Bennett's Baptized!

November 10, 2013 ... our little guy was wrapped in the an all white Christening sweater and we started him on his faith journey and vowed to bring him up in a Christian home. Such a great day!

One little personal problem, I was so wrapped up in all of the excitement I was a COMPLETE blogger failure when it came to picture taking and took ZERO pictures outside of the actual Baptism itself. UGH, and I had SO much I wanted to share. Ugh again. I was so sad when all of the excitement had finally died down, the last visitor left my home, I sat down on the couch to relish in how great the day had gone and it dawned on me ... I didn't take a SINGLE picture. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

I also failed to get a photo of him in his little Baptismal outfit ... GET IT TOGETHER KATIE ... but I got him in all white, right before we put him in it :)

And his little feetsies were adorned in these OH MY WORD adorable baby moxies I found on Etsy. Such a great little idea for gifts or any special occasion.

Luckily though, I did get some great photo ops from the actual Baptism (thanks baby bro), which really is the most important part. But, ALL of our family (extended included) was in town and there were so many great details I wanted to document and family photo ops that were missed, so I could show BUB one day ... since let's be real, the child had no idea it was even happening ... but nope, nothing to show for it. Not even a single selfie on my phone. Nada.  Alas, I must move on.

Bennett did great! No tears, just antsy feet and a tongue that never stopped moving (nothing new here).

 It was such a neat experience, and Father Steve also baptized Shane when he was a wee babe, so that made it extra special!

Nearly my ENTIRE family showed up and I was filled with warm fuzzies to think of how much support we have. What a testament to Bennett and how special he is. My cup runneth over.

So, now would be the portion where I dish the details of the after party with pictures to match, but we've already hashed that out ... After the baptism we invited the entire family to our house for a brunch (shout out to my momma and my momma in law for helping me prep the food the day before!) and just a fun get together to see everyone and celebrate the little guy.

Our menu included (yep, that would have been about 3 months full of recipe Monday's if I would have managed to take photos ... cool Katie):

• Honey Baked Ham
• Poppyseed Ham and Cheese Sliders
• Apple Snickers Salad
• Biscuits and Gravy
• Cinnamon Rolls
• Breakfast Egg Casseroles
• Fruit Salad
• Hashbrown Casserole
• Cheesy Grits

And the infamous Snickerdoodle cake by Ashlicious Cakes, that were in cupcake form and looked a little something like this with blue icing and Bennett's name & the baptism date included. It was a hit. She does SUCH a great job. Recommendations for days y'all!

We had such a great time, and it's always such a great feeling to have your entire family in the house. It's good to catch up with everyone and see all of the little ones. We've got babies on babies at family functions now and it makes everything infinitely more fun! Bonus! Even the Dykstra's made the trip down, and the twins are getting so big you guys .. not to mention Maebyn is over the top cute. Bahh! (real tears about the missed photo ops.)

And last, but certainly NOT least, I leave you with the greatest Godparents that ever did live: Chris and Laura. Bennett's such a lucky little guy to have these two in his life.

 And check out his sweet new threads. Ha. Hysterical. I love it.

I may or may not have ended both my Sunday and Monday with leftover cupcakes. I'll let you decide. Diet Shmiet. 

Proud of you BUB. And thank you so much to all of our family who made time to be a part of Bennett's special day. We love you so so much!

Recipe Monday: Spaghetti Squash

Real life: Hubs and I cooked and ate spaghetti squash and ... drum roll ... actually liked it!  Huge win!

Fall season brings on an abundance of crazed pumpkin people, and spaghetti squash to me fell amongst that category, therefore I was anti-spaghetti squash making. Low and behold, since Hubs and I are "dieting" to lose the rest of this baby weight, we're cutting back on pasta, so we had to succumb to trying it out to get our fix. As luck would have it, the ONLY one left in the entire store was the largest one I have ever seen in my life. Had to bring in the big guns to cut that bad boy!

Not a whole lot to this recipe. Basically I preheated my oven to 350 degrees, cute the squash in half, scraped out the seeds, drizzled with some olive oil and added a good amount of salt and pepper.

Placed the big honker in the oven, insides face down and let er' bake for about 30-40 minutes just until the inside was soft and tender.

Then, I pulled him out, and started scraping the insides with a fork and magically, spaghetti appears :)

We decided to dress it with some more olive oil this time because we wanted to really taste the flavor or the squash, and we added some meatballs and mushrooms to make for a good hearty dinner. It was by no means beautiful, but very tasty. Next time I plan to add marinara and take it an entirely new direction. Oh boy! ;)

And added bonus, we had TONS of leftovers. Not surprisingly, seeing the size of that big guys. But I pattied them up the next morning added some diced onion and had spaghetti squash hash browns for breakfast (forgot to take a picture). Double Win! 

Happy Cooking!

Dirty Little Secrets

A few weekends back Penny and I took le' baby to Cincinnati to visit with family and we made a pit stop to see baby bro on our way.  

Before I get started I feel as though I need to mention, although I'm not sure it's truly a secret ... there is not one single day in the past 5 years that for just 1 second I haven't wished I was still in college.  Don't get me wrong, I love where I am in life right now, but college for this gal hung the moon. In a big way. My friends and I did it right and I will FOREVER cherish those four years. 

Like all things in life however, with the good comes the bad ... but looking back I feel like I automatically forget anything bad and it's completely overshadowed by good when it comes to college. It's all bliss. 

BUT ... it took a flight of stairs and three steps into baby bro's apartment for me to remember some of those "not so great" dirty little college life nuggets. 

Exhibit A: That moment after a long night when everyone in your house completely forgets garbage cans exist. In addition, beverages are considered gold, and if you made poor choices at your morning speedway stop and ran out of your diet coke and Gatorade too soon, you were SOL. You can also be sure your roommate was NOT sharing. It was in this moment I was for the first time thankful for my dual operating trash and recycling cans that luckily hubs and I have a habit of using. I also pictured our garage beverage fridge with gleaming light shining down from the heavens to highlight it's glory.

Exhibit B: The dreaded dishes. Although dishes never truly get better and you never WANT to do them, there is something about college and roommates that makes dishes terribly despicable. More than likely everyone has that one roommate that NEVER does the dishes, regardless of the fact that 80% of the items in the sink are theirs. Moreover, after a long night and perhaps a pregame .. the stench that comes from that sink along with the fruit flies that stay around for the next week is enough to make me gag while typing this. Que thankful moment for my empty sink at home and my fancy dishwasher that is constantly going. Whew!

Exhibit C: Communal bathrooms. Barf. Vomit. Kill me dead. ARE YOU SERIOUS!? From memories of common dorm showers to mixing drinks near the frat house sinks ... Oh. Em. Gee. Do I even need to share my thankfulness sentiments on the fact these days are behind me regarding this topic? Didn't think so.

Exhibit D:  The messy roommate. The getting ready with 45 girls in a sorority house, swapping clothes and then trying to find the ones you loaned later (although I do miss all those options).  The waiting until nearly every item of your wardrobe was dirty or worn twice to do your laundry. Or worse, having to pile up all of your clothes in a mesh bag and drive home to do your laundry. Ugh. Thank you front load washer and dryer that runs almost daily. Thank you.

Welp, there you have it. DIRTY little secrets inside college living. Dirty.

Needed this today.

It's happened. I truly am Penny's daughter and now cry at everything. My friends would argue this happened a LONG time ago, but I'm just now succumbing to the realization. Whew, I needed this today, a reminder that I'm doing okay :) And so are you other new mommies, so are YOU!

Not only is this video one of the greatest things, but an awesome read about new mothers and friendship passed on to me from my girl Caroline has me in a great place. Sometimes other people have such a great way of bringing perspective to concepts you can't quite put into words. It's nice to know other people are going through similar circumstances sometimes too.  Has a way of giving you that extra little bit of mmpph you need to get your through your day!  Have a good one folks!