Halloween Possibilities for Sweet Lily

Well folks, it's that time...Halloween. Although I am not exactly much a fan of Halloween decorations (in fact, I kindof hate them), I do love the dressing up part (unless you decide to dress up as something that has blood, a scary mask, or a name like the Undertaker)! Instead I prefer to decorate for Fall and that way it can roll over to Thanksgiving. Somehow I am digressing....back to Halloween.

Since I do not have a two-legged child, I enjoy dressing up my four-legged one. Now I realize that to some people this may seem like a mild form of abuse and in the pictures Lily may look like she hates it but she loves it...trust me. Okay maybe she doesn't love it but she does love the attention she gets from dressing up. Sadly, Lily owns all of the outfits below along with quite the wardrobe of dresses and accessories...of course. I am looking forward to giving out candy to all of the kids in the new neighborhood with Lily. She is a hit every year and a few times kids have asked if they can have her instead of candy.

Below are some of her costume options (we kinda own them already but I need to pick one for the big event). Which one do you like best?

A Horse and Cowboy...
A Ladybug...

Janet Jackson's Back-up Dancer (and yes, the hat says "Mini Diva")...

A Character from 'Deadiest Catch'...

A Lobster...

A Cheerleader...

A Ballerina...

A LifeGuard...

A Banana...

A Bubblebee...

Let me know which one I should pick.

At least I didn't groom her to look like another animal. Click on the link below...

http://www.buzznet.com/cp/galleries/photos/addictedtojane-wouldyouever12groomyourdoglikethishalloween/would-ever-groom-dog-like/?id=58186371#pt

SC State Fair 2009

I absolutely LOVE the SC State Fair. I love the crazy people that come out for it (including myself), the artery clogging food, and the mark that it is officially fall. Growing up in Columbia the fair has always been a part of my life. I mean all the schools in the area would have a teacher workday one day during the week so the kids could go to the fair. I have many memories...especially in middle school...about what a huge deal it was what group you went with and which boy you sat beside on each ride. This year I decided it would be fun to enter a cake into the fair. I did not even know that people did this but my teacher had mentioned that she did it every year. I have only taken two classes but thought it would be fun.

If you have been keeping up with the blog you would know that I am pretty busy. I was out of town for a training from October 7 to October 12. Unfortunately, each fair entree had to be in before 11am on October 13th. So I packed a 64-gallon tupperware container with a bunch of cake stuff and headed to Charlotte for my training. I was taking a class to be able to review physician's impairment ratings that are placed on individuals who have sustained some sort of injury. It was 9 hours of class each day plus a huge test in order to attempt to gain certification. So here I am at the Hilton in Charlotte rolling out fondant on their executive desk in my suite (of course I laid down cutting boards so the table was unharmed)...it must have been quite a site for the maids as I would put my things away each night but I always managed to have some cornstarch still on the desk. She probably thought I was running some sort of drug ring or something and my Winnie-the-Pooh blanket on the bed was just a cover-up! Anyways, somehow I managed to finish my cake early Tuesday morning.

If you have ever entered anything into the fair, it can be very intimidating. There are all of these 60 year olds running around as if they own the place and whispers as to whose smocked dress stitching is the best and whose biscuits did not rise properly. I did not even know what category to put it in so I just asked the old woman to pick one it would fit in. She said it looked like it belonged in the Adult Novelty Division. I am still not exactly sure what that means but I just smiled and said "that's exactly what I was thinking!" I did not tell anyone that I was going to enter anything into the fair for three reasons. One- I feel like a huge country bumpkin entering something into the fair. Two- I must be getting old if this is the kind of excitement I have in my day. And Three: I have never seen the decorated cakes and I totally thought mine would be such an amateur that I would not even tell anyone as it would surely be towered over by large masterpieces.

I was so excited to find out that I actually won first place! That means I won $12 and a blue ribbon. I guess I had already spent the twelve dollars on my fried mushrooms and chocolate-covered frozen banana so I am now left with a cool blue ribbon (It is much larger than the one in this photo. They actually give you one when you got to pick it up). Everyone has been so sweet and encouraging to me letting them know that they saw it when they ventured to Carnie-Town! Kelli even put a picture of her beside it on her blog!

As most of you know, Adam loves to embarrass me. In fact, he loves to embarrass anyone and he finds a thrill in each red face he is able to initiate. I was standing about 15 feet away from the cake and enjoying watching people stop to look at it. The best part was seeing small children with their face smushed up against the glass saying "I want that for my birthday cake, Mommy!" So Adam decides to yell out among the crowd "The artist herself is standing right here" (while pointing at me and making grand gestures). Needless to say, it very quickly made me spot an exit and start my retreat but not before a few people stopped me to ask for one of my business cards. Of course, I did not have any but it was still flattering.

Here we are enjoying our ski lift ride (year after year it seems like this is the only ride we go on...man, we are getting old).

I am already looking forward to next year's fair and I hope that I will be able to enter another cake as well.

Beach Conference

Last week, I headed to Kingston Plantation in Myrtle Beach for a conference. I was able to catch up with my old friend, Stefanie Harder, who lives in Myrtle Beach. She is a hairdresser (hince, my stylish doo). She was able to attend one of the functions with me and really made it a blast. We rocked it out on the dance floor and Stef actually got on stage. It was quite the memory. I am looking forward to calling her for next years conference!

Let's Go Team Gold!

This is the second session that Riverland Hills has had a flag football league. Adam played last year on the Red Team with Jason Cone and Kenny Williamson (they are able to request people they want to play on the same team with). This year we were excited to have another friend, Eric Johnston, join the team. Adam loves playing as it reminds him of his Irmo football days. In fact, all of the guys above played on Irmo's football team...ahh...the memories. He is constantly reminding me that he is not is as good of shape as he was in his memories. He is the one featured below with an ankle brace and a wrist brace. The wrist brace was given by the doctor after the first game of the season. When the doctor stated he would like to put Adam in a cast, his reply was "Dude, I'm 27 years old. Can you not just give me something I can take on and off?" I kept threatening that I was going to sign his cast with hearts and get wells so he was pretty adamant about not having one!

Huddle up...

Ready for the snap...

Here is my hunky man up close in case you couldn't see him!

Adam was having pain in his left foot after the game. The next day it felt worse so he went to Urgent Care again and they told him he had bruised the tissue on his foot. He is now wearing another brace. So what would you say is the best thing for someone to do when they have a brace on both feet? If you were going to guess hike through the Appalachian Mountains then you would have guessed exactly right. Adam is going hiking while carrying about a 50 pound backpack this weekend with some friends from college. Clearly, my man is not very rational!

Goin' to the Chapel...Well, not exactly...

Adam and I were heading up to The Cliffs at Glassy Chapel in Landrum, SC for Rebecca and George's wedding. The wedding started at 6 so we left at 4 to allow plenty of time. On our way up there I called one of the guests and she said that she was waiting in the parking lot. I sarcastically asked her what she was planning to do for the two hours waiting up until the wedding. She then corrected me by telling me that the wedding was at 4:30. And sure enough, upon looking at the invitation, it was a 4:30 wedding! I completely dropped the ball. So we headed to Greenville's Wyche Pavillion for the reception. Needless to say, we arrived significantly early to the reception. Luckily, Greenville's downtown is gorgeous and we took the opportunity to walk down beside the Reedy River at Falls Park and have photo shoot.

I love this picture...

Waiting for the wedding party to arrive...

The reception

As you can see, Adam and I pretty good and taking self-portraits

Suzanne was an honorary bridesmaid in the wedding. How much do you love the lights hanging in the background?

Rebecca and George opening champagne and cutting the cake...

Sweet Molly

So here is the traditional Irmo photo (From Left to Right: Kristina Motley Bennett, Tracey Ammons, Whitney Livington, me, Rebecca Copelan Burdette, Clary Powell, Lauren Stephens Holliday, and Anna Gray)

Gorgeous Clary

Adam and I walked Molly to her car and on our way back we were able to take a great shot of the venue.

Kelli's Baby Shower

Last Sunday, Jessica Ryan and Jewette Dooley threw Kelli Ingram a baby shower. She is due on November 14th and will be having a little girl named Megan Lael. Kelli has designed the cutest nursery with fabric that is exactly like the background of the invitation (courtesy of Sugarlump Stationary, of course). I was very honored to be invited to the shower so I asked Jessica if I could make a cake. I told her it would be in the shape of one of the dolls. I picked out the pink and brown one because I thought it was the cutest.

I completely forgot to take pictures of it before I left the house. I franticly took it over to Jessica's house at midnight on Friday night as we were leaving to go up to Clemson the next day for the game and I wanted her to have it early to set up. The picture below was taken with Adam's camera phone while we are driving.

Below is the mother-to-be with the cake.

Kelli and I (she is so cute pregnant...I mean you really can't tell until she turns to the side.)

Jewette, me, Kelli, Brooke, Jessica, and Alyssa...

Brooke and I (Brooke is sewing the bedding for Kelli's nursery and it is quite the undertaking...I am really bleassed to have such talented friends!)

Let's Go Tigers!

Okay, so it is confession time. As embarrassed as I am to say it, I have not been to a Clemson home football game since I graduated. It has been 4 years! Life just seems to happen. I went away to graduate school and then came back to Columbia to get married. We try to go to the NC State v. Clemson game in Raleigh when we can but it just seems like fall is such a busy time of the year and it seems like every weekend we are packing up to head to a wedding. I loved my time at Clemson so much and would not trade that experience for anything. I made wonderful friends there and learned a lot of life lessons. There are a few girls that I, unfortunately, have not seen since my wedding. We were all Zetas at Clemson and were great friends. All of my favorite Zeta memories include these crazy girls. (Picture above from left to right: Carrie Kendrick, Meredith Bado, Katy Gregg, and I. And yes, the picture was clearly taken after I spilled wine on my shirt playing "slap the bag") After communicating through facebook, we decided that we would all come up for the Clemson v. TCU game. Adam and I had to miss two weddings to go to it but nothing was going to stop me from seeing these girls. Adam and I actually went to the game without tickets. We were just going to tailgate and then come home once the game started (it was a 3:30 game) but it turned out that Katy Gregg's family had extra tickets so they graciously gave them to us.

Bado and I...

Katy and I were both psych majors and research assistants for the same professor. We pretty much took all the same classes and she was my savior. She is now finishing up getting her Doctorate at UGA. Her boyfriend, Chris, who I love is a lawyer in Spartanburg. This is one of the greatest couples I know.

Carrie and I...

Adam and I in the game...(I got a bit emotional during the alma mater. You can tell I have been crying...and, yes, Adam did pretend he did not know me at that point :)

Running down THE HILL...

What a beautiful sight!

On our way out of the game we stopped by Lori Rhodes' tailgate to see her. We had been rained on and were looking a bit rough at this point. It was so great to see her as well. Hopefully, it will not be as long until the next reunion.