January Birthday's

My niece turned 1 this month! Although I am not her Momma, I will tell a bit of her birth story. My brother's girlfriend has a heart condition and her pregnancy was high risk. I know she spent the last week (if not more) in the hospital trying to prevent Baby 'laska (this is what our short chic calls her) from being born. On a night when my brother was not at the hospital, and not in a cell phone coverage area, her doctors decide it was time to go ahead and take the baby by c-section! Baby Alaska was born several weeks early and very tiny (less than 2 pounds) in the wee hours of the morning. Well, when you look at her birthday photo, I promise you will see no resemblance of the preemie that she was. She is a beautiful little girl and really a happy baby!

We gathered at my mom's for a small family celebration for her birthday. Unfortunately, the short chic had a crazy high fever on the day of her actual birthday and we could not travel to Moberly to be with her.

Alaska was not shy about eating her cake! Or maybe I should say about eating the frosting on her cake. She actually had very little to do with the cake itself!

The next birthday we celebrated was Jacob's. His actual birthday was during the week, so we had a small birthday celebration the day of...then had a family event the Saturday afterwards....then diverted the party with his friends until Super Bowl . I am posting this the day after the Super Bowl party and I can say that while I only drank a cup of iced tea last night, I feel totally hung over. I guess that is how one should feel after a great party is had! We had 10 of Jacob's friends over. We played guessing games with PropGuesses last night (i.e. Who will win the coin toss? Who will score first, Who will call first Coaches Challenge, What color will the Gatorade be that gets dumped on the winning coach?) My party food turned out really good and with a lot of prayers the birthday cake was pretty darned good. Enjoy the photos!

Birthday Breakfast has become a bit of a tradition since Jacob splits households on his birthday.

Since we ordered his birthday present late (ANOTHER new pair of shoes!) we made him a junk food gift box for his birthday. I am very sad to say he consumed all of that junk food in less than a week.

Birthday dinner at Freddy's. The Honeysuckle's joined us. Here is Jacob getting birthday lovin' from his two favorite short chics!

The entire family (well minus a brother or two on my side!) met at Jacob's basketball games and then out to dinner together. We had planned to go to Japanese steakhouse but they were closed from 2:30 to 4:30 and we were there at 3:30. So Pizza Street it was. The lovely lady in this photo is Jacob's girlfriend, Danielle. She is sporting her brand new braces that were put on that morning.

Two of Jacob's Grandmothers.

The Super Bowl Party: Jacob LOVES chocolate covered pretzels.

Costco's 2 bite brownies with frosting added. In team colors no doubt.

And if you are going to have one team, you have to have both represented.

table decorations. (Can you see my fancy tablecloth?? I used green felt and sewed yardage markers on it and ironed on yardage numbers).

HERE is my tablecloth. I actually did 95% of the sewing myself (which is something I am very proud of) and the numbers were iron-on.

A big bowl of chips for the nacho dip! Wayne also made up hot and sour meatballs, which were so yummy!

Rachel Ray's Steak Sliders (you should so google that recipe!!! easy and tasty!)

Besides PropGuessing, we also did a football grid. Thanks for my wonderful co-worker Donna who makes the BEST flipcharts!

My friend LeAnn helped me make team pennant banners to decorate with. This is the Steeler's colors. We had a room decorated with Green Bay. The boys were all cheering for Green Bay so by default Wayne and I got the Steeler room all to ourselves!

The Boyand his football cake. It turned out well and tasted pretty darned good. Yes, Martha Stewart, I used a box mix.

Next up, in terms of birthday's, is our Short Chic. She will turn THREE years old in under a month. Her party....a fairy tea party. Stay tuned.

My Weekend Project: A PVC Camping Lamp Post and Flag Holder

I have seen a few of these around campsites and I knew I would like to have one. The only problem that I had is The Husband. He already thinks we drag too much stuff with us when we go camping and if I had told him my desire to have a PVC Camping Light Pole he would have shut it down quickly! So, that leaves a girl with only one choice: Figure out how to do it by herself. I did some internet searching and found a few road maps on RV forums. They seemed easy enough! I visited the local hardware store for the supplies: An exterior post lantern light 2 inch PVC pipe (I used 5 feet but had to purchase a 10 foot piece) A 3 inch toilet flange A 3 inch to 2 inch Reducer PVC Glue A 12 foot electric cord kit 2 - 3/4 inch PVC Caps I also used a few supplies we already had on hand: White Spray Paint 3 1/2 foot - 3/4 inch PVC Pipe Drill Bits (1 inch and 1/2 inch) Tent Stakes The first step was preparing the lantern light. I could only find black i

Liver Cheese: A Family Tradition

Today is an anniversary date. One of those dates you wish you did not have to remember but there is no way you can forget. Fifteen years ago today,two days after his birthday, my father died of lung cancer. He was a lifelong smoker and his cancer was aggressive. His battle was short. He fought for six short months after his diagnosis. He knew the chemo was not working and that his time was limited. When he came to this realization he became the best dad in the world. In the days before my father's passing, my family shared some memorable moments. One of those moments centers around the deli meat: Liver Cheese.I would not be surprised if you have never heard of it, or even never tasted it. But I was raised on it as it was one of my Dad's favorite things. What is it? Well, it is a German food that is actually called Leberkase. It is bacon, corned beef, pork, and onion that is ground together and baked. It comes with a

Tonsillectomy (Warning Photos!)

The Short Chic came down with a pretty nasty case of strep throat back in April. So, when The Boy started complaining about his throat hurting about 12 days later, I was pretty confident that he had inherited his sister's strep. Instead, The Boy was diagnosed with a peritonsillar abscess growing on his right tonsil. We had to immediately see an ENT Physician who took a needle and drained the abscess. He removed about 5.5 cc of puss from The Boys throat.and then told us that once you have a peritonsillar abscess you were high risk to keep getting them. The Boy's tonsils were now compromised and needed to be removed. We were told to plan for a two week recovery so we worked a surgery into our summer plans. Between family vacations, summer sports, and the beginning of school The Boy had his second surgery. A tonsillectomy. Pre-surgery prepping went well. It must be nice to be young and have healthy veins for an IV! The Boy had lots of pre-surgery visitors. My

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