A Very Merry Unbirthday

Olivia is 2!!!  Well, she's been 2 since the end of April but we just had her party a few weeks ago.  Between Easter, wedding showers and my parents traveling more in April then they have in the last 5 years, we had to postpone her party.  It gave me more time to get party stuff done study.  Yeah, I had all these cute ideas and I didn't get to do half of them.  I decided that all you really need for a birthday party is a kid and a cake.  Well, that and great favor bags, handmade by me, and a few little touches to personalize the party.  I thought it turned out pretty well, thanks to Nic, my MIL Evie, my sisters and my mom giving me margaritas.  Apparently, I'm a little high strung.  She thought the margarita would help.  I'm not sure if it did but the 2nd sure did the trick ;) 

It was so fun! We had Lawrence the "clown" and by clown I mean a guy who wears a tye-die shirt and paints faces, oh and makes balloon animals too.  We didn't play any games but no one noticed.  I think the food was pretty good.  My mom made her famous chicken salad on croissants.  I've asked her for the recipe and she told me to get some chicken, grapes, apples, walnuts, curry and something else and just throw it all together.  When I get more specific measurements and instructions I'll post the recipe. 

We had some other fun food but my fave was the dessert table. I made cupcakes with my sour cream chocolate cake recipe with fudge icing.  They were delish!  I was disappointed that I wasn't able to make her a fancy cake but the cupcakes were so much better for an outdoor party.  They were super easy to decorate, which was important b/c I was overloaded with tests and care plans- oh and trying to get my house ready for guests.  I bought these cute owl images from the Trendy Butterfly on etsy and put them on everything from the flatware we didn't use, to cupcake toppers and wrappers on the muddy buddy chex mix (my fave).  I made the cupcake "stand" It's just a bunch of boxes wrapped in pink gift wrap with some ribbon from HL.  I just played around with different boxes until I got the look I wanted.  Also, if you look at the bottom 2 pics you can see just a bit of my owl favor bags.  They were super easy and a lot of fun- just a bunch of circles and white paper lunch sacks. I think the favors inside were pretty cool too.

I'm the worst!

I am the worst blogger! I had every intention to blog every day or at least every couple days.  It has been much longer than that.  I know I don't have many readers but I'm often asked "what happened, is everything ok?" So, in short I will just say nursing school is kicking my butt! I was taking 13 hours this summer which was killing me. 
I hated it and so did Olivia.  My heart would just break every time she cried "Don't do homework, mommy.  Come sit with me pleeeeeeeeeaaaaassee" or "I don't want you to go to school" so I have decided to go part time.  It puts graduation off another year but I don't mind.  I would rather enjoy my life and my family and take a little longer.

So I didn't finish blogging my 30 day challenge but I did complete it.  I lost just over 10 pounds!!! YAY me! I'm going to start "running" again.  I want to find a race but it is so hot.  I may just spend this time training and do a big one in the fall.  I know the super 8 is coming up so maybe I'll do that one again.
I've had a lot of things going on... birthday parties, showers, weddings, playdates, homework, tests, kitchen experiments and more. I'll try to write more often and post pics.
I also have a ton of recipes I've been working on.  I'll post the better ones soon.  If I have any readers left out there, thank you! I hope to be around the blogosphere a lot more now that I have more time.

BTW, we had some pics taken around OU a couple months ago.  The pic on top is one of them.  If you're on FB I'm sure you've seen them.  If not check them out.  The photog's name is Kelly Morris.  I thought she did a really good job.