Bridal Shower

So, my mom and I had the honor of throwing Em her very first bridal shower. Many moons ago, Em and her mom threw a shower for me, my family, and all sorts of friends from church. This shower was a way for us to repay the favor!

I really enjoyed getting all of the food prepared as well as buying shower prizes for the occasion wth my mom. Because of Em's intense love of all things game related, I created a game based off Scattegories. I came up with 30 categories (10 questions for 3 rounds) that centered around weddings/married life/Emily and Chris.

We also played a game where people got points for each item they had in their purse. There were some regular items on the list and some not so regular. All of these things were things that I have seen one time or another in Em's purse. Some of the funny ones were a snack, a highlighter, a deck of cards, and nail polish.

Lastly, we played a game-or I should say Em played and we watched-where Emily had to answer questions about Chris. Chris had answered these questions previous to the shower. For each answer that Em got wrong, she had to chew a piece of bubble gum. She did pretty well, but still managed to accumulate quite a wad by the time we were done.

Overall, we had a great time with a great turnout. Em got some great gifts for around the clock (the gift theme) and was a beautiful bride-to-be despite enduring through what would later be revealed as a double ear infection and laryngitis. Such a trooper!

The super cute plates and napkins

My cupcakes matched the plates and napkins

The whole spread

She'll probablykill me for this one, but the bride-to-be with a ton of gum in her mouth. At least I got the kind she liked.

Opening gifts

Me, Em, and Erica

(2 out of the 3 bridesmaids)

Em and I

With our moms

The happy couple

House Guests

If you talk with me on a regular basis, you know that our house is a little crowded right now!

I have to say that while I love having all of our guests (Jordan, Jacob, and Dozer..Jacob's dog) here, there has been a major outnumbering. The male to female ratio right now (including dogs) is 5:1.

I'm hanging in there and truly am having a fun time, but there are nights when I need to be a little girly. Therefore, I ordered Twilight on PPV the other night and DVR'd it so I can watch it as many times as I want. That is my girly fix for the time being.

Jacob and Dozer with Mark and Guinness
(note: Dozer is now much larger than Guinness)

Jordan and I

That's the whole Bennett House crew right now.

Just to fill you in (if you didn't know), Jordan is my best friend from college who is in the process of finding a new place to live since he moved back to Kentucky and Jacob is a co-worker who is getting married next summer therefore moving back to Northern Kentucky at the end of this school year and his apartment lease is up now. Everyone's getting along very nicely and sometimes the dogs get along too well...

Catching Up...

OK...wow! I didn't realize it'd been that long since I'd posted a blog!

My mom brought it to my attention the other day that it has been far too long since I've posted a blog. It's bad when your own mom is bored with your blog.

I am officially on spring break (yay!), so I have a little time to update my blog on the latest that's been going on in my life. Some is exciting, some is not. I'm gonna post it anyway!

I may have to spread some of these posts out a bit since so much has been going on...

10 Things I Won't Miss About Winter

I occasionally read the Ten on Tuesday blog and I loved the list this week, 10 Things I Won't Miss About Winter. This nice weather has inspired me to write a list of my own.

1. Wearing sweaters and heavy coats

2. Getting shocked everytime I get in and out of the car
3. Being snowed in with Hong Kongers
4. Not being able to wear flip-flops
5. Falling down our icy steps
6. Scraping the windows of our car
7. The heating bill
8. Car duty at school where I stand outside for 30 min. putting kids into cars
9. Taking Guinness outside...or retrieving him after he's fixated on eating snow
10. Indoor recess

6 Down, 4 To Go!

As you may or may not know, I have been growing my hair out since late May. Mark was relentlessly trying to get me to grow my hair in a competition with him (I think he just wanted an excuse to grow his hair out with me completely on board). I resisted it for a long time for 2 reasons: I do not like my hair long and I'm not a fan of Mark's hair long.

Last year, my grandma beat cancer herself and it was a very difficult battle. This (& my grandpa's battle) were the 1st times cancer had really hit home with me. After my grandma's recovery, I decided that I would jump on board with Mark to grow my hair out to donate to cancer patients in need of a wig throughout their treatments. I figured that God blessed me with health now so it would be a great way to give back to others. Therefore, I resisted the urge to get my hair cut and have been solely trimming my hair since.

Well, for the fire department, Mark had to cut his hair short (which made me very happy!). However, I decided to keep going. I had already put a few months into it and I figured if nothing else that it would be long for me to do something fun with it at Em's wedding in June.

It is now driving me CRAZY!!! I so badly want to cut it all back to how it used to look. My hair is incredibly thick so it's really heavy and it's not much fun to straighten on a daily basis.

A few weeks ago I went to get my hair trimmed by the lovely Sara Drury. She infomed me that I'm at about 6 inches with about 4 or 5 more to go! Halfway there!!! I wanted to be able to cut it off this summer, but it doesn't look like that will happen.

Here's my progress thus far:

March 2008
(my last big haircut)

September 2008

January 2009
(A little hard to see and my hair's a little wavy,
but it's the only picture where all of my hair is in the picture)
***Note how long Em's hair is now too!***

Au Revoir, T.J.

Source

For most of you, this blog will hold no interest to you. However, yesterday, my world was crushed when TJ Houshmandzadeh officially turned in his black and orange to don a uniform of green. TJ signed with the Seattle Seahawks yesterday leaving the Bengals line-up with a giant hole.

I cannot blame him at all. Seattle offered him more money, he'll be closer to home, and he doesn't have to play for a team managed by Mike Brown. All strong points to lure one away.

Nevertheless, I'm sad to see him and his ponytail go. I'll miss spelling his name. I'll miss making fun of people who cannot pronounce or spell his name. I'll miss all of his hamstring injuries. Most importantly, I'll miss always seeing the number 84 in the endzone.

Good luck in Seattle, T.J.!