The start of my busy season

The busy season has officially started and I am excited because that means its times for all the arts and crafts shows and Spring but I am not as excited about all the extra long hours that I have to put in. I love arts and crafts show and I have to say JRM Management puts on the best shows (well for the exception of my friend at City of Marietta, she does an excellent job as well). Big Shanty Festival in downtown Kennesaw it is the best show of the year and it's coming up April 18 & 19. I have found so many cute items at this show anything from hair bows for my daughter, candles, jams and jellies, items for the house etc. Then there is the parade Saturday morning, the festival food, the civil war encampment and so much more that just makes it such a fun weekend.

A great little artist booth

Look at that yummy festival food! You cant eat it all the time but sure is nice every once in a while
I am just getting excited thinking about it. Only 2 1/2 weeks to finish everything I have to finish before it gets here.

Spring is finally here....

Spring is finally here and I hope to stay this time. We had such a fun filled weekend and beautiful weather to go with it. The table I got at IKEA was painted white and looks great but still needs the final touches which my sister in law will add.

Sunday was my daughter Reece's 3rd birthday and what a party she had. The weather was perfect for an outside birthday party. We had a Madagascar theme so of course the bounce was Madagascar and then we had a Snake Obstacle Course and a Trackless Train for the kids to ride in. The food was catered by Johnny's Pizza and WOW it was so good, cheese pizza, pepperonni pizza, baked ziti, salad and the most wonderful garlic knots that are just heaven when you bite into them.

Everyone singing Happy Birthday to her

One of her favorite gifts. A Shirt Aunt Tandy made with a picture of Lola

Her other favorite gift her new Bike

Well the weekend is over, the weather is not beautiful anymore and we are half way done with the week now. Tonight is dinner at Texas with friends and family so Reece can ride the saddle for her birthday. So I am sure there will be picture tomorrow.

Project with a little help

We decided to get Reece a small table with two chairs for her birthday to put in her room. I started looking around and realized they are not cheap until my sister in law said find one we can paint. So I found an unfinished table with two chairs at IKEA

Our plan is to paint it white and then paint a few flowers on it to match her room. She will love it, I will show pictures as we work on our project.

Baking Cookies

Last night Reece said she wanted Cookies so the good mother that I am said OK lets go buy the stuff to make them. First we mixed everything together

Then we made little dough balls and put them on the pan to bake with lots of help from Suzie

They are ready to put in the oven

Time to let them cool

Then we put icing and sprinkles on them and finally they are all ready to eat! YUMMY!!!!

She had so much fun which I think you can tell by the big smiler on her face.

What a weekend

This past weekend was beautiful so beautiful that we spent most of it outside. Saturday morning we took Reece to the zoo and then out for pizza. Then we went with some friends to the Atlanta Hawks v Detroit Pistons game. I am not a big basketball fan but this was a very good game and Atlanta won so even better for me but not as much fun for my husband. Sunday we had the windows open and just enjoyed the weather and watched the Nascar race. Now it is back to work on Monday and it is even nicer outside today if that is even possible.

Well Reece's 3rd birthday is coming very fast and today I went and printed her invitations that my sister in law designed and they are the cutest things I have ever seen.

As you can tell she is having a Madagascar birthday party and she will be so excited to have her Alex bounce as she calls it and a Trackless Train. Now I have to order the food and decorations and figure out what she is getting.

eBay

I have been on eBay off an on between yesterday and today bidding on a few items for Reece and looking for bedding for the Master Bedroom. I have always loved looking at all the items but try and stay away from bidding because I get caught up in the moment and do not know when to stop because I feel like I have to win. I guess that is the competitiveness coming out in me. Well here are my results. I bid on a couple different Pottery Barn Duvets and lost, but that was ok because it was not what I really wanted anyways they were just good prices. Then my sister in law sent me an email this morning saying Reece needs this Lilly Pulitzer outfit.

As of right now I am winning but there is still 2 hours and 45 mins to go so we shall see!!!! After I bid on this item I found the most perfect Lilly Seersucker Dress and I knew Reece just had to have it so watched it all day and it came down to the last 2 minuets and I got this beauty.

Reece will be so cute running around in this dress all summer long because for what I paid for it she will be wearing it out. Kidding, Kidding.....I need to resale it so it must stay in good shape. Now that I think about it I really should sell all her clothes on eBay she has more clothes than I think I have had my entire adult life.

My little girl

My little girl will be turning 3 in only 4 weeks and WOW has those 3 years gone by so fast. Each year I have a picture taken around her birthday and this year will be no different. My wonderful sister in law will be taking her picture along with a family photo. So now I have to start looking for what she will wear. In the past I have gotten her a dress that she can wear for the picture and Easter Sunday. Here a few options I have so far.

Ralph Lauren Sun Dress

Children's PlaceGymboree Dress and I would put a pink cardigan with this dress

Or my other option is to go find some material and have my friend Maggi (who's blog is greenmagsterpie) make her a sun dress and monogram her initials on the front.

Why I love my husband

This Saturday is Valentine's Day so I thought I was write the top 3 reasons why I love my husband.

1. He is a wonderful provider for our family, he is willing to work as much as he needs to, to make sure Reece and I have everything we need (and what we want, hehe)

2. He is a loving person and just a big teddy bear

3. He is the most amazing father (just look at this picture and that will tell you everything)

Him and Reece were having a tea party on Ross and Sharon's back porch. How cute is that!!!

Early Spring

This past weekend in Atlanta was beautiful. I do not think you could have asked for more perfect weather so we spent the whole weekend outside. Saturday Reece had a birthday party to attend and of course it was outside since the temperature was almost 70 degrees. Sunday we had a picnic in the field and then dinner with friends and family and sat by the outdoor fireplace. I have to say that I forgot my camera at home the entire weekend but I will get better at always having it with me now.

This week we are getting ready for our dear friends Dan and Kath to come in town from New Jersey. We are very excited to see them since it has been over a year since we were last able to get together. We have lots planned so I will make sure to take pictures, but since I do not have a picture from the weekend I am going to do something I saw on another blog that I follow and challenge anyone ready this to do. Take the 6th picture from the 6th folder and post it.

This is my sister-in-law trying to break open the pinata at a fiesta party in her and my brothers honor.

Dinner with friends

Last night I met a friend of mine at The Dinner A'fare. This is a place where you premake dinners and then take them home to freeze. I was not to sure about this at first but it was alot of fun and now I have 12 dinners in my freezer just waiting to be cooked. Just a few examples of thing I made: Pink Peppercorn Buttered Flank Steak, Citrus Crusted Tuna Steak, Pork Chops with Red Beans and Rice, Fice Spice Chicken with Cilantro Cream Sauce. I could go on and on on the things I made.


After we were done there we met our husbands and Reece at Bella's Pizzeria. Reece entertained all of us throughout dinner even the staff at the resturant. She quickly became the center of attention for everyone who worked there. Once she was done eating she started having a conversation about pets with our waitress. the waitress asked Reece if she had a dog and she said no I have a cat named Pepper but my Shonnie (Sharon) has doggies named John, Ruby and PJ and my Tandy (Candace) has Lola. It just amazes me that she can have this full conversation with and adult. Well at this point she had just melted the hearts of the staff and they let her get ice cream and then they gave her a t-shirt and then she even started folding boxes with them.


My crazy little girl!!!!

Letter "R"

I have been tagged in the letter game and I was give the letter "R". I wonder why someone would give me that letter. So now I have to write 10 things I love that start with the letter "R".





1. Reece - my beautiful 2 year old daughter that I can not get enough of.

2. Red Roses - What girl does not like getting Red Roses or any flower for that matter.

3. Red Wine - I have always loved wine but have been a white wine drinker until I met the Keating Family and now I love Red Wine.

4. Reading - I love to read but with a 2 year old I do not get to it as much as I would like.

5. Radio - Listening to radio while driving and sing at the top of my lungs (only if I am alone or with Jamie in a convertible)

6. Rain - The sound of rain is so soothing that it relaxes me. I love thunderstorms even more because I am so fascinated by the weather. I should have been a meteorologist.

7. Redeemer - My Lord and Savior that I know I will see one day in heaven.

8. Rainbows - They are so pretty but the meaning behind them is what I really love. Every time I see a rainbow it reminds me that Jesus is coming back one day and I think it is sooner than later.

9. Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer - The reason I like Rudolph so much is because Reece loves him and I love to see her face every time she watches that movie.

10. RPM - This is spin class at the gym that I love taking because afterwards I know I just had a great workout, but I also hate it because during the class I feel like I am going to die and my ass kills me afterwards from the seat.

Reece!!

I have the most amazing and adorable little girl that makes me laugh everyday. There is not a day that goes by that she does not come home from school and tell me something new she has learned (thanks Sharon). But I was looking through pictures and found this one from my brother's wedding and it still cracks me up.

She is not even 3 years old yet and already a ladies man!

Comfort Food

The best part of growing up in the South is the food. My grandmother and my dad were the best cooks when it came to food that I like to call comfort food. Some of my favorites would be Country Fried Steak, Chicken and Dumplings, Fried Chicken, Fried Okra, Cream Corn, Mashed Potatoes, Mac & Cheese and my all time favorite is Biscuits and Gravy or Biscuits with homemade Apple Butter. Well unfortunately both of them have gone to heaven now to cook for everyone up there. So I started thinking Reece is not going to get to experience this wonderful food very often (not that we need to eat all this fried food often) and I want her to know what true Southern food is and how to make it. I can remember growing up and being in the kitchen with my grandmother and her teaching me and my cousin Suzie how to make biscuits. Well Suzie mastered this much better than I did because her and her dad are the only ones that I know that can even come close to her biscuits and to be honest they might even be better. I want Reece to have this same experience that I did growing up so I am going to start learning how to cook many of these meals and as she gets older teach her how to as well. The first thing I have to do is get recipes on as many Southern meals as I can and start practicing so that I know what I am doing. I want to learn how to cook these from scratch like they did and not buy frozen or premade so any recipes anyone has out there send them on over and I will start right away. I will keep you informed on how many things I mess up or burn because I know it will happen often, I love to cook but I am not very good at it.

Georgia Kudzu

So I decided to start a blog that family and friends could see what was going on in our lives that we really do not want to post on facebook or myspace. Then I had the hardest time trying to come up with a URL because some of the really cute ones were gone of course. I wanted something that said something about Georgia and I started thinking about growing up and what I loved about Georgia and there were so many things like Peaches, Pecans, warm springs, long summer nights, cool falls and short winters. But I could not come up with any names to go along with any of that so then I started thinking about the house I grew up in and the yard I played in and all I could think about was the Kudzu in the back yard that took over. No matter what you did it would always grow back, it would kill the trees, it would cover the house and the yard. I can even remember thinking if our dog would lay there long enough it would cover him. So that is where I came up with the name Georgia Kudzu. So then I decided to look up some facts about Kudzu and this is what I found.

The Amazing Story of Kudzu

Love It, Or Hate It... It Grows On You!

In Georgia, the legend says "That you must close your windows at night to keep it out of the house. The glass is tinged with green, even so..."
From the poem, "Kudzu," by James Dickey

There's so much of this fast-growing vine in the Southeastern U.S., you might think it was a native plant. Actually, it took a lot of hard work to help kudzu spread so widely. Now that it covers over seven million acres of the deep South, there are a lot of people working hard to get rid of it! But kudzu is used in ways which might surprise you...

*The State of Georgia promoted the use to of the vine to stop erosine

*It can grow a foot per day during the summer months

*People have made baskets out of the vine

*One lady in South Carolina even made paper out of it

Well growing up Georgia I never found Kudzu to be a wonderful vine I found it more annoying like most but I think you just learn to deal with it.