The rest of Christmas

Well.....our poor Nora got sick....on Christmas Day.  She had a rough night of sleep, but I didn't think too much of it because she has had a stuffy nose and it was a long Christmas Eve, just busy and off her normal routine.  She woke up quite a bit and slept until 9:45 Christmas morning.  Once she was up she was her normal Nora self.  We opened gifts, ate breakfast, opened more gifts, took a bath and then went down for a nap.  She woke up from her nap and was not our normal Nora.  She was crying and wanted to be held then didn't want to be held and it kept going in that circle.  She didn't want to eat or play.  I finally convinced her to lay on the couch and watch her new Shrek movie.  She did that, but was still sad and crying and then she started the ear tugging.  We looked to see if there were any Walgreens take care clinics open, but there were not.  We waited a little longer and the poor girl was miserable!!!  No one tells you that a piece of you heart breaks when your child is in pain.  I could hardly stand it she was so sad and hurting.  So Grandma found a clinic/immediate care that was open until 5:00 and we flew out the door, it was 3:50.  We got to the clinic, saw the dr. and had a script in our hands in under an hour.  She has a double ear infection!  This is our first time taking antibiotics for being sick.  We are so lucky, I know. I am so thankful for the dr. and nurses that were working in that clinic to make my daughter better!!!  She got some motrin in her and then her first dose of antibiotics and WOW, within 15 minutes she was back to her normal Nora self.  We continued on with the rest of Christmas and went to the Harrigan side of the family and had a great time.  Nora is feeling much better today! 

Merry Christmas Eve and Morning

Nora had a great time on Christmas Eve last night visiting with the Reid Family.  I did her hair with the curlers and made her take her nap in them and oh it turned out so cute!  She got a new baby with a potty that she just loves...it is actually pretty funny...the baby really goes to the bathroom on the potty...hours of entertainment for young and old alike.
This morning was great!  We opened presents from Santa and then had Reid family chistmas.  We are so blessed.  Nora loves her new Ariel doll and all the princess stuff she got.  So fun to have a little one.  Merry Christmas!

The Big Man

 So we went to see the "Big Man" as we have been calling him so Nora doesn't freak out.  She really does not like to get too close to Santa Claus.  As you can see in the picture above she was as happy as could be waiting in line.  She had no clue who was right around the corner!

 So it was our turn and I picked her up and walked over toward Santa and she flipped out, like I knew should would and clutched on to me for dear life.  She would not even look at Santa.  I set her down to turn towards him and she darted away from me. 

 She was not a happy camper by any means.  We even offered her a candy cane and she just did not want to be by him.  Santa was no help either.  He just sat there and stared at us, you think he would be a little used to this and tried to help or talk to her, but oh no.  He just watched as she cried.  I finally got her to stand in front of Santa and we got a couple of picks with her crying.  These pics on here are the best because grandma got them as the action was happening! 

After we were done she was back to her normal Nora self and as happy as could be.  She really enjoyed the candy cane too!  Here's to hoping for better next year....I have my doubts though!

St. Louis Christmas

 We celebrated Christmas in St. Louis on Monday and Tuesday.  Monday we celebrated with my mom and Tuesday we celebrated with my dad.  Monday we had breakfast for dinner and then opened gifts.  It was definately the Nora show!  Nora was in a smiling mood and was willing to take some pictures beforehand.  That phase of not even looking at the camera is beginning to end!  Thank goodness, because I couldn't handle much more of it!

 We had so much fun opening gifts and about half way through Nora said she was done.  It was pretty funny.  Jalen was so patient because he only had a couple of gifts to open since everyone else was going to be seeing him on Christmas.  He helped me open a few and Uncle Peter and when he asked Nora if he could help her she said, NO!  He patiently waited until it was his turn and he had been keeping his eye on the one gift that was from us.  It was a DS game and when he opened it he was sooooo excited.  It just made my night and he put his hands in the air and exclaimed, "I love Christmas".  All over one tiny gift!!!!  I can't even imagine what he is going to do when Santa comes.

Nora was spoiled once again and some of her favorites included her Barbie, barbie & Cinderella dress ups and her beanbag chair!  On Tuesday we had dinner with my dad and Nora got a gift card to Toys R Us, which will be used after christmas!  I was super excited because I got a gift card to Creve Couer Camera to get a new flash for my camera!!!  We are so blessed and so lucky to have such great parents!  Can't wait for round two!

Merry Christmas!

Curls!

So I decided to go ahead and buy some curlers to see what would happen when we put them in Nora's hair. I had been talking with my mom about it and finally did it! She was very patient while I put them in. At first she said, "no mom", but then let me do it anyway. I am lucky that I don't have a kid that throws tantrums about much! Her protest of no was next to nothing. So while we talked with Grandma and Grandpa I rolled her hair! Isn't she cute?!

I only had them in for about an hour. I wasn't going to make her sleep in them because she has been sick so I used the cool setting on my hair dryer, but they still were not all the way dry when I took them out. I think if I let her hair air dry and did this a couple of hours before we went somewhere it would actually be pretty cute.

So here are her bouncy little curls! It was pretty curly for only being half way dry and in her hair for an hour. Of course this morning there was no curl left, but that is okay. I think we are going to give it a go for Christmas Eve to see what we get. It was funny because after I took them out she kept touching her hair and then looking at me like, "what did you do?"

Success!!!

I can successfully say that Nora is definately on her way to being completely potty trained!!!  I am so glad that I pushed through the beginning of the week.  Thanks so much to those who gave me encouraging words along the way...I definately needed them.  She is now telling us when she has to go potty and doesn't even want to use her potty chair.  She wants to use the big potty!  It is great.  She has not had an accident since Thursday, which is wonderful.  I really thought that we were not going to make it through the beginning of the week and we did!  She is so proud of herself.  We are still going to be doing the pull-ups at night and during nap time, but my daughter is potty trained!  So exciting!  No more diapers for Nora!!!

stand off

So I guess I spoke too soon when I said the potty training was going well.  Yesterday we hit a wall and I don't like it at all!  The weekend was great and Monday came around and of course I had to wake her up to go to Rebecca's and asked her to potty and she did not want to.  The last two mornings were "okay mommy" and she would run into the bathroom.  I am not sure what changed, but it has.  She had a rough day on the potty Monday and Peter was the one to pick her up since I had class and she had just had an accident and then went again in the pull-up right when they got home.  Needless to say she didn't go again for the rest of the night.
Yesterday I didn't even attempt when she woke up and waited until we got to the sitter.  She did end up going for her around 8:00 am and they decided she was going to be in charge and held it ALL day.  She still had not gone when I picked her up at 4:30....she was not going to "pee pee on the potty"!  We got home and I made her sit on it in front of the tv, offered pudding, ice cream and a movie, no potty.  We then moved to all the potty's in the house to try, no go....I finally got tired of the whining and crying and put a diaper on and she said, "I not pee pee in my diaper".  Okay, whatever Nora...about 20 minutes later she asked for a pull up, which I thought was a step in the right direction...NO!  Not 2 minutes later she went in the pull up!  Seriously child of mine! 
This morning she woke up at 6:00 am, which is very unusual for my child, because she was wet.  She stayed up and I put her princess underwear on and thanks to a good idea from a friend, on the way to the sitter we stopped and got a huge bag of M&M's.  Still not sure how I feel using candy as a reward, but I am desperate.  So, we shall see how the standoff goes today at the sitters house.  I hope she goes!!!

Braids & potty training

Cheese!! Look at me! I was trying to take a picture of the back of her head and she kept turning and smiling at me. Of course this is the same girl who would not even smile for me a month and a half ago at the park!!

So this was my first attempt at french braiding Nora's hair. I felt like something different today and she does so well when i do her hair that she actually held still. I did not part her hair very well, but she did good while I tried and braided her hair...I think it actually looked pretty darn cute! She was too funny. She kept touching it and asking me was in her hair.

Well my sitter decided that we were going to start potty training and Nora has done great!!! It was four months ago that we tried to do it on our own and it didn't take. So I was a little nervous, but she has been waking up dry in the morning and as soon as she goes she is asking to be changed. So we got out the potty again and underwear and it has been good. She has had a couple of accidents, but nothing like before. We have set times that we try and it is working. Before she was always going sporadically, but now she is actually going about the same time everyday and that actually helps so that is when we put her on the chair. She just lights up when she actually goes...it is funny. She has been telling everyone too! Our little girl is getting so big!!!

Jewels by Park Lane

So any of you know that my mom has started selling Jewels by Park Lane. She started on September 9th of this year and I could not be more proud of her! I am the one who pushed her to take on this new adventure and she is soaring with it. I had gone to a Park Lane event and wanted to start selling the jewelry myself, but decided my photography was more important, even though i would make WAY more doing JBPL.

Well last night they had a huge event here in St. Louis and the CEO of the company, Scott Levin, was here. It was held at Windows off Washington, a very nice banquet place. They had drinks and appetizers, a fashion show and jewelry raffle. We had known about this event for almost a month and as it got closer we were more excited. Well on Monday my mom found out that she was #1, yes you read that right, #1 in the country for the past week!!! The Senior VP of St. Louis emailed her and asked her to speak at the event, where over 300 people were going to be! With a little convincing from me and Mary Grace, she said yes. She was sooo nervous and I didn't even talk to her yesterday during the day because I didn't want to make her more nervous.

The event came and Susie, Katie, Aunt Janet, Yvette, Diane and Bitsy were all there. Some of them were interested in joining, and they had NO idea that mom was going to be speaking. So Mary Grace introduced by saying..."this person is very nervous and has never spoken in front of this many people before....she has only been with the company 10 weeks and has been in the top 25 three times, please welcome Kathy Bromeier". I thought Katie was going to die!!! Her speech was great! She did a fantastic job and even made people cry! It was sooo awesome! She did it and I am just so proud of her that she did. There were 300 people in that room and she gave an excellent speech!!!

After she was done the CEO took the stage and started handing out free jewelry!!! It was crazy and I got a beautiful necklace and earrings handed to me!!! He only handed out 10 sets of jewelry and I got one!!!! I can't wait to wear it. Then came the raffle and there were maybe 20 sets of jewelry given away and we had all bought raffle tickets and put them in the ones we wanted. Katie made us each put tickets in one of the blingy necklace and earring combo b/c she said she would wear it for the wedding. Yvette, won one of the ones that she had put in for and then number after number was called and no one at our table was winning until they called Susie's number for the blingy necklace and earrings!!! We couldn't believe it. It is valued at over $500!! Aunt Janet won a signature bracelet for signing up!

It was an amazing night and I am so glad that I was there to support my mom in her new business. Thanks to my friends and family who have had parties and I hope for those of you who haven't had a party you will!!! If you hold a show between now and March I am giving a free photo session to those who do. So if you want free photos or know someone who does have a show and you will get free pics and jewelry. It is an awesome thing and the deals are unbelieveable.

O Christmas Tree

 

 

 

 

We put up our Christmas tree yesterday and it was so fun to do it with Nora. She is sooo excited about Christmas. I don't think she realizes what is going to happen on Christmas morning yet, but can't wait for that either. We did see Santa last weekend and have seen some lights, but when we put our tree up she was too cute. She wanted to help put every ornament up and did such a good job being careful with everything. She kept repeating that back to me. She would get excited when another snowman or santa came out of the box and she has had a blast playing with the christmas stuffed animals I have pulled out. Peter put more christmas lights on the house this year and it was so funny as we were coming home this evening she got all excited and said, "Look mom, our christmas!!". Anytime she sees lights she calls it Christmas. I just love having a little one. It is more fun than I thought it would be! She brings a smile to my face everyday! She was having fun posing for me in front of the tree. Poor girl has her daddy's squinty smiling eyes! Me

Happy Thanksgiving

 

 

 

 

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. We went to my Aunt Janet and Uncle Dan's for lunch and got to see that side of the family and then we headed to my mom's for dinner. My sisters and Uncle Mike were at her house. Nora got really wound up playing with Uncle Mike and she was just a riot! Nora and Jalen ended up spending the night at Pappy's house so the girls could do some shopping at midnight. That was an adventure! Hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving! We are so blessed!

Happy Halloween

 

 

 

 

Nora had a great Halloween this year. She was so fun and actually got it this year. She was on such a sugar rush that she was running from door to door with Jalen and that lasted all of 20 minutes. Then she walked and after an hour she was riding in the wagon. She got a good amount of candy and kept saying, "another house?". Supergirl did a great job!

pumpking carving

Of course we had to continue our annual pumpkin carving tradition. We had fun...even though the pumpkins I got were not that great and had bad spots in them. Lesson learned to not wait until the week of halloween to get your pumpkins. Getting excited for Halloween to actually get here!

Floor

Yea!!! Our floors are done!!!! So we decided to go ahead and get rid of the carpet. It is something Peter has wanted to do for a few years and it has just taken him that long to convince me it was the right move. I am sure glad we did it. They turned out great! We started in September with the living room remodel and are almost done. We painted the trim around all the doors in the living room and down the hallway. Then the next weekend we painted the rest of the walls, which was something I have wanted to do for a few years. We went with tawny birch, a taupe/tan color and then freshened up the blue. Unfortunately we threw away the can from 5 years ago so we had to wing it on the color and it came pretty close. It is a little more blue, but hey we still like it.
We took a weekend off to go to my cousins wedding and then came the most challenging part for us....tearing up the carpet. Wow, I didn't realize what a job that was going to be. It took us an entire day to get the carpet out of the living room and hallway. The floors didn't look too bad underneath. We have no idea how long they have been covered and really no idea how long they have been there. It was a job and as soon as the carpet was gone I immediately noticed a difference in the smell of my house! No more animal smell!!!!
The following weekend a family friend came and started sanding on Thursday. You should have seen the guest room. It looked like a hurricane hit it. Now for those of you who know me well, that is 4 weeks of chaos in my house with things off the walls and not in its correct places and not cleaning and ugh!!! It has been a mess and I have been dealing with it pretty well. We came home from Chicago and Peter and I had to look. Sunday we had to spend the night at Katie's to give it one more full day to set so Sunday after Nora went to bed we came to the house and shined the car lights in and opened the front door and AMAZING!!! It turned out so great....the walls, baseboards, color, all of it.
Know we are slowly working on getting everything back in order. I have had conferences all week and Peter is working major overtime, so as hard as it is to still be living in chaos I am...it will get there...just in time for me to take everything down again and put christmas up!
Heres to new floors!

The DMB Experience

Well in case you live under a rock and don't know what DMB stands for it is The Dave Matthews Band. And for those of you who know me well know that I am a HUGE fan of the band. On my birthday they announced that they would be playing at Wrigley Field on Sept. 17th and 18th and of course I had to go. For one, who wouldn't want to see their favorite band at one of the neatest fields in the U.S., and two, this would be the last show of the summer until 2012!!!!

I requested tickets for both shows through the DMB Warehouse, the fan club (I told you I was a big fan) and both requests were met. I knew I had at least one person to go with me and that was my friend Maureen! She is a big DMB fan as well. The date was set and plans went into work. Peter of course said he wasn't going to go so then I had to figure out how I was going to get there. I couldn't go to Chicago and not bring Nora with me, unless I didn't tell anyone else that i was going and I couldn't do that. Our options were to a) take the train, b) take the bus, or c) drive (which I have never done along with Nora yet). After much deliberation I decided that I wanted to have control over the time of day I was coming and going so I drove.

I was excited and nervous at the same time. Nora and I got up on Friday at our normal time and hit the rode at 7:00 am. Traffic was great....not much of it. It felt like we just flew up there. We stopped in McLean to use the restroom and get gas and got back on the rode. We didn't hit any traffic until we got on to 90/94 in the city. I swear that people in Chicago must not work because traffic should not be that bad anywhere at 12:00 on a Friday afternoon. At this point Nora was sleeping and I was jamming to DMB of course, and we got to the Reids at 12:30. Not too shabby and only one minor spill on the way up.
I dropped Nora, ate some lunch and headed to meet up with Candace. I had decided to do a rooftop for Friday night after some confusion had occured in the planning, so Candace, Maureen and I made reservations with The Wrigley View for Friday nights show.

The Wrigley View was pretty cool, but I would not reccommend concert goers to take this option. You could hear the music really well, but we could not see the stage and that is half of the fun. It was all-inclusive though so the price of the reservation did include dinner, desert and drinks. Candace and I took full advantage of the drinks and wanted to get our money's worth and we sure did! DMB put on an okay show in my opinion. The setlist was just so-so and a little slow, it could have been much better. It just seemed like something was missing. We had a lot of fun and had a drink after the show at Goose Island and then called it a night. I stayed with Maureen for the weekend and let Grandma and Grandpa have full spoiling access to Nora all weekend.

Saturday we just bummed around, I had a pretty nasty headache for most of the day. Evening came and it was time to head back down to Wrigley. I really wanted to get a shirt that night. I told Peter it was the closest to a Cubs shirt that I would ever where. Unfortunately they were sold out, I am keeping my eyes peeled on-line though. I do have to say that it was very cool in Wrigleyville. The amount of people on the streets and in the bars was unreal!!! And all to see one band play!!! I just loved it. We had a heck of a time trying to find a place to eat before the show and finally ended up at the Sports Corner.

We got to the show while the opening act was playing and our seats were not too bad. We were in the upper deck, but the view was good. You could not have paid me to stand down on the field where there were no seats with 5,000 other people....no thank you! DMB came on right at 8:30 and ROCKED until 11:15. They were AMAZING on Saturday evening. The setlist was awesome, the crowd was great and I have to say it was one of the best shows I have seen...and I have seen them every summer, sometimes twice a summer for the last 12 years! I can say that they closed the tour very well and I am satisfied until 2012.

Maureen and I were cracking up at the couple in front of us on Saturday. The girl was the DMB fan and the guy was not so much. It reminded us of our husbands. The guy sat for half of the show, which is something Peter and Mike totally would have done.

It was a fantastic weekend! Thanks Chicago and DMB!!!!

We did it! We did it!

That is right we did it or I should say Nora did it. We got rid of the binky! I have been thinking about getting rid of it for a while, but was very scared to do it. She has only had it at nap and bed time for quite a while, but it is a big step. I was also nervous because a friend of ours had her little boy start to suck his thumb after getting rid of the bink. Last weekend was when I hit my wall and said enough is enough. She had starting asking for it more and more. She would cry for her "binky" anytime she didn't get her way and quite frankly it was starting to annoy me. So I decided Labor Day weekend would be good since I had three days to focus on before sending her back to the sitter.

Unfortunately for my in-laws they were going to have to experience the binky removal. I prepared myself all weekend and kept telling myself it could be worse and the longer I wait the harder it will be. I was totally stressing myself out about it. I took the advice of a different friend and cut the tips of the binkies off and said that they were "broken". I introduced the "broken" binky on Thursday night but still gave her a binky that night. I kind of wanted to see what her reaction was going to be, it was not good. She cried and wanted me to throw that broken one away. Luckily for me it wasn't bedtime yet and she was at Aunt Kiki's house and they watched a movie and she got a regular one at bedtime.

It was now Friday night and we had a long day. Grandma was reading to her and had given her the blanket and they were rocking and she finally called me in because she was not going to be the one to say goodnight and not be giving the binky (totally understand that!). So I rocked and sang and did our routine and put her in bed and nothing!!! I was in shock. I went out into the living room and waited for the screaming and crying to start and nothing. A couple of minutes later we hear a very sad little girl through the monitor pathetically saying, "my binky". It was the sadest little whine ever!!! After about 25-30 minutes of that I couldn't take it anymore and I turned off the monitor. Seriously....I had prepared myself for the worse and it was nothing but whining! She did wake up twice that night whining for it but I went in and kissed her and told her it was okay and she went back to sleep a little later.

Saturday at naptime she whined for about 10 minutes and went to sleep and then saturday night was about the same. Sunday naptime was nothing and bedtime was great! Now she has occasionally asked for it here and there when she hasn't gotten her way at something but we all have done a great job at ignoring the request.
I really don't know how and why and I am so lucky to have such an easy going child. I am really concerned that when we have a second child it is going to be a holy terror. It makes me not want to have a second child because what child could be as good as gold like Nora. My friends love when they see Nora cry because they say she is real then. It is kind of a running joke!

Here are some pics from the weekend. We went to Purina Farms with the Grandma's and went to the park Saturday evening while I took Susie and Jalen's pics. We had a great time this weekend!

Happenings

Wow, I have not blogged in a while!!! So much has been going on lately.

So.....where to begin.....I went back to work starting on the 9th. I had two days of new teacher orientation and I was flipping late the first day! Agh! How embarrassing. Everything I had said 8:30 and it started at 8:00. Got past those two days and spent the next two moving into my new offices. Yes, you read that correctly two offices. I am working between two schools. Mesnier houses K-2 and Gotsch houses 3-5. I am in charge of 2nd and 3rd graders at those schools. Everyone has been really great so far. Change is so hard because I really miss my friends and familiar faces at Bayless. After being in one place for 7 years it is hard to change and be the new person.

This past Wednesday kids started to come to school and I started my day at Mesnier to help with the little kindergarteners. WOW! What a difference from what I have ever worked with. It went pretty successful and I only had to carry one student into the building. The next few days went fairly smoothly but I have been exhausted. Between seeing kids, getting up early and learning a whole bunch of new stuff it has really wiped me out. This coming week should be interesting....a full week!

Let's see some other things going on....Peter and I have been on a new workout schedule. We have been working out together and getting up at 5:00 am to do it. We have been doing really well, we just need to start eating better and I think we will be amazed at the weight loss. It is soooo nice to actually have a workout partner and it makes getting up at 4:50 a heck of a lot easier!

Nora is great. She cracks us up daily and is such a sweet little girl. She just talks and talks and talks. The child loves, and I mean loves to read! We could read all day. It is so fun to see her imagination take over when she is playing with her toys. She started back with our sitter on the 9th as well and has been just fine. Nora is the only one there on M-W-F. So she is so spoiled and gets tons of attention!

Other than that we are all doing really well and I think I can say for us all we are ready for fall!

Nora's 1st Cardinal Game

 

 

 

We took Nora to her first Cardinals game this past week. We got to sit in a party box and thought we would bring her with since there is plenty of room to walk around. She had fun! She watched the baseball game, ran up and down the stairs and ate food. I think it will be a while before we actually pay for a ticket for her and take her in a regular seat. We had fun though!

Potty Training

Well today is day two of potty training and I am feeling a little more discouraged today. I do have to admit it is most likely my fault for feeling this way.

DAY ONE
I considered day one a huge success. We woke up and put on the big girl pants and started with the liquids. Nora had cereal for breakfast and then I broke out the goldfish to make her thirsty, thanks Angie! We did potty on the chair, but then went on the floor twice. I learned that I need to stick with her the entire time instead of trying to make lunch or check my email! So after nap she sat on the chair and went a little and got a sticker. She really likes the stickers so I am going with it. I braved a trip in the car with no diaper to take Jalen to a birthday party and it was a success. When we got home we sat on the potty chair every 20 minutes and low and behold success!!!! She got another sticker and she was really excited. We had dinner out of the house so the diaper went back on and while eating she went in her diaper and freaked out. She knew she wasn't supposed to be going but was confused. I can totally see why people say not to switch and how pull-ups can be harmful. She didn't go again on the potty the rest of the night, even though we tried.

DAY TWO
Woke up and she had a full diaper, but I still made her sit on the chair before eating breakfast. Yesterday it was about 2 hrs. before she really went potty so I was being very conscience of the 2 hr. mark. So right around 10:45 we sat on the potty and she did it! It wasn't much, but she did it and we picked out another sticker from our sticker book, thanks Maue family! So I decided the two of us would go downstairs so I could check my email for the morning and what do you know she went right there on the floor! She looked and said, "Mommy, pee pee!" and we raced up the stairs for the chair and it was just too late. Man, I thought I was doing good. I knew I should have brought the potty chair down with us. Live and learn I guess. It was only 15 minutes later. So we drank more liquids and ate lunch and we were sitting reading and all the sudden I felt wet. She went on the blanket on the couch, seriously! She didn't even look at me or say anything. I probably should have set the timer again, but was feeling confident. And she went a lot....I guess she wasn't uncomfortable because it wasn't running down her leg or anything.
She went down for a nap around 12:30 and didn't use the potty before nap. I am hoping she doesn't go while she is sleeping so we can have a success after naptime. We shall see!

30 years old!

 

 

 

 

Well, I am 30! I still can't believe it. Really, I don't feel 30 and for the most part don't act 30! It is kind of funny to say I am 30 years old. So in our household we have a huge blowout for 30 and get a bus. I picked to go to a winery and have a BBQ. So the day after my birthday that is what we did! We invited our family and friends, which most came, and loaded the bus and took off to Villa Antonio Winery. It was great. The winery is small and beautiful and we had so much fun. We had many friends come in town for the event and had a wonderful time seeing them. Reconnected with old friends, my freshman roommate, made it to the winery and I had a blast catching up with her. To recent friends, and some of Katie's friends. We really had so much fun. I am so greatful to all that came to celebrate with me, I can't even tell you.

After the winery we headed back to the Reid house and my dad was waiting there with the BBQ going! Many thanks to my sister, Susie for having everything ready to go when we got back. Wouldn't have been able to pull it off without her. Some people came back, some did not and new ones showed up. We partied until about 9:30 and then completely crashed. It was a day to remember!!! And for those who didn't come....you missed one hell of a good time!