Marcy's Birthday

Since the last time I posted, I have had a birthday. Scott was so sweet to me the whole weekend around my birthday. He gave me a gift each day of the weekend starting on Friday, cooked me breakfast on Saturday morning, and even took me back on Sunday to exchange one of my gifts. What a sweet husband I have. He put so much time and effort to make my Birthday Weekend special, I really appreciated it. I just had to brag on him a little. :)

July 4th Weekend

We had quite a busy weekend for the 4th of July. Scott and I both had the day off on Friday. I spent the morning and early afternoon preparing food to take to Daddy and Stephanie's for a party they had on the 4th. Scott went and played disc golf with some friends and then did some work around the house for me. That evening, we went to a birthday party for our good friend Zach at Zach and Lauren's new house. It was a lot of fun and the food was really good.

The party at Daddy and Stephanie's was a lot of fun as well. They have a nice pool in their backyard. We ate and swam and visited. There were people from our family and from Stephanie's family there. I had made a decision to not count points on Saturday, so I made some things I wanted to have for the day. I made 2 different kinds of brownies and a big batch of kicked up pimiento cheese (there was so much of this actually that I took some of it with me to Zach's party). After we swam and ate and visited all day, we had about an hour before dark inside then we went out front and had some fun fireworks. We did fireworks for about an hour before we shot off the grand finale. We drove home tired, but happy. I'll include a slide show of pictures from the weekend.

Grandma's 90th Birthday Party

On June 20th, we had a 90th birthday party for Scott's Grandma at our church. 90 years is a lot of living! Scott pretty much grew up without his mom's parents as they lived in California until about 2.5 year ago when his Grandpa passed away and Grandma came to GA to live with Scott's parents. She is always smiling and very cheerful. It is these qualities about her that draw people near to her. In the short time that she has been in GA, she has touched enough people that about 100 people came to wish her happy birthday! She volunteers at church in a program for elderly people called Happy Hearts and she helps out with the Youth Group on Wednesday nights, loud music and all. It was really very touching to see all the people that came and the different ways in which she had touched their hearts. Scott's mom set up a slide show of pictures of Grandma throughout the years and it was going through her laptop to a little flat screen tv. At the end of the slide show the words "We hope you like your new TV!" came across the screen! Grandma was watching the slide show on her birthday present and didn't even realize it! The look on her face was really priceless! I am including a slide show of the pictures that Scott took at the party.

Update

Wow. It has been a long time since I posted anything. Almost a month. That wasn't really my intention, it just worked out that way. First of all, I was sick twice in three weeks. I am still sort of recovering from my last illness. I am kind of tired of being sick. I usually only get sick about once a year. This makes 4 times in 6 months. Scott was sick too. He got sick with some sort of sinus thing at about the same time as I got some sort of stomach bug. Then, he went to the doctor and started feeling better and once I had recovered from my stomach thing, I started getting sick with whatever sinus thing he had. No fun. I started to feel sick a week before my birthday, on the day of our joint birthday party with my family for Stephanie, Kristyn, and me.

Our birthday party was a lot of fun except that I wasn't feeling great, Stephanie was starting to have some sort of allergy thing, and Kristyn's stomach wasn't feeling too great either. But it was still good to get together. I got so many great gifts for my birthday. Obviously I don't think that my birthday is all about getting gifts, but it did sort of lessen the sting of turning...ahem...30. This is our group picture. Love the bunny ears. haha.





Here is the face I made when I opened my Cuttlebug. I was really surprised that Daddy and Stephanie got it for me. I had always just thought that I would end up saving up and getting it for myself. But, sometimes looking at my expressions is scary, seriously!







I got my first gift wrapped in "Over the Hill" wrapping paper this birthday. Thanks Daddy and Stephanie.













They got a special cake for my birthday...and added their own finishing touch of 30 candles!








Here I am trying to blow out all the candles! I was not successful in blowing them all out in one breath. They were all so spread out! It was a lot of ground to cover.










I won't list all my gifts, but I got a compilation of Jane Austen novels, some CDs that I had really been wanting, a movie, a Cuttlebug die cutting/embossing scrapbooking tool, and a new cookbook I really wanted. On top of the MP3 player that Scott gave me a couple of weeks ago, he surprised me with the perfume I really wanted, Armani Code for Women. I love the way it smells!

On the date of my actual birthday, April 18th, our close friends Andy and Caitlin got married. It was a beautiful ceremony and it was an enjoyable time to get to see a lot of people that we had not seen in a long time.











The weather has been absolutely crazy the last few weeks. Just this week, the lows have been about 35 and today it got up close to 90 degrees!

I have planted some tomato plants in pots with cages this year and a jalapeno plant. Hopefully we will have a good crop with them. We also purchased some dirt to amend the soil in our garden and I have started dumping my pots from the winter out and planting the whole thing out in the garden, kind of around the big area that I usually plant on that is raised. I put a lot of bulbs in them and I am hoping that by planting them in the garden, they'll come back next year and bloom. Scott and I went over to the Growers' Outlet today and I liked some of the stuff they have, but was disappointed that they didn't have more things I like. So, we didn't end up getting anything. I think that we are going to go back next weekend to see what they have and hopefully they'll have more stuff out. I still have plenty of time to plant. I don't have a lot of stuff to do in the yard this year because I have so many perennials, but I do have some things to plant. Mostly though, have my pots to take care of. The other day when I was working in the gardens and Scott was cutting the grass, I walked over to the side of the house to go through the fence and was surprised that all the hostas on that side that I planted 2 years ago have come up and they are monsters! The closer they are to the fence, or the more shade they are getting, the bigger they are! I will have to divide them this fall if we are still living here.

Did I ever say on here that we dropped the price on our house? Since that happened, we have had a pick up in traffic. We are not sure if that is because of the price decrease or because of the fact that it is spring. We would really like to be able to sell our house so that we could take advantage of the low prices on a house closer to our offices and church.

Today was Founders' Day for Scott's fraternity at GA Tech. So, we went downtown and got to spend time with friends. It was really nice.

I am still doing Weight Watchers. I have lost almost 12 pounds. I still have about 18 more that I want to lose.



Scott and I are taking a trip to celebrate my birthday. I decided that I would rather do that than have a big party or something. We are going to the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC. Neither of us has ever been. We will be there the last weekend of the Flower Festival. We are going to drive up on Wednesday, May 13 and come home on that Sunday. Obviously we won't be spending all of our time at the Biltmore House. I know that there is a lot to do up there, but I haven't spent a lot of time researching it. Does anyone have any suggestions of things we can do or restaurants we can visit?



Well, if you are still here, I am impressed. I hope you have a blessed week.

Happy Early Birthday To Me!

My birthday isn't for a couple of weeks, but Scott couldn't find a good hiding place for my present...so he gave it to me early!!

He gave me a Sansa MP3 player! It is pink and small and he got me an external drive thingy so I have a total of 8GBs of memory! He is ripping a bunch of my CDs to MP3 right now and loading me up! I am really excited! All I need now is that cord thingy that will hook it up to my stereo in my car and I can listen to my CDs much easier than having to worry about flipping through my CD case while driving down the road.

I am really happy about this present. I will enjoy my walking at the park on the days that Scott plays disc golf much more now!

Happy Birthday Scott!!!

Today is Scott's birthday! We are celebrating tonight with a steak dinner. He is looking forward to that! Happy birthday Scott! Thanks for being such a wonderful husband!

Family Birthday Celebration

Scott and I had my family over for a early/late birthday celebration on May 24. Some of us had already swapped gifts, but this pretty much covered all the ones that weren't swapped yet. We also snuck Father's Day in there too. We are an efficient family. We had dinner, gifts, and cupcakes. We also talked about Wendy's and Paul's upcoming wedding. Here's the proof:

My Surprise!

My birthday is this coming Friday (April 18). So, last Wednesday night at our ladies' Bible study, the girls surprised me with a birthday brownie on Lauren's special Happy Birthday plate with a candle and the birthday song and a big bag full of scrapbooking goodies, complete with a homemade card! I was so surprised and excited! I have the best friends ever!

Above is a picture of my loot, excluding Maxwell. I just couldn't get him to go away, so he was incorporated into the picture!

Scott's Birthday Celebration

Last Saturday (Dec. 1), we had some friends over to celebrate Scott's birthday. We had a potluck dinner and everything was delicious. Scott and I made Dr. Pepper Tenderloin, which is a recipe out of my Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine. We ate, talked, and ended up playing Wii. I think we all had a good time! Below are the pictures.

Happy Birthday to Karen!

Last Thursday, Cathy and some other ladies threw a surprise party for Karen's anniversary of her 21st birthday (I won't say which one, since she doesn't look anywhere near her age). It was a lot of fun. Gayle is really good at "table scapes", as you'll see. Karen's birthday is on December 10 (next Monday). Don't forget to wish her Happy Birthday when you see her this Sunday!

Here are the pictures:

(I did them like an old film...hehehe...if you want to see them in color, I think you can just click on the link to the slide website and view them there).

Happy Birthday Scott!

Today is Scott's 30th birthday! Yep, the BIG 30!!! We went to Provino's for his birthday lunch after church because Provino's gives you a free entree and free spumoni icecream on your birthday. It was really good. Scott's birthday present came much earlier this year when we bought him his Wii, so I didn't give him anything today. But, we did get to go to church and spend the whole day together. Happy Birthday Scott!

Happy Birthday Melanie!

Scott's mom's birthday was Friday, October 5. After we visited Meme, we went to Tracy's house (Scott's sister) to celebrate her birthday. We had flying saucers and Tracy and SaraBeth had made an angelfood cake, which we had covered in strawberries and coolwhip. It was all very good. We gave Melanie her gifts, and played with SaraBeth and Sam. Scott, Robert, and I checked out Robert's XBox 360. Sam has grown up so fast and he is talking pretty well and walking. He also LOVES to have his picture taken. If he sees you with a camera he smiles really big and then squeals "Whoa!" after the flash goes off. So, I got a ton of cute pictures of Sam. SaraBeth is so grown up and she is such a sweet big sister. She really loves Sam and it shows. I know that Robert and Tracy feel blessed to have such sweet children. I think that the funniest part about the whole night was that I learned that Scott and Tracy's parents like to play Wii. SaraBeth was also taking advantage of having her great grandmother there and played with her a good bit. It was a good family get-together. I couldn't choose which pictures to post, so I just did a slide show.

Shana's Birthday Celebration!

Last night Maggie, Lauren, and I took Shana out for her birthday. We went to this Mexican restaurant called Vallarta. It was really good. Then, we went back over to Maggie's house and just chatted and took a tour of Maggie's house. I really like her house and she has lots of yard! It was fun to hang out with them. I hope that we made Shana feel special.

Busy Times!

We had a busy weekend this past weekend which has turned into a busy week!

Scott and I met up after work on Friday and drove to Dallas to celebrate my sister's birthday, which is June 25 and Father's Day (that's this Sunday for you slackers out there who forgot!). It was fun, but we got home really late. You can see our pictures above.

Saturday Scott and I got up and went to the Growers' Outlet up the street from us where they have really good deals on plants. Not everything does well that I have bought from there, but I have learned how to recognize healthy plants, for the most part. It is a long drive for most people, but if you ever want to do a lot of planting and you are willing to go and buy what looks healthy instead of exactly what you want, this is worth the drive. For example, we purchased 30 hostas and 4 calla lilies for $40. Wow. That's good. I paid over $5 a bulb for some calla lily bulbs 2 years ago at Pike and hostas are about $2.50 for the size we got at Home Depot (maybe more). Last year, Scott and I edged our garden and the sides of our house with scalloped edging bricks. So, this year I thought it would make our house look more desirable if I planted something in our front garden and along the sides of the house. You know that rule that you always end up buying twice as much as you planned? Well, it usually ends up that we need three times as much as we planned. We ended up going back twice for more garden soil. The dirt in our yard is awful, so we had to put a few inches along the sides of the house, and while we worked really hard last summer and the summer before to get our front garden dirt in good shape, I wanted to accent the flowers (we bought lantana for this spot) by mounding the dirt up in the center. SO, we ended up buying about 32 bags of dirt! Scott put most of the dirt out for me. I carried about 3 bags over to the side of the house and realized that I was just not cut out for that king of work! Those things weigh 40 pounds, and they were all wet! So, I planted and Scott moved dirt and we measured to get the hostas evenly spread apart. I did not finish planting on Saturday, but I did one whole side of the house. This past weekend, Scott moved about a half of a ton of dirt twice! The things he'll do for me! (sigh) I took pictures of our work in process. You can see that I got hostas planted all up one side of the house on Saturday (top picture in this section). Then, on Sunday, we got all the dirt piled up like I wanted it (next picture). Then, I just took pictures of all the plants I still had left to plant. Just in case you are wondering the plants with the little yellow flowers in the 3rd picture down in this section are Lantana (they come in many colors). I know that Judy Stringer used to plant these at their old house. I wonder if she still plants them at their new house. I have never been able to grow any as big as hers were. Then, the last picture is of the leftover hostas for the other side of the house and the calla lilies. I never knew they came in multiple colors until my neighbor Nan got some a couple of years ago. Enough about our dirt.

Scott and I had a fun night on Saturday, but we didn't spend it together! Scott and some of the other guys went to a bachelor party for Johnny Oxford. They had a lot of fun! Josh cooked a great meal for them at his house and then they all went to Dave & Busters and played pool and some other game I can't remember the name of. I went out with Lauren, Shana, and Maggie to celebrate Lauren's birthday. It was a lot of fun. We went to eat at this Mexican restaurant with the winnings from the guys' last trivia night (they won house cash), then we went back to Lauren's house and watched Dream Girls. That movie is definitely a chick flick. I was glad that I got to watch it with them because otherwise I don't think that I would have ever seen it. We had a good time. I took some pictures to commemorate the night. The last one is of mine and Shana's toes. We wanted to show how good they still look after several weeks. The sad part is that the day after we went, Lauren's french manicure was already chipped! So sad.

Sunday was a really good day as well. The message was really good. Pastor Lee has started a new sermon series called "Saved by Grace" and it is really interesting. I think that I am going to learn a lot from this series. After church, we all headed over to Roger's Bridge Park for a picnic. It was a lot of fun to fellowship with everyone outside of church. I took a bunch of pictures and they are on the slide show up on the left at the top of the blog.

I have been planting this week too. Monday I planted all but 6 of my 18 Lantana in the front of the garden, as well as 10 lily bulbs that I had purchased back in the spring and never planted. I do not know if they will grow this year if ever. I may have waited too long to plant them. The bulbs didn't look happy. Does anyone know anything about bulbs and how long they can stay in that plastic bag you buy them in? I also planted the 4 calla lilies. They like to be in wet areas and our front gardens are DEFINITELY wet! I got all the rest of the plants I wanted to plant layed out like I wanted them on the other side of the house, but didn't plant them. It had been threatening to rain all night, so I decided it wasn't going to rain. I got out the hose and watered all the stuff I just planted...I know, I am so rebellious. Then, I went inside and 5 minutes later is was pouring! Oh well. Tonight I tried to do some planting again and got half way down the side of the house and it started raining again. Such is life. I am extremely thankful for the rain. Scott checked our rain gauge and we had gotten almost an inch of rain! Yay!

I also talked to Meme this week. I knew that she hadn't really gotten much better since the day I went to see her before our trip from my sister. I feel bad for her. She apparently broke some vertebrae from coughing so much from the pneumonia. She still hasn't completely gotten rid of the pneumonia so she is on antibiotics again and her stomach is still giving her problems, so she is on probiotics. She told me on Tuesday when I spoke with her that she had taken a nap that day. Meme never takes naps. So, I think that she needs a lot of prayer. I know she is tired of being sick.

I am tired and I am glad that this week is coming to a close. This weekend promises to have some fun things in store for us as well. One of Scott's fraternity brothers and his wife, Jeff and Adriene, are expecting twin girls and we are going to a couples' shower for them! Lots of Scott's friends seem to be pregnant or have young children right now. We went to their Founder's Day (kind of like homecoming for the fraternity) over the summer at the zoo and couldn't believe how fruitful the group seemed to be.

Well, that is more than enough for now. I promise to try to make my posts shorter. If I keep making them this long, y'all will get tired of reading and stop visiting our blog. I welcome comments - especially if you know how to make a post look like it does when you are editing it once you post it to the blog. I spend so much time adding spaces here and deleting spaces there that I didn't even put there. Does anyone else have this happen?