Cupcakes and Bad Glasses

AM-BA-GAS
For starters, my small group at church had a creative dessert making battle and I mustered up all my creative juices and made hamburger cupcakes. I know that sounds gross. I made cupcakes that looked like hamburgers. It really takes closing your eyes to eat or else your brain might get real confused. Evidently, I'm the only one that got the weirdness memo because most people just made absolutely delicious desserts in beautiful trifles.

Nevertheless, here they are:

It's basically, vanilla cupcakes cut in half, with the tops off chocolate cupcakes in the middle. And then green, red and yellow icing for the lettuce, ketchup and mustard. And sesame seeds on top are made of icing as well.  I used my mom's awesome homemade buttercream icing recipe so they were pretty yummy!

CHOOSE YOUR BATTLES

This next subject needs a little introducing. I am blind as a bat. I got glasses in first grade and I've been wearing contacts since 7th grade. My eyes still get worse and worse every year when I go to the eye doctor and I imagine, at the rate I'm going, I'll be blind by the time I'm 40.  

My precious mother has a motto in parenting... "choose your battles". She decided, it was okay to let me pick out my own glasses when I was six years old and it was okay to let me have blue hair in 10th grade. On other more important things she would lay down the law.  Many of you have heard about the awful glasses that ruined my elementary school years, and I'm finally breaking out the pictures to prove it.  If you can't tell, they are kind of octagonish on the sides and the top is tinted blue and the bottom tinted pink. Please don't copy these and send them to Ellen for her bad, paid for photos contest. 

2nd grade

3rd grade

If you think these are bad, you should see 4th grade. I had bad glasses and a ridiculous haircut. But I need to save some shred of dignity so that one will stay in the back of my mom's closet. A the end of fourth grade (long after school pictures were taken), I upgraded to wire rims. PURPLE ONES. Yeah.

Father's Day Late

I was being slack last week and missed out on a great father's day post, so in order to recover from my glasses pictures, I thought I would share this cute picture of me and my daddy! 

Happy Monday! 

Thankfulness

Sometimes, when we stop and look at our lives, we only see what we don't have.  My sinful heart, my pride keeps creeping on me, whispering over my shoulder that I'm not enough. That my life is not enough. That my days are empty.

But today, I'm reminding myself of what I have. Of how blessed I am. Of how my cup overflows. Of the joy that my days hold for me. And I'm so grateful.

I'm so thankful for my husband, who provides for us, cares for us, and loves us deeply. I chose this man to not only be my partner but also the father of my children, because even 7 years ago, I knew this is the man he would be for our family. My heart swells when I see him laughing with our daughter, rocking her, feeding her, singing to her. 

My husband has an illness that has caused of lot of heartache in the past and most likely, holds some heartache in our future. But I'm grateful for the disease, that keeps our eyes focused on our Savior. When life is running smoothly, we think we are in control. Every day, I know, it's up to Him and we must trust in His care. Because of Him, I do not need to be afraid.

After nearly two years of trying to conceive, after praying and seeking, after poor test results and tears, we conceived and gave birth to a beautiful, healthy, happy baby girl. God blessed us with a child we weren't entitled to, a child we didn't deserve, a child we will always be blessed to have.

I'm so thankful to spend my days with this sweet girl, even when most of those days include dirty diapers, big messes, strewn food, and picking up the same toys, cookbooks (she's pulled from the shelves) and dishtowels (she's emptied from the drawers) 10 times a day. The slobbery kisses, big hugs, smiles and laughs, baby steps, dances and silly faces make it all worth while.

It's fun to have such good company when I'm running errands at the bank, post office and grocery store. She always gives me a excuse to stop and play for awhile at the swings, and spend an afternoon at the pool.

I'm thankful for the big ugly chair in my living room, that was perfect for kicking up my feet when I was pregnant, rocking a newborn, cuddling my big girl, and an occasional afternoon nap for mommy while she's in bed!

I'm happy to have Godly parents that always pointed me to the things in life that mattered most and in-laws that did the same for my husband growing up. I have no hefty baggage or ugly scars from a childhood gone wrong. I'm thankful for friends who can always relate, share dinners and game nights and playdates.

What a full life. But I cannot boast in these things. I can only boast in the Lord.

A Cheap Fix or Two!

Shop 'til you drop...
Yesterday I spent some quality time at IKEA and Concord Mills because Matt had a super secret spy meeting in Charlotte for four hours so I rode along for some uninterrupted shopping time. I needed a bookshelf for Addison's room so I got that and a few other little things.

One thing I found were these super cute, smell-good candles for $1.99 each! They are about the size of a large glass juice tumbler. When I bought them, I thought they would make great little gifts. I mean, what girl doesn't appreciate a great candle. BUT, when I got home, I realized that I accidently (subconsciously?) bought them all in the color palette of my living room/kitchen area. Now I want to keep them all. Oops.

Notice how the orange candle is a blur? Yeah, that's my one year old stealing it for herself. We have entered a new day at the Wright house. No surface is safe anymore... Don't expect my house to be perfectly accessorized anymore. All accessories on surfaces 3 feet or lower are now in the closet.

I also bought some organizing canisters at IKEA for some pantry items. I have cute counter canisters that I just don't use because I don't like a lot of stuff on my counters (i'm a less-is-more kinda girl) and I just never felt like they would keep things as fresh as something sealed. So, I've pretty much always kept sugar and flour in their original bags and then put it in a ziploc bag. So, my pantry looks pretty cluttered. $2.99 for the little ones and $4.99 for the big ones, and I feel like my pantry is a happy place again.

Homemade Pizza, Reinvented.
On another note, I wanted to share with you a good "we don't have anything for dinner" recipe OR "we need a quick easy dinner before we go to the softball game" recipe. I gave it a whirl about a year ago because it was pretty much all we had in the kitchen and now it's a staple in our house! First off, I love these pitas.

I used to make veggie pita sandwiches, but when I couldn't fit everything in it, I would make a salad with lunchmeat turkey, craisins, sliced almonds, cheese, cucumber, tomato... whatever I had and have a pita on the side. And I love the Kraft Tuscan Italian Dressing. This was pretty much my lunch 4 times a week after Addison was born.

 Well, one day, I was out of craisins so I decided to make a pita pizza. I used honey mustard as the sauce then added turkey, onions, tomato and cheddarjack cheese and popped it in the toaster oven. It was perfect. The bottom and edges of the pita would get perfectly crisp and the middle was still a little soft. So, we continued with a multitude of combinations, all delicious. This would also be great for a casual get-together or even for kids. BYOP (Build Your Own Pizza) and have a bar of toppings. We did this with my family the Saturday after Thanksgiving after everyone had OD-ed on holiday food.

*If you are making a lot of them, and want to use the oven instead of the toaster oven, I put a cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet and then put them in the oven at 400 degrees for 7-9 minutes. The rack helps the pita get crispy but you don't drip cheese all in your oven since it's on the cookie sheet.

Here's some proven-delicious combinations:

Margherita Pizza:

Tomato Sauce
Fresh sliced Roma Tomatoes
Fresh Basil
Mozzarella Cheese (or Italian Blend)

Buffalo Chicken:
Ranch Dressing mixed with Buffalo Sauce
Leftover grilled or fried chicken smothered in Buffalo
Red Onions
Cheddar Jack Cheese


Barbeque Sauce or Honey Mustard
Turkey or Leftover Chicken
Onion
Tomato
Cheddar Cheese

ENJOY!

Birthday Party!

For Addison's first birthday party this past Saturday, we rented a shelter in Cleveland Park in Greenville to have a 'Picnic in the Park' Party! 

I made these birthday banners months ago. I'm not usually very good with tedious things but I mustered up some focus and I was super excited with them. I'm sure we'll use these for a lot of birthdays! 

My mom made Addison's cake and all the birthday cupcakes! Delicious! 

This basket had little favor goody bags for all the kids. I attached their names  to pipe cleaners sticking up from their bags. Each bag had a bottle of bubbles that looked like a soda bottle (we served bottled drinks), sunglasses, old fashioned candy sticks and bugs (what's a picnic without bugs)

IBC Root Beer and Cream Soda, Coke and Crush. There's something about drinking soda out of a
glass bottle that makes it taste better. 

Presents on an old quilt made by my great-Aunt Hester.

Matt grilled yummy hot dogs. 

Addison loving on her Panda for Mimi and Granddaddy

How old are you Addison?

These sunglasses were one of the favors..

 

 

Fun was had by all!

A Letter to Addison

To my beautiful baby girl. Today, you are one year old! I can hardly believe that just one year ago, you were still in my belly, kicking me in my ribs, pretty much all day and night. It feels like I've known you forever. I can hardly remember what life was like before you came along.

In the last six months you've gone from sitting up, to crawling, to pulling up and cruising along the furniture. You're even standing all by yourself, and I expect any second now, you'll take those first brave steps to a whole new world on two feet. You now have two teeth on the bottom and two teeth on top and although there are no signs of any other teeth coming any time soon, that doesn't keep you from eating just about anything we put in front of you, with the exception of green beans which you will spit out immediately. You can chow down on a whole banana in a snap. You love mandarin oranges, peaches and pears, and I'm super excited that you are really loving some new recipes I've been making out of this baby cookbook (because you refused to eat my homemade food in the early days!)...

The best thing about you, my sweet girl, is that you are all smiles, all the time. (except maybe when I leave you at first...you are a bit of a momma's girl) When we are at restaurants, you laugh and giggle and make friends with the kids (and men), at the tables around us. You lean over and smile and wave and squench up your nose and then you talk in your baby language as loud as you possibly can. I know you are saying something to the effect of "Hey! You're my size! I'm Addison! I'm here with my mom and dad! I love when they come to Carabbas! I get endless Cheerios! Come over and play! Hi! Hi!"  And then, when that kid turns around to finish their meal, you really amp up the volume until just about everyone in a 10 foot radius is looking our way. They think your cute and very chatty. I'm sure when you know real words, I'll never hear the end of it. ;)

Everyone still comments on your Gerber baby face and your big blue eyes and now we can add your adorable curly hair to the mix. When you're a teenager, you'll probably wanna straighten them like I did, but for now you must embrace those beautiful curls! A lot of people pay a lot of money for hair like that!

My favorite thing about you right now is how you love to wallow on me and your daddy and pillows or stuffed animals or whatever fluff is around! You just throw yourself onto us and laugh and roll around. You're quite the silly girl, Ms. Addison. I'm sure you come by it honestly.

Even still, a full year later, we never tire of looking at you, laughing with you, playing and snuggling, and listening to you jibber jabber. Each new phase we enter quickly becomes my favorite. I love you sweet girl, and we continue to pray everyday that you will come to know and love Jesus! He has blessed us beyond measure when He blessed us with you!