Party planning wreck!

Someone please tell me why planning a party for your child's 1st birthday is so stressful. Granted, I probably shouldn't have waited until 2 weeks before to send out an evite or decide on a theme or food or favors or what kind of cake to order or if I want to try and make a cake that won't embarrass myself or my daughter years later or games to play for a crowd of mostly adults but still kid-friendly or music and DEEP BREATH!!!!!!!!!!!!! And how on Earth did the number of guests attending manage to approach 30 and where am I going to put 30 people in my house and where are they going to sit and do we have enough toilet paper for 30 people to use over the course of 2 hours and oh my God the party is Saturday and the only thing I have accomplished is buying decorations with matching plates, cups, and napkins (of which I only bought 16!!!) and a balloon bouquet from the party store! I am seriously bordering on a panic attack reminiscent of planning my wedding which left me covered in hives from head to toe and I really don't want to go through that again. And I only had final veto power because I had pretty much stressed myself out with all the decisions to the point that I just turned everything over to Doug and my mom. Dr. S., where are you with your prescription pad when I need you???

I am trying to relax and take deep breaths and make yet another list so everything will seem less daunting. Here is what I have left to do by Saturday:

1. Go to grocery store for everything involved in baking a cake and about 3 dozen cupcakes. We're going to have everyone decorate their own to take home as favors. Cute idea or no?

2. Also at the grocery store, buy everything involved in making our own meat, cheese, veggie, and possibly fruit trays. Maybe I can combine the fruit and veggies. Ugh! No more decisions! See. It's not even the big ones that get me.

3. Bake cake and cupcakes. Baking is the easy part. It's the decorating I'm worried about.

4. Make tons of buttercream for cake and cupcakes. Without leaving my kitchen covered in powdered sugar.

5. Shop for a birthday outfit for Sydney.

6. Shop for favor bags.

7. Shop for kid-friendly yet adultworthy music. I'm thinking Barenaked Ladies.

8. Pick up balloon bouquet from party store. This should be easy as the balloons are already picked out and paid for. Let's just hope they don't deflate in the cold weather when I pick them up.

9. Figure out games to play. I'm at a loss here. Any ideas?

Tuesday musings

Happy Tuesday y’all! Wow. I’m not usually a morning person so this cheeriness I have going on right now is throwing me off a bit. I can’t even blame it on caffeine seeing as how all I have ingested this morning is water and 2 whole grain strawberry poptarts in wang hat free wrappers.

Anyway, I returned to the gym yesterday after work and was less than thrilled at what I saw upon my ascension upstairs. ROWS AND ROWS of people on every last elliptical, stairthingy, and treadmill. I made one lap around to make sure I didn’t miss an opening and thankfully, THANKFULLY, there was a treadmill available on the far right side, second from the end, which puts my jiggly bottom out of direct sight of all the beautiful people climbing away behind me. See, this end of the floor has offices and equipment rooms off to the side so there are fewer machines in back behind the treadmills. I gravitate towards this area when at all possible! I know. I have some serious issues when it comes to body acceptance. I was working on it and dealing pretty well with the help of the girls over at Elastic Waist, but then on December 31st they announced that the site would be no more because our economy was in the crapper. I mourned for all of 10 minutes because I would miss their witty commentary and openness about their body issues which pretty much parallel mine. Then I linked to other blogging sites where they would be contributing and felt better that I wasn’t being cut off for good. It is nice to know there are others out there sharing the same issues and seeing that it is possible to give the world the finger sometimes because you don’t feel like you conform to their standards, and that being you is totally and 100% OK. One day I hope to be able to do that.

Rant over. Sorry. Didn’t mean to go there. What I was trying to say was that I ran a 5k on the treadmill yesterday in just about the same time, maybe even a couple minutes less, than the actual 5k I ran back in May 2007 and my ankles are still attached! A little sore, yes, but not quite as sore as they were yesterday. Does this mean my body will get used to this sort of abuse? That I will no longer writhe in pain when I try to walk after hours of inactivity, aka sleep? Regardless, I am happy today that I did not stop at 1 mile or even 2 when I really wanted to give up. I kept going all the way to 3.1 and it felt good. Today I’m going to try and go even further. Now to deal with the pain that is my big toe. I thought it would take months, even years of running before the nail felt like it was going to come off, not days...what gives?

Long rambling post with cute pictures at the end I promise!

Good Monday to you. Wait a minute. What’s so good about Monday? Well, other than the fact that I am alive and well, sore ankles notwithstanding, it’s one day closer to Friday, which in my book is always a good day. Sometimes it sucks being an optimist! Anyway, I have lots of pictures to share but before I do, I thought I’d update you on my oh so exciting weekend of the gym, Chinese, cakes, and buttercream.

You’ll be glad to know I FINALLY made it back to the gym on Friday after work. A late meeting on Thursday resulted in my postponing the inevitable because I got home after 5:30 and would literally have had minutes to spend with Sydney before I left for the gym as she would have been in bed by the time I got home. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. However, getting home at 4:15ish and going to work out was way more tolerable. It was much less crowded than I expected on Friday. Maybe because all the beautiful people of the gym actually have a life on the weekends. I don’t know. There were boocoodles of open treadmills and ellipticals. And the circuit training area was pretty empty too. I so don’t like waiting in line to use the machines so I was a happy camper. We’ll see how things look today when everyone is back to the grind.

As for the workout, I started out simple, not wanting to overdo it after a 17 month hiatus. So it was half an hour on the treadmill – some walking, some running, lots of panting and huffing and puffing, and lots of swearing and praying under my breath to please God don’t let my ankles snap off. Afterwards, I managed to walk downstairs and out the door to my car without falling over. This was no easy task I tell you. I managed to shower and change only to get dressed again and go back to the same parking lot I left an hour before. This time it was to meet our friends at the Chinese buffet right next door to my gym. I thought this might be a problem, that I would be so ravenous and have like 10 plates of sweet and sour chicken and fried rice, but that is one of the benefits of dining out with an infant who is learning to self-feed. I spent more time cutting up pieces of my food for her and making sure she didn’t throw my plate or hers on the ground than I did eating my own food. By the time I was ready to go back for my 3rd plate (in all fairness, plates 1 and 2 were maybe half full and I was sharing), everyone else was ready to leave. So we packed everything up and I went home from the buffet not overstuffed for once. Score!

Saturday morning I was up early running errands. There was the grocery store for birthday cake ingredients, Michael’s for birthday crafts, cake decorating things and the ginormous cupcake pan to make said birthday cake, and Target for random everyday not necessities but I have to have it anyway stuff (the cutest sports bras in pink and purple). Anyway, I got home and started baking trial birthday cake #1 in the giant cupcake pan. I had to use 2 boxes of cake mix to fill both sides. Anyway, I had just enough batter left over to pour into my 3 4-inch cake pans that are going to be used for Sydney’s smash cake. Not all 3 of course, but I needed 3 to practice my decorating skills on since they are not the finest. Here’s a picture of trial smash cake #3, the winning design aka the least sucky one.



What do you think? The star tip was the only one I had any success using. All the others require a little more piping skill than I currently and probably ever will have. Also, should I stick with pink icing or should I go for purple? Decisions decisions. I know it doesn't have any icing on the bottom. I am thinking chocolate buttercream for that when I make THE cake this weekend. Also, does anyone think from this angle that it looks like something Thelma Harper would wear on her head on Mama’s Family?



And for another closeup. Mmmmm homemade buttercream!



All cakes aside, here's some serious cuteness from the almost birthday girl.



Dining out at Texas Roudhouse.



Guess who learned to climb! Ignore the disaster that is the "garbage corner" of my kitchen. SOMEONE BUILD ME A PANTRY SO I CAN HIDE THIS MESS ALREADY!




So this one isn't of Sydney, but she was right beside me dancing while Daddy played his new game!



And saving the best for last. I can't put my arms down!

Kellogg's want you to share your regularity with the world, or at least those lucky enough to see your fridge, while wearing a giant wang hat.

Call me crazy, but I just don't think I'd want to advertise how regular my family may or may not be. Kellogg's apparently thinks it's a smashing idea though! So why stop at a fridge magnet when you could announce it to more than just the lucky few who are welcomed into your home (and who may not want to come back after the big announcement regarding regularity is made). Why not go all out and make some yard art for your entire neighborhood using the same picture and caption? You know, sell it on fathead.com with all the other lifesize cutouts, which are a wonderful idea. I mean, who wouldn't want to be sitting on the sofa and look up to see Peyton Manning or Chipper Jones or Ryan Klesko staring back at you? Crazy people, that's who. Or maybe I'm just crazy. I don't know. I just think Kellogg's has a few warped people in their marketing department. If the magnets flaunting your ability to make poo doesn't convince you, check out the art displayed on my package of poptarts this morning.



Giant crooked penis hat anyone?

Warning! Rant on gyms and fatness follows.

I was sitting on the bus this morning listening to my ipod and trying to take a nap but something wasn’t allowing my brain to push the pause button. That’s when I decided that I needed some sort of release. Starting tonight after work, I am going back to the gym. No, it has nothing to do with New Year’s resolutions. I don’t make them. I think they are pointless because January 1st is really just another arbitrary date on a calendar – we’ll ignore the fact that it’s one of my 12 favorite days. Federal holiday anyone? Anyway, this buildup of, of, of I don’t exactly know what to call it, tired of being lazy? Tired of my clothes not fitting right? Tired of feeling like people are staring at me and judging me because my clothes are a little snug? Tired of all my doubts and insecurities? Tired of people being all jackassery and stupid? Well, whatever it is, it all escalated yesterday and the final straw was walking to the bus yesterday afternoon in the freezing rain. I was standing on the curb waiting for the light so I could cross and this car came FLYING by in the right lane driving right through a puddle and splashed me from head to toe, as if I wasn’t freezing and uncomfortable enough. UGH! How annoying people are. And for the record, the guy in the Camry totally had all lanes to himself and could have moved over so as not to splash me. And then I was in a funk for the rest of the night. Well, at least until the Duke game came on and Sydney and I sat on the couch together watching. I love Mommy Daughter quality time. I was proud she made it to halftime before she started rubbing her eyes. And watching Doug play Guitar Hero was amusing too. Don’t worry, I took pictures and will share them soon!

So where was I? Oh right. I made up my mind to go back to the gym tonight after work, ignoring the fact that it is going to be overcrowded with all the resolutioners there. Also ignoring the fact that I could just pop in my pilates dvd at the house or do any other number of dvd workouts in the comfort of my own home. But my problem with that is I’m too self-conscious and don’t want anyone watching me exercise, which Doug will inevitably do. And there are too many distractions for me there. The tv, refrigerator, Sydney, Doug, the countless queue of books waiting for me to read. So the gym it is. Where I can escape in the middle of the crowd with my ipod. Where noone knows me and everyone is too self-absorbed to pay attention to or care about the poor girl huffing and puffing away on the elliptical because it’s been a good *cough* 17 months *cough* since I’ve done any real form of exercise, yet I've been paying $39.99/month for the duration of my laziness. No wonder I've been feeling like crap.

This one's for you Kate!

What is this? Oh. Right. The green thing is Sydney's favorite toy, Brobee. She bangs it on something (whether it be her legs, the floor, daddy's face) and it shakes and sings "There's a party in my tummy. So yummy. So yummy. There's a party in my tummy. So yummy. So yummy yummy yummyyyy."

Let's not even get into the red one she has that calls for spirit fingers at the end!

Christmas in Mississippi

I suppose I need to get around to wishing everyone a Happy New Year before it’s entirely inappropriate, like forgetting until February or March, which at the rate I am going is entirely likely. So, Happy New Year!

Since you last heard from us, or at least read about us, we have done many exciting things. We rolled around on our neighbor’s floor with not a care in the world! Actually, this was done before my last post at our neighbor's 1st birthday party, but I just like this picture. It was fun. We had fun. Fun is good.



We opened and played with lots presents, including the popcorn thingy, featured front and center, which I now affectionately refer to as the toy that almost killed Mommy on Christmas morning, all while watching 24 hours of A Christmas Story on TBS (a favorite family tradition!).



And we took a break for a bottle and a smile.



The next day Sydney took her first plane ride to MS to visit Grandma and Grandpa. She LOVED looking out the window.



She did great on the plane, which was a welcome surprise seeing as how she had a double ear infection. Doug, however, did not fare so well with his head cold. The altitude brought him to his knees on the airplane bathroom floor (GROSS!) twice between DC and Memphis. Poor daddy.

Grandma and Grandpa Lucky and Aunt Lou picked us up at the airport. They were so excited to see Sydney! She’s grown so much since we were home over Easter. I was excited to see it was WARM and SUNNY and PERFECT Christmas weather! How Christmas should be. Not this crazy icy, rainy, cloudy, dreary, depressing mess that is December in MD. And of course I was happy to be home with my mom and dad too :)



Sydney also got to hang out with her cousins Hayley and Carlee, who were more than willing to feed and entertain her so Mommy and Daddy could relax for a few.



And the rest of her cousins, Holden, Jake (who grew at least another 2 inches since we saw him at Easter!!!), Christopher, Hayley, Carlee, and Sydney.



Uncle Doug is now skilled in the Game of Life. Whatever happened to the old school version with the wheel you actually got to spin? And the little car with pink and blue pegs that represented you, your spouse, and offspring should you be cool enough to land on that space??? Now it’s all electronic and comes with a fake Visa card! Seriously.



Sydney took a break from her toy to enjoy a cracker. Now I see why our neighbor's sister calls her Cheekers lol!



Isn’t my new nephdog adorable??? Maybe Remi and TJ will have a new puppy to play with soon too :)



Here’s Carlee and Christopher cheesing it up!



Grandma and Sydney reading a book. Could it get any sweeter?



And the moment y’all have been waiting for. Easily one of the top 3 reasons to travel on a plane with an infant to Pascagoula, MS (right behind seeing my family and friends and 70+ degree weather in December). Sydney had her very first Edd's chilicheeseburger!!!



Mmmmm!



And she LOVED every bite! As if there was any doubt. I raised my girl right.