Rats, Beetles and Boogies. Oh My!

What a great weekend we've had! Ollie turned 3!!! We were oh so busy Friday night baking all the goods for Saturday's Shrek themed birthday party. My mom and niece, Stephanie, came from WKY to help. And thank goodness they did. We baked a large sheet cake, a bundt cake and several mini bundt cakes. Let me just tell you the kitchen was HOT! We had a nice time, but I was sooooooooo ready for bed at the end of that night.

Saturday morning the fun really began with the decorating of the cake. Shrek's Swamp.

Here's the base of the cake and proof we really did make this cake and....

The final product...tada! Does that look disgusting or what?!?!

Stephanie helped a ton on this cake and it was much appreciated. I have a new respect for professional cake decorators.

So I'll save you the prideful details of all our hard work and reveal the final spread, but let's break it down...

Here we have Roasted Weed Rats! Aka...chocolate and black sugar coated strawberries.

Here we have Shrek's Boogies and Beetles. Aka...choco chip cookies and choco coated Nutter Butters!

We have Pumpkins. Aka...two mini bunt cakes stacked end to end and iced with creamed cheese frosting I dyed orange. They didn't get eaten, but we'll say it was because they were so pretty and had nothing to do with my niece, who will remain nameless, pouring the oil in the measuring cup and then failing to pour it in the batter. :)

To drink we served up Swamp Mud and Swamp Water. Yum!

The guest of honor, Shrek himself, was clothed in an outfit made by my brilliant and oh so talented mother. Isn't she amazing? You don't have to answer as I already know it!

And finally, a little pinterest.com decor! I love me some simple! I also sent Mom out into the bushes to collect the sticks. Thanks, Mom!

Okay, so I didn't exactly spare you any of the details, but wow did we have fun! It was totally worth it to see my baby laugh and carry on with his friends. He received all his favorite things: an iron, a mixer, a toaster, some bugs of the electronic breed, a sandwich maker, a McDonald's drive thru, a marble maze, tools and tools and tools oh, and some PPE to go with his tools!!!! That's my boy! He really did have a great day. Thanks to all our friends and family for coming! Especially Aunt Sharlet and Uncle Howard who tried to surprise us, but then got lost and had to call for directions. But we were still surprised!!!

Now that the party is over and Ollie had a great birthday I can and will devote more attention to my goal of volunteerism! Stay tuned for more about me, the people in my life now and the people we'll meet! I can't wait!

Turning 30!

Happy birthday to me! While I'm not thrilled that I'm 30 I'm not exactly distraught either. When I see 30+ year old women I usually think sofistication, put together and mature. My husband made a good point in that I can't exactly look back on my last 30 years and think, "What have I done with my life?" I have a wonderful family and room to grow, a successful career and job, a home, a car, all of life's necessities and then some. I've moved away from home, but I always have the option to go back and I don't have any enemies. So, that's my speech to myself on this day and then I'll get over it.

In my next 30 years, thank you, Tim McGraw, I want to focus on "what else can I do?". There are advancements in my career and education I'd like to make, more children one more child to grow, memories to fill a scrapbook with and one important activity that will take effort. Volunteering.

When I first decided I wanted to start this blog I thought I wanted to title it 30 at 30. I was going to set a goal to make a difference in the lives of 30 people or volunteer with 30 different charitable organizations. That became a challenge of logistics and it began to make no sense. I could teach a CPR class and reach 30 people easy, wash my hands, done. I could serve Thanksgiving dinner to the homeless and reach hundreds, done. I could spend one hour a week at random charities/not-for-profit orgs for 30 weeks and again, I'm done.

Instead I decided I'd start somewhere, anywhere, and if I donate 1 hour or 50 hours of my time this year and touch the life of 1 person, I've done enough. I want to find a place or places to volunteer and give back to my community in a way that is helpful and meaningful. Some call volunteering a selfless act, but really it isn't. If volunteering made us feel badly about ourselves or harmed us in any way we wouldn't do it. And what are we really giving up when we give our time? The hour we usually spend watching reality tv, the hour we spend on the internet, the hour we spend buying new shoes?

So, on this journey of overcoming 30 my goal for myself will be to look at who I am and what I've done and who I've helped and judge that instead of my age. My goal for you is to be inspired. If you help one person, dog or other because of this blog and what I'm doing then I'll shake your hand, maybe virtually. I would say, "then it'll all be worth it," but let's be honest, even if you don't it'll still be worth it because nothing we do is worth nothing.

Now, this blog will also be about highlighting other accomplishments and "tracking" my life and the lives of those around me. I had a previous blog about celebrating the days of the year, but it wasn't chronicling my life the way I wanted it to and received 0 feedback. So, for my family and friends, this blog is for you. And it's for me!

This post isn't picture heavy and we all love pictures so stay tuned for future blogs and tons of pictures.