Rubber Ducks, Sock Monkeys and Breast Pumps

What do rubber ducks, sock monkeys and breast pumps have in common? A Baby Shower! Little yellow ducks floating in blue punch, monkeys on the table and of course every new mother who plans to breast feed needs a good breast pump! With a pastel blue and brown theme including polka dots and lots of little boy things, this baby shower proved to be cute, cute, cute…..*even though I do say so myself*.

It was a get together to welcome baby Evan who is soon to arrive in late October.

Janan and Becky,

the "Nana-to-be"!

 

Grand Central, a Gathering Place in Downtown Ozark, AL

Family and good friends gathered with the teddy bears, monkeys, bats and balls, toy trucks and wagons.
*I would like to think they came just for the food but that would be carrying it a bit too far.*

The new mother-to-be, Miranda, received many wonderful gifts for her new baby boy…..everything from Roll Tide Alabama Football paraphernalia, camouflage, cowboy and cutesy baby boy things. Boy have things changed over the years.....now they make baby tubs with temperature gauges built right in them and little seats called Bumbos…too cute, now who was the genius who thought of this? So many gifts were given to welcome Evan that his parents should not have to purchase anything themselves except more diapers, diapers, and more diapers….......................................................

Now for the high tech, modern way to express breast milk for your new baby; how did I ever get along without one of things contraptions? An electric booby guillotine, if you will, to make your breast feeding life more tolerable…..well let me tell you….tolerable it is NOT 100% of the time, however I do recommend it 100%. Back in my day of new motherhood, I only had a manual hand held pump…and of course it did NOT work. I’m sure this new fangled, state-of-the-art, high def, automatic sucking machine works far better than the one I was subjected to back in the 80’s. We’ve come a long way baby! And to make your motherhood more comfortable get you a generous supply of Nipple Nurture Butter….no kidding!

                                                                                    Katie, Miranda's sister -in-law, jotting down all the gifts and who gave them.

 So cute!

 

  The Poop Powder Pockets were a hit with everyone as well as the Sand Tarts and my chicken salad.  See previous posts for cookie recipe and the how-to for the Poop Powder Pockets.

The cup cakes were too cute to eat and the blue foamy punch.....well I'll let the picture speak for it's self!

Baby Shower fun........

*we did provide chairs for them to sit in...really we did*

While I’m glad this event is over and I can now make my bed which had not been made in three days straight due to being so busy cooking, preparing and decorating.  It was well worth the efforts by all.

 Me, Christie, Miranda and Mary

Hard to tell which one is expecting because she doesn't look pregnant!

Thank you Mary and Christie for helping me with this flawless event

 for Jason, Miranda and Evan; it was truly a success.

"Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
The fruit of the womb is a reward."

Psalm 127:3 NKJV

There are two ways to live your life.

One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Albert Einstein

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
Proverbs 22:6 KJV

Baby Miranda and Baby Jason

Children are a blessing,

Not Your Typical Tart

Tart- [taart] or [tahrt] –noun
     1. A pie that has no top crust and is usually filled with something sweet such as fruit or custard.
     2. slang . An offensive term for a female prostitute or a woman regarded as sexually provocative; a         promiscuous woman.
     3. Cora’s semi-sweet little cookies crammed with pecans and coated with velvety white sugar.

*I prefer #3 myself*

Simply sweet and easy to make…..I have been making these delectable delights since I was in my teens. Thank heaven for the dough hook in my KitchenAid mixer, I feel sure I burned up a few mixers of Mama’s, or maybe her Sunbeam was more powerful than they are today. This is a really thick and stiff cookie dough, with no need to chill before rolling into the little balls…its so fun getting your hands in the dough and rolling it around.

 I made these for the baby shower, which is coming up Saturday. After mixing and rolling approximately 120 of these little boogers, I was ready for a taste! So I picked out 8 of the no-so-pretty-shaped cookies so that Jackie and I could have a sampling after our supper. They were as good as I remembered. Yum Yum!

Cookie Dough and sugar rolling!

 

Here’s the recipe if you are unable to read from the photo.

*You would have to have really GOOD eyes!*

Sand Tarts
*To yield 60 tarts*

1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
5 Tablespoons confectioners’ sugar plus extra for rolling
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons of vanilla
1 ½ cups chopped pecans
Cream softened butter with sugar, add the flour slowly, then add vanilla and pecans. Dough will be very stiff. Mix well. Do not burn up the mixer. *I burnt up my red Sunbeam stand mixer making Divinity one Christmas…bad deal* Roll into small bite-size balls and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Bake 335F to 350F oven for ½ hour. Roll cookies in the extra sugar while they are still a little warm but *NOT HOT*. Enjoy!

Be looking for the photos of the new mother-to-be at the baby shower where these sweet little things will be eaten up.

 Without GOD, our week would be:
Sinday, Mournday, Tearsday, Wasteday,
Thirstday, Fightday & Shatterday.

The things girls can get into!

We are back home after a wonderful and fun filled trip to Holly’s in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, just outside of New Orleans. Becky, my bestest friend, and I went to Holly’s on Friday night after Becky got off work. We drove, laughing and yapping the whole way with no problems, the six hour trip, arriving safely. We stayed up until 2:30 in the morning, talking, laughing, giving Becky the "grand tour" of military apartment living, eating boiled p-nuts, etc….before falling into bed for the rest of the morning. Poor Richard had to get up at 5:30 to leave for work. He is in the Coast Guard based at the station in Venice, Louisiana. Venice is where the earth ends in the southern part of the United States….its at the tip of nowhere! Bless his heart for the lack of sleep he had, but he sure was a good sport about it, I think he slept on the hour bus drive down there from the Navy Base.

Holly, Becky and I started out our adventures with shopping in Slidell, Louisiana. Lots of shopping to be had there, with a wonderful lunch at Olive Garden, one of my faves. Hobby Lobby should really be called Hobby Heaven!...and you all should really try the Ember reed diffusers from Pier One…a fantastic scent…love it! 

After a long day we ended with popcorn and a movie, Bride Wars, a total chick-flick of a movie, which was rather slow running and boring at times, but we were entertained non the less.

On Saturday, we began our day with getting our nails done….mannies and peddies! Such relaxing fun and pampering.

 Becky and  Holly

The Korean women did an excellent job while talking and conversing to each other in their own language. I told Becky “You know they are talking and laughing about us, don’t you?” She said “Yes they are saying ‘Look at the nasty feet on these women!’”

So then we were laughing at them!

Me and Becky!

Holly's toes!

My toes and my lovely new flip flops!

Becky's toes!

While the woman was doing my nails she spoke, looking down at my nails, in her language, so I immediately responded “Huh?”  with what was surely a true southern accent.  She said “I not specking to you” and I said “Oh, well you could talk to me or about me all day long and I would not understand anything you said” and she respond with this: “Why I talk about you all day long…five minutes be enough!”   LOL….Yeah I know I’m a boring subject…only worth five minutes!

 Holly, Becky, and Me!

Hand models, we are not!

 We continued our day with lunch at Texas Roadhouse…..the grilled shrimp are to die for! Then we were on to more shopping….the thrift stores are plentiful in the area. We found lots of bargains to include retro brooches, decorative hammered aluminum bowls, old books and lots of other goodies. While there, some women wanted to know where we were from because of our accent. When I responded “Alabama” in my most southern of southern accents she said “It’s so sweet!”          Hummmm…..sweet?

We ended our day watching the movie
Nights in Rodanthe….with Richard Gere….need I say more? 


    Sunday, the Lord’s beautiful day, landed us with a trip to Venice for a Coast Guard boat trip. My son-n-law, Richard and a CG team took us out in one of the boats for a Mississippi River ride down to the Gulf of Mexico….exciting fun on a hot Louisiana day in the south. We boarded the boat, donning our survival gear which is regulation. Thank heaven the boat was air conditioned!

Speaking of this survival vest…..it includes many pockets and is NOT pre-inflated. Note in the picture above. The “rip cord” is what you pull when you go over board. IF it fails you then go for the manual mouth piece and blow it up yourself….lungs permitting! IF you are rendered unconscious…..…well I give up! But you should always feel at peace knowing you have a knife in one of the pouches…I assume it is to fight off the alligators while you are attempting to inflate the PFD (personal floatation device). More comfort in the other pockets includes flares….Next you should feel even more comfort in knowing that there is a locator device.  IF the knife fails to render results with the alligator….the Coast Guard will be able to locate the alligator that swallowed you whole! So be confident in knowing that they will find you and retrieve you from the waters of the Mississippi!  
Really on a serious note the US Coast Guard are top notch at what they do to monitor our water ways and in their unique rescue efforts during deadly gulf storms. They are wonderful at their job and have saved many people.

After a thrilling ride over waves and big boat wake, with Holly demanding “more, more and go faster, faster”….she’s like a kid, so daring; we arrived safely back to port without having had to experience the use of the PDF.

Thank you Lord!

Holly

Blas, CG team member

Jacki and Ryan

Brown, the boat driverMe and my Bestest!Holly, Richard, and Me (looking rough)

   Becky

Richard and Ryan

My kids, Holly with her sweetheart, Richard. 

Today is their 2nd wedding anniversary.

 

Now you know you are in south Louisiana when you get back

to your car and find it like this……………………

Having spent the day with Richard doing his job was an interesting experience, plus Holly was thrilled to see him and spent time on his turf. We returned back to Belle Chasse after stopping to pick up 13 pounds of fresh jumbo shrimp, straight off the shrimp boats *stinky smell* for only $3.00 a pound! Can’t wait to grill them up!

Now Sunday evening ended with the watching of Drop Dead Diva and of course our favorite…Army Wives! 

Before beginning our journey back to southeast Alabama, Monday morning…we had brunch at IHOP to include Richard again because he had gotten home in time to join us! Holly got the Strawberry Cheesecake pancakes…..yummy, Richard got the steak omelet and Becky and I played it safe with the pancakes, bacon and eggs!

What a wonderful time I had spending it with my favorite daughter and my bestest friend and the bonus of seeing more of my son-n-law than expected.  Who could ask for more?

Not to be making fun of the Coast Guard but for the need to understand English…watch this!

Funny Commercial

So Funny! Laugh a little! Love lots!

Enjoy your family!

PS….I did miss you Jackie!