Showing posts with label gift. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gift. Show all posts

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Happy Fifth Birthday Evelyn!





And Happy Thirty-third Birthday Steve!

The actual day of birth for Steve and E was yesterday but we were having too much fun at Chuck E. Cheese to bother to come post on the blog. It was just Mel's kids and I kept my kids home from school. We ate pizza and cake, danced and played arcade games all afternoon. G's soccer practice was cancelled and Steve made it home by 7 PM so we took him out to Austin's Restaurant & Bar for dinner. Unfortunately we were all too stuffed to have a piece of his chocolate peanut butter birthday cake so we decided to save it for tonight.

Gifts: E got the movie Barbie Fairytopia: Magic of the Rainbow and a Magic of the Rainbow doll that also is the dvd controller for an interactive dvd game. Steve got tickets to see Bill Cosby live in June and I sent a balloon bouquet and a box of choclates to him at work. He was in meetings with a customer all morning and when he came out he said he couldn't figure out how everyone knew it was his birthday - at least not until he got to his desk and saw the balloons.

Because I know your day won't be complete with out it, here are some pics from CEC:





Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

My sister and I like to get our kids' pictures taken for our mother's birthday. We don't make it every year but we try to make it fairly often. Here are the results from this years' efforts. I also had the photographer take individual pictures of my kids for my living room.

Click for the full size.
















Monday, March 26, 2007

Happy Fifty Years!


My husband's mother celebrated her fiftieth year of life this weekend. Her actual birth date was Friday and we (by we I mean Steve, his sister Stacey and his father. BIL John and I stayed out of it LOL) planned a surprise party for her on Saturday. Steve's dad hired a caterer, I bought decorations, Steve picked up the drinks and Stacey gathered old photos and made awesome collages. All of MIL's sisters and brothers showed up and she was well and truly surprised.

Unfortunately there was a mix up with the caterer. He was supposed to be there at 4. Guests were due to arrive at 4:30 and MIL was coming at 5. By quarter of five there was still no sign of the caterer and no one was answering the phone. Steve started calling local grocery stores to see if they had some hot food in the deli and Stacey and I were trying to think of where we could get some veggies for a tray or what else we could buy, prepare and serve in a very short amount of time. MIL pulled up to the building and about thirty seconds after that the caterer showed up. My FIL was happily moving around the kitchen saying, "Right on time" and because I was irritated with the caterer and feeling a little snarky I mumbled, "Yeah right on time... an hour later." I guess I mumbled it a little louder than I thought because as we were hustling to get the food set out the caterer said something about a 5PM delivery time. That's the point where my FIL admitted he'd been the one to mix up the timing. I guess he kept thinking MIL would be there at five and that's what came out of his mouth when he called. Oh well, it worked, we had food and very fresh, hot food at that.

For Christmas I had given MIL some earrings with a leverback finding. I didn't realize how much she likes that kind of finding but since I gave her the earrings she's mentioned it almost every time I see her. So I knew I had to get some more leverbacks and make more earrings for her.

These were S3's favorite of the bunch. He thought they suited his grandmother the most. They're made with brass beads, vermeil findings and faceted smoky quartz coins.




These are Swarovski crystals - a rondell with clear and 4mm Pacific Opal AB bicones. Findings and round beads are sterling.



These are blue goldstone (imitation) and 4mm Swarovski Shadow Crystal AB bicones. The findings and round beads are sterling. I wish you could see the depth to the blue goldstone. It's impossible to photograph but if you look closely at the left earring or you click here you can get somewhat of a feel for the sparkle.




These last pair are my favorites. I've had the pink faceted teardrops since the very first beadshow I attended all those years ago so I'm not sure exactly what they are. I paired them with 4mm Swarovski pink bicones and sterling round beads. The findings are all sterling as well. I didn't want to give her this pair LOL!

Monday, February 26, 2007

You're A Keeper

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but I'm not big on holidays in general and I've never been terribly romantic. That's not to say I don't like romance; I'm just not good at coming up with romantic ideas and sometimes I have trouble appreciating my husband's romantic gestures. Steve is an incurable romantic which is not something I think most people would suspect about him. Years ago he used to buy me a dozen red roses for Valentine's Day and another half dozen for each of our mothers. Finally I forbade him to do it anymore. I told him I could think of a lot better ways to spend $50 than on flowers. See, not very romantic am I?

Anyway, two days after Valentine's Day one of our kids ended up getting sick and being the good man that he is, he ran to WalMart for medicine in the middle of the night. He came home and told me he had a present for me. This is what I found in the bag:


One of the things I love best about this man is his sense of humor.

Friday, February 16, 2007

The Best Birthday Ever

Sometimes I think G gets lost in the shuffle, being number three out of four kids and so I wanted to make sure her birthday was as fantastic as she'd been imagining it would be. On her actual birthday she wanted a cake to take to school with her picture on it.













After school I took her to a pottery painting place which ended up being a total trip. The owner of the shop didn't acknowledge us when we walked in the door and when she finally did ask if we were there to paint and we said yes, she just waved her hand and said, "Go ahead." I had to ask her what specifically we were supposed to do as we'd never been there before. Ty had a couple of really good questions about the whole process and even though he stood next to her when he asked the questions, she completely ignored him. While we were painting she was talking to a guy about business being slow and barely making the rent and I could only think, "Gee I wonder why." (Insert sarcasm here) But we didn't let it ruin our fun and Grace painted a fantastic little mermaid. They've finished firing it and I'm going to go pick it up tomorrow.

She wanted ribs for dinner so my in-laws drove up and we met them at TGIFriday's for dinner where G had two orders of ribs. On the ride home she moaned that her tummy hurt. I guess so!

The next day we got a phone call from G's friend V. Her family had gotten their hands on some last minute tickets to see Monsters, Inc. On Ice and wanted to know if G could go along with them. I sent her with $40 - twenty for dinner and twenty for some sort of souvenir. She came home with $4 change and told me for dinner she'd had cotton candy, icees, popcorn, Sprite...



Then we planned her birthday party for today. She is always fascinated when I have my toenails done and since last summer she's said she wanted to have a pedicure for her birthday. We invited two girls from her class (V and C) to come to the mall with us and have a pedicure party. I realized afterward that they were like Charlie's Angels or something - blonde, redhead and brunette. I know there are a ton of pictures but they were just so cute and the people in the nail salon were so tickled to have them there that I went a little camera mad.






That scrub they do on your feet really does tickle a LOT!






I thought this was so cute! What typical girls, having themselves a little goss.


C knew exactly what she wanted done to her toes and she was not shy about it.


They were all ready for the bathroom by the time it came to getting their nails dried. I had to do a lot of talking and picture taking to get them to sit there LOL!


The guy who did their toes was so into this birthday party thing. He posed them for this picture.




They held hands all the way to the upstairs food court and jumped over all the dark tiles.


They were starved and Steve was asking them if they wanted just one fry or one chicken nugget. They were telling him that they wanted one of everything on the menu.


Gift time! Both her friends must know her well because she got crafty stuff and makeup.


I put together a little foam craft kit for them to make and fill with their goodies. I had a foam magic princess wand kit for each of them but we ran out of time. Who knew four hours wouldn't be enough?




I wanted them to pose for this cute picture but...


They wanted to pose for this picture.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Holiday Party

Here's another thing I can share with you now that we know that Steve will be staying with his current employer... This year marks his tenth year of employment. The HR director called me a month ago and asked me what Steve would like for his ten-year gift. She gave me a dollar amount and told me it was supposed to be a surprise. Well there's no way I'm going to pick out his ten-year gift without his input so together we decided on a cantered hutch for our dining room made by our friends, the D's. They own a furniture store in a nearby town. We helped them in very little ways when they got started several years ago as friends are wont to do. Ed has said that he'd like to give us a dining room set as a thank you but Steve and I were never really very comfortable accepting such a lavish gift. As it turns out when we ordered the cantered hutch, Ed happened to have a return on a table. He is insistent that we accept the table and four chairs (we'll have to order a couple more to fit our family) and he's finishing my cantered hutch to match the table and chairs. So in a round-about way we're getting a whole brand-new dining room set! Now I'm trying to talk Steve into restoring our floors while all the furniture is out. At the very least I've talked him into redecorating the downstairs rooms.

What does all this have to do with the Holiday Party? Well that's when they'll present Steve with his "surprise." It's a fun party with good food and a DJ and I get all dolled up. Unfortunately we didn't know what his employment status was going to be so I did agree to work the weekend of the party but I'm going to see if I can get that night off and if not we'll at least go for the dinner part. He doesn't really like to dance anyway.

I did get a dress today. Steve drove so he could give me his opinion and I took four dresses with me into the dressing room. The first one I tried on was acceptable but not fantastic. The second dress, he wasn't crazy about the stuff at the bottom but when I put on the third and stepped out of the dressing room his eyes lit up. He really liked the third dress and when I said I was going to try on the fourth he said, "Don't bother." It's nice to be able to make your husband's eyes light up like that.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Our Favorite Gifts

Look Ma, I'm upright! The Wednesday before Christmas I'd worked and one of my residents coughed right into my face. I should have known I was in for it. Yesterday I was starting to feel better so we went out and today I finally uploaded Christmas pictures. Took me long enough, hey?

S3 asked my mom and dad for a new skateboard for Christmas this year and the little stinkhead found the receipt from CCS a few weeks before the big day. I told my parents and my dad emailed that he had something evil planned for boys who sneak around and figure out their presents. So the day we celebrated Christmas with them rolled around and my nephew opened a tall thin package with his custom skateboard inside. S3 and Ty opened their tall thin pacakages and found old scooters inside. Shortly after I heard Steve say to Ty, "Try not to pout," and Ty reply, "I know but I just really wanted a skateboard." After a while my dad brought out two more tall thin packages. When Ty opened his this time he found his custom skateboard inside but S3.... Well this is what he pulled out of his package:

Later my dad relented and gave S3 his actual board. Poor Ty was more upset over the whole gag anyway since (as S3 put it) S3 was sure he'd get his board eventually. Brat.







Steve gave my dad some disgusting looking gummy eyeballs.










My children gave me Elvis for Christmas. It's one of those glass blocks with the three-dimensional picture inside. It sits on a base that alternates between red and blue lights.

Steve surprised me with an auto detailing package for my van which is absolutely perfect since I have become the clean van nazi ever since we bought the new one.












Chef E is going to cook us all sorts of meals.






















G pulled out the pottery wheel today for the first time. I don't think she did half bad for her first attempt.














And of course, the ring that I knew I was getting. It's such a shame to put such a pretty ring on such ugly fingers but hey, something has to be done to make them look better.







I gave Steve a money clip with his initials engraved on it since he doesn't like to carry a wallet anymore and a new golf bag. Ok really, I think my dad should get the credit for the golf bag. Sometime in November he emailed me and said, "Hey remember when we were talking about that gift idea for Steve?" I was totally baffled. Even after he reminded me of his idea (he'd noticed Steve needed a new bag one of the times they went golfing together) I still didn't remember the conversation. Anyway, Dad picked out the bag, hid it at his house and then when Steve was in Italy he even delivered it to my house with a large plastic bag to "wrap" it in. Pretty much all I did was stuff it behind my tree for a few days and then pull it out and say, "Ta-Da!" If you ask Steve what his favorite gift was this Christmas he'll tell you the bag but I know really it's the bluetooth headset my parents gave him for his cell phone.

I think it's going to take a whole different post to tell you about the DDR that Ty got...