A few weeks ago Sandyn Shaw, a friend of Cecilia’s that she worked with at the Ritz Carlton, got married. In addition to her asking Cecilia to be a bridesmaid, she also asked the two of us to sing. So, Cec and I took a break from our regular, everyday stress, and focused our energies on stressing out on “how do I sound?” and “is this mic working?” and “you sound better than me” and “I can’t hear myself. you’re singing too loud.” Miraculously, when it was all said and done, both of us walked away saying, “I think that went pretty well. What did you think?” As rare of an occasion as that is, we graciously accepted it and had us a grand ol’ time at the reception.
We would have had a good time regardless, but this time we had the added bonus of having Jeff Holland with us. Jeff was Cecilia’s boss when she was working at the Ritz, and in the midst of them becoming close friends, the rest of the Clark fam became close to him as well, and now we just consider him part of the family. In fact, when news of the wedding first surfaced, Dan was scheduled to work late that night, so Jeff was being roped in to be my date for the wedding and reception. A few days before, Dan was able to switch his shift and make it to the reception. I’m sure Jeff considered this quite a blessing once he saw me out on the dance floor after a couple of drinks. Oh, paleeeeeze, what fun is life if you can’t embarrass yourself every once in a while in front of every member of the church you attend?!
Despite the late night, we managed to get up the next morning and make it to church. Well…some of us did. After church, we all met up at Mimi and Doot’s house for lunch.
Aunt CC always finds special things that she knows will thrill Brittain. This particular trip it was decoratable cookies. With special markers that wrote with edible ink, Brittain had the time of her life decorating these delicious (cardboard-like) cookies.
A quick family shot (with my stand-in husband):
I look forward to Brittain’s preschool parties. Most people would wonder why, I’m sure, because most of the time it amounts to walking into their classroom about 45 minutes before it’s over and watching all the kids sit at a decorated table eating. But still, I love going into her classroom and seeing her in that environment. She LOVES preschool, and whereas before I would have expected her to immediately run up to me when she saw me walk into the room, now she notices me, gives me the sweetest smile that melts my heart, and then goes back to what she was doing.
Saying the prayer before snack time:
Mimi and I decided that we aren’t busy enough and we don’t stay up too late as it is, so we took “swapping Valentine cards” to a new level and decorated these custom-made bags full of Valentine goodies:
Brittain’s Valentine’s Day didn’t end at noon when preschool was over. She received many other people into her home throughout the day including Gramy and Papa who spoiled her with gifts. Perhaps the funniest thing she said while they were here was when she opened a card from Gigi. She opened it and then looked up and said, “This card doesn’t sing!” (That particular day I had pulled out a couple of her “singing” cards that she had received for her birthday):
The culmination of the weekend was when we celebrated Aunt SuSu’s birthday. It was a low-key family gathering. Brittain and I made the chocolate pound cake together and Doot made the homemade ice cream. It was so funny to me…there were no decorations except for the cake, and some plates and napkins that were actually leftover from Brittain’s birthday party, and the people that were there were the people she sees on a regular basis (usually multiple times throughout the week). Yet, in the middle of the party Brittain turned to me and said, “Mommy, this is the best birthday party ever!” And you know what? She was right. I looked around the room and wondered what else we could really ask for.
I got a new camera. OMG, did I forget to tell y’all that? I’ve had it a little while now, but I’m just now getting around to actually posting some pictures taken with it. The transition was a bit difficult because, as you have probably realized, I became quite a bit attached to my Nikon D40. But, when the D90 came out I became completely focused on it and I made it my goal to own it. My poor D40…once I got this fancier camera I forgot all about my precious D40…and that’s just bad because together we figured out that I really enjoy photography and I just might want to do it to earn some extra money, or at the very least to spend more money buying various attachments and accessories to make me look like I’m a professional and like I know what I’m doing. Either way, I’ve been having fun testing these new features out and trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing. It’s been an interesting couple of months as I have continued to lose sleep staying up until all hours in the morning reading about this camera; and also forcing my child to look and act cute so that I can use her as my model. Poor girl, she’s finally gotten used to the fact that when she says, “Mommy, want to come play with my toys?”, she knows the camera is coming with us. She recently told my mom that “That’s Mommy’s favorite toy” as she pointed to my camera that was sitting in the living room. Someday I will be able to convince her that SHE is my favorite toy and my camera only serves as a way to record all of the special moments that I will never forget.
Some of my favorite initial “testing” shots:
On this day, Doot called and asked if he could bring over an early Valentine’s gift. Innocent enough, right? so I said yes. This was a huge mistake because Doot obviously had his choice of chocolate since he shopped early. I guess grandparents are allowed to get away with this kind of thing, but I gotta tell ya, I considered never allowing him over again! Nevertheless, Brittain was overly thrilled, especially with her new chocolate dog, Max (who is still sitting on top of the food pantry “asleep”).
