Bits & pieces

So lately, I have fallen in love with California Baby stuff!  I joke sometimes that there's no age limit on Happy Meals at McDonald's.  I've gotten them for years and now they have chocolate milk, omg.  Well, there is no age limit on baby products either.  Besides, it gives me a chance to test them out and see how I like 'em before, um, well, before I might be in need of such things.  :)

I lovelovelove their bubble bath!!  It makes lots and lots of bubbles and it even comes with a wand to blow bubbles in the tub.  It can't get no more fun than that!  And the stuff smells incredible, too.

I've been trying out BabyGanics eczema cream, too.  I've had a little patch of red, itchy skin on both of my legs since March.  It showed up right around the time Larry was sent to the transitional center too early and we were under a tremendous amount of stress and that's what I thought caused it.  Well, he's been in Quitman for over three months now and my leg rash is still there.  I have tried everything that I could find over-the-counter.  Cortisone creams, Benadryl cream and spray, even Aveeno, and nothing was helping.  I picked up a tube of BabyGanics Bye Bye Dry cream last Friday at Target and the rashes are so much better!!  I think the calendula in the bubble bath is helping, too.  Yay!!

Tabbie Hoffman has a new thing that he likes to do.  He likes to lay on a towel on the sink and put his paw in the water.  It is SO cute!!

I finally got my 13WMAZ coffee mug that I won June 18th as their Facebook Fan of The Day.  I only had to call them twice about it!

We had a birthday party for Jessi yesterday at Mama and Daddy's house.  Ricky and Audra fixed barbecue chicken, baked potatoes with butter, sour cream, cheese and bacon, baked beans, salad and cake and ice cream.  Ami brought fudge brownies and we just had a feast!

Here's the birthday girl and her baby girl getting ready to blow out the candles!

Baby Lizzie out by the goldfish pond

Look at that chubby little thigh!  I think even the fishies were thinking, "Nom nom nom!"!!

Yep, Larry's been in Quitman for over three months now and he's still doing great, amazed every day by the world on this side of the fence.  An awful lot has changed since 1976.  He got his drivers "learner's" permit already and he's going Tuesday for the actual driving test.  He starts to school next month and is already dreading that algebra class.  I told him to just take what he could and we'd take college algebra together when he gets home.  I have to take it, too, to finish my degree classes so we might as well suffer through it together.  :)  He's got a painting/remodeling weekend job lined up, too.  I thought that was hilarious because I have a painting/remodeling job lined up for him, too!!  I kinda have my heart set on this IKEA kitchen.  :)  Everything is pretty much rocking right along.  Mama and Daddy are giving Larry a recliner as a welcome home gift and that was the last thing on my list so I think I'm done.  Just waitin' on January!

I finally broke down and got a smartphone today.  I don't like signing contracts and the idea of paying $450 for a cell phone was just ridiculous to me so I got a cheap Samsung with a prepay package and so far, so good.  It was a little hairy trying to get everything working like I wanted it but now that all that's done, I think I'm going to like it.  It's a heck of a lot better than the 5-year-old old school phone I did have.  At least this one will have signal wherever I go!!

From this day forward

Sunday afternoon, my niece, Jessica, married her sweetheart and best friend, Jimmy.  We were all there to see it!  Ami was wedding planner, director, decorator AND co-photographer and I just have to say that I've never been more proud or more in awe of my baby sister.  She did a fabulous job not just with the beautiful decorations that she painstakingly made by hand and heart but also by holding it all together when it threatened to fall apart.  Amazing girl.

She and Brian were the official photogs for the wedding and I picked a few of my favorites to show on my blog.

The cake!  My mama baked her world-famous-known-all-over-the-land pound cake with butter cream icing wedding cake for our Jessi.  It was her best one ever!

 

Our girl saying her vows.  My absolute favorite picture of the day!  I was sitting right behind her squalling right along with her mama while this was happening.  It's a good thing we couldn't see her face.  And she couldn't see ours.

The happy couple!

Here's one I took of Jessi checking out her makeup in my car on the way to the wedding.  The wedding was at 2:00.  We got to the park at 2:00.  Talk about a mad dash to the altar!!

No, the ground is NOT covered in snow even though it looks like it here!  When we got to the park, there were people everywhere just millin' around outside.  Jessi didn't want anybody to see her so we just drove around until they moved on out toward the pier.  I snapped this picture when we stopped and she got out for a minute.

It was such a beautiful ceremony and reception!  There was dancing, lots of laughing and lots of crying.  We ate pimento cheese sandwiches and drank Mountain Dew from cans.  We kicked our shoes off and walked around barefoot.  Well, maybe that was just me.  It was crazy, it was sweet, it was even a tad stressful but it was us.  

Jessi and Jimmy, be sweet to each other, be patient with each other, listen to each other.  Be happy!  

The greatest of nieces

Our Baby Elizabeth arrived yesterday making me a great aunt!  And in the process, making my kid brother a GRANDFATHEROHMYGOD.

Lizzie Faye blessed us with her presence at 4:24 yesterday afternoon, tipping the scales at just over seven pounds and stretching her little legs way out making her an impressive 20 inches long.  I hear she has a head full of hair and her mama's lungs.

We're planning a get-together this weekend so we can all nom on her legs.
 

Here's a pic!

Showers of blessings!

We kicked off the first of September with a baby shower for our Jessica.  She's expecting her first baby, my first great-niece, later this month.  We are so excited!!  We haven't had a baby in the family since Jessi's brother, Chris, and he's almost 18.  It'll be so sweet to do birthdays and Santa and the Easter Bunny again.



Audra found a lady in Kathleen to do the cake and it was adorable!  A baby butt cake!

 

The baby's name is Elizabeth Faye.  Faye is for Jessi's Nana who passed away last year.  Our girl chose a beautiful way to honor her Nana.

Ami spent weeks working on and making the decorations and she did an amazing job!  She is just so talented.  The triple-layered candle in the middle of the table represented the four generations of Lester girls.  The candle sections were Audra, Jessi and Lizzie and the flame was Miss Brenda.  We all thought that such a beautiful and thoughtful way to include Nana on this special day.

And just look what Ami did with this umbrella!  Showers of blessings!  I love it.

  

And she turned sheets of tissue paper into these beauties.

And this canvas she made to hang on Elizabeth's wall made me cry.  Lizzie's the only one who knows what Jessi's heart sounds like from the inside.  Squall.  :)

We had so much yummy food, too!  The cute baby butt cake that was just as delicious as it was cute, homemade pimento cheese sandwiches, homemade chicken salad stuffed into pita pockets, potato chips and onion dip, a veggie tray and dip, a watermelon bowl of fruit with marshmallow dip and brownies.

Audra made this delicious raspberry punch, too! 

Jessi got some really nice, useful and awesome gifts!  Lots of diapers and wipes, Avent bottles, sweet little outfits, a baby book, a photo album, books for the baby, a rock-and-play sleeper, a bouncy seat, an activity play mat, even a tiny clothes basket.  Little Lizzie is set!

We played a couple of games, too.  One where you had to unwind pink ribbon from the spool and then cut it off when you thought you had enough to go around Jessi's belly.  My ribbon was as tall as she was.  Ha!  Needless to say, I didn't win.  :)

And did you know there are more than 890 M&M's in two 19-ounce bags of them?  Neither did I.  The other game we played was guessing how many M&M's were in a big plastic baby bottle.  Mama and I counted them out and except for a few that fell on the floor, we put them all in that bottle.  EIGHT HUNDRED AND NINETY.  Amazing.

This banner sums it up!  Welcome Baby Elizabeth!  We're so excited and can't wait for you to get here!!

The tassel was worth all the hassle!

Yesterday, my niece, Jessica, graduated high school!!  It was a bit of a long, winding, uphill-all-the-way road but she did it and I am so, so proud of her!  

We had a cookout graduation party for her yesterday afternoon and had barbecue chicken, 'tater salad, baked beans, chips, cake, brownies and cute, cute, cute little Reese peanut butter cup graduation caps that Ami made.

It was such a beautiful day!!  

 

I honestly do not know where the years have gone.  I mean, I was there, I lived 'em, but they went by sooooo fast!!  It seems like just last week, she was just learning to walk and toddled toward me just as I snapped the picture.  Wasn't that just last week??
 

 

I love you, Jess.

More than you will ever know.

Countin' Down To The Turkey!

AND my mama's dressing.  OHMYGOD.  If y'all ain't eatin' my mama's dressing, you are missing out.  I just realized the other day that I have NEVER even made a turkey.  I've never had to.  Mama does that.  And the dressing.  And we do the sides and desserts.  That's how we roll.  

Oh, yeaaaaah, the rolls.  Nom.

This year, I'm making Cracker Barrel's amazing hashbrown casserole, green beans and red potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce and a pumpkin pie that I'm making from scratch.  As in I'm using the pumpkin that was on my front porch at Halloween!  First time I've ever done that. It's prolly gonna be the last time, too.  That is a lot of work!

New Moon straight showed OUT, didn't it??  $140 million.  Jessi and I went to see it Saturday. We drove by the theater Friday night and could not believe the parking lot!  It was like that Saturday and again Sunday.  I knew that movie was going to be huge but $140 million? That's incredible!  I thought the movie was great.  Those kids are going to be superstars.