Flashback Friday

Let's call this post 'The Big Bang Theory', shall we?


I've said it before and I think it bears repeating- "Those with naturally curly hair should not have bangs". I give you exhibit A:

See them? Those wispy little sad-and-not-a-clue-how-to-be-bangs bangs? I was 12 in the picture above, and old enough to know better. I had enough bang mishaps in elementary school to fill 6 yearbooks, and yet... I asked for them.

Again.

Silly girl.

At least I was the master of 'my bow is taller than your bow'.

And 'my socks are redder than your red socks'.

And 'my chest is flatter than your chest'.

Oh wait...

Fast-forward 4 years.

I got wise, grew the bangs out, and then...

I cut them.

Again.

Why.can't.I.learn?

There I was, trying to change the world, when I was really just distracting folks with the craziness on my forehead.

Shame on me.

Fast-forward 12 years.

(sigh)

I got scissor happy.

Again.

This time, I figured I couldn't go wrong, what with the invention of the flat iron and such.

Still....not great. The redeeming factor in the photo above has to be the Tony winner who agreed to pose with me, despite my crazy bang.

See this one? It's actually a happy photo, where I'm pointing at Patti's boob and thinking,

"I just saw this amazing show and my bangs have never looked better!"

Here's Hope- don't miss it

Happy Wednesday, friends! I wanted to share a few pics of the last 2 nights of the 'Here's Hope Celebration' and invite you locals to the last night (tonight) at 6:45 pm at the Jaycee Fairgrounds in Alberta City. If this is your first time to hear about it, First Baptist Church of Atlanta has partnered with our church (Alberta Baptist) and is providing supper, children's activities, and an awesome service each night full of beautiful music and a powerful message. God has sent us glorious breezes each night and the Holy Spirit has moved. Oh how It has moved. What a wonderful thing it is to witness new souls coming to know Christ, and it's happened each and every night. Do you know someone who might not know Christ? Send them our way tonight. Free food, but more importantly, food for your soul.

I'm including a couple of videos from the featured soloist/music leader, Daniel Crews, because goodgollymissmolly can he SING. God has blessed him with an amazing talent, and if you're not able to come or if you live in Australia (shout out to my Aussie readers!), then I hope you'll be blessed by some of the music that has been blessing me this week.





For the past two nights, we've heard testimonies from two incredible young athletes. The first was Jarryd Wallace, a former UGA runner who lost his leg 2 years ago but is currently training for the 2012 Paralympic Games. For his full story and testimony, visit his website HERE.

Last night, Anna Watson shared her story of being a weight-lifting GA cheerleader pursued by a body-building modeling agency. She turned down the opportunity to sign with the agency when they pressured her to take steroids to put on the neccessry pounds. For her story, go HERE and HERE.

The 120+ member youth choir, Prayz, from First Baptist Atlanta, Ga, has been astounding each night. They're not only singing their hearts out in the service, but also aiding in storm clean-up, and working in backyard bible clubs while in Tuscaloosa.

My youngest is quick to make friends with anyone who comes to the park to play sports, and ends up listening to the service as well...

So thankful for the cool breezes and beautiful sunsets God's provided each night. So thankful for the blessing that these services have been, not just to my church family, but to those in the community who are walking to the park and hearing God's word, maybe for the first time. And so thankful for the souls who have come to know Christ this week.

What a blessing.

p.s.- My friends Kara and Ethan Blankenship have been sending me updates from China as they finalize the adoption of their precious baby, Joel. If you'd like to follow along on their adventure, go HERE.

Here's Hope Celebration

Happy Monday friends! I want to extend an invitation to those of you who are local, and even those of you not so local, to an awesome event going on right now in t-town. My church has partnered with First Baptist of Atlanta to sponsor the 'Here's Hope Celebration' which will take place Monday through Wednesday night at 7 pm at the Jaycee Fairgrounds pavilion. A 120+ member youth choir from FBC will be rocking the house pavilion each night, along with featured soloist/leader Daniel Crews, and speaker Jeff Crook. The celebration began last night, and lemme tell ya right now- if you are within driving distance of Tuscaloosa, you do.not.want.to.miss.this. Amazing music, awesome message, and  a wonderful time of fellowship. The massive youth choir will also be conducting bible clubs and assisting in storm clean-up while they're here. Isn't God awesome? Here we are, 14 months since the tornado, and groups are still volunteering their time to come and help.

Here are a few photos + video from the kick-off last night. Those of us with small children brought picnic blankets + toys, and the kids had a grand time coloring & playing while the parents were able to enjoy the service. God also gave us a jaw-jropping sunset to end the evening. Love it when He shows off, as only He can do.

**p.s.- my good friends, Kara and Ethan, are in China meeting their son for the first time! I've been posting updates on her blog when she's not able to, and if you'd like to follow along on their adventure, click HERE**

Flashback Friday- a tribute to Dad

Happy Friday, friends! I've been a bit MIA from the blog this week while enjoying the sunshine and whatnot with my kiddos. Swimming, chalkin' up the driveway, swinging, and water gun fighting were all on the itenerary this week. The water gun fight was even impromptu, which is the best kind, and all 5 Mathews were drenched before a truce was called. We're soaking up every second of our summer, but today is Friday, and you know what that means...

Since Sunday marked a special holiday that honors our Dads, today's Flashback Friday is all about my Dad. To the father who's always called himself my #1 fan, here are some of my fave shots of the two of us. And a couple with that other sibling of mine... ;o)

***
My very first Easter.
I'm pretty sure my thoughts at the moment were, "I'm gonna lay here all still and pretend to sleep, but when they leave the room I'm totally eating that bunny".

Love the Converse shirt, Dad.
And the stache.



 Pretty sure mum had just told us to look directly into the sun and smile.



 First beach trip as a fam of 4.
Here's proof that E got more than just her daddy's genes.
Nice legs, Dad.

 One of my all-time fave things to do when I was 5/6.
As you can see, I'm contributing a WHOLE lot.
Once again, nice legs Dad.

 Sixth grade trip to Washington, D.C.
We paid a visit to the FBI, but as you can clearly see, the real crime is what's happening above my neck.

 First Oscar party in 1997.
Thanks mum and dad for letting me turn your house into an awards show slash banquet hall. And for loving the Oscars because I love the Oscars. And thanks, Dad, for holding a fake Oscar and taking a picture with me. Also...thanks for letting me get contacts. Good GRAVY, thanks for that.

I must also give a shout-out to my baby daddy, because the kiddos and I...well we loves him a lot.

Thanks for being such a fine baby daddy, hubs.

I'm extremely blessed to have these two men in my life, as well as the sweetest Grandaddy and Father-in-law on the planet.

God is so good.

Happy weekend to ya!

winner winner chicken dinner and a mower with flair

Happy Monday!! I hope you all had a lovely weekend celebrating the Dad's/husbands/Father figures in your life! We were able to celebrate with both of our families yesterday and it was truly and blessing!

First things first... I plugged the number of comments from the giveaway post into random.org, and....

drumroll please......

the winner of the D's Stitches giveaway is.....

comment #3- Laurie

Congrats to you, Laurie! There's an e-mail coming your way with details on how to contact Danielle! And for the rest of you, remember Danielle's shop,
 D's Stitches, for all of your monogram and applique needs! T-shirts, onesies, bloomers, towels....check out her shop HERE if you haven't yet!

Before I sign off for today, I have to share a little project that I found hubs a'workin on last night.

It all started when he asked for some masking tape.
I asked, "why?".
He said, "I just need it".

And that, my friends, is all it took.
I finished packaging the order I was working on, and went in search of shenanigans. This time, they came in the form of this:

and this:

and eventually produced this:

 

That's right. He needed tape so he could create lightning and arrows and whatnot on his mower. A 'custom job', if you will. I'll say this for it, it's got flair. Don't think I've ever seen lightning down the side of a mower before.

If any of you are interested in his services, feel free to contact me and I'll send him over. Masking tape in hand.

Wizard of Oz party- putting it all together

Happy Thursday friends!

After sharing pics of my girls Wizard of Oz party HERE,

sharing how I made the invites HERE,

and telling you (again) about the awesomeness that is Picmonkey, where I created custom printables for the party HERE,

I thought it was time I pulled everything else party related into one big post, HERE.

TODAY.

AS IN, THIS POST RIGHT HERE THAT YOU'RE READING.

I'm breaking it up into the remaining categories of food, games, and decor, and since I'm a lil' hungry, why don't we begin with the...

 FOOD

 I narrowed down my top pics from my W of Oz Pinterest board and decided to go with "Aunt Em's" cupcakes in a jar, cupcakes with ruby slipper bookmark toppers and shiny green Emerald City-ish liners (purchased from etsy and ebay), "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" fruit skewers, "Lions, Tigers, and Bears- oh my!" animal crackers, and "Follow the yellow brick road" rice crispy treats. Since the party was a 2-4 after-lunch-party, we weren't having to provide a full meal. Just a few sweets and snacks.

We also had "Aunt Em's sweet tea and lemonade", as well as juice boxes which I had no clever name for.

The rice crispy treats were actually my idea, since they kind of remind me of bricks (don't ask) and I thought it'd be super-cool if I made them yellow and stacked them, like bricks, on the serving platter. Just like Monica in season 2, episode 11, I planned and planned and planned and then didn't leave enough time to actually do everything I'd planned. Ever happen to you?

Cue hubs and his bro and one super-quick trip to Target for the purchase of 3 boxes of already made rice crispy treats. No, they weren't yellow, but they served the purpose and tasted pretty darn good, and good golly if they aren't close to yellow in their natural state anyway...

Hubs and I also stayed up pretty late making these beauties for the kids to take home in their favor baskets-

Dorothy's ruby slippers and Glinda's wand in candy form on a stick. Helloooooo sugar rush. (shoe candy mold from ebay, star mold from hob lob) To get the 'sparkle' on top of the shoes and wand, we sprinkled glittery sugar sprinkles in the mold before pouring the candy melts in. Yup- we totally added sugar to sugar. So unlike us.

There were also real-deal wands, tiaras, and "Professor Marvels crystal ball" bouncy balls for the kids to toss into their thrift-store favor baskets.

That pretty much wraps up food and favors, so let's talk about...

GAMES

The 'Melt the Witch' game came from THIS party, and after showing the pics to my 3-year old, Dorothy-loving, birthday girl, it was all.she.could.talk.about.

For this activity, all we needed was a plastic tub of water, a few water guns, and some pics of the Wicked Witch of the West. The party I linked to earlier actually used a large watercolor painting so that when they squirted it with water, the colors actually ran down the page and she appeared to be melting. Since we didn't have time to be whipping up any watercolor portraits, I did a quick google image search, saved a few of my faves to a cd, took it to Office Depot, and for .59 they made color copies of Elphaba for me. Sweeet. Didn't even have to use my own printer ink.  I did get a kick outta seeing this on the screen at the depot though...

And since those color copies were pretty high quality, the colors didn't run as much, but hit any paper with a water gun for long enough and you'll pretty much put holes right in it. Either way, the witch was pretty much 'liquidated'.

We also did a photo booth with a galvanized tub full of costume pieces that we, for the most part, already had on hand. Hubs sunk two wooden posts into the ground and hung a giant frame in the center with twine. (giant frame was a craigslist find) He also remembered that we had some random bricks hangin' out in the flower beds in the backyard, (yay for never cleaning out those suckers!) so he cleaned them and hit them with some yellow spray paint.

 For the tin man's hat, hub's picked up a large black plastic funnel thingy from Homey D's and a can of this:

and voila! Instant Tin Man. My mum created his heart out of a paper mache ornament from Michael's, attached it to a chain, and glued on a clock face.

Mum also provided the lion's mane/afro wig (still haven't asked her how she happened to have one of those) and blew up a pic of his medal of courage onto some photo paper. I punched a hole at the top, threaded a bit of ribbon through, and...well shucks folks, I'm speechless.....

I made the Dorothy apron in about 20 minutes with no pattern by cutting a square (top), a rectangle (skirt), and a super long & skinny piece for the sash to tie in back. I did a quarter-inch seam around all of it, pulled one of the threads on top of the skirt so it would gather, attached both the top and skirt to the sash and two pieces of white grosgrain to the top, and that was it. I thought, for a split second, about photographing the process to show how simple it was to create any character apron with no pattern, but quickly ditched the thought since I really didn't have more than 20 minutes to spend making it. Remember my Monica problem?

We already owned the Dorothy wig since our 3-year old is currently going through a dress-up-like-Dorothy-24/7 phase, and I picked up some sparkly red pumps at the thrift store.

The Scarecrow above is a burlap headpiece, floppy black hat, and a rolled up piece of white cardstock with a red ribbon around. Aaaaaaaand done.

Other dress up pieces included a tiara and wand (Glinda), and a black witches hat (for WWW).

A bubbles station, buckets of sidewalk chalk, a trampoline in Munchkinland, and an Emerald City playset rounded out the outdoor activities. Thank you, hubs, for making a most awesome Emerald City out of 8 pieces of green posterboard.

If anyone knows why I chose to stand like a flamingo, please- by all means, tell me.

DECOR

For the most part, I stuck to 2 rooms for this- the dining room, which is where the food was located, and the living room. I've shown you the food table, but I also cleared out some space in my china hutch for some Wizard memorabilia:

I pulled together 9 fabrics to represent characters/places from the movie for the pennant banner on the cabinet, (can you name each one?) and stuck to blue/white gingham for the banner above the food table. (p.s.- I make custom banners, such as these, in my shop) We also pulled this framed poster out of my son's room and put it in the dining room for partay day. He was only too happy for it to leave since he'd been itching to replace it with Luke and Vader.

For the foyer, I added a few red, blingy, curly things found on clearance at hob lob, some framed pics of the birthday girls in costume, and hubs drew the Emerald City on the chalkboard.

In the living room, I pretty much kept the mantel the way it was, and has been since Christmas. Yes I realize it's June.  At least I took the reindeer down...

I added 2 apples on the candlesticks (talking trees, anyone?), another pic of my birthday girl as Dorothy, and my copy of the Grimmery. I also grabbed my green sparkly cone trees and stuck them up there since they were Emerald City-ish, yes? The chevron banner was made for the Mustache and Lips baby shower I hosted in February.

Other party pretties included a hot-air ballon in the dining room, a 'bell out of order, please knock' sign on the door, and perhaps the most meaningful (in my opinion) line from the movie on the kitchen chalkboard.

So Folks, there ya have it. The details on what we made/thrifted/borrowed/spray painted/dug out of the flower beds for the big partay. I'd like to thank Aunt Cindy for making the cupcakes, my mum for her help with the photo props, and hubs for all of the many, many projects he took on. I hope all of you are having a fab day, and remember- there's a giveaway here this week that's live through Sunday night. If you haven't entered yet, just click HERE for all the details!

Sharing this with Jen at Tatertots and Jello