Party Success!

So, Alyssa's party was a week ago today and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it. I've been insanely busy.
I finished up student teaching the Thursday before the party. Friday I spent the whole day baking. Saturday was spent cooking and then the party. Sunday was church and then our couple's group Christmas party. That Tuesday I graduated. That whole day was busy, busy, busy. Wednesday my mom came from my home town to go shopping. It's only an hour away, but it started freezing over while she was here, so she was stranded. I didn't complain :). Thursday we used our time wisely and went shopping again. Yesterday was Alyssa's birthday. She and I went to see my class I student taught with for their holiday party. Then we had birthday lunch with Daddy. Then she took her nap and we ordered pizza and had birthday cake. My "little" (not so little anymore... almost 21) cousin came to celebrate with us. Then today, we took the birthday girl to the aquarium. Whew!

Okay, back to the party. I ended up making most of the stuff. I wasn't pleased with the cake at all. I was this close to just chucking it and going to Kroger, but I spent $25 on that stupid cake pan.












I was not impressed at all.

I also make the cupcakes, which I ran out of time on. I wasn't thrilled with them either, but they'll do.










I, however, LOVED her shirt and tutu. I made both of them too! They came out exactly as I had planned! I think cake decorating can be left to someone else haha.













I was told about a friend of a friend, who has now become a friend (follow that?) who had some awesome party ideas for me. She's the one that told me about the balloon wreath. She had a ton of great ideas, but I decided not to go overboard since we had it at an indoor place that was already decorated. She was nice enough to make 2 dozen beautiful sugar cookies and a banner, though. I am eternally greatful for that. Seriously. They were amazing. You can read about them here at her blog.

I did learn a few things from this experience.
1) I will never attempt a home made cake again for a special occassion. A few friends made it look totally simple. I'll leave that to them haha.
2) I have great friends :).
3) I'll be buying most things next year. I won't go overboard and be Super Mommy. My mother in law actually had to come rescue me the morning of the party before I went insane.

Anyways, I'm going to wrap this up because I'm super tired.

Happy (belated in blog land) Birthday to my sweet little Alyssa!

The Amazing Shutterfly...

Have you checked out Shutterfly lately?

They have some awesome Christmas cards. And believe me, I shopped around.d Shutterfly has been my favorite by far. We will definitely be ordering through them. And lucky me... I found this promotion to get 50 free cards just for blogging about them. How lucky is that?

Here are a few of my favorites:





























I love this one. It's very bright and colorful. I like bright and colorful. Hubby will probably think it's too "childish" but what's he know? ;-)
































I love this one because of the meaning behind it. Jesus is the reason for the season :).


















Simple, but elegant. I think this one is my favorite.



I've used Shutterfly in the past for Photo Books and was very impressed!
With Alyssa's birthday coming up very quickly, I've also got my eyes on the thank you cards.
I'm also thinking that these calendars would be a good gift in the future.

I definitely advise you to check them out for your future photo purchases. I have been very pleased with all their products I've received so far.

Which style is your favorite? Check out their collection for yourself. You may just fall in love :).

Five Question Friday... Better Late Than Never

1. What is your favorite part of a Thanksgiving meal?

Food wise, I'd have to say my freaking awesome sweet potato casserole.

But in general, it was seeing Ally Kate enjoy the meal like a big girl. This was her last first holiday, so it was bitter sweet. She loved all of her food. But her favorite was the same as mine. What can I say? I make a mean sweet potato casserole.

2. Are you a host or a guest for Thanksgiving this year?

Host.

We had planned on having 18 people over - me, hubby, Ally Kate, my mom, my dad, my brother, my SIL, niece, nephew, my other brother, my other niece, my MIL, my FIL, my SIL, her boyfriend, other niece, and other 2 nephews.

It turns out that Ally Kate woke up that morning at 3;30 am gasping for air. Scared the bajeebus outta Mommy and Daddy, let me tell you! We were at the children's hospital within 10 minutes. But what do you know? They are CLOSED! She was actually better by the time we got there, so we decided to come home and see if we could get her to drink some fluids before we decided to go to the ER. Hubby got smart and Googled "wheezing in infants." What do you know? Croup is the first thing that comes up. It sounded exactly like what she had. So, we followed their guidelines of a steamy shower and humidifier and got her back to sleep.

When we informed our families later that day, my one brother, SIL and other SIL decided not to expose their kids to it. So, it ended up only being 9 people. It was definitely more relaxing that way, but I felt awfully bad about it :-/.

3. When you think of one Thanksgiving tradition, what comes to mind?

My Daddy's dressing lol. My granny used to make it for our Thanksgiving get togethers. Then when she got too sick, my aunt started making it. Then when Granny died, we stopped getting together for Thanksgiving, so my Daddy makes it now. It's freaking delicious! This year, he made a pan for our get together, a pan for my brother, and a pan for me!! I was so excited.

4. You have two pieces of pie in front of you and you HAVE to eat one...do you choose pumpkin or pecan?

Ick. Give me apple, please. I never even liked sweet potatoes until very recently when I was forced to eat them because they came in our farmers market basket haha.

5. Are you a Black Friday Shopper?

Not a part of the morning crowd. No way. We tried that one year and I will probably never do it again. That was nuts. All to save a few bucks. I'd rather spend the extra money to be shopping with the "normal people" ;-). And stay nice and toasty in my bed.

BUT we did venture to Costco last night and it was almost bare in there. Guess all the crazies were at home in bed haha. We did get a Magic Bullet for $32. Woo! I'm excited, but too lazy to wash it :-/.

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I'm hoping to get back into the hang of this blogging thing since I'm not consumed in lesson plans anymore. I don't think I ever mentioned it on here, but I started student teaching in August. I'm with a 3rd grade class at a school VERY close to my house. I absolutely love the kids, but am SO glad I don't have to write lesson plans anymore. I kid you not when I say I turned in 40 pages of lesson plans for ONE WEEK! College requirements are a bit ridiculous, don't you think?
Anyways, I have 8 more days with my little rats and then I get to go back to being a SAHM / craft-a-holic!

Balloon Wreath

Ally Kate's 1st birthday is quickly approaching. I've made it my mission to do a few DIY things for it. First up is this balloon wreath. It was super simple. I just followed the tutorial from How Does She?. I will warn you that it takes a ton of balloons, though.
I love the way it turned out.

Still need to do:
* A cupcake shirt
* A tutu
* A giant cupcake cake
* Cupcake Bites

May also make:
* Cute shoes

New Signature

Eeeep... I have a new signature. Do ya like it? Huh? I sparkly pink heart it.

5 Question Friday

It's Friday! It's Friday!! Golly Gee it's Friday!! Can you see my excitement in my overuse of exclamation marks?? Random question: Why do SAHMs get excited about Fridays? I'm not really sure why I'm excited except that I know my hubby will be home for 2 whole days with me. I better soak this in since I only have 2 weeks before I will really get excited about Fridays. Ugh so not looking forward to that.

Anyways, not a lot on the agenda for this weekend. The in-laws are coming over tonight to see the baby and my friend is coming over to hang out tomorrow night while her fiance is at his bachelor party.

Oh... I've found a new interest. Painting! Only I can't just paint at home. I would super suck at that. I need to pay $35 for someone to tell me step-by-step how to paint my picture haha. I did it Saturday night and painted a bunch 'o alcoholic drinks (but mine are really non-alcoholic drinks in pretty glasses ;-)). Then last night I painted a precious guardian angel holding a baby. I super dee duper love that one! It'll go in either my room or Allie Kate's room.

Okay, on to five question Friday. I have secretly been looking forward to this all week and got a little sad yesterday when I went looking for it and realized it was only Thursday. Drats. Oh well, on the the goods.


Questions for Friday, July 30th:
1. Did you have a favorite blanket or toy as a kid? If so, do you still have it?
I actually didn't. And I'm glad I didn't. Sorry, but you guys who had to take your dingy, worn-out blanket to college are a bit insane in my book lol. Okay, not really, but I'm glad I don't have that kind of attachment to anything.

But I secretly hope Allie Kate gets attached to something. She hasn't shown any signs yet, but I think it's so super cute to see a baby carrying her favorite toy around.

Double standard, much?

2. Do you dream in color?
Totally. I'm cool like that.

Hubby never remembers his dreams and I think that's a little weird. I have extremely vivid dreams. And they turned into High Def dreams when Allie Kate took up residency in my uterus. Pregnancy dreams are like you're THERE. If you have a dream that you're running a marathon, by golly you'll be drenched in sweat and out of breath when you wake up.

My most vivid dreams lately have all involved positive pregnancy tests and lots of sobbing lol.

3. How tall are you? Do you wish you were shorter or taller?
I'm 5'8"-ish.

I wish I was shorter. I always have. Reaching things that are up high is nice, but that's why they invented step stools. I wanna be 5'5". I'd be happy with that. Who wants my 3 inches?

4. If you could have anyone's (celeb or other) voice as the guide on your GPS, who would it be?
I choose Kellie Pickler. I heart country twang lol.

5. Do you return your shopping cart to the corral or leave it wherever in the parking lot?
I do. But I didn't when Allie Kate was an itty bitty baby because I didn't want to leave her in the car to go find a corral. Now I just leave her in the cart and let her ride to the corral.

On another totally random note, how in the heck is it logical to have expectant mother parking but not new mom parking? I was totally loving the expectant mom parking when Allie lived in my belly, but dude.. shopping while your baby is all cozy and warm in your belly is muuuuuuch easier than removing a carseat, positioning it on the cart, shopping while entertaining a baby, returning to your car that's out in BFE, putting the carseat and baby back in the car and then taking the stupid cart back. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Step off the soap box, Amanda. >.<

This post is being linked to My Little Life.

First Word

Allie Kate said her first word last Friday night (July 23rd). Hubby was playing with her, she giggled and looked right at him and said, "Dad-dee!" It was so cute and so plain :). We were both beyond shocked.
Then yesterday (July 28th), Hubby came home and picked her up. She promptly said, "Dada!" I think it's official... she's said her first word!!

In other news, I made a cute little shirt for a special little girl's second birthday! It's a Dora party and this is what I came up with :).

wooo-hoooo it's Friday!! I <3 weekends.
Here's something I stole from My Little Five.

Rules for Five Question Friday: Copy and paste the following questions to your blog post, answer them (like, totally, duh!), then c'mon back to link up! If you don't have a blog, feel free to leave your answers in the comments of this post or any post along the way!

Questions for Friday, July 23rd:

1. What were your school colors?
My high school colors were maroon and silver. And my college colors are gold and black. I think. I may be wrong lol. Got spirit? Let's hear it! Umm, totally lacking in that department, my friend. I did dress up for senior week in high school, but only because it was fun to dress up with my friends. I could care less about the school spirit.

2. What's the best compliment you ever received?
Before Alli Kate arrived, I would have said it was when I was working in a daycare and a mom told me I've made a huge difference in her child's life. Whew, that kid was a handful at only 2 years old. I gave him lots of love and attention and he finally stopped acting out for attention. It really touched me when she said that.

But now that Alli Kate is here, I get the best compliment quite often. When people say she's beautiful, I am so extremely proud. I always think, "Hey... I MADE THAT!!" And she is quite adorable, if I do say so myself.

3. Do you buy cheap or expensive toilet paper?
Thank God for Costco memberships! Hubby man used to make me buy the cheap stuff, but we totally get the Charmin Ultra Plush (I think... I know it's amazing lol) now and I'll never go back. Angel Soft out the window! My mom buys Scott and ugh, my butt is not happy when we visit.

4. Have you ever had a surprise party thrown for you? Or have you had one for someone else?
I had a surprise baby shower thrown for me. Does that count? I expected it to happen, but was surprised at the actual timing of it. I'm so clueless too. I walked in and saw all the decorations and people and it didn't click with me for a while. Not till I saw the gifts and big stork cake. Duh.

I've also thrown a few surprise showers. We're in a couples group through our church and we try to always do surprise showers. Well, our hosts are now expecting and I wanted to give them the same surprise, but didn't want it to be at their house obviously. So I took it upon myself to open my house up for 25 people and did it last weekend. It was a success and they were thoroughly surprised :).

I want to throw hubby man a surprise 30th party but shhhh don't tell him ;-). And I secretly would love one for myself.

5. What is one material possession that you "can't live without"?
Hmmm either my laptop or my phone. Not sure which. Probably my laptop, but my mom would kill me if she heard me say that since we only talk via phone. Sorry Mom. You'd just have to get with the 21st century and invest in a computer.

Workin for the Money...

As I was surfing through the blog world, I saw a post about a certain blogger's past job experiences and I thought it would be neat to write all of mine down too :). So, here goes:

1. Sales Representative : The Shoe Department
This was at the store called The Shoe Department. It pretty much sucked. I only liked it because I got out of school early to get go to work and get paid. Who could really complain about that? I'll never forget my boss stopping me one night right after we closed and saying, "It seems like you're only using this job to get your grade." Amen, Brother! I quit as soon as the school year was over :). I'm not a commission type person. I think that's mostly because my husband is slowly turning my into an anti-impulse buyer. I hate making my money based on how many people buy from me that day. I hate pushy sales people, so I pretty much sucked at this job lol.

2. Daycare Worker: PP
I was hired, bought my scrubs that were required, and never showed up. Oops. My friend scared me a little by telling me what it was really like to work there. There were cameras for the parents to watch the kids on the internet. Great, right? Well, apparently the workers would just go where the cameras didn't see to punish the kids. I wanted no part of that junk.

3. Afternoon Teacher : First Baptist
I would come in after school my senior year and watch 8 2-year-olds all by myself and I absolutely loved it. This was possibly my favorite job ever. My good friend worked in the other 2-year-old room right next to me, so we went to playtimes together and it was wonderful. I still remember those kids and how much fun I had with them. Every day when I woke little Will up, he'd say, "Good morning, Miss Amanda. It's a beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeautiful day." It made my heart happy. Jackson would chase Sean around the playground singing, "Seany, Seany, Seany, Seany, Sean," in this deep voice that was hilarious. I could go on and on about these kids, but I'll leave you with this one last note. The little Will that gave me the most wonderful greeting every day was a very hyperactive kid when I first started working there. He was my "problem child." I made it my mission to give him extra attention that he needed. He was far above the other kids in terms of development and just got bored with the 2-year-old curriculum. I'll never ever forget one day when his mom walked in and told me that Will was being much better at home and she thinks it was because of me ::insert super big happy face here::.
I quit this job to move an hour away for college.

4. Cashier : on-campus Bookstore
I guess I never technically worked here, but I applied, went to orientation, realized the boss is a major B, and never showed up. Woooops.

5. Afternoon Teacher : Primrose Schools
I was in the Older Toddlers room. I loved it except for the workplace drama. And my trouble kid. He was constantly turning bookshelves over, climbing on the sinks, biting, and arrrrrgh. It was just too much for one person to have 8 kids when you are required to change every single diaper every 2 hours and wash their hands even if they aren't wet. I had to quit when I didn't show up due to double pneumonia and ended up in the hospital for almost a month.

6. Cashier : Office Depot
A few words of advice -- NEVER apply to Office Depot right before back to school sales start. I lasted maybe 3 or 4 months there. I'm NOT a retail person.

7. Sales : Linens N Things
I worked through one training session and called the hubby on the way home saying I'd never step foot back in that place as an employee. And I didn't. Nothing was wrong with the people. It just wasn't the job for me. I repeat - I am NOT a retail person. I have no interest in selling you sheets.

8. After School Program Teacher : 3rd grade
I LOVED this job. It was just too far away. I absolutely loved the 3rd graders each year. I think I was there 2.5 years. I cried when I quit lol. It was just too far of a drive, gas was outrageous, and I would soon be starting TOSS (pre- student teaching) anyways.

9. TOSS - First Grade
This wasn't technically a job. I didn't get paid a penny, but it was the same amount of work as a full time job, so I'm including it. I loved working with the first graders. A friend TOSSed in the room next to mine and we were able to do most everything together. It was pretty fabulous.

10. Stay at Home Mom
This is by far the most rewarding job of them all. Also the most tiring. It's totally not true that SAHMs get to sit at home watching talk shows and eating bon bons. My little Alli Kate keeps me on my toes for sure.

There ya go. I don't think I forgot any. It's pretty sad that I've had 10 "jobs" before I'm 25. Maybe I should be embarrassed. Naaaaaaaaah.
I'm very sad that I'll be leaving Alli to go student teach in just a few short weeks, but I will return to my SAHM employment in December.

How many jobs have you had?

Grand Opening

Hi. I'm Amanda. I'm glad you found my blog.
I'm very excited to announce the grand opening of my Etsy shop -- Cheerful Children. CC is a custom kids boutique. So far I've made clippies, hairbows, tutus, and appliqued shirts for it. I'm excited to continue making these things and also expand a bit to other things.

Anyways, I suppose I could tell you about myself. I'm a SAHM for now. I'll be starting student teaching in a few short weeks and will have to leave the munchkin at home ::insert sad face::.

This is me, Momma Bear:









This is the Baby Bear:












There is a Daddy Bear too. Here we all are together:








I'll be using this blog for lots of stuff and hope you'll follow along.