Amelia's Valentine Party...

I went to the doctor on Thursday and by the end of the appointment they wanted me to go to L&D on Friday to run some more tests. I quickly told the doctor about Amelia's Valentine party and he agreed to let me have it (as long as I had help with the party) and could go to the hospital afterwards.

Sweet man. I was going to have the party no matter what he said but it was nice of him to agree with me. ;)

Here are a few pictures of Amelia's long-awaited Valentine Party!

Starting with the invitation. I gave Amelia four different ones to choose from and this is the one she chose. She said, "I want the one with a baby doll."



Welcome to the party!



My SIL, Sara, painted me a set of these - one for each month. I just love changing them out each month.



My SIL, Elaina, made us some cute banners to hang for the party.



Here's the table. I took pictures before I tied the balloons to each chair. The balloons made it a little more festive as well!



She also made these cute hearts for the back of the chairs. Each guest had a little mailbox with their name on it at their place setting. Amelia put her valentine to each of them inside the mailbox and then when it was time to trade valentines - they all went around and placed them inside each other's mailboxes. Majority of the decorations came from Target $1 bin or Dollar Tree.



I must say that I'm a huge fan of the doily after this party. I used them on everything. I'm also a huge fan of using wrapping paper on the tables! My friend, Mandi, told me about this and I think she's just brilliant. I already had this red and white wrapping paper in my gift closet so that's what we used.



I ordered wooden forks and spoons stamped with a Happy Valentine's Day message for the kiddos to use. I love Etsy!



Here's my sweet Valentine - anxiously waiting for her guests to arrive. She had a hard morning and wasn't feeling too well. I gave her some medicine and after lying down for a little bit she was ready to go. The doorbell rang at one point and she said, "IT'S MY FRIENDS!!" Unfortunately, it was the UPS man. She said, "it wasn't my friends, Mommy...it was just a package." (LOL)



Kandace arrived early which was very nice. She and Amelia played for a bit while Elaina and I finished things up in the kitchen. I ordered Amelia's dress from HERE. Love this Etsy seller...all of her dresses are very retro and in bright colors. We'll be ordering from her again!



This was our drink station. Amelia chose strawberry milk and lemonade as the drinks for the party.



Raspberry lemonade has been one of my cravings for several weeks now. I specifically love Cracker Barrel's raspberry lemonade and if you call a few days ahead - you can order it by the gallon for a party! I forgot to take a picture but I also bought a heart shaped ice cube mold ($1 bin at Target) and made some out of lemonade to go in our drinks. I used little mason jars for the lemonade and covered the lid with scrapbook paper and parchment paper. Alex actually gave me the idea of the parchment on top of the scrapbook paper - I was pleased with how they turned out. The paper heart straws came from Etsy.





Here's the food table. Or I should really say the SWEETS table.



We had heart marshmallows on a stick, heart rice krispies on a stick (thanks to Aunt Joy), heart cakes, and jello. The jello was a specific request by Amelia. :)



Another request she had was powdered donuts.

If you want to win my girl's heart...give her a powdered donut.

My sis, Joy, also made white chocolate popcorn with pink M&M's. This stuff is addictive. We still have some and I can't stop eating it!



My blog friend, Robin, made these adorable valentine cookies for us. They tasted as good as they look! She's so talented.



And the only real food we had....Chick-fil-a chicken nuggets with dipping sauces. We also had strawberry romaine salad for the Mamas!



I apologized in advance to all the Moms for sending their kiddos home on a sugar high. How often do you get to have a table full of sweets like that though!? :)



After the kiddos were all hyped up on sugar - we did a little crafting. I'm the first to admit, I'm not a real crafty person. I've used a glue gun twice in my life and burned myself both times. Trying to find a craft for the party was the hardest part for me. I spent over an hour in Michael's trying to find something they would enjoy doing, that wouldn't take long (because their attention span is so short), but they would actually use. I finally decided on heart/flower felt barretts (like the one in Amelia's hair), felt heart magnets, and chalkboard hearts.



After crafts the kiddos played some more and then our friends had to leave, but not before we gave them goodie bags with all sorts of treats...like candy, crazy heart straws, play-doh, crayons, notepad, bubbles, stickers...fun stuff like that! I ordered some round stickers that had a little message from Amelia on them from where else...Etsy.



And every little girl needs some jewelry on Valentine's Day.



We also sent them home with a little more candy. I wrapped some scrapbook paper around a package of Rolos. They turned out so cute! Rolos are one of my favorite candies.



Here's all the munchkins on Amelia's bed. I hope they had a great time. I know my little girl did. She'll never forget her first "Balentine" party.



Thank you to my sister, Joy, and to my sister-in-laws. There's no way I could have done it without their help. They made things and ran errands for me so I could stay on bed rest. They knew how much this meant to Amelia and me and just made it happen. I don't know what I would do without my family!



Love to all,

She chose HIM over ME...

So there was a big football game on last night. We watched the Super Bowl from home. Alex watched all of it. I watched between doing laundry, picking up dinner, stuff like that.

I really just wanted to see the commercials. There were a few funny ones and a couple that almost made me cry!

What can I say...I'm pregnant...I cry a lot.

Amelia wasn't that into the Super Bowl. She played and watched Caillou on the ipad.



She WAS into the dessert I made though. My friend, Susy, posted a picture of brownies right before the game and I immediately had a craving for them. We topped our hot Ghirardelli brownies with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberries. SO YUMMY.



So like I said earlier...I'm pregnant...I cry a lot.

And my 2 year old totally made me cry last night.

I was leaving to pick up the pizza for dinner and asked her to come with me. She immediately responded, "no, I don't want to go, I want to stay with my Daddy."

I was like, "what?"

So I asked her again, assuming she didn't understand my question.

She responded, "no, I want to stay here with my Daddy."

I proceeded to ask her 20 more times and she made it quite clear that she didn't want to go. Alex tried to make me feel better by saying, "it's okay, she does that to me all the time."

I was like, "exactly, she does this to YOU...she always chooses ME."

I left with tears in my eyes. It was like she took her tiny, toddler hand and slapped me in the face.

Alex quickly sent me a text that she was asking for me as soon as I left and he also sent me a video of her saying, "I want my Mommy."

Not sure how many M&M's it took to make her say it - but it made me feel better. :)



And I just have to share what I walked in on her doing last night.

Me: "Whatcha doing Amelia?"

Amelia: "I cookin' my baby."

I explained that we don't cook our babies and asked her to remove it from the microwave immediately, but not before taking a picture. All while trying to keep a straight face. I left the room laughing so hard.

Looks like we'll be starting therapy a little sooner than I thought.

Crazy kid.



She totally made up for making me cry this morning though. While watching Super Why she reached over to hold my hand.

Melt my heart.

I love her so much.

Happy Monday!

Love to all,

Hello December...

I went to my first Christmas party of the season last night! It was so much fun. I love my LG gals. We meet twice a month and these girls are some of my best friends. We laugh so hard when we're together...like until we cry...it's the best. It's always appetizer potluck and we had some yummy food! I took sausage balls, Trio's spinach dip w/homemade tortilla chips, cheese ball w/crackers, and chocolate covered peanut butter balls.



Me and Jen



Vicki, Alicia, Amy, Heather, Heather, Belinda



I'll post our group shot as soon as I receive it. Or maybe I'll just post the outtakes. Those are the best.

I can't believe it's December 1st. We started a new tradition with Amelia this evening. It's a magnetic Advent calendar where she can move the star leading up to Christmas day.



We also have a book that Alex reads from each night and then we pray together at the very end. It's geared towards children so we don't lose Amelia's attention.



I went to the store looking for Elf on a Shelf. I didn't really know what it was all about and it seems to be all the rage, so I asked the sales clerk to tell me about it. After he told me what it was, we decided that we wouldn't be adding this to our Christmas traditions. It's a cute idea but not exactly what I thought it was going to be. Our main issue was telling our child she should obey because an elf with secret powers is watching her. (LOL) We do tell Amelia she should obey because someone is watching her - and that's someone with the Utmost power. Even when no one else can see what she's doing - we want her to always know God can see. We just always want to tell her the truth, even at a young age. Christmas can still be fun without believing in Santa and elves. I do know that. The movies are fun to watch and she has even started asking who Santa is when she sees him on the television or in stores. I need to brush up on the true story of Saint Nicholas. He was a real man, a good man, and I intend on telling her all about him. :)

I just love this time of year! I'm looking forward to lots of baking, candy making, spending as much time as possible with family, and teaching Amelia what the Christmas season is truly all about. I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible. A friend of mine posted this and it really hit home. I tend to stress at some point during the holidays and I'm going to do my best to remember this. If you follow this link there's an entire article written by Ann Voskamp on this subject:

"Whenever Christmas begins to burden, it’s a sign that I’ve taken on something of the world and not of Christ." -Ann Voskamp

Love to all,

Food Trucks & Football...

Our weekend was centered around food & football. Needless to say, it was a FUN weekend!!

Alex had the opportunity to have a guys weekend in Dallas. They had awesome tickets to a luxury suite at Cowboys Stadium to watch the Hogs beat A&M! He came home barely able to talk...I think he screamed the entire game. I was happy he was able to go...he deserves some downtime from all the other stuff he has to do. He had a blast which made me happy! :)



Amelia and I started our day over breakfast at Mimi's Cafe. I enjoyed a mocha latte, which is more mocha than latte, but it sure was delicious. I'm trying to get my love for coffee back. Morning sickness ruined it for me but I'm finally over that and starting to enjoy it again!



After breakfast we ran some errands with Aunt Joy and then headed to the Food Truck Festival downtown. I was so excited for this! I watch The Great Food Truck Race on Food Network religiously. I was hoping for some gourmet cuisine like Hodge Podge or The Lime Truck offered but it wasn't really like that.



This is Hot Dog Mike. He's a local celebrity around these parts. He makes the best hot dog on the planet. He also offers veggie dogs for all you folks who hate meat.



I enjoyed a frito chili pie dog.

Oh my.

It was delicious.



FYI: pimento cheese has made a comeback. We split a grilled pimento cheese sandwich by Green Cuisine.

It rocked my world.



We had a great time and came home with full bellies.



I must now clean my kitchen and do some laundry.

It's the hard-knock life.

Love to all,

Celebrate!!

I'm a little late on this post (I've been sick since Saturday evening). Morning sickness is better but I have a killer sinus infection/cold. Praying the meds I just started kick in soon.

My parents were in town last week (or an hour away from where I live), so we were excited to celebrate their birthdays as a family. We celebrated on the 15th which is my Daddy's actual birthday and today is my Mama's actual birthday.

Happy Birthday, Mama!!

They live three hours away so family gatherings with the entire family are few and far between and extremely special. I was so happy that all of my brothers and sisters were able to be here. It meant a lot to my parents.



The menu: filet, wedge salad, roasted brussels sprouts, red potatoes, and tomato pie.



For dessert: strawberry shortcake (for Mama) and PW's blackberry cobbler (for Daddy).



I was most excited about the tomato pie. When we told everyone what it was - some were a little iffy.

Until they tasted it.

Oh.my.goodness. There wasn't a piece left! It's the perfect savory side dish. I'll share the recipe soon.

My sis, Joy, came and cooked all of the side dishes and desserts at my house. She really is the best. Alex grilled the steak (all 20 of them!) It was perfect and delicious.

I really had it easy this time around - I didn't have to do a thing!



As soon as Amelia saw her Aunt Joy in an apron, she wanted hers on and wanted to help. She's the best helper in the kitchen.



She loved having her family here and I loved seeing her play and interact with her cousins. They play and fight like brothers & sisters. Just as it should be. :)



Hanging out on the deck with her Papa and baby.



My brother and his fam from Missouri were able to be here too! I miss them so much.



My brother, Chris, w/Daddy & Mama.

My sis, Jayna, w/niece, Joylyn.



We ate, laughed, ate some more, opened gifts, laughed some more, and of course it wouldn't be an evening with the Weaver Fam if we didn't cry at some point. (LOL) I love my family so much. I look forward to the holidays when we'll all be together again.

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them. -Desmond Tutu

Love to all,