Jelly Bean Packets to Egg-a-lopes

Thanks to my good friend Becky M.  I now have a cuter name for the Jelly Bean Packets...Egg-a-lopes!  Thanks Becky!  I love it!  The giveaway for a dozen is still going on until the 8th.  But if you would like to go ahead and get some now you can purchase them at my Etsy shop The Path Before Me.

 $2.50 for a dozen and only $2.00 shipping! 

Did you know I had an Etsy shop?  You didn't?  Well, I hope you will check it out and let me know what you think.  If you look in the side bar on your left there is a link that will take you right there!

Squirrel Underpants

Thanks to my good friend, Amanda, I got a good laugh when I got the mail on Friday.  I thought I would share it with you all.  You aren't imagining things...those are indeed squirrel-sized underpants!

Here is the back view!

Here is a close up so you can actually read what it says.  

I love that, "naturally occurring indecent exposures"!  Thanks for the chuckle Amanda!

If you want to get your squirrels some underpants you can go to squirrelunderpants.com and order some!

Caleb's 5th Birthday

Caleb turned FIVE this past weekend!  For weeks up until his birthday he would ask, "Am I five yet?"

Now that he is five he asks, "Am I still 5?"

We had a little party on Saturday and the weather was beautiful which was a good thing since all our games and activities we planned on doing at the park.  When our guests arrived we took kites, bubbles and our big bowling set down to the park and played for about 45 minutes.  Then we came back to the house for cake, ice cream and of course presents!  It's so nice that Caleb has made some friends at school and that they were able to come and celebrate with us.  

Blowing bubbles with friends.

Troy helping M get ready to fly a kite.  There is Josh and Simon in the background.

There was some horse racing with Caleb and his friend H.

Boys being boys.

Caleb and his Star Wars birthday cake.

Getting ready to sing "Happy Birthday".

Caleb and his friend M.

Caleb and his friend C.  

Caleb, with Simon's help, used up all the finger paint that very night!

Caleb and his friend H.  Caleb went to play at H's house last week after preschool and had a blast.

Here is Caleb with his musical card...he loves it!  

He has been begging for a card that "plays music" for a while now.

Funny little guy!

Here is the race car track that he got thanks to gift cards and money from family members.  

All the boys have loved playing with this!

We are so thankful for you Caleb and we are enjoying watching you turn into a thoughtful and funny young man!  May the Lord lead you and guide you in all you do!  We love you!

Cowboy Cake

I made this Cowboy Cake for a baby shower this weekend.  These sweet friends are having their first baby and, "It's a Boy!".  I am so excited for them.  I really enjoyed making the cake.  The brown frosting is actually chocolate but all the other is regular buttercream.  I hope to take some cake decorating classes and learn more when we get settled in Virginia. 

Ring Dunk and Graduation Party

This Saturday we had a huge party at our church to celebrate Troy's graduation and him getting his Aggie ring.  There were lots of friends and family who came to help us celebrate and we really enjoyed seeing everyone and getting to visit.  I am so proud of my hubby!

Here's Travis manning the grill.  He did a great job!

Here's the dessert table!  Yum!

Here is a close up of the cake I made.  It was really hard to make that maroon icing! 

 I don't think it tasted very good either! 

Here is my good friend Amanda posing for a picture with me.

Here is the ring dunk set up.  The ring is in the huge bowl of jello and there is his "bib" beside it.  The matted photo is a picture of the big ring on campus and then it's signed by all the folks who helped get Troy his ring.

John tells Troy he can not use his hands and then squirts on a whole can of whipped topping...ewwww.

I don't think there was a way to do it without getting messy.

He's finally getting down to the bottom. 

I helped bring it to the center and he got it!  What a mess!

Other Ags...I don't think this was everyone though.

Almost everyone who helped Troy get his Aggie ring.

We did not have the money to get Troy an Aggie ring and all those folks chipped in to get him one.  The network of Aggies is amazing! 

Thank you everyone.  Thank you.

My Aggie Gets His Ring!

Today we all went up to the A&M campus to get Troy's Aggie ring.  We met our good friends and Aggies, John and Tony, at the Williams Alumni Center to pick it up.  The ring was being held at a table there on the 2nd floor. 

Here is Tony, John and Troy's Aggie rings.

Gig 'Em!

There was a neat display of Aggie rings whose owners had already passed on but who had donated their rings to the school.  They had one for each graduating class all the way back to 1891!  They also had a giant ring mural that was made from pictures of Aggies with their rings!

They also had some fun interactive exhibts that the boys really enjoyed playing with.  Here are some videos they got to make of themselves being a Yell Leader. 

Troy was proud to get his Aggie Ring!  Several family members and many friends at church all pulled their resources together to pay for this ring and we are so blessed and thankful!  Tomorrow is the big Dunkin' Party where we can celebrate.  I'm really looking forward to it!

Tony, Troy and John - Whoop!

Parkway Playgroup Update

Parkway Playgroup

Let’s Play! Every 2 weeks, on Tuesdays from 10:00am-11:30am, we can meet to let the kids play and the Mom’s visit!


May 4th

Edeilweiss Park on Victoria Avenue if weather permits. If not then McDonalds play area on Rock Prarie.

May 18th

Central Park if weather permits. If not then Chick-Fil-A play area on Texas Avenue.

June 1st

Bee Creek Park if weather permits. If not then McDonalds play area on Rock Prairie.

June 15th

SPECIAL--Gattitown at 11:30!


If you have questions or suggestions please contact me via comment. If you would like to be added to the yahoo group for Parkway Playgroup then you can go to the button at the bottom of the page and sign up. Or ask me to email you an invite.

DiGiorno House Party and My First Giveaway!

I couldn't believe it when I got the confirmation email from House Party saying I had been picked to host another event! I thought that it would be a while since I had just done one in January. Nevertheless, I was picked, and the party happened Saturday.

It was sponsored by DiGiorno pizza. They were spreading the news of their new combo: pizza and breadsticks. The theme along with the pizza was basketball. March Madness. I received my party kit in the mail on Monday and was excited to open it and see all the goodies!


There was an apron, a pizza cutter, a clip magnet, some coasters, a finger ball game, some beaded necklaces, and a packet of coupons. There were some FREE coupons to get pizza for the guests to eat at the party and some $4.00 off coupons to giveaway as party favors. So cool!



Troy put on the apron and "man"ned the oven. He did a great job and the apron looked good on him. However, he was only in it for 10 minutes. Simon pulled the easel on top of himself and busted his nose. Troy, being the first to arrive on the scene, picked Simon up and thus received an out pouring of blood on the front of the apron. So the apron didn't get any wear at the party but it has been washed and the blood did come out. Simon's nose is fine and unfortunately at 16months old he has already had his fair share of bloodied noses.

Here is Simon playing basketball before his accident.


Here is Troy before the accident.



We ate pizza, bread sticks, salad and of course there were desserts! My friend Amanda made the best one in my opinion. It was some kind of smores thing. I will have to get her to share the recipe and then I will share with ya'll. I had eaten DiGiorno's before but I hadn't had the breadsticks. They were great! I heard other guests say they were good too. The pizza is a medium size and I would say it should feed 4 and there were about 10 breadsticks (I think) along with a marinara sauce for dipping.






Some watched basketball, honestly, I wasn't even aware of who was playing. Later we played Phase 10 with dice. That is a great game, by the way. It was a really fun night, just hanging out with friends! Plus I was able to giveaway stuff...for FREE!!! How fun is that? I gave every guest a $4.00 off coupon and I still had some left over to give away as door prizes. I gave away 1 of the leftover FREE coupons and the clip magnet as well. The pizza cutter worked awesomely, so I just couldn't give that away!



****THE Contest is now over! Thank you for participating!****

I still have some coupons to give away!

ANNOUNCING MY FIRST GIVEAWAY!

The Grand Prize winner will receive: One "FREE Any one (1) DIGIORNO Pizza & Breadsticks (up to $8.00)" expires 4/30/2010 coupon



There will be 3 runners up who will each receive: One "Save $4.00 Any one (1) DIGIORNO Pizza & Breadsticks" expires 4/30/2010 coupon



Here is what you need to do to enter:

Mandatory entry (You need to do this one before any of the extra ones.)

***Leave a comment telling me what your favorite brand and kind of pizza is.

Extra entries *Worth 1 entry each*
***Please leave a separate comment for each entry.***

--Follow The Path Before Me publicly (there is a Follow me button on the left).

--Post about this giveaway on your blog and make sure to link back to this post.

--Become of fan of DiGiorno on Facebook and leave me your FB name so that I can verify it.

The winners will be decided by a random number generator. Please leave your email address in each comment so that I can contact you. Also if you win and do not respond to the winning email within 48 hours, I will award it to another person. That's only fair! Subject of email will say "Path B4 Me DiGiorno Giveaway".

This giveaway will be open until March 31st, 2010 at 5pm CST.

30th Birthday Weekend Celebration

I turned 30 this January and so did one of my good girlfriends , Stephanie. She and I were treated to a fun girls weekend by Misti and Rachel, two of my other girlfriends. We have all known eachother since diapers! We drove down to The Woodlands in Rachel's Mother-in-laws car. It was a Jaguar and it was a very nice ride. Stephanie was super excited about it. This Jaguar is named Miss Kitty, so there were multiple references to Miss Kitty throughout the trip. We ate lunch at Chick-fil-A in Conroe and did a little shopping in Target too. Then we went to our hotel , which was very nice, and then dressed and got ready for a night on the town!

We decided to go to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner (Another treat from Misti and Rachel!) and I had a really awesome BBQ Chicken Salad. It was huge! We had such a good time just talking and laughing. Then we went to the Tinsel Town Theater and saw When in Rome. It was so cute and very funny! We all really liked it, even though we had to sit in the 2nd row of seats from the front! Then we went to Starbucks where we sat and had drinks and chatted. Then we went back to our hotel room and spent the evening talking and laughing more.

We slept in a bit the next morning and then got ready and went downstairs for breakfast. There was a large selection and so we had our fill and then left to go shopping in Market Street. That place is so fun. You feel like it's a small little town in another country or something. We mostly window shopped...there wasn't much room in Miss Kitty for us, our luggage and too many shopping bags! We ate lunch at La Madelines. It's kind of a soup and sandwhich type place but with real French style. Just a fun atmosphere and really good Strawberries Romanoff! I really want that recipe. After that we headed home.

I love those girls so much, it is so good to have friends and it's even better to have good friends!

Kristin Hannah House Party

I joined this really cool site at the end of last year, called House Party. It's a great marketing concept. Different companies or authors (anyone who has a product they are promoting or selling)use this site to find people who are willing to host a party in their home with the theme of the party being their product. For example there is a Digorno pizza party you can apply for right now. I think Ziploc is doing something also. You have to apply for each party and then they will let you know by email if you are accepted. You get a party pack for your party and depending on what product it is will decide what you get in your pack. There are certain things that you agree to do as a host/hostess...all the rules are on the site. Check it out! It's a great way to try out products with your friends for FREE!

So I was accepted as a hostess for the Kristin Hannah Celebrate Our Stories House Party! The party was the 30th of January and I had 12 people that came, including me. For those of you who don't know (I didn't before this party pack came)Kristin Hannah is an amazing author! In the party pack I received: 12 copies of Firefly Lane, 2 copies of True Colors, and 1 galley copy of Winter Garden. I was able to read Firefly Lane and Winter Garden and I enjoyed both books immensely. I gave out all the copies of the books, even my copies. I was also given bookmarks with a Barnes and Noble coupon for the new book Winter Garden.

I had such a great time visiting with my sisters and friends that evening. We had some great snacks and did a bookmark exchange. Some of us bought our bookmarks and some of us made them. They were great and it was fun to hear a story about each friend that I hadn't heard before. We all watched Kristin talk about Winter Garden in a little video blog that was available for the parties on the House Party website. It's great to hear inside the heart of the author of a book and understand why the story is so important.

Not everyone had been able to read their copy of Firefly Lane before the party so we didn't get to discuss the book. I am sure there will be some individual conversations about it as everyone gets a chance to finish it.

All in all, my house party was a great experience and I hope to get picked again! Thanks to all the ladies who came for making it such a fantastic evening!