I {Heart} Faces

This weeks challenge at I Heart Faces is all about smiles. I chose this picture of my adorable nephew on a tractor. He loves anything that he can drive, push, or steer himself. He was quite interested in taking the drivers seat, and he was not a happy camper when mom and dad had to pull him off.

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Celebrate Life

On April 21, 2010 Brad's grandmother "mammaw" passed away at 100 years old. We headed to Austin to be with his family and to celebrate her very long life. I am the "newest" member of the family so I did not know her very well, and had only been around her a hand full of times, but she was definitely a strong woman. I learned some things about her this weekend that I had never known about her...

- She was the recycling queen, she would collect cans and newspapers for recycling. Her daughters even put a bag on her walker so she could walk around her aparment complex and collect all the newpapers. So it was fitting that she passed away on Earth Day.

- She entered Southwest Texas State Teacher's College in San Marcos, Texas, in the fall of 1928. After obtaining an emergency teaching certificate, she began teaching public school to help earn funds to continue her college education during the Great Depression. She graduated from college on August 21, 1935.

- She planned and paid for her funeral when she was 83, and paid something like $2,000 for it. The total was around 12K, thats a deal right? I bet she didn't think she would live 17 more years.

- She kept a diary, up until she was 98 or 99. Wrote in it every day. Brad's mom was reading some of it on Thursday and came across the entry that read "well Brad is going to pop the question to Emily, he is taking her parents out to ask their permission" it was dated December 11, 2007 - 3 days before he proposed.

- One of the things she taught her daugheters was to never stop learning. She had a squirrel outside her window at her nursing home (I named him Stuart, it stuck and she always remembered it), and a few weeks ago she asked Brad's mom "What type of Animal is that" Brad's momreplied "Well its a squirrel" Mammaws response was less than satisfied, " No I she need to know what kind of squirrel." So Brad's mom said ok we will google it. We all learned that Stuart is an American Red Squirrel.

- Her funeral was in the church that her husband was a minister at, and later came back to as members. Brad's mother and father were also married in that church.

She had a very long and happy life. Brad often wondered if she thought at 80 years old she would end up living another 20 years. His mom and Aunt believe that she is in heaven, enjoying her morning coffee and reading the newpaper with her husband, and he is wondering what took her so long.

I {Heart} Faces

The weekly challenge at I Heart Faces this week is "collages." This picture was from an acoustic show I went to a few weeks ago. I like how this photo depicts the three different artists. Here is Randy Rogers, Adam Hood, and Sean McConnell - check out their music, it is defnitely worth listening to!

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Checks!

So at the beginning of the year I jumped on the bandwagon and started a 101 in 1,001 days list, you know do all 101 things in 1,001 days. I have actually checked a couple more things off that list, and working on a few others.

#27 - No Eating Out for a Week

B and I realized we started eating out way too much, during the week was not usually a problem, but when those weekends come it was bad news. So after work a couple weeks ago I came home and told B that we needed to change this. We decided that we would only eat out ONCE a week, and in the long run it would help our bank account, and our figure! Well the last time I ate out was last Tuesday, April 6th, - we had a Whataburger break down, but alas I made it a full 7 days!

#34 - Make to work by 8AM for a week

I am the type of person that hates to be late, but it seemed like no matter what time I left in the morning I would always get to work at 8:03-8:05, so I started to make a conscience effort to start waking up earlier and leave earlier, so when I got to work 2 days in a row at 7:30 to make up an hour I had taken off my coworker made a bet with me to see if I could make it to work for a MONTH before 8AM. Not only did I make it to work before 8AM for a week, I am now in my 5th week of making it before 8AM! So I won the bet, and scratched another thing off my list. I did not "win" anything in our bet, it was more of a "oh you don't think I can do it, well now I will prove you wrong" kind of thing...and I hate losing.

Cupcakes, Diapers, and Babies, Oh My!

This past weekend my friend Rachel and I hosted a baby shower for our wondeful friend Erin, who is due to have little Miss. Aubrey Lynn on May 10th (Erin is hoping sooner than that). Although the day started out very rainy, the weather cleared up and the shower turned out great; and she got some great stuff too! I was in charge of making the diaper cake, which I think turned out awesome, and getting the dessert! We ended up getting cupcakes at Treat! - which if you live in the Spring/Woodlands/Tomball area, this place is delish, especially the strawberry cupcake! My friend Laurel over at Go Against the Grain made some adorable cupcake toppers that had her name and it's a girl on them - they looked adorable! Check out her etsy shop, she has some great stuff. Here are some photos

I {Heart} Faces

I love desserts, probably more than the average person. I am definitely a sucker for sweets so when the challenge over at I Heart Faces was "desserts" I knew I had to submit a photo. This past weekend I helped host a shower for my dear friend, and instead of cake we had these yummy cupcakes!

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