Happy Birthday to Me!

Last Saturday was my birthday and I got to celebrate several times. On Friday night Bridget and I celebrated our birthdays together with many wonderful friends. This is the 4th year that we have celebrated together. I am so happy to have the wonderful friends that I do!

My good friend Erin from work!

My good friends from college...Katie (who is expecting) and Kristin the mom of beautiful Layla

The birthday girls!
We had lots of other wonderful friends there that are not pictured!

Adam and me!

On Saturday on my birthday, in between looking at reception places, we went to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch (it is the most amazing salad buffet that also has yummy pasta, pizza, soup, and ice cream!). Adam and Dad weren't so hot on the idea (buffet??? salad???) but Mom and I LOVE the place. It is NOTHING like your typical buffet.

Adam's salad. There is a 30 foot salad buffet and he picked lettuce and croutons and some accidental squash (he thought it was cheese)!

Mom's colorful salad! Looks a bit different from Adam's.....

Adam and Mom

Dad and me

After all the reception hall hunting, we went to JuRinn for my birthday dinner. It is such a fun place and the rice is SO yummy. They must put some addictive substance in it because you just can't stop eating it!

The guy doing his fancy thing with the onion tower and flipping an egg!

Thanks for a great birthday!

Fun on the Farm

Vegetable/Fruit Garden updates....and my little garden!

I spent some of the beautiful days last week gardening at my house. Then we went over to Adam's to work in our vegetable/fruit garden.

Our "Little" Garden

I planted the tomato plants really deep to get some good roots and they are growing strong!

Little strawberry plants

We have better onions now than we did ALL last year!

For some reason when we got down by the garden we found grass growing in the cucumber patch. ?!?!?!? When Adam mowed the grass it was seeding and blew into the garden. I can't weed the grass blade by blade! But I can't do anything else yet because the cucumbers are just beginning to grow and aren't strong yet. Crazy grass!

The raspberry "bushes" are starting to have growth

3 of the flower pots I just planted at my house

Some of my flower pots

The flower pot mom just gave me

My wonderful perennial garden

We are Engaged!

I know this is old news now, but it is the end of the school year and things are a little crazy (parent-teacher conferences, portfolios, end of the year books, music CDs, movie and photo DVDs, end of the year sings, etc).

But...we are engaged! Two weekends ago Adam and I went to Michigan for the weekend. We went last year to visit the Lake Shore Wine Trail and I thought we were going this year again just for fun. We spent Saturday afternoon visiting wineries in the area (lots of yummy wine!!!!). Then we went to the beach by our hotel and sat watching the sun set and talking. Then he popped the question! I was so excited and surprised and I said, "Are you serious??" about...7 times. Then he asked for an answer and I finally said, "Yes!" and he pulled out the ring. By the time we left the beach we were a little bit cold because we sat talking for so long!

We have already set a date and booked the church and the reception hall. We have had a lot of fun planning so far and Adam is great. He came over right after we got engaged with a list of reception halls to try. He is the best! On my birthday we spent the day with Mom and Dad visiting a bunch of different places and then again on Memorial Day. Today we went and put a deposit on our final place. We are so excited and everything just feels right. I usually have some pretty bad "buyer's remorse" and have a hard time making big decisions....but not at all with this. We loved the place, the lady in charge is great and we have had ringing endorsements from several friends.

July 10, 2010 here we come!

At our favorite winery
I love you!

The beautiful sunset

The amazing ring

Great job Adam!

Back at Mom and Dad's house with the wedding planner from Aunt Kris and the "Weddings for Dummies" book for Adam from Mom and Dad

Talking on the phone with Erin!

Mom took me to get our nails done afterwards since I would be showing off my hands so much!

Yah! Thanks Mom!

Father's Day Projects

I just needed to post this because I am so excited about the Father's Day project we made in school. I think dads always miss out because Father's Day doesn't occur during the school year, so this year I planned ahead and we made projects for the dads. Each family sent in a t-shirt for dad. I ironed on "My dad deserves a pat on the back" on the back, the kids wrote their names in fabric marker and then we painted their hands and put handprints on the backs. I just wish we were going to be in school when the daddys get them, because the kids are super excited about them!

My Garden

I DO love having a perennial garden. I haven't had a chance to plant any annuals yet, but I LOVE my perennials. It is so exciting to see them come up in the spring!

My pretty garden. See the Asiatic Lilies in the back? They haven't bloomed yet. I LOVE them, but they each only bloom once and they don't last long. Then it is sad.

I bought this last year and I don't remember what it is called. Something about a lamb? It is pretty!

My snow mound flower from my assistant. She gave it to me in the fall and I am excited it survived the winter. Also, you can see my Hens and Chicks. I got this plant last year from the VBS kids but did a bad job with it. I planted it in my garden, but it didn't look so good. My assistant at school also gave a Hens and Chicks plant when I told her about doing a bad job with it and LOOK it is looking good!

Mother's Day

On Mother's Day, we had a great day! First I made mom my yummy French Toast casserole and we had breakfast at their house. Then mom and I went to Archiver's (scrapbooking/stamping store) for a free make and take day, only to find out that it was only Friday and Saturday! Oops! We still had a lot of fun shopping for paper and picking out things from the clearance bin!

The alphabet set I got mom for her die cutting machine!

We went to the Spaghetti Warehouse for dinner and sat in a train car.

Very yummy!

Mom and Dad!

Happy Mother's Day to the best mom in the world!

More veggies in the little garden

We have now planted several more veggies and fruits in the little garden. We are up to:
tomatoes
strawberries
onions
potatoes
cucumbers (2 types)
raspberries

Funny story about the potatoes. We ordered 2 pounds of potato sets. We had no idea what we would get. So we open the brown paper bag that they came in and....there were about 12 potatoes in the bag. They looked like we could just stick them in the oven and have a baked potato for dinner! We were confused....but we planted them anyway....these whole potatoes. Well, we learned that each of those potatoes will have MANY offshoots and we will have LOTS of potatoes to cook with (mmmm....I can already taste the twice baked potatoes!).

Also, this year we ordered onion sets because as you probably remember....last year we didn't do so hot with the onion seeds. In fact, we had...oh about....one!

The front end of our garden. I like to have the string separate the different types of fruit and veggies so I know exactly where we have planted!

A raspberry bush (er.....stick?)

The garden so far.....

First vegetables of the season!

Last week Adam and I went out in the field and planted the first vegetables of the season! (Actually, Adam went out before that because he had to do the rototilling!) We expanded the little garden this year because we want to plant a larger variety of fruits and vegetables. The pumpkins will stay in the big field! During our first planting session we worked on staking off the different areas and we planted tomatoes and strawberries. Any advice on strawberries??? They are new for both of us!

The little garden
Tomato plant

strawberry plant

Digital Scrapbooking

For her wedding gift, I made my friend Bridget and her husband Tony a digital scrapbook of all of the events leading up to their wedding day (Engagement Party, showers, Bachelorette and Bachelor party, Rehearsal and Dinner and Getting Ready for the day). I used the Creative Memories Storybook Creator Plus software that Adam's step-mom gave me for Christmas. It was easy to use and just like scrapbooking! There are papers, ribbons, fonts, embellishments, and sayings you can buy and download. Then you upload it all to their website and they send you a beautiful digital book. I love to scrapbook, but this was a great deal of fun as well. By making a digital scrapbook, I was able to fit more pictures on a page than with traditional scrapbooking. It is about the same price (once you add up all your supplies) and takes about the same time, but it is a fun different look!

The hard cover

Two pages inside

Page of us getting ready

Off to Bridget it goes!

Pea in a Pod Baby Shower

I love themes. Maybe it is good that I am a preschool teacher because I get to teach units in themes. It is so fun to come up with ideas that relate to the theme! I went to a baby shower last weekend for the wife of one of Adam's friends. It was a Pea in a Pod theme. Everything was so cute! The invitations were handmade and adorable! Here are some cute pictures from the shower.

creative way to give a carseat

Adorable centerpieces
Unfortunately my birthday wasn't close enough to the due date to bring one home!

Someone made a "diaper cake"

How creative!!!!

Hershey Kisses!