My friend Shana lost a great friend of hers to breast cancer this week.  Her name is Jamie and she was only 34 years old. I didn't know her, but I do know that she was an amazing person - mother, wife, sister, daughter, and friend to so many.  Someone that can turn such a devastating event into something positive is without a doubt A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!  You can read about her life story and battle with cancer at lovingpink.com.  When you're visiting her site, it appears that you can make donations as well.  Like I said, I didn't know her, but her story definitely touched my heart and I think it will touch yours too.  

I bought these towels months ago - with the intentions of embroidering on them.  I did their names a while ago and am now just getting to the rest of it.  Originally I was going to embroider animals on them (similar to what you see at Pottery Barn) but changed my mind today.  I think they turned out really cute.  My mom got a new machine this week and this was our first project on it. Not too bad for the first trial run.

We celebrated Hudson's birthday last weekend by having a pirate-themed party.  Andy and I made an awesome Pirate Bean Bag Toss, I created an amazing treasure/scavenger hunt, and the weather was wonderful!  If I sound like I'm tooting my own horn - toot toot toot...I am!  I made Pirate Punch labels for the juice bottles, I made name tags for their scavenger bags, I made a pirate pennant (that I didn't hang), oh and I made chocolate cake pops. Refer to my "Preparing for a Party" post for all of my adorable labels.

These are the pictures that made up the scavenger hunt.  At each of of the items above, there was a prize for each kid and the next photo clue.  The prizes included pirate tattoos, bouncy balls, eye patch, and hankies for their heads. The last clue was the police car lights and the picture was hiding on the playground.  When the kids found it, Andy wooped on his car sirens and scared them all, and then gave them bags of candy.  It was great!

I'm not going to lie, the party got off to a bit of a rough start.  I tried making a pirate cake on Saturday and ended up throwing in the towel after creating a turd.  I was really disappointed in the cake that I made so I started calling bakeries.  Nobody could have a cake done by 1pm the next day, except for Walmart on the north end of town.  So, I showed up at Wally at 1pm the next day to pick up the cake that I personally had ordered - it was never made, go figure.  I waited around for 25 minutes and then dashed home to a house full of people.  I was a little stressed in the beginning, but just had to let it go...on with the party.

Click on Hudson to see more pics

We've got a bad case of Beaver Fever in our household!  Hudson's t-ball team (aka - the Beavers) had their first game on Monday night and it was so fun to watch.  The field was filled with about 20 little bobble heads chasing the ball and running to the bases (sorta).  Really though, all of the kids did a great job hitting the ball, running the bases, and fielding.  We're looking forward to this season, and can't wait for Game 2!  In the words of Hadley, "Go Biebers, Hut-son!"  

Click on the image for more...

I know, you're not use to this - me blogging three times in three days.  I don't know what has gotten into me.  I've been planning Hud's party, making miscellaneous wedding labels for my friend, organizing my newly finished desk, and looking at my new favorite website houzz.com (I'll blog about that later).  Oh, and I managed to somewhat clean the house this weekend and buy groceries. I guess I'm just on a roll. I went to Walmart on Saturday morning (not sure what the heck I was thinking), but I did come across a dinnerware set that I thought was really great.   It's a 16 piece set for only $40.  I read the reviews online and it scores nearly a 5 out of 5 stars.  I'm actually kind of excited about this set.  Our wedding gift sets were donated to goodwill years ago because they chipped, cracked, etc.  Now I'm left with three different sets, three different colors, most of which are chipping, cracking, or have broken - all of which were over priced in comparison to their quality.  I will be getting this set eventually, why not? At $40 I think it's worth a try.  

I finally finished refurbishing my desk and I love it! I started out thinking I was going to paint it a vintage-jade color, and then Andy primed it for me (with a grey colored primer), and that's the rest of the story. I painted it "Classic Grey" and I love it.  I tried to put a final coat of sealer on it, but either the sealer was bad or I was just sick of painting.  The sealer bubbled up on the surface and ticked me straight off.  I had to sand the sealer and paint off and start over in some spots.  Andy and I didn't agree with the desk in the first place, but I think he has grown to like it, especially since his grey primer inspired the final color.

I've spent the last couple of days planning Hud's Pirate-themed Birthday Party and it's been so fun.  I've mustered up a couple of games, created invitations, labels, flags, and gift bags for the kids.  I'm excited to get everything put together.  I've put together a board to show you what I've been up to.