Cooking for the neighbors!

So, my friend (and neighbor) Amanda had a precious baby girl almost a month ago! As part of a way to serve her and her husband and also to hang out and meet little Mary Virginia, one of her church friends set up a website to bring the family dinners. Anyway, I signed up to bring her, her husband and their son David a meal and last night was my night. So I decided to embark on a meal I had not made before, but was VERY familiar to me - Chicken Parmesan is my FAVORITE!!!

I found a recipe online here which looked pretty easy, so I bought all the ingredients and got ready to make this meal. Tenderize the chicken, dip in egg mixture, dip in breadcrumbs, fry in oil, add cheese and sauce, bake...

I understand you can't really see the chicken, but it's there, I promise!

Also, I forgot to take a picture of the whole finished product last night because I was running behind on time. So instead, you get to see a picture of my leftovers. Annnnd, a treat to me, Amanda's mom was in town, so I got to hang out with her too, even if she couldn't eat the food I brought!

Don't forget the wine!

I also brought salad, garlic bread, and pudding pie for dessert. I thoroughly enjoyed the chicken parmesan and would totally make it again!

Now, for the star of the show who actually slept the ENTIRE time I was there except for these photos when she was crying because she was hungry.

Mary Virginia

Being swaddled by Mommy!

Happy Birthday Elaine!

One of my favorite pastimes, when I can get away with it, is successfully executing a surprise party for someone who claims they cannot be surprised... so how many times is that in the past ten years??? Three... we have successfully had THREE surprise parties for Elaine for various reasons, but this one in particular was a special one! Sheeee is turning 30 today! So, happy birthday to Elaine. 

The story of the surprise party actually goes back to Memorial Day. I asked Elaine what she was going to do for her birthday. I mean, you can't bring in your thirties alone, that's no fun! So she was hemming and hawing about what to do, and we stopped talking about it... or at least she did! Lisa, our YPG awesome lady, overheard and was like, he we should throw her a surprise party. Laura, Kristi and I were all in agreement and decided it had to be in the middle of the week because a lot of people were going to be out of town on her birthday. So there the planning began...  After that, Laura and Lisa pretty much took it from there. LAURA YOU SHOULD BE A PARTY PLANNER!!! As if you haven't heard that before, but everyone, seriously, look at all the intricate decorations and details! Oh and we did Breakfast at Tiffany's theme since Elaine loves her some Tiffany's! 

Food table

Yup, Laura made that sign!

Homemade food tents!

Make your own Mimosas, drink some punch or water! 

Kristi and Laura waiting for the birthday girl to arrive!

And here is the video we've all been waiting for... how DOES Elaine act when she's surprised?!?! :) Well just take a look here and you'll find out!

Kristi, me and Laura

Lorin, Kristi and me!

Laura and the birthday girl with her birthday cup!

Lorin, Elaine, me and Kristi

Anna and me

Elaine with her sign

Sooo... that was Wednesday... and you can read a different story about the party on Laura's Blog. 

So then this weekend Elaine had our friend Amy, from college, down so that she could have some birthday fun! Somehow there were free tickets to Colonial Downs for the horse races and Elaine decided she wanted to do that on Saturday. So we grabbed 4 tickets, got dolled up, and showed up with our hats to see a few races.

Remember when we used to live together?!?! :)

Elaine, Lila and me with our hats!

Lila and me getting ready for the race with
our hats

Amy wanted to know if she was REALLY wearing that hat!

Ladies and hats!

After this we stopped by Shyndigz for some cake to celebrate and then went to Red Robin for dinner. What a fun day!!! :)

Soo... HAPPY BIRTHDAY Elaine! Hope it was wonderful!

Bath Time!

This morning I rolled over and tried to check what time it is on my phone... then I realized, after putting my glasses on, that my phone was bobbing out of my water cup... I guess sometime last night I decided it needed a bath. Now it is bathing in rice and hopefully will come out of its water coma. Soooo... don't try to call/text or anything today because I'm not going to get it!

It's time for a facelift!

Haha, no worries, I'm not going in for plastic surgery, but my yard already has! I love my house, it is a cute little Cape Cod style house (fitting for the girl who grew up on Cape Cod) near Willow Lawn. Everything about it is charming... except for the back yard. Every time I walk into my backyard I am stressed out from the overgrowth of bushes and trees, the weeds, etc. etc. It gets complicated mowing around the outside because of all the bushes. 

Last weekend I spent 4 CJ hours on Saturday weeding my front, and 4 CJ hours on Sunday mulching the front and weeding part of the back. My uncle spent 4 Uncle Terry hours fixing up the area near my A/C unit. The front yard looked pretty good, and the area my uncle worked on looked AMAZING! (see below)

Looks so nice!

My azalea is no longer being suffocated by weeds! Thanks Terry!

So, I purchased this Angie's list deal for 16 hours of man labor! Yup, I got two guys for almost eight hours and they really did a good job working on my back yard. You can see below for the before and after pictures. It is a pretty stark difference! Now I just need to decide what I'm going to do with all this free space!

 Before (walkway to back)

After (walkway to back)

Another after shot of the walkway

The walkway, on its own, is the greatest part. Can you see how far to the left my patio goes? I didn't even know that! If you look at the before photo you can see that most of the patio was covered!

Continuing on into the yard here is before of the left side

Before (left side of yard)

After (left side of my yard)

Does anyone see a difference here?!?! :)

Here is another before of the left side of the yard

After (left side of yard)

WOWSA! Ok let's move onto the other side of the yard? I mean, I thought 16 hours of man labor wouldn't get nearly as much done as what they got done today. 

Before (right side of my yard) 

After (right side of my yard) and yes I fixed the fence already

After (right side of my yard)

Before (right side of yard)

After (right side)

See all the brush in that truck? Yeah that came from my house!

And don't worry, Millie was keeping watch, just to make sure the guys were doing their jobs!

Millie checking out what's going
on in the backyard!

So welcome to my yard facelift! I'm really excited about it!

Why, oh why, do the weekends go by so fast?!?!

Is it Monday already?!?! I just need another day! This weekend was pretty busy for me. Friday night was pretty chill as I hung out with Laura and Bonnie. It was relaxing!

Theeeeennnnn Saturday happened! I had brunch with the Richmond Bible Study ladies at Toast... YUM!

This is called The Chicken and the Egg (DELICIOUS)

While we were at brunch and it was pouring rain out, I decided that I would go home and weed my front yard (well the beds where the bushes are anyway). I heard a rumor that its easier to pull the weeds up when the ground is wet, which is probably true. Four hours later, I had pretty much no weeds, seven 30 gallon bags of trash and was a verrrry dirty girl, so I took a shower before Amanda and Sam came over to hang out.

I didn't think about doing a before picture on both sides, but this
is the before photo on the left side

After weeding... oh hey there is actually a bed there!

This was only halfway through but it made me laugh!

Then I put on a dress and headed out to the engagement party for Lila and Patrick!



Sunday I woke up and my uncle came over at 10:30 with his truck so we could go get some mulch at Lowe's. After getting the mulch, he went to work on my backyard while I mulched that whole area that I weeded on Saturday.

Looks so fancy with mulch in it!

Then I got started on another area of weeds in the backyard.

This was alllllll weeds... and it's only a small area but it was progress!

Here is what my uncle worked on! If you have ever seen this
area of my yard, it was ALSO all weeds! He's so great!

Four hours later, seven 42 gallon bags of trash, lots of tree parts in my backyard, and another VERY dirty girl, I took a shower to get ready to head out to Dr. Browning's retirement celebration. It was really a beautiful service and I will definitely miss him!

Well... this is disturbing...