60th Birthday Party for Two

For the past month and a half, I have been working on putting together a birthday party for my parents--both of them are having their 60th birthday this year, within two weeks of each other!  Dad turned 60 on the 14th, and my mom will on November 1, so I decided to throw this party inbetween them.  I was limited on the choice of the date, however, as hubby, Dad, and I have a mud run on the 28th (which I can't run in anymore since it is still in my six week recovery time...boo).

It started with sending out about 70 invitations to friends and family.  I was thinking about creating the invitation, but it got to be a big complication.  Instead I created the response card, prestamped them all and addressed them back to me so all they would have to do is fill it out and pop it back into the mailbox.  I think it turned out cute, and I had a few funny ones come back. :)

 

 

Next week, these and the photos that we took will be put into an album that I am going to make for them.

 

Since I ended up having surgery in the middle of the planning, I enlisted the help of my mom (plus, I knew that she would want to see what was going on!).  She wanted to make favors of chocolate lollipops, whereas I wanted to have little favors of paper plantable seeds to hand out.  So we did both--I made the favors of seeds, she made the lollipops.  They both turned out cute!!

 

 

 

I also wanted to do something special for taking pictures of the guests.  After seeing some cute ideas on Pinterest, I recruited my dad and hubby to build me a super big picture frame with stand out of the scrap wood and old parts of the fence we had by the shed.  I was THRILLED with how it turned out! Then I bought some garland with fall leaves (the theme), detached the leaves from the garlands, and glued the leaves to the wooden frame.  It was so big we couldn't put it together until we got it to the party, and even then we had to use a trailer to get it there! :)

 

 

And finally, after much planning and organizing, the day arrived.  Right on time, too--I was getting tired from losing sleep over all the things I needed to get done!! I even did most of the food for the 50 people we were expecting, not because I am totally nuts, but because I didn't trust catering to not cross-contaminate the food with gluten (and I really didn't want to spend the party time sick after all of this!).  I did have the cake made by someone else, but I made my own GF cupcakes.  There was brisket, green beans, Tahiti salad, pinto beans, pickles and onions, and loaves of bread (kept away from the other food).  All super yummy!!

 

The cake table

The cake! (inspired by Cake Wrecks)

Gluten free cupcakes--yum!

The dinner buffet being set up

The favors table

The table where guests were to sign a photo mat for my parents, and place birthday cards

The photo mat guestbook and basket for cards

The assembled frame where guests had their pictures taken

One of the tables

Another table setting

 

 

The party went wonderfully.  :)  Everyone had a great time, got to mingle and catch up, and my parents were very happy.  Every last bit of effort and planning was totally worth it--I would do it all over again!! 

 

 

 

Happy birthday to the most amazing parents!!  I love you!!!









Testing a Pin--Green Onions

It's no secret to those around me that I have a bit of an addiction to that heaven-sent website, Pinterest.  I'm trying to get my mom interested, as there are a lot of things that I know would inspire her do or make things that she would find.  I'm jjust going to have to make time to teach her the joys of Pinterest! :)

Before my in-laws moved here at the end of last month, I wanted to learn some Korean recipes (my mother-in-law is Korean) to show that not only I can cook (and do it well!!), but also that the traditional recipes can be made gluten free and taste just as wonderful as it's gluten-laden counterparts.

One of the recipes I wanted to tackle was the green onion pancakes...it looked good, easy to make, and I knew that they would love it.  However, in the whirlwind that accompanies the purchase of a home, paperwork, me suddenly going in for surgery and a toddler--well, things fall to the wayside.  The pancakes were forgotten, and more "normal" meals were made since they were easy to do on the cuff.

After they went home to pack, I was going through my fridge for ingredients to make dinner when I ran across the poor, withered green onions I had bought to make those pancakes.  I almost threw them out.  But then I remembered a pin that I had seen earlier about green onions--and how to make them a perpetual crop just by putting the white ends (the green chopped off) in some water.  Wow!  Maybe I had been the only person who never knew this, but I quickly chopped off the withered greens and plunked those little bulbs in a glass of water on my window sill.  A few days later...

 And now a week later....

 

Ready for harvesting!! 

 

 

And according to the comments and other posters, this can be done over and over again!  Now to attempt the pancakes...and will update if the recipe works out!

Bumpy Road

It's amazing to me how many times I think I have things in life figured out, only to have it all change on a whim.

There were a lot of things that happened during my pregnancy that people weren't aware of.  Mostly I kept them to myself (or between me and D) because I was miserable and in pain, and more bad things just seemed to be overkill.  I had hoped that my pregnancy was going to be happy and healthy and I would glow like all those other women.  That just didn't happen.  I gained a ton of weight, I was constantly hurting (misdiagnosis of arthritis had me drugged, too), and could barely walk.  Nothing like I pictured.

During that time, like everyone else, I had regular check-ups.  One of the tests mid-pregnancy came back positive for cervical cancer.  Obviously there was nothing we could do at the time, so we waited until I had had Z and healed, and then three months later had gone in to take care of it.  We had decided on spot treating it, burning the areas that had were positive for the cells.  If that didn't work, we had decided to do surgery.  After another test coming back still positive, surgery seemed to be the next step.  However, I had a staph infection that had to heal first (from the hospital, go figure).

On a whim, the day of the consultation to schedule the surgery, I asked to be tested one last time to see if perhaps the spot treatment had maybe taken and maybe it had just needed time.  Tested...and it was clear.  No cancer!!  I was thrilled and over the moon--and for the first time, told people about all of this going on.  Scheduled an appointment for a check up six months out.

The six month mark was a few weeks ago.  I had a bad feeling about it.  Why?  Things weren't exactly working like they were supposed to, and it seemed to be a precursor to bad news.  I had told the doctor that I was worried that it was happening again, but she said that she didn't see anything and that it was most likely me stressing.  She would run the test, but told me to try not to worry.  She called me a few days later, on Friday.  I knew it was bad news--she's closed on Fridays. 

She said that I had been right, that it was back.  Three options--spot treatment again, surgery, or a referral to an oncologist that specialized in OB GYN.  I asked her what she would do--she said the surgery.  I agreed.  I didn't want the first option since it didn't work originally.  I didn't want the third option for two reasons: one, I didn't know how long it would take to get an appointment with a doctor with that specialty; and two, I didn't want to have to get to know another doctor--who knows what kind of a personality they would have and if I would like them.  So the second option really was the best for me.  Unfortunately since the office was technically closed, her surgery scheduler wasn't there and I had to wait the weekend to call back and get scheduled. 

Monday arrived, and the anxiety began to set in.  I wanted this over with as soon as possible, and I managed to get scheduled for surgery three days later.  So last Thursday I checked in the hospital around 8:45a.  I went back to my room and got changed into the very fashionable paper gown...which was SO hot (and I mean hot in temperature, not in looks!!).  I did manage to snag a pic of me modeling this trend:

 

 

Surgery was at 11a.  I had to send D home to get me some snacking food, as the hospital didn't have any GF options for me other than Jell-o (and I wasn't willing to take any chances).  After waking up from sedation (just a side note--the nurses and the anesthesiologist/anesthesiologist nurse were all AMAZING, and even sent me a get well soon card) (another side note: I know they send the card to everyone, but it did make me smile), I was there another hour or so wake up, eat, and then head out.  So I was home by 2pm, just in time for my mom to get there with Z from his day at school.  And I was so happy to see my little boy.  :)

 

Now I'm in another waiting game.  I find out the results from the surgery tomorrow.  They are going to analyze all the stuff they took, and let me know what they find.  We have plans in place for whatever the results are, and they will go into place soon after I recover.  But that's a different post, and not one I am quite ready to share yet.  ;-)  For now, I am just going to hope that everything I just went through worked and that bad news is not on the horizion.  I'm ready for good news! 

 



While I'm waiting and resting, I'll be surfing Pinterest, and testing out some pins for future holiday gifts.  That and preparing for my in-laws moving here this weekend!  They finally have 'bit the bullet' and purchased a home here in our neighborhood, and will be making the trek down here from Colorado this Friday.  I'm so excited for them to get down here an finally get to spend the time they have been wanting to spend with Z!