Marathon Relay

Today I did a first...ran a marathon!!  {**relay**}

I was part of a 4-person team, and we split the marathon into 4 (not quite equal) parts.  

Shane Kenny - Ron Davis - **ME** - Travis Brown

"Dr Funke's 100% Natural Goodtime Family Band Solution"

Ron was leg one at 5.5 miles.

Travis was leg two at 8 miles (was supposed to be 8.4)

I was leg three at 5.5 files (was supposed to be 5.1)

And Shane was our finisher at 7.2 (I think he said it was more like 7.4.)

Our official time was 04:37:22!

This was my time.  I'm super happy with it!!  My goal that I set here was 12:27 average, and I was soooo far ahead of that!  My lungs were on fire when I was done, and I needed a long nap (getting up before 5 am was also a contributing factor), but I did it and felt proud of myself!!

There's already talk of next year's relay...anyone want to join the fun??

It's My Birthday!! & a Cake Pop Giveaway!

Today is my birthday, and even though some days I feel like I'm getting old, I'm really thankful that I'm having all these birthdays.  So much better than the alternative...

I'm participating in Relay for Life this year.  I'm on a team with some great ladies, some of whom I know, and some I don't.  But we all have the same goal:  to make a chance for more birthdays.

In honor of that, we're going to be giving away cake pops at our tent (the Purple Warriors) next weekend!  Here are some that I just dipped today:

These are strawberry/cream cheese.  And the coating is purple. (I just don't know how to use the camera very well.)

These are vanilla/cream cheese, just waiting to be dipped in that delish {artificial} vanilla coating!

And {drumroll please}...

These could be yours!!

I will give 1 dozen cake pops in your choice (or combo) of strawberry or vanilla to the first 3 people who donate $25 (or more) to my relay page!!  It goes for a great cause, and you get first sample of my yummy cake pops!

Here's the link:  Donate Here!!

Much love to you all!

P's 2nd Birthday Party!

This weekend I threw my daughter an Elmo 2nd birthday party.  She loooooovessss Elmo, so it was the perfect thing.  I actually decided on Elmo because of this dress that my mother-in-law bought her:

I made the cake...Elmo, of course!

We had a lot of people coming, so I decided to do the Elmo face on a base layer with plain white frosting.  It was the perfect place to put her name and the candles (which she refused to blow out).


I also did Elmo cake pops.  (A post on that will come later.)

Many thanks to my friend Janelle at Peace Love & Cake Pops for the instructions on how to decorate them!  I also looked up pictures (because I need visuals) on Bakerella's site, but I did make a few modifications to accommodate my time frame and laziness!!


For food we had hotdogs (for the kids), BBQ (for the adults), slaw, chips, watermelon/tomato salad, a cheese tray, and THIS...

Yep...that's Elmo out of veggies.  I just love Pinterest!!  This is the blog I got the picture from...I didn't have time to utilize any of her other ideas, but there are some great ones there!


I spent the week browsing the internet and crafting for the decorations:

The tissue balls I got from this blog.  The yarn balloons can be found here.  I have tons of yarn, so I didn't even need to buy any for this project!  And the "2" I made up all by my own self!  It's just cut out of poster board (although cardboard probably would have been better, but I didn't have a big enough box laying around), with scraps of tissue paper hot-glued on.  I recycled the tissue paper from trimming the tissue balls...how economical and earth-friendly is that?!?!?


More decorations:

I bought these foam puzzle pieces when P was a baby and learning to sit up, so I could have something to put on the hardwoods in my kitchen.  Now she just likes to disassemble them and spread them all over my kitchen!  I put them up (9 tiles in all, with different Sesame Street characters) with masking tape on the wall in the breakfast nook where the kids ate.  I took the yellow/red color scheme for the party from the Elmo tile.

AND....for one of my favorite parts of all.....

The GOODY BAGS!!

 I was proud of these...they took me almost an entire evening to make.  They are craft bags from Michael's, and I used my scrapbooking tools to cut out the face pieces. Then stuck them on with a glue stick.  I found a picture in an Etsy store, and I made them better, I think!  Inside the treat bags I had a box of crayons, a snack bag of goldfish, a small Elmo coloring sheet, and some candy.  (Because, "Elmo loves his goldfish; his crayons too....")

The goldfish/crayon idea I unabashedly stole from my dear friend Michelle, who is going to throw her daughter an Elmo party in December!


It was a super fun party...we had over 20 kids there, plus adults, so my house was LOUD for the 2 hours of the party...but it was such fun.  I'll probably do it again next year...

Bubbles!

We had some fun playing with bubbles the other night.  Usually after dinner, P has "daddy time", and I use the time to clean up the kitchen from dinner, and do random stuff.  But the other night I headed out with them for a little while.

Love this girl!!

I had made a big bubble blower as a craft at the end of the MOPS year last year, and completely forgot about it.  We decided to give it a try.  We got a few HUGE bubbles out of it!  (Sadly, most of them popped before coming off the wand.)

She likes to "wun" after the bubbles.  (Please forgive the redneck outfit...her shorts got soiled, and we were too lazy to go upstairs for another pair so close to bedtime.)

I love this picture!  My husband can do cool stuff when behind the camera...I just use the "auto" setting.


Bubbles are so much fun!