My Friend Jennelle

...Nell, Jo or Nell-Jo to me... Though I'm fairly certain she hates all of these nicknames I've given her. But let's fast forward.

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Sitting around the newsroom yesterday, me and another reporter were talking about our busy non-work weekends (weekends where we're busy, but not with work stuff) when I casually mentioned my friend Jennelle's baby shower. I gave him a brief history of our friendship and he said something about us being friends for 15 years. I immediately said "No, that's not right."

But yes, it is. We have been friends for 15 years. It's seems crazy, but its true. Jennelle is one of my oldest friends. We've been through middle school, high school, dances, moving, breakups, you name it. I was even there when she met her future husband. My sister ditched us at the fair with our shared car and sent her (at the time) boyfriend's friend to pick us up. Yep.

I was the maid of honor in her wedding June 7, 2008. Now, Jennelle is getting ready for what I'm sure is to be the most amazing experience of her life, becoming a mom. Her shower, hosted by her mom and a college friend, was today.

Everything looked beautiful, including my friend Jennelle. Her friend and mama did an awesome job planning the shower. Unfortunately, I had a few contrast issues with my camera, so I don't have a ton of photos But here are a few.

Here is Jennelle's gift from my mom and me.

A closeup of the blanket I made for "Frank." No, the baby's name will not really be Frank. She doesn't know the sex, so she and her husband have been having fun calling the baby Frank.

Vincent modeled the blanket with Pooky bunny.

Table decoration:

Place settings. Cute, no?

A whole table:

So I told you about the exposure problem I had, but you can get an idea of the cake with this. It was so cute!

The food was delicious too!

There were a lot of other delicious dishes too. The salad was to die for! There were sausage bites, spinach dip, chips and salsa, cucumber sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (both mini) and Starbucks coffee blends. Mmm-mm! I'm still full!

Jennelle and I

Jennelle, her mama and I

Jennelle with Annie, who helped host the party with Jennelle's mom.

The last present!

She showed everyone the blanket. I originally made her a different blanket, but we went to the craft fair in November I saw Jennelle buy a pillow for the baby's room that was gray and white zigzag. So I decided to try to match the pillow and make a different one. It's the first "ripple" blanket I've made. I tried once before but it ended up being a scarf because I kept messing it up. Overall, I think it turned out cute and it really does match the pillow she bought. It's not as big as I wanted it to be, but as Jennelle pointed out, babies are little.

This is absolutely not the most flattering photo of me, but here is a cute photo of the Union High girls Jodi, Jennelle, Lindsay and I.

The shower was a blast. Jennelle and Matthew (her husband) got a lot of nice gifts and of course, it's always nice to see old friends. I can't wait to meet baby Frank and watch Jennelle and Matt take the ride of their lives.

Happy Birthday Goose!

On Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011, my "baby" turned 5. It's been the most amazing thing in the world to have watched him grow into the smart, quirky little man he is today.

We held a birthday party for him the week following his birthday. Since his best friend's birthday is one day after his, her mom and I decided to host their parties together. We've had parties together before and we usually just merge the two themes together. This year was no different. She was set on circus and princesses and Vincent was set on Transformers. I know what you're thinking... what a hodge-podge theme! And you're right. But hey, when you're 5 you know what you want!

My friend Heidi and I spent months thinking of fun games, collecting prizes and gathering things for the party. When we finally got together with all of it... it was insane. We had enough candy to rot out an elephant's teeth and enough prizes for a small army.

Vincent and Paige each invited children from their preschool classes. Vincent had two friends come and Paige had about 5. They both had cousins and other family members, which made for quite a crowd!

Paige felt like a princess in her dress!



Games before the kids arrived. We had a bean bag toss, made by Gary, ring toss, can knockdown, sand dig, face painting, tattoos, Plinko and a bounce house.


The cakes. Paige had a castle with people getting married in front. That was a requirement, which I love. Her aunt makes her cakes each year. This is the first year in awhile that I haven't made Vincent's cake, but we found this one and he loved the Transformers on top so we just went with it.



Same aunt that made the cake is painting faces! She's artistic.



When the kids first arrived they sat down to a table full of stickers and markers to make a goodie bag while the other children arrived. They used their bags to collect prizes from the games. And yes, I just glued pipe cleaners to lunch bags, but they held up awesome and I didn't see one broken bag!



Vincent got a tattoo and his face painted.


Paige tries her (left) hand at the bean bag toss.



Bouncin' fun!

Dada enjoying himself with Memaw and Popa in the background.



I know this is blurry, but I loved how you can see his 'tude in this one.



Vin with his two school friends.


Checking out their prizes.


Then, everyone got a chance to try to demolish the pinata!


Because really, who doesn't love hitting things?



Everyone got a chance to try to break the Transformer and free his candy.


Luckily we had some bigger kids to help out.



Ah! Finally! They all go for the candy!



Blowing out the candles. So dramatic, he is.


Now to open presents! I loved how Vincent opened his so slowly and looked at each one.

He was SO excited to get a bag of Kit-Kats from Paige's family. Why? Because they're Popa's favorite and he wanted to share. He had to get up and go show Popa.



This is after he opened Paige's present.


Aunt Kristy's present. He had such a reaction to each gift. I love it.


Oh, and while the kids were opening presents, we gave everyone a fresh bag of popcorn. Aren't the bags cute? This is the only picture I had of one, courtesy of a guest who didn't want her photo taken.



See? He's in shock.



Having such a good time!



After the party, Dad went to help his sister move and Vincent want to play with his cousins. We didn't get home until pretty late and he really wanted to play with some of his new stuff, but fell asleep in the car. I woke him up for a bath (I wasn't going to but he was really grimy from all the playing all day) and he went straight to sleep.

Sunday morning the first thing he said was "Is it time to play with my new toys yet?" He literally spent all day Sunday from when he woke up until he went to bed playing with all his new stuff and only really stopped to eat.

I'm so glad Gary, Heidi and I were able to make Paige and Vincent's 5th birthday as special as they are. I couldn't love two children more!