Birthday Par-Tay

Hannah had her 3rd birthday celebration at Fun-n-Beyond here in Culpeper.  She had many of friends come along with some special family members too!  

Here are some highlights:

Emma, Christina, Kayla, Emma D. and Abby Rae pose for a photo with Hannah before cutting the cake. 

She was expressionless during the "happy birthday" song :)

And this was her not even out of the parking lot a few minutes! She celebrated with all she had!

Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate with her that day and to those that took the time to call her or text me to wish her a very happy birthday!

Baptism

May 23, 2010 was a great day in our house! Not only was me and Matt's first wedding anniversary, and the LOST season finale was finally here, but Emma and I publically professed our belief in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

I had been baptized in middle school (many years ago...) but really did not understand the significance of what I was doing.  Years passed, I questioned and doubted and have thankfully, made my way back to God so I felt the need to be baptized again. 

About four years ago, Emma's father and I dedicated to raising her to know Jesus, and then when she was ready and mature enough to understand the significance would be baptized herself.  I can proudly say that she knew exactly what she was doing, what she believes and after approval from Pastor GW that she was ready, she was able to join in the baptisms!

My Dad came down and joined Matt and the rest of our Church Family to support me, Emma and the rest of those getting baptized.  Here are some pictures!

Ready? Set..

GO!

OK - during my last post, I explained why I have been so absent on here! Well... I am all done uploading photos and now have everything fresh on the new laptop!  So... there may be an abundance of posts within the next few days (hopefully anyway) !!!! 

Disappearance

I sure have written many blogs in the last 2 months!  Recently I haven't really had anything to "blog" about really, not even anything remotely creative! I also recently got a laptop.  Our other desktop was soooo ancient, so very slow, many bugs and a whole lot of frustration.  When I turn it on in the morning, I can't use it for at least 30 minutes.  Trying to get my school work done was impossible.  It would just freeze up on me for up to an hour at a time sometimes, making getting things done very frustrating. So I took some money I got back from my loans/financial aid from school and saved up some more money and got a laptop that is MUCH more efficient!

However, I don't like to save anything to the hard drive on my new computer.  I use my flash drive for all of my school work and I haven't uploaded ANY pictures off of my camera yet.  I am great at taking pictures (as in I take a lot) and putting them on the computer and then that is about as far as I get.  So now, I'm working on my old computer trying to upload ALL of my pictures up to snapfish so I can finally get them printed.  And I am determined to do all of that before I create a new file on this computer.  So what does that have to do with my blogging? Well, there have been a lot of things I've wanted to share recently, like our new guinea pigs, Emma's dance recital, mine and Emma's baptism together, etc, etc, but I don't have the pictures to go with it, so I just haven't done anything at all. 

Lousy excuse I know - I promise I'll get better!!!

Hannah Fun Facts

In honor of Hannah's 3rd birthday, here is some fun information about her!

She LOVES ladybugs!

She has the biggest and most creative imagination of any kid I've ever seen!

She likes to talk to and answer Dora, Kailan and her other favorite TV characters!

Her favorite silly song is "The Five Little Monkeys" and "Bringing Home a Baby Bumble Bee"!

She loves to play outside and could stay there forever!

She is VERY cautious and still clings to mommy and daddy!

She has her Dad's awful allergies!

She calls the color brown "chocolate"

Her biggest fear is the dark.

She is incredibly sweet and loving and loves to share!

She is the best cuddlebug you could ask for!

She no longer likes to take a bath which makes managing her curly hair very hard!

But most important, she is the most special, lovable, precious 3 year old that I could ever ask for!

Happy 3rd Birthday sweet Hannah Grace!

Coming Soon!

We're getting guinea pigs!!!!  Emma has been begging for a dog for awhile now but I'm just not ready for that kind of responsibility yet and our house is just really too small for a dog of any size.  So after visiting Matt's aunt one day and seeing his cousin's guinea pig, I thought, why not start with one of those?  I didn't bring it up for awhile, and when I did, Emma wasn't really into it.  But she eventually warmed up to it and just last week we went into PetSmart and looked at them.  I wasn't really thinking about getting one for another few months though, but just days later a friend from church posted on facebook wanting to know if anyone wanted free guinea pigs.  Well, if that wasn't awesome?  

Matt and I had a more serious conversation about getting them, (me for it, him not) and I set up a time to go visit them to check them out!  I talked to several people who have owned them and I've read quite a bit online researching all kinds of stuff on them.  We finally compromised and we'll be the proud new owners of 2 guinea pigs very soon!

We just got back a bit ago from taking a peek at them.  They are 5 weeks old and very cute.  They are quite big for being so young, I was surprised.  I talked with the owner for almost an hour, asking questions and he gave me tons of advice.  We picked out the 2 we wanted (and I feel HORRIBLE for the third one) and told him we would be back in a week or two after we got everything we needed.  A few people have asked about whether having 2 guinea pigs together is suitable.  My first thought in this whole process was just to get one but after some research I found that they are very social animals and their preferred setting is with a companion, so I decided to go with a second, not only so Emma and Hannah could each have one, but so that the guinea pig itself would have a companion.  

I named Hannah's "Patches" because of her checker board looking back and Emma finally settled on "Cupid" from the Rudolph song (dasher, dancer, prancer, vixen...).  First she picked "leashy", but I told her she needed something else, then after Matt suggesting Snowman (???) and Bandit, she began thought of Rudolph and then ended up with Cupid.  

I'm pretty excited most of the time as this is my first pet other than a fish since leaving home which makes it Emma and Hannah's first pets as well!  It's an exciting time in our house!  I will try to get some pictures of them soon!

Meatloaf or Meatloaf?

I've never been a meatloaf fan but have recently come across two excellent recipes.  The first is from a family member of Brittany's who makes everything from scratch, including pasta noodles, so you know it has to be good! It is a sweet-n-sour meatloaf. The second comes from my beloved Paula Deen Cookbook, Aunt Peggy's Old Fashioned Meat Loaf. 

Sweet-n-Sour Meatloaf

1 1/2 pounds ground beef

1 cup dry bread crumbs

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

2 eggs

1 tsp minced onion

1 - 15oz can of tomato sauce - halved

1. Mix ground beef, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, eggs together.

2. Add onion and 1/2 of the tomato sauce

3. Form into loaf (9x15x13 pan)

4. Bake for 50 minutes at 350 degrees

During the last 5-10 minutes, mix together the following ingredients for the sauce:

The remaining half of the tomato sauce

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp vinegar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 tsp yellow mustard

Bring those ingredients to a boil.  Take meatloaf out of oven, drain the fat off the top of the meatloaf and then  stab with a fork in a few places so the sauce will soak into meatloaf.  Pour the sauce over the meatloaf, reserve some for dipping if desired.  Bake an additional 10 minutes.  SOOOO YUMMY!!!

Aunt Peggy's Old-Fashioned Meat Loaf

1 pound ground beef

1-6oz ounce can tomato paste

1/2 cup chopped vidalia onion

1/2 cup chopped green onion

1/2 cup quick cooking oats

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

1. Preheat oven to 375. In a large bowl, combine the ground beef, tomato paste, onion, green pepper, oats, egg, salt and pepper.  Shape the mixture into a loaf and place it in a 9x5 loaf pan.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the ketchup, brown sugar and mustard. Slather the glaze on top of the meatloaf and bake for 1 hour or until the meat loaf is firm and cooked all the way through. Serve hot!  DELICIOUS!!!