A Birthday and a Graduation

August has been a busy month for us and at the beginning of the month we celebrated my birthday and the hubbs' graduation.

This year I was dreading my birthday. It meant that I'm that much closer to my 30's. I don't want my 20's to end. They have been an absolute blast! No one was going to let the day slip by no matter how much I tried. Jayla was the main one not letting me forget that it was approaching.

The hubbs took Jayla shopping for my birthday and my little girlie girl took Daddy down the make-up isle. While they were shopping in the make-up isle Jayla got quite the kick out of it because Daddy doesn't know anything about make-up. Surprisingly, they bought me BB cream in the correct shade.

My mom got me a new stand mixer seeing how I blew the motor in mine at Christmas time. I was pretty excited about that, I have been missing my mixer.

She also surprised me with a cake and she just had to put the infamous clown on it. Let me tell you about these clowns, they are old, older then me. I don't like clowns and I despise those clowns that they put on every cake that they can for me. They think they are hilarious when they do that. I'm not amused. I'm actually surprised that they didn't find their way to my wedding cake.

My wonderful bestie, Sarah from With Dirt On Our Face sent me a birthday surprise! She wasn't going to let by birthday slip on by either. What are friends are! I was seriously surprised when the package arrived! I also decorated my own cup with out realizing it. She is a sneaky one!

Overall I had a nice relaxing birthday and I'm excited to see what 28 brings my way.

Now onto the graduation. A few days after my birthday my husband graduation with an AA in Applied Science with a concentration on Welding. He graduated with a 4.0 GPA. I couldn't be more proud of him. After he graduated he landed a postition teaching welding at our local College. He is quite excited about that. While he was in school he discovered that is something that he really wanted to do and now he can. Between his normal job in the day and teaching 3 evenings a week I hardly ever see him.

 (ins't my grandma the cutest?)

Playing with Macro

Last December I bought these lens filters to play around with macro to see if I liked it before I decided to invest in a macro lens.

Once they arrived I took them out of their package and stuck them in my camera bag and that is where they sat until last month and I'm not all that thrilled with them. You have to find their "sweet" spot in order to get them to cooperate but for the money I spent, I'm not complaining too much about them.

My grandma has a beautiful yard with flowers and plants everywhere. I knew her yard would be the perfect place to play with the lens filters.

Grandma's house is my favorite place to be. It's relaxing, quiet, and the stress just melts away when I'm there. It's seriously my heaven on earth so I'm going to share a few pictures with you that I took in her yard.

Easter Sunday

Easter is one of my favorite holidays.It's such a humbling celebration as we think about the amazing sacrifices made for us! It's also filled with candy, family, and good food. It's a bit more of a laid back holiday for our family where we have more of a chance to sit back and just enjoy each other.

This Easter was a bit more hectic then normal as we were trying to prepare to leave for Florida the next day.

Normally, I dye a ton of eggs. Enough for my grandma, mom, mother-in-law, and us all to have some left over. I only did 18 eggs this year. I didn't want to make a huge mess after all the cleaning and packing I did. 

I kept it simple and picked up 3 packets of Kool-Aid to dye our eggs with. I had never dyed eggs using Kool-Aid and was praying that it worked so I didn't have to rush out and get a kit. 

The colors came out pretty! I thought the fruit punch was going to be blue because it's in a blue package, nope, it was red. I guess if I would have actually thought of it most fruit punch is red. Oh well, life goes on and nut-nut didn't care. 

The eggs did smell really good using the Kool-Aid!

 She was serious about them eggs but hated waiting for them to color. She is just like her mama and lacks some patience. 

 I think the eggs turned out pretty good for just using water and a packet of Kool-Aid. The grape Kool-Aid turned the eggs a greyish color but once they dried they had blue speckles all over them. Jayla thought they were eggs from a Robin. I can't wait to try more colors next year!

On Easter morning Jayla was a little too excited to find the eggs and her basket. She had me up a bit earlier then I had planned and a lot of my pictures showed it, they were pretty blurry and out of focus. I'm just not a morning person.

I think she woke up in the middle of the night and scoped out where her basket was because she had no issues finding it!

I didn't do a whole lot of candy this year and gave stuff that she could take on the road with her. I thought it would be mean to give her a basket full of candy and then make her leave it behind for a week. Plus, she really doesn't need all that candy.

    

 Once the hunt at home was over we got ready and headed off to church. She has officially taken over my spot at church. Wedged right between my Grandma and Grandpa. Little seat-jacker! Not sure why she looks so pissed.

Ok, I'm going to trail off a bit here but this is just too funny not to share.

After church Grandma wanted to ride with us to her house so she didn't have to wait on Grandpa to count the money. No biggie, we are all going to her house anyways. Half way up the road she says that she doesn't have keys to get in. Once again, no biggie, I have a key to her house. Once we get there I notice that her car isn't there(Grandpa had the truck)and asked her where it was. She says,"Oh shit!! It's at church!" Yep, Grandma drove to church and completely forgot! Bless it!

Grandma and Grandpa always hide plastic eggs at their house filled with money and Jayla was quite excited to have a little extra money for Florida. 

  

  After we eat Easter dinner we play our traditional game of Dippy. Dippy is actually a Greek tradition but I'm not sure what the actual name of the game is. We have always just called it Dippy and no in the family is actually Greek.From what I have been told my Grandma grew up playing Dippy as a child. You pick an egg and you smash the end of your egg into the end of the person's egg beside you and you go around to each person smashing the end of the eggs. The person who has an end that isn't cracked wins. 
If you look in the carton you can see all the smashed tops. 

 What are some of your Easter traditions? Have you ever played Dippy or something similar?

Sunday Social

Good Morning! I'm linking up with Neely and Ashley for my first Social Sunday!

1. Top 3 favorite kinds of food:

• Italian
• Mexican
• Anything my Grandma cooks    

2. First 3 things you do in the morning:

• Use the bathroom
• Get something to drink
• Brush my teeth

3. Last 3 things you do at night:

• Take the dog out
• Wash my face
• Brush my teeth

4. 3 TV shows you never miss:

• Grey's Anatomy
• New Girl
• Son's of Anarchy

5. 3 Places you want to visit

• Paris
• Italy
• Greece 

6. 3 People you can always count on

• My hubbs
• My mom
• My best friend  

Happies and Crappies

I'm fashionably late on this one but I've joined my first link up! Happies and Crappies with Stephanie and Sarah. Love the idea! The button is pretty cute too. Can never go wrong with glitter.

Happies:

• Nut-nut had a few extra days off from preschool so we got more cuddle time.
• Celebrated my husbands 32nd birthday
• Got to spend time with my Grandma. I just adore her.
• Made my first ice cream cake ever and it was amazing!
• Jayla has been extra loving.
• I got to sleep in one day this week. That rarely ever happens. 
• Had lunch with some great friends

Crappies:

• It rained for 2 weeks straight and was really cold
• The weather teased me with a chance of snow. I really want snow.
• The medicine I'm having to take has my hormones out of whack.
• My husband started back to school so I'm without him 3 nights a week
• I spent way to much grocery shopping this week. I hate spending money

Finally Friday

It's finally Friday! Yay! It seriously felt like the weekend was taking it's sweet little time to get here.

I like Friday's, it's payday! Even if we are broke again by the end of the weekend. 

Friday mornings tend to be a little hectic between grocery shopping, paying bills, and trying to get the groceries all put away before I have to pick Jayla up from preschool. By the time I pick her up, I'm slap wore out!

Jayla is going to spend the weekend with grandma so mommy and daddy are going out on a date night this weekend! Woohoo! I love date night with my hubbs.

Saturday morning my bestie is having me take pictures of her and her whole family.When I say whole family, I mean the whole family. We are talking parents, brother, sister-in-law, the whole shebang.  A tad bit nervous about doing it. I am not a photographer, nor do I ever claim to be. I'm just a mom with a camera. Wish me luck on that adventure!

Here is a pic of my little nut-nut before we headed off to preschool this morning. Isn't she a doll? Love that girl to pieces

 

Hope ya'll have a great weekend! Any special plans for the weekend?