Hey Everybody, Greyson is 2!!

Greyson just turned 2, and we are so glad his family and friends all came to celebrate with us!! 
I was a little timid to try, but I decided to be brave and make his birthday invitations myself this year. Of course, he is all about Elmo, so I decided to have a Sesame Street party with an extra emphasis on Elmo.  I had the wonderful Sarah at http://lifesweetlifeblog.com make them last year, and they were so perfect, but I just thought what the heck, why not!? So here they are!
Front:

Back:

I found a ton of things on Pinterest that inspired my party ideas, and I am really proud of myself that I was able to use a few of the things I made from his party last year. 

I gave myself a break and ordered the cupcakes and cake from Walmart, and just added the papers and cake toppers myself. 

Ernie loves his rubber duckies! Here is the recipe that I used. It was really good and simple to throw together.

 One of these days I will wise up and realize that if the kid loves Elmo you probably shouldnt' attach his obsession to the chair if you want him to pay attention to the people who came to celebrate with him! haha He seriously spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get Elmo loose!

 This is the cookie table, and I found the super cute 2 and Elmo cookie cutters at http://cheapcookiecutters.com. I always use the royal icing recipe from http://bakeat350.blogspot.com/. She is amazing, and I aspire to be able to ice cookies like her one day!

The sign on the front door is by far my favorite craft/decoration from the party! I love it and wish that it could stay up all the time! (It's actually still hanging in Grey's room because I can't bear to take the top part off yet.) I found the wooden street sign cut out (Greyson Street) at Hobby Lobby, and I painted it white and yellow, then glued green card stock on top of that.  Thankfully, I have a wonderful friend who lets me use her Silhouette for these projects, otherwise the letters would have been terrible! The other signs are just printed on cardstock and attached with ribbon that I glued to the back.  The letter G and the number 2 are those light cardboard 3D pieces you can buy at Hobby Lobby as well. I painted them red, and then glued Sesame Street wrapping paper to the front. 

 Here is a full picture of the front of the house with the SUPER CUTE sign that my mother-in-law (aka GG) painted for Grey.  Amazing!

 Here we are decked out in our Sesame gear ready to party! We love a good theme around here...okay I love a good theme and thankfully Jared plays along nicely :)

My one request for this year's party is that there would actually be a photo of the 3 of us. We somehow missed that one last year?! This is the best we could get...at least he's looking at the camera, right?! Ha!

Thank the Lord my Mom and Dad (aka Nana and Gramps) came a few days early to help me set everything up and wrangle Grey while Jared was at work!

 Morgen and Lindsay helped with toy assembly while Grey made sure they weren't sneaking off with his new fun stuff!

 It was all going as planned until we got to the cake portion...He sat down in the chair, and then it all went downhill!

This is seriously one of the funniest pictures! Poor kid he was NOT going to blow out candles!

And then 2 seconds later he was all better!

We were so glad that Grey's daycare sitter Terri and her daughter Taylin were able to come.  Taylin even convinced Grey to sit down and test out a cupcake (or two...:) and eventually blow out his candles! Yay!

We are so glad that all of our friends were able to come from near and far to celebrate with us! Here is Lindsay and cutie pie Graham.

 Baby Porter was in the party spirit too!

Nana took turns with all the babies :) That lady loves a baby! haha

 Graham even gave Porter a little sugar!

 Sweet friends!

 There's Nana again with another baby! This is Grant (his Mama is above on the right :).

 And here is baby Creed Brown! I don't know how we didn't manage to get a photo of him with Nana too! haha

We decided it would be a good idea to take a photo of the whole bunch of Mamas and babies, and at first it was a little rough to say the least! Here is Morgen and I ready with our cheese faces in case the boys decided to cooperate! haha

 And finally we all got it together! Yay!

We had so much fun as you can tell!  Grey is such a lucky boy to have all these people who love him!

And since his party was on the Saturday before his birthday, here is a birthday morning photo too!

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And to make this post even longer, here are his 2 year stats...

Height: 33.5 inches (25%)

Weight: 28.7 lbs (50-75%)

Head: 19.75 (75-90%)

He was wiped out on all the birthday party fun and his big 2 year check up, so he passed out in the car with the balloon that absolutely HAD to come in the car with us. Whew! Birthdays are exhausting!

 

 

Skinny Penne

We are really trying to revamp our diets around here, so I have been on the look out for some new healthier recipes. I have also been on a mission to stop throwing out so much food that goes bad before we can eat it. So, with that in mind, I got creative and cobbled together a recipe based loosely on something I saw on Pinterest the other day.
I had sausage and Greek yogurt that was getting dangerously close to the expiration date, so I present to you Creamy Skinny Sausage Penne!

It was actually really good! It was Greyson, Jared AND Tom approved! (Uncle Tom came over to play with Grey the other day--those two deserve a post all of their own!)

I was a bad blogger and didn't get a good photo, but I do have a before the spaghetti mess pic of Grey. He was a huge fan and showed his appreciation by covering his face and hair with sauce.


Ingredients:
1 jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce (we love the Hunt's Traditional that comes in a can)
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp dried minced onions
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 12oz container of Greek yogurt
1 lb Jimmy Dean's reduced fat breakfast sausage
1 box of whole wheat penne pasta
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
1/2 cup low fat shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Boil a pot of water for your penne. Once boiling, add noodles and cook while the sauce is coming together.

In a LARGE skillet/pan, brown the sausage and drain off the excess fat. Pour spaghetti sauce into the skillet with the sausage. Add the oregano, basil, garlic, onions, and tomato paste. I didn't add salt because the sausage is pretty salty, and the Parmesan is also salty, but adjust for your taste accordingly. Heat this mixture through. Once the sausage mixture is hot, stir in the Greek yogurt and red pepper flakes. Once the yogurt is combined, add the cooked penne, 1/4 cup mozzarella, and all of the parmesan.

Now, I actually dumped all of this into a casserole dish and topped it with the remaining mozzarella and cooked it in the oven for 10 minutes. I don't think that's completely necessary though. I think the next time I make it, I will just top the pasta mixture with the mozzarella in the pan and cover it with a lid so that the cheese melts.

A healthy serving is 450 calories according to my calculations. We had this with a side of roasted zucchini, and it was delicious! Enjoy!

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Go Rangers!

Last Sunday, July 8, 2012 marks a monumental moment in history...Greyson experienced his first ever Rangers baseball game! Jared was so excited to take him, and Grey was completely in awe of his surroundings and all the people!  Here they are walking in to the game. 
Here's Grey making sure I'm not lagging behind.  "Mama come!" is one of his newest sayings these days.  Sounds sweet right? Sometimes it is, but it gets a little demanding if you aren't on the ball!

We made it to our seats, and Grey started out sitting in Jared's lap.  Thanks to GG and Pops for the Lexus Club seats!  If you've never sat in them before, I highly suggest it with a toddler.  There are waiters/waitresses that come to take your order and deliver your food.  It was so much easier than trying to wrangle Grey in the hotdog line :)

He cracks me up when he looks over the top of his sunglasses ("glashees" in Greyson speak). 
Aside from the heat, it is Texas in July after all, Grey was perfect!  After about 20-30 minutes of heat as the sun went down, all of a sudden clouds came out and the wind started to blow.  It was so nice...for about 3 innings.
Then, at the top of the 4th, this happened...

It was CRAZY loud! It literally sounded like lightning struck directly behind us.  All of sudden everyone started heading for the stairs.  So, we gathered up and hung out by the ice cream stand :) until the game resumed.  It ended up taking over 45 minutes for the game to start back up, and Grey had pretty much reached his limit (imagine a ballpark full of fans all clumped together below the stands--yuck!).  It was also nearing his normal bedtime, so we called it a night and headed home.  It was definitely a Ranger game to remember!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone