Cuteness overload

We went to Nashville last weekend.

And met Grace Elizabeth.

Our grandkitty, Leo, is a little unsettled.

I made bread pudding, holy cow it was good especially with the whiskey sauce I also made (sauce not shown).

It's really cool to see my son over the moon about his daughter.

On Monday, she slept on me for nearly two hours. I didn't mind in the least.

Wedding!

I have been a little preoccupied the last month what with my older son’s wedding, so I’ll be catching up with my posts. This time, though, I’m starting with the most recent and the most important.

First things first—the wedding was gorgeous and went off beautifully. My new daughter-in-law is highly organized and everything went off without a hitch. The ceremony was held outside in at Carnton. After the ceremony, we had a cocktail hour and could tour the mansion which was pretty cool.

Just married!

Carnton that night

I was able to participate in all the bridal party stuff that day, including getting my hair and makeup done professionally. As I watched the bridesmaids and the mother of the bride get their makeup done, I realized what a smart choice I made to have someone do mine. Some things are much better when outsourced!

Here’s the start of getting my hair done. I have a lot of hair, but it’s fine and very soft so the stylist used texturizing powder, then backcombed my hair like crazy and then used probably 10 bobby pins and half a can of hair spray. My hair wasn’t going to move at all, which was also good since it was incredibly windy outside.

Here's me with a french twist (no makeup yet).

I was trying to get a photo of the the lines of the dress.

I'm not very good at the selfies, but here's a closer look at my makeup.

As the makeup artist started on me, she asked what I normally wore. “What you see is what I do,” I replied. “Oh,” she said, “you go for the natural look.” Yup, that’s true but as I told her I didn’t want that for the wedding. I asked her to glam me up and that’s what she did. I’ve never in my life worn false eyelashes (I don’t have the skill to put them on, I have tried and failed), but I wore them on Saturday!

Interesting factoid: it was so windy out, that the ends of the false eyelashes fluttered in the wind.

This is Karen (my daughter-in-law's mother) and me. Yes, we both have on navy. My daughter-in-law helped us each pick out our dresses.

This is Karen and my daughter-in-law's sister who was the matron of honor. 

Full on Hollywood with my sunglasses and stole.



















Kent and me in front of the front door to the mansion. You can see how windy it is because my bangs actually blew around.

The ring-bearer (also the son of the matron of honor).



















KU was playing in the NCAA tournament that night. My younger son sat with Kent and me at the reception, and all three of us graduated from KU. So Ben whipped out his phone and we sort of kept an eye on the game while eating dinner (KU won).

And a photo of my corsage.

Catching up, part 4

My birthday also happened to be the same day as Amanda’s bridal shower, and honestly I couldn’t think of a better way to spend it. She very kindly opened her home to me so I didn’t have to get a hotel, and she and Jordan drove me around so I didn’t need to get a rental car.

That Friday, we had dinner at the Taj, an Indian restaurant in Nashville. I love Indian food, and the biriyani was excellent.

The next day, my actual birthday, I took a 9 mile run first thing in the morning. My piriformis and hamstring felt pretty good and it was gratifying to know I can run that kind of distance at this point in my life. It was also freaking cold, like 20F.

After the bridal shower, we talked through where to go for dinner. Apparently, hot chicken is a big deal in Nashville so we decided to go to Kitchen Notes. Don’t be fooled by it being in a hotel, that restaurant is good! We had the hot chicken, savory biscuits, charred okra and marinated root vegetables. Everything was amazing, and I will say even I found the chicken to be quite spicy. I’m on a hunt now to find a good charred okra recipe—the ones I’ve found so far, include tomatoes or sauces and that’s not how the dish was that night. It’s very pared down, just the okra and some flakey salt and some sort of oil, and it was so good.

I flew home on Sunday and got back to Kansas City that had yet another arctic front move through—it was 13, and 3 inches of snow had fallen. Yuck.

On Monday, I got to work and found that my team had gotten me balloons.

Catching up, part 3

My older son is getting married in March, and his fiancée has been so wonderful about including me in the festivities. When my younger son got married, Jen (his now-wife) was also inclusive and I really enjoyed that so much. Of course, it was easier to go to the various showers and pre-wedding events because they lived about 45 minutes away from us. It’s harder since Jordan and Amanda live in Nashville.

But I’ve been so thankful to be included. Her mother and her mother’s friends hosted a shower for her the first weekend in February and invited me. Kent and I figured out a way to make it possible for me to go, and so off I flew to Nashville.

Let me tell you, Amanda’s mother and friends sure know how to throw a shower! Here are some photos:

I'm definitely the short one in the family

L to R: Karen (Amanda's mother), Amanda and me

The food was as tasty as it was beautiful

These were made by hand!

Our future grandcat on a catnip blanket I made for him.

Music City

I wanted to have pictures for you but they will have to wait. Kent’s got to sort through almost 600 photos from our weekend, and then process the ones that make his cut.

We were in Nashville this weekend to see our daughter-in-law perform Saturday night. She was out of town until late Friday night so we hung out with our son. Saturday morning we met them for brunch—she didn’t know we were coming to town—and Kent got a great series of pictures where you can see her trying to figure who’s got a camera on her and why, and then catching sight of me. It’s a great series.

After brunch we hung out for a while and toured the Parthenon. Since Sophie had to scoot to get ready, Jordan, Kent and I found a bar near Vanderbilt and the old Peabody campus. Nashville got hit by a heavy rainstorm then so we just watched the rain pour down from the covered outdoor area of the bar.

Sophie is an amazing performer. She’s a vocal coach by trade and while she’s done a ton of studio work, she generally doesn’t perform. But she realized it would make her a better vocal coach to know first-hand what her performing students face. Regardless of the reason, I’m so glad we got to see her perform.

I’ll post pictures when they’re ready. 

Nashville!

We are back from visiting my older son Jordan and his wife Sophie—we had a very relaxing time. In fact, I actually slept in (for me): 7 AM Eastern almost every day! Of course that’s still 6 AM Central.

I lived in Nashville as a little girl, so we took a quick drive by the elementary school I attended for first and second grade. You can’t see it in this picture but the doors on the far left and far right are marked Girls and Boys.

We’d been told by Ben that we wouldn’t see Jade the cat because she was even more shy than our Chloe cat. Well I don’t know what Ben was thinking, that cat cuddled with me every morning, purring like crazy. Or maybe I really am the Cat Whisperer.

We had a blast baking and decorating cookies, although Sophie was by far the best cookie decorator. I tended to go for the slightly macabre (which won’t surprise Jeanne any more, right Jeanne?). The round cookie was supposed to look like he’d been in a fight but the stitches part sort of ran together so he looks like he has a black eye.