Grace's birthday!

My little girl is officially three!!!

We had reserved the building next to my dad's church (which his church owns) for Grace's party. Well, when we got there this morning, there were cars and people everywhere. When we asked them what was up and explained that we had reserved the building. They basically just told us tough luck. They were doing some sort of "prayer garden" behind that building, and they "had to get it done today." We went to my dad's church, but there was no one of any help there.

I was panicking because our apartment just really isn't big enough. Luckily, it was in the 70's and sunny today, so we finally decided on the playground. We got a pavilion with two tables under it and we just made it work.

My dad finally called me after we were already setting up at the park. He said he called the guy who reserved the building for us, and the people who were gardening hadn't gotten permission to be there that day. They just assumed it was okay. I was none too pleased with any of that, but I was determined to give my little girl a happy birthday.

In the end, we had a pretty good turn out. My mom, dad, brother, and sister. Brittany and Sami. Chris's mom, brother, step dad, and two of his cousins. And, of course, Chris, Brentley, me, and the birthday girl!

We still tried to stick with the Candyland theme... we had candy spread on the tables, a little Candyland building on one of the tables, and Candyland cake, and the colored walkway. Oh, and Grace had a candy themed outfit that my nana made her. The tutu had candy pieces on it and she had a candy necklace :)

The cake I made for her.

Blowing out her candles!

Then we added the "3" sparkler. She liked it!

Brentley enjoyed the cake lol.

Present time!

There were about twice this many presents, but we forgot to take a pic before she started opening them.

She got a LeapPad2 and an outfit from us, a Dora table from Chris's mom and step dad, a hooded Princess towel and a LeapPad accessory kit from my mom, a singing Christmas bear from my aunt (sent with my dad), Candyland and a matching game from Brittany and Sami, a Barbie and a craft kit from Chris's cousins, and a foam baseball bat, some plastic balls, a pink baseball glove, and the Dora gymnastics DVD (which came with a twirling ribbon) from my dad. 

If you can't tell, my dad is obsessed with baseball/softball. Lonnnnnng story.

After we got everything home and in order, we headed back out to take her for a birthday dinner. 

Here they are in the Trailblazer! Yes, they are strapped. We're using the LATCH system.

And here she is at her birthday dinner :)

After all the drama of this morning, things turned out well. Grace was excited to have a party at the playground lol. I'm just glad it wasn't cold/windy/rainy/etc. 

Family drama...

There is a whole back story that starts with my nana breaking her leg a little over a week ago, but I'm not going to go into all that.

Basically, my cousin is apparently mad at our nana because she gave me one of her diamond rings when I graduated, but she didn't give one to my cousin, so my cousin thinks that our nana likes me better. For one thing, that was over two years ago! For another, we are both over 20 year old now. That just seems like such a childish thing to be upset about for all this time.

And then, it somehow turned into how she's mad at me because of Brentley's birthday party... my dear anonymous commenter, you have a friend. My cousin's boyfriend said it was "stupid" to spend that much money on a 1st birthday party, and that he won't be spending that much on their son's party (which will be next month). The only reason he thinks it's stupid is because he doesn't want to foot the bill, and her mom said she's not paying for it either, so somehow she ends up mad at me because my son had the birthday party she can't give her son.
Which, by the way, most of Brentley's decorations were bought at Dollar Tree, I made the cake, we bought his outfit at a consignment sale, and it was only $25 to rent the building. His party didn't cost a lot. If he doesn't want to spend even that much on a party for his son, they aren't going to be able to have a party.

Anyway, there's really no point to this post except to vent my annoyance with it all.

Grace's birthday and party are tomorrow! I'll definitely have a post about it sometime tomorrow night :)

=D

So, we took the Trailblazer to the Chevy dealer, and it turns out that (like a few of you suggested) the battery was going bad. When they jumped it off, it blew one of the main fuses, which is what caused all the stuff to quit working. It cost us right at $100 for them to diagnose the problem, get the fuse, and install it. We also have to get a battery, and Chris is going to install it.
Then we just have to get the tags, and we can drive it! That probably won't be until Monday because I'm going to be busy getting everything ready for Grace's party tomorrow.
But it wasn't a crazy expensive fix, so we are sticking with it!!

We had to clean all of Chris's mom's stuff out... oh. my. goodness. After we got everything out, we took it to one of those car wash/vacuum places and we were there cleaning it even more for about 30 minutes. And now, Chris is outside detailing it (he worked at a car detailing place when we first started dating).

And this is before Chris was detailing it. It'll look even better then! I've already read the entire section on car seats in the manual, and I'm fixing to get the car seat manuals out. Can't wait to get there seats in there and actually use our new family vehicle!
*Which we did not have to spend any less on Christmas/birthdays to get.