Children are often spoiled because no one will spank Grandma

I love this quote and have always wanted to paint it on something for Ma. It is so true in our family!! Ma kept me everyday when I was little while my mom was at work and then in the afternoons when I would get out of school. She always kept food in my hand and love in my heart. There is never a time that we get off the phone that she doesn't say "I love you, love you" at least three times before we actually hang up. I could never imagine my life not growing up right next door to her and Papa. There is definitely some part of me that wants to live in the play house in Mom's backyard so my kids can grow up being so close to my mom, but I know Stu will never go for that :)

This was Ma, Mom and myself Mother's Day 2013! 

Ma is such a fighter! On Friday, she fell and broke her hip at home and just got released from the hospital this afternoon. The family has hired someone to help her at home when they can not be there for her. Prayers are still appreciated!! Stu and I were lucky enough to get to stop by and see her on Sunday night before heading back to Greenville. We took my birthday fruit pizza up to the hospital to share with her and the nurses since she was not able to make it out to dinner with us. She was sitting up in her bed and seemed very cheery when we got there. It was a relief for us not to see her in so much pain.

I am not only lucky to have gotten her skinny genes of the family, but also her energetic, outgoing and excited personality. I have always been called "a little Barbara" by my dad, and now that I am getting older, more and more people say it! When most people meet her for the first time, they fall in love her!


The picture to the right is from Thanksgiving 2013, below is Mother's Day 2012, and the bottom is Mother's Day 2011.

A few months ago I was down at her house visiting and stumbled upon some of her and Papa's high school year books. Ma attended Midway High School in Camden, SC and graduated with the class of 1960 with only 11 classmates. Not only did I find out that she won high school pageant and was Miss Micasocar, but she was quite the popular one when it came to high school superlatives. I found it hilarious that she was 4 out of the 10 of them including most intellectual, friendliest, most talented, and most likely to succeed.

I feel so blessed to have grown up with such a loving grandmother that is one of my best friends! 

Last weekend as a single woman

How has the past 8 months gone by so fast! I swear there were some points of our engagment that we thought our wedding day would never get here! Now we're only a week away!

To celebrate our last weekend as an engaged couple, we headed to Charleston Friday after work and stayed the weekend with a friend who lives in Mount Pleasant. Luckily Drew loves us all so much, he let Joey, Walt, Stuart and myself crash in his living room. He had to work all weekend so unfortunately he wasn't able to go out with us at night, be he did get to join us for dinner Saturday night!

We got down there late so we met the boys out at Midtown where ones of Stu's longest friends/ groomsmen was bartending. We love love love visiting Fred in Charleston and I am excited that I finally got to meet his gorgeous girlfriend this weekend. After a late night, we headed home to get some sleep for a big day Saturday.

When we got up, we changed clothes and went to brunch at a yummy spot on Sheem Creek called Shelter. The boys had gone to dinner here the night before and must have really liked it since they were back for their next meal. Bloody Marys are my favorite morning drink so I ordered one when we got there. The waiter brought out our waters and the boys beer and I realized he had one glass full of ice and half water. As he started handing out the drinks, he asked me if i'd like to make my own bloody mary at the bar or if I wanted them too make it? I shrugged and figured I would make my own as he handed me the half full glass. I took a big gulp of water and went to get up and my own drink. As I swallowed the clear liquid, it hit me hard that this was not water. This was vodka for me to make my drink with. I stopped in shock and couldn't say anything but Oh. No. The waiter looked at me confused as all the boys began to laugh when they realized what I had just done.
Needless to say, you never know what you'll get with me!

After lunch, the weather had cleared up and looked like the sun was coming out, so Stu, Walt and I headed to the pool with some drinks for the afternoon! For an afternoon that was expected to be rainy, it turned out to be a sunny day for us. We enjoyed a yummy dinner at Coleman's Public House and then headed downtown to party again :)

Sunday morning we all got up and headed home. Stu and I had a long day ahead of us including meeting with our officiant, getting dinner with my family, taking birthday fruit pizza to ma in the hospital and then driving back to Greenville.

This picture unfortunately shows that everyone either forgot about my birthday or forgot about our dinner plans... The only people that ending up showing up was Mom, Dad, and Aunt Allie. Where's the love?!

After dinner, we headed back to Mom's and packed up the car with stuff for the wedding before heading to see Ma. She was doing well and of course we were all excited to see each other even if the circumstances weren't the best. I pray that she will receive her strength back and will be able to attend the wedding this Saturday!!!

Growing up in the 90's...

I found myself playing on buzzfeed today while the babies were sleeping and came across these childhood memories! I don’t feel old till I see some of these and realize how long ago it was that I used them!

Have fun taking a trip down memory lane :)

1. Orange Tapes: Watching movies was fun as a kid, but when the tapes were orange, the movie seemed so much better!

2. Ridiculously uncomfortable blow-up furniture: Not only did these take forever and ever to blow up, but then they weren't comfortable at all. But of course, Ashley and I always used to fight over who got to sit it and watch tv!

3. A towering bowl of French Toast Crunch: Oh I could def use some of these right now! ... I think these were replaced with Cinnamon Toast Crunch in our house though. 

4. Ridiculously fashionable choker necklaces: I rocked these sexy necklaces every day!... I'll be looking for pictures from 3rd-5th grade tonight for giggles :) 

5. The hardest game you’ll ever play:

6. And the hardest mountain you’ll ever climb: My hopes and dreams of climbing this mountain were crushed when the show stopped running! 

7. This amazing fast-food prize: You know my momma saved all my Happy Meal Barbies like this! My little cousin Sadie (my oldest flower girl) gets them out and plays with them when she comes to see "Aunt San and Jess". If I looked hard enough, I could probably find lots of those Halloween chicken nuggets to! Happy Meals are not the same anymore :( I was offended the other day when I ordered one and not only did they ask me if I wanted to a toy, but they gave me this baby portion of french fries. Thank a lot McDonalds... not only are you calling me fat, but you give me apples instead of a toy. That's so much fun. Not. 

8. Or this amazing cereal prize: Cereal used to be so cool!! I still eat lucky charms sometimes, but never find a prize anymore. How am I going to get my kids to eat cereal if they have nothing exciting to look for in the box?!

9. These tools for creating artistic masterpieces: Still have two of these in my closet at home :) Mom used to give me scrap computer paper, and I could play all day!

10. Or this beautiful work of art: These designs were all over all my notebooks when I was little... Now I am not sure how to draw it?!

11. Balancing birds: Ma has one of these at her house still! Who ever invented these toys must be magic :)

12. The original iPod: How awesome were HIT Clips!! I loved listening to my favorite 15 seconds of N'Sync and Britney Spears songs! :) If I gave a child this today, I couldn't imagine what their reaction would be! Most kids I know have IPods, IPads, and Tablets, so this would be nothing to them! Whatever, I jammed out to this all the time when I was 10! 

13. A chat with your friends online: Instant Messenger was the reason for many arguments in our household growing up. I wanted to stay up and chat with friends online and my parents thought I needed to go to bed! Who had time for sleep, when you could talk to all your friends at once on the computer. An argument also may have had something to do with me being on the internet for this to happen, so mom couldn't get on the home phone.  

14. The original text message: I just threw away a box of old notes folded all these crazy ways! Most of them were from Bri in 8th and 9th grade! I bet if you asked kids in middle school today how to fold these, they would fail! 

15. The stickiest high-five you’ll ever get: Best prizes to win at Frankies Fun Park or Chuckie Cheese! Hands Down :) 

16. The leaning tower of cheeza: This was such a random movie, but The Goofy Movie lived in my VCR for a long long time! Sadie watches it sometimes when she comes to my moms house too! 

17. A robot fur ball: My Furby looked like the one on the far right. He was black and white with spots and a little head full of hair. Unfortunatley, we didn't bond like most children did with theirs. I was kind of scared of him because he would wake me up and night saying, "Feeeeeeed Meeee". You can imagine my terror when Sadie got her own new generation Furby a few months ago! 

18. This waiting screen: The noise that it made while aol dialed up was the worst part! I remember Mom always calling Ma and Papa to say someone was getting on the internet so they wouldn't try to call for a little while. 

19. Or this waiting screen: This screen was always exciting to see!! 

 

20. Or this flying toy: Um, hello... Who didn't love their Sky Dancers!!!

21. A pair of these bad boys: You can bet I had multiple pairs of these babies! I don't remember roller skating too much, but I loved to roller blade in the driveway and down to Ma's house!

22. A brand-spankin’-new pack of cards: I definitely collected my share of Pokemon cards, but never knew how to play the game! I remember sneaking them in my bookbag and taking them to school in 4th or 5th grade. Does that make me weird?!

23. WITCH HANDS: I mean clearly this is what Buggles are for... I still do it! 

24. These literary classics: Gram Earline was a librarian when I was little. She always used to rent me the Berenstain Bears movies and I would stay with her over the summer and watch them! This is probably a series that I will look up one day for my kids!

25. A classroom full of thumbs raised: This was the best game to play in the classroom! There were definitely moments in college where we would have time left in class in the professor wouldn't leave, so someone recommend play Heads Up, 7 Up! 

26. A pixelated little blob: Who didn't have these growing up!! Giga Pets were the best!! I remember having 5 or 6 hanging from my belt loop. All the cool kids were doing it :)

27. Crazy gumball eyes: The ice cream truck would come down Ma's road after school. She usually gave me, Austin and Ashley money to go buy something! It was always one of these crazy things or that firework looking Popsicle for me!

28. A tall glass of this good stuff: Now I think about it, why did like chunks of stuff floating in my drinks. Ewww

29. These pieces of fancy fine china: Mom still has all of my Disney character plates! I recently served Stuart dinner at her house with one of them! 

30. Parachute day: This was more of the early 90s when I was little! Who didn't love it when the gym teacher would get this baby out with some plastic bouncy balls to throw on top and keep in the air!

31. This ragtag team of animals: I cry over everything, and you can bet I cried watching this movie :( How sad is it that these animals were lost and had such a hard trip finding their way home.... This movie is probably to blame with me growing up feeding homeless animals everywhere! Confession, I keep cat food in my car to feed homeless cats in gas station and restaurant parking lots. 

32. A rainbow Koosh: We definitely still have one of these at Mom's house! It's pink, green and black and Tipsy always chews on it! Kids toy turned cat toy :)

33. This ancient artifact: If you would have told me 10 years ago that Blockbusters would be out of business, I would have laughed! We kept vhs rental place in business, and rarely used Dvds. I'm sure mom still have some old Blockbuster tapes that she will show the grand kids one day! 

34. These beautiful smells: I am guilty of coloring my tongue with the green apple one. I was under 5 years old and my older cousin told me that they taste as good as they smell. I don't remember doing it, but my mom will tell you she was  not happy about her child having a green tongue, and my cousin being to blame!

35. Book-fair handouts: I was never a big fan of reading growing up, but when the book fair would come, I was always beg my mom to buy me books. More so because you got to get out of class and go "shopping" in the library! 

36. The perfect screensaver: I remember getting out of school and going to my mom's work with her sometimes. I would always change her screen savers and backgrounds. This maze was always the coolest!

37. Halloween buckets: Wait, I'm confused... do kids not use these to trick or treat with anymore?!

38.This brand-new car: I have a pretty little scar on the top of my left foot from one of these bad boys. Ashley was driving, and I was laying on top as we went down the black top hill at Ma's house. I fell off the top and somehow only managed to skin my foot. 

39. Those scary Gushers commercials: I loved Gushers! Still do, but just don't buy them anymore. I was always a little worried as a kid that something like this would happen though. 

40. The only map you’ll ever need: I never had one of these rugs, but I had many friends that had one. I have baby sat a few kids in past couple years who have one similar, so I guess they out too out of style yet!