Hayden's Spa 6th Birthday Party!

Beauty Bar! 

Beauty masks, homemade lip balm (vasaline and Kool Aid!), flip flops, soap pedals, lufas, hand lotion, and homemade bath scrub!

The Dollar Tree was a life saver and money saver for this entire party! 

I found this awesome font and downloaded it for all of the signs and stuff. So cute! 

Gotta have your tissue paper pom poms! 

All the girls left with a beauty mask cookie.

Made tons of cucumber cookies for everyone. 

Each girl had a place setting like this: face towel, treat basket, mirror, mani pedi set, water bottle. Dollar Tree! 

Hayden's cake. She wanted chocolate chip cake with cookie dough filling. I really don't know how it tasted since there was chocolate in it! Oh well. 

Hayden the little spa queen! 

The girls decorated their own flip flops with duct tape and flowers. 

Nail Salon! 

Decorate your own beauty mask

They all used their mirrors to apply their own face mask! Funny stuff. 

Candice painted everyone's nails! 

They got to soak their nails in warm soapy water. There were even glass beads in the water. The girls had no clue why there were in there. I just said it was to massage their fingers. I don't have a clue why the manicure places put those beads in the water either!  

Reagan helped the girls decorate their beauty masks. 

McKenzie and Stacy helped the girls with their flip flops. 

Daddy & His Girls

Isn't this the cutest!? I kind of still can't believe that we have three kids and three girls at that!! Life is going to be so interesting starting in a few years!!

Our precious Wynnie :)

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Gwynn Meets World Week Eleven

COOKIES!

The major party prep has begun. Today I did the cookies and tomorrow it's the cake! Cute little beauty masks for Hayden's friends to take home.

Cucumber sugar cookies to eat at the party.

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Marmee

Marmee-an amazing woman and my loving grandma. She lived on her own in this house on the hill up until earlier this year when she had some health problems. I have so many fond memories of Marmee and 600 Woodland Avenue. I remember traveling up to Grove City as a kid to celebrate Christmas with all of dad's family. The house was so big that we all could stay there and wake up together on Christmas morning. I remember playing in the barber chair in the nursery, yes there is a real deal barber chair in the playroom/nursery! I remember Marmee popping her bridge out of her mouth to joke with her grandkids. I remember going into the bathroom that's off of the kitchen and looking at all of Marmee's beauty products in there. I have so many more memories floating around my head about this place, this house, this amazing woman.......

Unfortunately, Marmee is getting older. She just had surgery in order to remove cancer from her breast. She now lives in a nursing home and the family is selling her house. She knows some of her kids some of the time when they come to visit. She went from being the outspoken hysterically wise woman to being a woman of very few words because she doesn't understand or remember what you are talking about. I am so glad that September, Morgan, the girls and I took a road trip up to see Marmee earlier this year to see her. It was bitter sweet because that's when I realized that the Marmee that I grew up with was fading away. But it was so sweet to see her in person and visit with her even if she didn't know who I was. Marmee is the kind of woman that you just want to be around. She has such a loving caring spirit and it's just nice to be around. She always has amazing stories about the past to share.
As I said, her kids are working on getting the house ready to sell. Dad wanted to give all of us some things that we can remember Marmee by. Marmee had two stain glass windows in her kitchen. One of watermelons and the other of strawberries. Dad brought me the watermelon one! It's the perfect gift to remember Marmee and that house! I hung it in my kitchen (with Jerm's help) this morning. Every time I walked into the kitchen and saw it in the window I just smiled as great thoughts of Marmee went through my head. Dad also brought me some china and cookbooks among other things.

Here's dad visiting with Marmee on his last morning before he left the burgh to drive back to Florida. He said he had a hard time leaving because she was having such a good morning. She was talkative and responsive. Maybe he caught a little glimpse of the old Marmee....
Watching loved ones get old stinks but at least we have memories to keep us smiling.

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Pappy!

Pappy took a trip up to Pittsburgh to be with Marmee (his mom) while she had surgery. He also rented a truck and took some stuff from her house since it's up for sale. On his way back to Florida he stopped in to hang with the girls and meet Gwynn. He got in just in time for us to go pick up the girls from school. They were super excited! Here's Pappy doing the Tickle Drill on Layner. She just loved it.

Gwynn meet Pappy!

Hayden wanted to show Pappy everything that she was learning in school. They are talking about patterns here.
We decided to venture out to O'Charlie's for dinner last night. I was excited because I've seen their new fried chicken drizzled with honey and I think it looks fantastic! We headed out. Gwynn was great until Jeremy noticed that his pants were wet because Gwynn had had an "explosion". No big deal....we took a girls trip to the bathroom to take care of it. I grabbed my little purse diaper clutch and all the girls and off we went. Well, she got poop everywhere. The clothes could not be worn! I used to have a change of clothes  in the diaper bag in the car, but I just took it out because they were summer. That's great except for the fact that I forgot to replace them with some fall/winter clothes! Then I opened the wipes holder to find that all the wipes were dry! Fortunately, the girls were there and they could get them wet in the sink! I put a new diaper on her and the dirty clothes and we headed back to the table. I decided that I was just going to run across the street to Wal Mart to get her a new outfit. I rushed there and practically ran to the back to the store where the baby clothes are, rush rush hurry hurry. Then I started to look at all the cure baby clothes. I went from one rack to the next just looking for the cutest little outfit every. Just leasurly checking everything out as if there wasn't a care in the world.....what just happened here....I am in a rush! Finally, I snapped out of it and just grabbed one! When I got back I found Gwynn asleep in Jerm's arms. He informed me that she had gas and screamed so loud that he actually had to leave the restaurant twice! The girls said that even when he was outside they could still hear her screaming. Guess stuffed pepper casserole from the night before wasn't a good idea! So, we ate dinner. My fried chicken with honey drizzle was amazing! I then changed Wynnie, finally! It was such a weird experience. It's almost like I forgot what it's like to be a mother of an infant. What was I thinking? Why didn't I have a change of clothes or wet wipes? Such a rookie mistake and I am a mother of THREE! I guess that she's just such an easy baby that I didn't expect anything to go wrong. Oh well, it happens and we all survived.

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Airplanes and Braids

The girls love when daddy gives them airplane rides. I think I love it more though, he's just so hysterical with the things that "go wrong" and the landing and take off. I love listening to the girls scream and laugh as he hoists them up in the air. Good times :) Side note-I have NO idea how crooked that picture was on the wall until I took this picture. It's driving me nuts!!

Yesterday Layne wanted me to braid her hair. I know that her hair is finally growing, but it's not braidable yet! But, she insisted that I try so here you go. Silly Layner. She was so proud of her tiny little braid.

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Gwynn, Meet Roxy

Georgia Cottage Food Laws

As most of you know, about a year and 5 months ago Rockdale Citizen ran an article about Sugar and Spice Sweets. The next day the county called me and informed me that even though I was licensed through the state what I was doing was illegal because home baking is illegal in the county! I cancelled all of my future orders and that was that. I never really thought that the law would change. I kind of just thought that one of two things would happen #1 I would bake again once we moved to another county/state that allowed it. #2 I would bake again once all three girls were school aged and we could buy a store front. So I put that dream on the back burner indefinitely.
Jeremy, on the other hand, started researching and found some people in the state that were fighting to get the state and county laws changed! Before we knew it there was legislation being passed that changed the state laws for in home baking. On September 1 the new guidelines went into effect for the state that allowed home bakers to be licensed! Once the state took that action Jeremy started to take action with our county commissioners in order to get our regulations for in home baking changed in Rockdale. Last Tuesday we were invited to attend the weekly Commissioners Meeting. Jeremy spoke to the panel about the Georgia Cottage Food Law and the hopes that we have that the county will adopt them. Everyone on the panel was VERY much in favor of this. It was just so exciting to not only see my husband fight for something that I am so passionate about but to also see the county excited about legalizing home baking!
After the meeting several people came up to us asking questions. One of the people was from one of the newspapers in Rockdale. She asked tons of questions and even came out to our house with a crew to take pictures of the family on Thursday afternoon. She ran an article about everything on Saturday.
So, we are hoping that Rockdale will legalize home baking within the next few months and then I can get inspected and licensed and get back to it! It's so hard for me to even imagine baking professionally again and knowing that I am allowed to do it!
It's been a good 1 year and 5 months off though. In that time I had a great bake free summer with Hayden and Layne and I had a baby! When I come back I am going to have my priorities right. I am not going to sacrifice my time with God or family in order to bake. I will set guidelines and limits so that it doesn't happen. It's going to be outstanding to be back in the kitchen as Sugar and Spice Sweets.

Click Here to read the article that The News ran about Sugar and Spice Sweets and The Cottage Food Laws. 

Pirates

We are starting a new curriculum at Discover Kids in October. The coolest thing about this new curriculum is that it's free! Another cool thing is that it's just as awesome as the one that we currently use.....only IT'S FREE! To kick it off we've decided to have 2 contests. One on facebook where your kids dress up as pirates then you take a picture of them and post it to the Discover Kids Parent facebook page. I had to have two entries because I just couldn't decide! The other awesome thing is on October 7th everyone in Discover Kids is encouraged to DRESS LIKE A PIRATE! It's going to be awesome.

How about Gwynn's hook hand! I love it! We got all of this at The Dollar Tree. Except for the vests....I sewed those up real quick. Not the best job, but they will do. Arrrrrr!!

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Cute Shirt

I found this in the closet yesterday and fell in love with it all over again! Aunt Jamie made this shirt for her when she was just born. Talk about adorable! I don't even know how you go about making something this adorable.

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Hanging Together

When we went to Toys R Us the other day the girls just had to ride the firetruck on the way out. Notice Layne's new mermaid toy that she got for not going potty in her diaper at night. Yes, we are still fighting that battle every night. Positive.....she is only doing it at night not during the day?!

I absolutely love to watch Hayden and Layne play with their sister. They are so good with her. They have no idea how awesome it's going to be in a few months once she really starts to interact with them!

Layne loves to share her toys with Gwynn!

I turned around the other day in the car and this is what I found. What a nut!

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