5 Year Olds and EZ Bake Ovens

Last weekend was my sweet cousin Campbell's 5th birthday. It is hard to believe that she has been in our family for 5 years now. I was so super excited to finally have my first cousin, and I can't imagine life without our cousins now.

Lately, Campbell has gotten really into cooking. She tries to help in the kitchen and loves watching the Food Network. So, naturally, my family wanted to get her the iconic EZ Bake Oven for her birthday.

She doesn't like her picture being taken much these days. 

Opening the EZ Bake Oven 

All set up!

Is it just me, or are those EZ Bake oven things total pieces of crap? You forget how little the pans are and how nasty the mixes are when you are 5. But, to a 5 year old, they are magical. Campbell was thrilled with the tiny cupcakes and the ball of cookie dough you were supposed to split up into 12 little cookies. 

Ready to pull out our cookies!

We (well, Campbell) had a blast with the EZ Bake Oven and I hope it isn't something that causes Allen and Carey too much trouble. However, Allen was always the uncle that gave us noisy and/or messy presents, so I guess turnabout is fair play :) 

And of course, we couldn't have a cousin post without little (big) Gatlin! What a cutie pie!

Cultivating a Green Thumb

I was not born with a green thumb. Those who know my family would agree. My mom is great at a lot of things, but keeping plants alive is not necessarily one of them. However, my Papa is great at that kind of stuff.

So I had him come over this weekend and walk around the yard with me, showing me how to prune plants, transplant stuff and take care of all the beautiful plants in our yard.

Our neighborhood is blessed with beautiful azaleas and our yard is no exception. However, there were several dead azaleas and dead parts of others. I'll need to do some more pruning after they finishing blooming, especially with the ones in the backyard which are over 6 feet tall!

After he left, I get inspired and started picking up all the sticks in the yard and weeding some of the flower beds.

I feel like that looks like considerably less work than it felt like. :(

Super cute squirrel about to chase his friend up a tree. 

I'm so incredibly grateful for the beautiful starting point that our yard has and can't wait to keep working on my green thumb!

Spring Has Sprung!

Particularly in our backyard. After I promised myself I was not going to even think about the yard until some more stuff was taken care of inside the house, I went outside. It was a bad decision.

Our front yard is in pretty decent shape, other than a lot of moss growing in our front yard. And the need for mulch. Did I mention that mulching is my least favorite yard work related chore? Well it is.

However, our back yard is a little bit of a disaster. We have a fence that is pretty flimsy, a deck that is nasty looking, out of control weeds, too-tall bushes, and some stubborn bamboo. I foresee a lot of weekends spent fixing up this yard.

After talking with Will, we now have a game plan for what we want to accomplish this year, and what we feel like can wait until next year. Now we just have to find a free weekend to do it all!

Oh, I also wanted to give you a quick update on our 2012 goals!

1) Join and get plugged in at a church - Mission Accomplished! Will and I became partners at Renewal Church about a month ago. We are loving our new church family and excited for what the future might bring for us there. Renewal is a young church (in fact, we just turned 2 today) and we are about to have our Easter service in Falls Park in a few weeks! I can't wait!

2) Sign up for and run more races - Done! I ran the St. Patty's Day 5K with a group from work this weekend and Will and I signed up for the Cooper River 10K in two weeks. I also just upgraded my running shoes (apparently you aren't supposed to keep the same shoes for 2.5 years, who knew?) so I am really excited to get back into running

3) Dining room furniture - EWW! I have busted my butt this weekend to make a dent in the furniture. I finally have 6 chairs mostly done, and the table close to done. We are going to have to paint and poly the top of the table, but I think that by the end of next weekend, I can at least have a table and chairs to put in the dining room!

4) Complete guest room and invite people over - Check! Tommy and Hannah visited us a few weekends ago as you can see here and I am super happy about the way the guest room looks. The only thing left is to get Will's clothes out of their and into the armoire, but baby steps people!

5) Read more - Yay! I set the goal to read 40 books this year, and so far I have read 9. I just signed up for a library card to get more books and I am loving it! I also had a great accomplishment in terms of getting Will to read a book I love....He read The Hunger Games! And, he did it in like 5 days! And he liked it! It was so exciting for me to see him read it, I started reading it again for the 3rd time. And I still love it!

Later this week I'll come up with some additional goals since I have just about blown through all those!

One of Those Days

Today was one of those days....where I just love where I live. :)

Greenville is a place I never want to leave. It is mid-March and it was 80 degrees outside today. So, naturally, I got to meet my mom in the park after work for a great run. The run was exactly what I needed, but more exciting than that was how many other people where out and about enjoying the beautiful weather.

The fact that I live in an active beautiful place with a wonderful climate is so encouraging. There are always people around that are active and there are always an abundance of places to run, bike, or whatever.

As we start to look towards bikini season and our HTI Biggest Loser competition official weigh-in's, I know I am going to be even more thankful for our beautiful parks and great weather to get my booty in gear!

I'll leave you with a great picture of our great downtown!

Wonderful Weekend

This past weekend, Tommy & Hannah, our awesome friends from Atlanta, came up to be the first guests in the Blackmon house. We have wanted to show them a taste of Greenville since we moved back and we have really missed them since we left Atlanta.

We started our tour with downtown Greenville and a hunt for Mice on Main. This is a Greenville thing that Will and I had never done and I thought it would be nice to look as we strolled.

Found the first one!

The Mice on Main Story

Quick break at Mast General Store

Hannah with her new friend!

The high "high-tech" mouse

Cute mouse!

Last one!

Then we made it down to Falls Park and the West End. We spent some time looking around the park, easily one of my favorite parts about downtown. It had rained the day before, and I have never seen the Reedy look like this!

Tommy & Hannah!

Me and my hubby!

We ended our day with a fabulous dinner at Smoke on the Water and a movie back at our house. Sunday was kicked off with a big home cooked breakfast, and then we headed to Renewal for church. We rounded out the weekend with Mexican food at Anita's, one of my favorite restaurants. 

Even though it was a quick visit, I was so so happy that Tommy & Hannah could make it up and that we got to explore our city through their eyes. I can't wait to make a trip down to Atlanta to visit them next! 

Here's to house guests!!

Meeting the Neighbors

This past weekend, Will and I got to meet a lot of our neighbors. It was awful.

Normally, I would love meeting our neighbors. But not while watching this.

That's right, a house on our street caught fire. Luckily, everyone made it out of the house safely and no one was hurt. I was heading out to pick up pizza when 5 fire trucks and their water hoses stopped me in my tracks. I called Will and let him know the pizza would be pretty late. We walked down to the house and ran into our across the road neighbor, Kelly whose car was on the other side of the trucks. She offered to swing us by the pizza place to pick up dinner as she went to get dinner too.

We got to meet several sets of neighbors along the way, and while it was good to connect houses to names and faces, I couldn't help but be sad as we watched this beautiful house burn down.

It so reminds me of the things our church is walking through right now. All of our small groups are reading The Treasure Principle, by Randy Alcorn . We are really focusing in on not obsessing about what we have here on earth, but storing up treasures for ourselves in heaven.

"Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where theives do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:20-21

Ultimately, what we have here, we will lose, one way or another. The best that we can hope for is to use our resources effectively to futher God's kingdom. I can only hope and pray that Will and I can start to apply this more in our lives.

And here's to meeting neighbors in better circumstances next time!

Showing Off Greenville

The Blackmon Home is preparing for its' first guests!

Will and I have some dear friends from Atlanta that are coming to visit and hang out in Greenville. They will be here from Saturday at lunch to Sunday afternoon.

We have been talking about what we want to show off about Greenville.

Is that Main St?

Maybe we should do Mice on Main?

Of course there are tons of great restaurants to check out, from Rick Erwin's, to Smoke on the Water, to the illustrious Corner Pocket (my HTI co-workers will at least get a kick out of that!)

We have to check out Falls Park

Come to think of it, there are so many things I love about Greenville, I don't know how we are going to squeeze it all in!

And finish the guest bedroom in time.....