The Last of His Twenties

We just Celebrated Mr. Wonderful's birthday. He turned a whopping 29 years old. This is the last year of his twenties. He is turning into an old man. (I'm considering getting rid of his Mr. Wonderful nick name and just referring to him as my old man, but I'm not sure how he'd like that one.) I always tease him about how old he is, but the truth is that we're not even a whole year apart in age.

Every year we have cake and presents at his parent's house on Mr. Wonderful's actual birthday. This year I made the cake! Red velvet - his favorite. I used my secret ingredient (recipe can be found here)

Money is tight, so I couldn't go all extravagant on the birthday gifts. I kept it simple. Three things: something sweet, something funny and something useful. For my something sweet, I surprised him with post-its on the bathroom mirror stating the top 29 reasons why I love him.

For the funny gift, I filled a nice Bucs cup with 29 suckers and attached a sign that states "29 sucks!" I'd seen this on pinterest and thought it was cleaver. I just couldn't resist.

The useful gift was a cordless weed wacker. I typically wouldn't get him something like that as a gift, but he asked for it. He used our neighbors one day and from then on ours wasn't good enough...men!

My family always likes to do something special for Mr. Wonderful too, so we went there for dinner, presents and brownies in his honor. I love birthday celebrations...can't wait to celebrate HIS big 30th birthday next year!

Let's Have a Party!

So I haven't forgotten about ya'll. School has been completely overwhelming, but I'm back and I have so much to share. I hope you haven't forgotten about me either.

Mr. Wonderful asked me the Saturday before Labor Day if I wanted to invite our family and friends over for a small Labor Day get together, and I said "Sure!" It was short notice, but I agreed because having people over forces me and Mr. Wonderful to give our house a really deep cleaning.

This is sooo true for me. Is it true for you too?

I also wanted to see everyone. We hadn't gotten everyone together since our wedding. For the party, I made a watermelon bowl. I thought it was going to be more work, but it was really kind of simple. Just use a long knife to cut the zig-zags and it just falls apart into 2 pieces. I used a melon baller to scoop out the insides and then placed one "bowl" inside of the other. 

I also made caprice bites. 

Of course we served our signature dishes: 

Mr. Wonderful's famous baked mac-and-cheese and my sweet meatballs

Mr. Wonderful grilled hot dogs and hamburgers while I set up a burger station inside. 

For desert I made a layered jello cake and brownie, marshmallow and strawberry skewers (pinterest fail: the brownies kept falling off the skewers..won't be making those again)

We had s'mores outside by the fire pit, and I learned that Geniece loves 

burnt marshmallows. I don't mean a little toasty. She likes them completely charred black. Yum.

My best friend, Heather, and her little guy Styler took part in the festivities. They even came over the day before to help prep. Isn't Styler just the cutest thing? I just love him!

While the girls were outside enjoying s'mores, the boys were inside doing what they do best...drinking. Whenever the boys get together they take shots of henny. It's kind of like a tradition.

The afternoon was full of good friends, good food and good fun.

 We love to play games, so we brought out Mad Gab and Battle of the Sexes after everyone had eaten.

Mr. Wonderful's family gets so wrapped up in the passion of the game that they practically yell at each other. They are always loud, but it hits an extreme when they are playing a game together. This is just one of the ways that me and Mr. Wonderful are completely different. But I guess they say opposites attract.

Did you notice Styler in the corner with his ear covered?

 That's because Mr. Wonderful's family is so LOUD. 

We had a great time on Labor Day. What did you do?