tell you, it's much more fun working in the kitchen when your friends are there helping you and giving you praise.

So, who was there? Glad you asked.

Lydia made the 3 hour drive.  She actually stayed the night with her parents, but we were very glad she came over to hang out for a while.

Also in attendance were Sarah and Allison.  They used to be neighbors but now Allison lives in our town. Sarah came to stay the night with us so she wouldn't miss out on the fun. It was good to see her!

Chris came with Allison and they picked up a couple pizzas on their way. (That's why we love them!)

The Washburn family came earlier in the evening too, but had to leave to go home for dinner. Mary Elizabeth saw the panic in my face when I realized I might not have enough glasses for the next day's party, so she came to my rescue and drove all the way back over later that night to bring more glasses. Thanks, M.E.!

And last, but certainly not least, Doc was there too. Like I've said before, I don't think I could ever host a party without him! He kept the drinks going for all of us and ran to the store to grab more cake mix when I needed it.

I really am so lucky to have such great friends. I don't know that I could survive without all of them.

The next day's party was much bigger.  I have lots of pictures to share with you so check back soon!

Knob Art

Doc got on to me earlier this week because I haven't posted anything.  It's not that I haven't wanted to, it's just that I haven't had time. Plus, I figured you're probably tired of me whining about how busy I am. So I flipped through the latest pictures on my camera and realized I didn't show you this cute little project. It was seriously so easy, but I love the way it turned out.

My mom found a bunch of really cute knobs at Antropologie and bought a handful of them in the colors of her patio.  I distressed a couple of pieces of scrap wood for us to mount them on. Then we screwed them in place. Easy peasy!

Need a tutorial?

1 - buy knobs 2 - paint wood 3 - screw knobs on

There. Now you can do it too.

Ready for some pics?

And from the side:

We did this smaller one too. The middle knob was purchased with the others, but the ones around it used to be on my parents' kitchen cabinets before they redid them.

And since I was out taking pictures on the patio, I snapped a full view shot of the shelf that I painted. Please ignore the horribly placed decorations; I just threw some stuff on there for effect.

In completely unrelated news, I finally brought my potted daisies home from work. I set them outside on a patio table last night around 11:00. Today, I made it home from work around 5:30 and this is how they looked:

Isn't that the saddest thing? My happy little daisies took a serious nose dive.

Don't worry, I brought it back inside. Hopefully I can get it to perk back up.