The Hardest Person to Shop For

Hi! If you are joining from Rocks in My Dryer, Welcome! Feel free to learn about me here.

Have you ever had that person that is just impossible to shop for? I'm sure you've been through this at Christmas, but I can always somehow come up with pictures of my kids for Christmas gifts arranged in some special manner (mouse pad, calendar, tattoo) to appease most relatives. My in laws like calendars, my parents like pictures in big, fancy frames and my lips are sealed on the tattoo.

My biggest challenge came a couple of years ago when my father-in-law turned 60. He truly has everything. Book light? Check. Musical tie that plays the theme to Top Gun? Check. A shamwow? Well, probably not at the time, but CHECK, now, I'm sure. My mother-in-law got him a car if that tells you how far she had to reach to find something for him. And he even already had one of those.

Seeing as how the car wasn't in my budget (and was already taken), I had to go with something a little less mobile. The day before his party, I came up with an idea to list 60 things about him that we love. I got together with my husband and my sister-in-law and her husband (on speakerphone traveling over for the occasion) and we easily came up with 60 funny stories, inside jokes, quirky things and special meaningful things that make him who he is. I wrote them all on a poster board and wrote at the top: "60 Reasons YOU are the Greatest Dad and Grandpa in the World". I did measure so the lines would be even and wrote in different colored markers, but other than that, there isn't anything special about the poster board and paper. But, the memories on there are priceless. They range anywhere from, "Jumps like a kangaroo" (what he did for our baby at the time to entertain him) to "Always leads his family in prayer before meals". This poster board would have made Hitler cry. I love to give a gift to make someone cry and this one is right up there with my best!

Following suit, we easily did the same thing from my mother-in-law the next year, but the big challenge came this year!

My husband's grandmother turned 90 years old. ( There is a whole side commentary here waiting to be hashed out: I don't know if I WANT to be 90. She makes 90 look good, but I'm afraid I'll be hanging on to my blue hair and my walker with one bad arthritis-ridden hand. Back to the topic...) To say that there is nothing to get for her is an obvious understatement. She already has the Top Gun tie, too.

So, I was enlisted to make a poster for her with all her children and grandchildren contributing and this is what it looks like:

The writing had to be super tiny, but I was able to fit it all on there. Oh, and the heel on my right hand looked like my palm used to look when I'd hold on to Skittles (hoarding them from my sister) in the summer. Be careful of the smudge.

So that is what has worked for me in the past and I hope you are able to use the idea for your next hard to shop for person!

That is, if they don't have a shamwow.

Whirlwind Saturday

We had to cram a lot of things in on Saturday. First (at 8:00 am to be precise), I met Melissa at her studio to take in studio birthday shots of Harris. She has done all our shots and is amazing. I'll be sure to post a link to Harris's pics when I get them.

Then the rest of the family met us there at 8:30. When Owen was one, we decided to do pictures with us and both sets of grandparents. I don't have a picture with both my grandparents and always thought that would be neat, so now it's a mandatory thing on the first birthday. (Feel free to borrow that idea- we've loved it!). So, this year we all wore black shirts and blue jeans. Here are a few shots from the "shoot". I don't want to give too much away because this is totally our Christmas card, too! (I'll combine anything.)

Moving the sofa out to the middle of the woods:

Many a grandparent available to hold children! It was so nice!Then, Harris and I left to go home for his nap and for my cooking of lunch. The rest of the family went to Owen's soccer game. Jason said it was a black out for his soccer team.

Here is my table decor that I was a little proud of. I got the gourds at Target (I think) and just sliced a space in them for the namecards. I got the pumpkin stamp and ink, placecards and sparkly gourd picks that I placed on top of the napkin at Hobby Lobby. Then I finally found some orange placemats and matching napkins at Bed, Bath & Beyond (they were seasonal- up at the front).

So, lunch for 15 was served! I ordered bread bowls from Publix (just order 1 lb. loaves of bread at the bakery and then cut open the top and dig out most of the bread- great for snacking!) and served chili (recipe on the side bar) and a big salad. Of course we had birthday cake (from Publix) for dessert and Harris loved his! He was literally in elbow deep!

Owen had a great time playing with our nephew Gavin who is 6. Owen thinks he is SO cool! He calls him "Gaffin". Pretty cute. You like how we put the kids near the wine rack?? Only the best for our children...Then Harris got to play with all his birthday toys. This isn't one of them, but I am pretty proud that he is riding it! It was one of Owen's presents on his first birthday...Harris did get a Pottery Barn Kids chair that his Nana and Grandpa have given all their grandchildren. He loves it and was sitting in it again tonight!I refused to take off the cute birthday outfit for pictures even though it was clearly smeared with icing. So, we all collapsed that afternoon and didn't do anything until Sunday after nap time! Really!! We were all in pjs all day! It was wonderful to recover!!

Our Week {or 2} in Pictures

Alright, I've been a blog slacker. I admit it. But here are my reasons {and photos to add as proof}:

Ollie's birthday was on Saturday. Holy Cow! We have a THREE year old!! We decided to have his birthday party 2 weeks early this year. We knew we {and a lot of our friends} would be involved with Discovery Weekend the weekend of the 17th. And, we knew that Grandma Dunham's 90th {yes- that's right, 90th} birthday party would be this past weekend in Kentucky on the 23rd- Ollie's actual birthday. So, in order to not interfere with my birthday keep his party away from Labor Day and then into September, we just went ahead with it- he doesn't know, right??

So, he had his 3rd Birthday Party at Pump It Up on the 9th. If you want a no-fuss, all included birthday party, I would highly recommend this place. It's a little pricey, but you don't have to clean your house- TOTALLY worth it. It was a Thomas the Tank Engine themed par-tay and the birthday boy loved it. Like all things, we didn't tell him about it until the day of, so he was excited!

Here is Ollie and about the best picture I got of him. He was just a streak of energy in every other picture- no matter what I set the camera to! Any camera help, here?
He was absolutely sweaty and loving every minute of it.

Henry was not a fan of the big slide- at all! Isn't superdad a good sport?
Here is the obligatory picture of the cake. This is from Publix (of course) and the train actually moves. I found the candle spelled out at Party City. And the "3" was left over from Jason's 33! Ha! I'm a recycler- that's right. On another note, I had to move half of his 2 year old cake out of the deep freezer and into the trash to make room for half of this cake. Someboy PLEASE remind me to get half this size next year!!This is how they open presents. They even keep a list for you of who brought what- like at a bridal/ baby shower and Ollie gets to sit in the big king chair while all the kids look at him opening the presents. He loved it!! And here is Ollie {thrilled, huh?} wearing our party favors. It's a train theme. I love a theme. See our safari room post if you're unaware of this. I'm sure many parents were thinking of a lovely place for my "theme" when I sent all their children home with train whistles hyped up on cake.

OK- fast forward 2 weeks to Ollie's actual birthday. His school does what they call a "Celebration of Life". To me, that sounds like a euphamism for a funeral, but whatever- like most things, they didn't ask me! So, for Ollie's "celebration of life", his mom has to do a lot of homework. You are supposed to sum up each year of their life in a couple of sentences and with one picture. YEAH RIGHT!?! Don't they know this was our first child and we have THOUSANDS of pictures? So, I spent many nights clicking through our files trying to find representative pictures for each time period. I think I ended up with about 8-10 pictures and did a pretty good/ all-encompassing job with the narrative.

So, his teachers set up an elaborate calendar of months on the floor and Ollie holds the earth in his hands to represent the earth (not a stretch) and he walks around the sun (a candle) for each year.

They ask the parent(s) to stay and read the narrative and pass around the pictures AND I get to bring a special snack that day. This is not begrudgedness that you're sensing- it was just one more thing on the to do list. I didn't mind bringing snack, but at 11:00 the night before {after a 3 hours school board meeting}... well, let's just say I MINDED.

Then they all sing Happy Birthday and he gets to blow the candle out. I think this is where the symbolism stopped with the whole ceremony (as the sun is still in the sky) and the 3 year old fun portion kicked in.

So, the overzealous part of me cranked up after I had cut a watermelon for snack- around midnight. I am so thankful to all of Ollie's teachers who have helped us raise him over the years. Truly, they are our partners- even if he's only there half a day- they are special and precious to us. So, I decided to make them little birthday party goodies/ Friday happies. They all got a baggie with cookies and brownies and the little sticker on the outside says: "You have blessed and enriched our lives. Thanks for being a part of Ollie's first 3 years."

Am I a kiss up? You bet your bippie. Am I a little over the top? Oh yeah. But those teachers get paid next to squat, work their bums off every day and do it all just to make my little guy happy and help him learn. So, the least I can muster is a cookie or 2. If I was really on top of things these would have had ribbon, but I was exhausted and I figured that would make the TTC {Time To Chocolate} shorter.

So, after all this on Friday, I rush home to pack us all for a trip to Kentucky this weekend. We had so much fun visiting with relatives and catching up. We hadn't seen many in a LONG time, so it was overdo! Here's the birthday gal- crowned of course.

Her children and spice (plural of spouse) hosted a yummy luncheon and reception at her church and there were over 100 people there! After a while of chasing children and trying to get Ollie away from the potato chip basket, we found the church nursery with toys that were new to our kids= cool, so we hung out in there. And I actually got a half way decent picture of our boys in the same shot! It's not great, but if you have 2 or more children then you know my pain.

So, a great week and weekend and I'm very thankful to be home for a while.

I feel like I'm leaving Henry out, so here's where we've been keeping him lately:

KIDDING, of course. The fact that Henry looks a little like a jailbird in this outfit does make it a little more convincing, though!! This IS one of his favorite places to crawl into. It was Ollie's, too. Poor Luke. No love from anybody around here.