Fantastic Weekend...Happy Birthday Ry!

First off, Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband. I'll try to remember to take a birthday picture at some point today. I am so happy he could be home to celebrate his 25th birthday. We are taking today to celebrate together, church, walk with the pup, games, dinner and movie date. I tried to convince him to go see ICE at the National Harbor but I guess that was a little much given all the excitement of our weekend so far. I know we are both really excited about his birthday party this Saturday and all of the people who are going to be coming.

Since he is still asleep I have time to blog about our fun weekend. We ended up having a lot of things to do on Friday since I had so much unexpected work last week so we didn't leave until 1 for the city but it was probably too cold for us to enjoy much anyway. We got there and had some time to relax at the bar before Tom and Colleen got there for dinner. It was nice and probably a first for us. Dinner was great at Monk's Cafe in Philly and then we rushed over to the theater for Wicked. We forgot to take a picture because we were so excited. The show was incredible. It is so well written and performed and I can't wait to take the rest of the family to it (not sure when but I'll get them there).

We got to see the baby room when we headed to their home for the night and it looks so cute. Colleen has such good taste and I love the pink and grey combo. After sleeping in (the country just does that to us) we headed to the other part of PA for her shower. It was so much fun seeing the family again, playing weird games, and seeing all the creative and cute gifts. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the shower:


With my lovely cousin three weeks before she becomes a Mommy.
Shot of the cake, the invitation and all of the prizes for the fun games.
My first girl/eco friendlier diaper cake. So fun and easy to make these.
Caught two of my younger cousins being funny and they didn't even notice.
Cute Colleen. It might look cuter on baby Lucky though:)

Fun weekend ahead/Week of thanks

After putting some last minute things together for my cousins baby shower this weekend, Ry and I are headed to Philly to see Wicked with my cousin and her husband. She and I were so close growing up and then the boys entered the pictures and our schedules got all wacky and it seemed like when she was with the family I wasn't and vice versa. We are working towards fixing that and I feel so blessed that we had extra days at the holiday together for scrapbooking at Grandmas and now we have this date set up. I am really excited about the shower on Saturday and all the details I can't share yet since she might read this. After that Ry and I will come home and spend Sunday however he wants since it is his 25th birthday. I imagine we will be completely lazy and just play games all day and maybe go for a long walk with the pup, but the only thing on the schedule is church. We got a lot of restaurant gift cards for Christmas so maybe we'll take advantage of those but Ryan's lazy days are so rare I think he will enjoy the birthday excuse:)

I also wanted to list the things I was thankful for this week since it was FULL of blessings:
1. Lots of extra time with the Barker family before they left for Korea this week. They have been fantastic to me the past 3.5 years and they were a blessing to the end. I will miss them and their kids and am praying for safe travels and a smooth transition. We are also thankful for all of the good food and alcohol they gave me since they can't take it with them. We are well stocked!
2. Time with Hilly and her help putting away the Christmas decorations Sunday (always so sad but better with good company to distract me).
3. A good first day back at the internship.
4. My holiday party dress arriving. It's better than I could have imagined and it was on a fantastic sale that I used a gift card for. It is going to look great with Ry's dress blues.
5. The light snow that has blanketed the ground outside.
6. Getting to see Christen and the boys midweek.
7. Some financial things coming together and seeing once again how the Lord provides in His perfect timing.

I also have a recommendation to make: I played Perfection with my second graders at the school yesterday and they loved it. I hadn't played it in years and I would highly recommend it for the kids in your life since it is great for teaching them to focus and think strategically. My two kids worked together really nicely and were so proud of themselves.

Happy Birthday Linda

Ryan's Birthday Message to his mom on facebook was too cute: Happy New Year! Happy Birthday to my wonderful, amazing, beautiful, smart, and inspiring mom. Happy 39th!


I love to host parties at my place and was thrilled that the family opted to have my mother-in-laws birthday party here. I decided only a formal dinner would do for my the lovely Linda. I would like to get a small foldout table eventually but for now TV trays worked. It was fun to make the place cards and bring out the pretty table cloth. It actually fit us all perfectly.


The Birthday Girl cuddling with the sweet Carter. She seemed so happy. We made her a calendar for her birthday and I love it. I'll have to take some pics of it later. I made one for Ry last year and it was a hit at his work. This year I had a lot of great pics of the Deem family to include so I thought it would be perfect for her, especially for those months when she misses her baby. It's kind of cool to think that we will all have at least something in common while Ry is gone since I will have a copy at home of our best memories from 09 and hopefully Ryan will have a place to hang it in theater (Army word for deployment destination).


Tate not only put the candles on and helped light them, but he also helped blow them out. It is so much fun to watch these kids grow up and want to help out with all sorts of things.


Thanks Christen for thinking to make delicious cider for everyone. So yummy and a great source of Vitamin C. I love how happy and relaxed she looks, do you think it is because she was around her brother for a few hours? I love the little fake rivalry she and Ry have.

Happy New Years

May your new year be filled with blessing. May you know joy. May you remember to be thankful always. May you know the grace of the Lord always. These are my prayers for you and I this new year.

Ryan and I originally thought we would buy a house and have a baby this year. God had other plans and we are okay with that. Instead we pray for solid preparation and safety as Ryan deploys. We praise God that I survived four years of grad school and am about to walk across two stages in May. We pray that God has a job in store for me and that it will be a good fit. We look forward to making the most of the first 4 months of the new year together and to staying strong the rest while we are apart.

God is good and faithful and we know He will provide in this new year of blessings and challenges.

Christmas in PA

We always spend the weekend after Christmas with my family in PA. It's great to see them all gathered and crazy fun times are usually a given with this crew. Here are some of my moms family in this first picture but we forgot to get some of the rest of the crew in pictures because we were having too much fun.


We got to celebrate my long lost cousins daughter's birthday for the first time. This year we were reunited with my cousin Larry and his family. They are so much fun and this was our first time meeting them in person.


We played Apples to Apples with the crew later the first night and the chicken stood in for my mom at one point. It made sense at the time and added extra humor for a few rounds.


After Ryan came back home to go to work we started sorting through old pictures to make family albums. It was a little overwhelming at first but once we got our system down we were on our roll. It was fantastic walking through memory lane with the girls and then sharing the finished albums with everyone.


This was my first time seeing my cousin since she got pregnant and she is only 6 weeks away from having her baby girl. It was great to have some extra time with Colleen since we haven't had much in recent years. Ryan and I are looking forward to going to see Wicked with she and her husband later this week and to a fun baby shower coming up at some point in the near future;)

Christmas Day

We had a blast celebrating with Ryan's family Christmas Day. We love our nephews and watching the joy in their faces as they opened their gifts was priceless. It was great to have Sammy over to play with them too. He's so cute with kids and in love with cousin Carter.


How cute is that smile?! Carter's First Christmas and what a wonderful one it was.


He wanted to open gifts so badly. Waiting for the rest of us to finish eating is so rough when you are three.


Ryan with his mom. They didn't even plan to match, but aren't they just adorable?


Sammy taking a break from playing soccer in the snow. He played forever while we took a break for Carter's attempted nap. It was so cute to see him hopping through the snow. He always wants to be outside in Ryan's parents huge backyard. I guess we conditioned him that way since we usually are outside when we go over there. It is the perfect yard for playing soccer in.

Later Christmas Eve

Disclaimer: Sorry for the break from Christmas Eve til today but I was having too much fun to take a break and post anything. I decided each special day deserved a separate post though so let's just pretend these were written in real time.


We were so happy to finally get our annual family picture in front of our tree. We had it taken at Sammy's birthday party last year but this year it was canceled because of the snow. Sammy was too excited to see his Auntie Ashley so he wasn't the most cooperative but what can you do?


Ashley and I made cookies for our Christmas Eve service. It was a nice excuse to decorate sugar cookies. We made cookies in the shape of our initials (one for Ry too) and had fun making lots of words with them. It was a great time and a great mess.


After a beautiful service at our church, Christ Church went above and beyond, we went to my parents to open gifts. Sammy's are wrapped in bubble wrap and hidden in the mix for him to pick out. He knows the drill and was not pleased that we were blocking his access to take pictures.


One of the best gifts of the night was Sammy's Santa chicken. My Dad was less than impressed with it but my mom was proud of herself:)

It was hard not to think about Ry not being there for our annual tradition next year but it could not have been a more perfect day to look back on.