Mama's 80th Birthday

So where did we leave off? Oh, yes...the morning after our celebration in Cincinnati. Josh had to get up and going because he was headed to Southern IN for his Mamaw's (or Mama as they spell it, but it's hard for me to spell it that way) 80th Surprise Birthday Party!

Josh forgot the camera (we'll assume it was because he forgot, not because of his condition.) SO I stole a few pics from Jeremy since I asked Josh to get me some and that hasn't happened. I was sad to have to miss the party (and the visit from Jeremy, Lisa & Alex) but I had to work. I hear it was a beautiful day!

Here are a few cute pics:

Josh and Patty helping get everything ready for the big surprise:

I hear Mamaw was really surprised! Here she is, cute as can be in her birthday hat:

Nothing like a little help from your favorite son:

Here is a pic of all of the Wright men with Grandpa:

And here is a pic of Uncle Josh with Alex. (J & Lisa-hopefully you don't mind that Alex is in these.) Is there anything cuter than this?:

Finally, one of all of the Wrights:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMA(W)!!!

Garden

We started our garden during our first full year in the house and it has grown and grown and grown each year! We are really excited about it this year! We added the composter, the cucumber climbing fence and the herb garden outside, so we are really enjoying it! :)

It's turning out to be our best one yet in terms of growth, too! One tomato plant is almost as tall as me! Here are some pics:

Overview of the entire thing: Herb garden:

First tomatoes of the year, cheers!

Two cute garden helpers:

First of the bell peppers:
Lots of green beans and peppers:
Another overview...look at all of those yellow blooms!:

First of the cherry tomatoes:

The cucumber climbing fence that Josh masterfully created...they're climbing it perfectly!:

And they drop through the bottom! He's a genius!

Now if only our tomatoes would be ready!

Josh's Birthday Celebration

We decided to celebrate Josh's birthday with a trip to Cincinnati to watch the Cubbies along with Shell, Dan, Laura and Jeff. We had such a fantastic time!! First, we stopped off at IKEA for some bargain shopping, then we headed to our hotel room and got the celebration started!

Nothing starts off a Wright celebration like some vajunka! Then we headed to a fun little bar near the ballpark for some (aka MANY) drinks.
Danny got the entire bar to sing happy birthday to Josh. He was pretty embarrassed but it was really neat to have all those people singing to him.
Shell did a little "Brown Chicken Brown Cow" dance with some random guys...

We were so excited to get to spend the weekend with Shell and Dan. We don't get to hang out with just them very often! And they don't get a weekend away from the boys together very often, so I think they had a great time too!
And our trip would not have been the same without Jeff & Laura! Laura, our little fair weather fan... :)
This picture cracks me up!

I have to say, by this time we weren't noticing much around us. However, Josh spotted Big Easy and I had to chase him down and get a picture! I don't think he knew. ;) If you have ever watched Real World/Road Rules challenges, you'll be well aware of who Big Easy is. If not, you wouldn't care, but we were really excited! However, he quickly walked upstairs to the VIP section so this was the best I could get...

The girls checked in a little earlier than the guys. They somehow managed to come back to the room, decide they weren't tired yet, go back out to some bars, return to the hotel, steal some guys pizza and breadsticks and then make it back to the hotel room in the wee hours of the morning.

Then...they STOLE our bed! Dan and Josh cuddled all night long!
...while Shell andLaura had to cuddle up on the floor to try to keep warm!

Okay. Truth be told, Josh and Dan had to take the floor. But trust me, they had no idea where they were.

Babies All Around!

Birds and bunnies, oh my!

Early this spring, Patty and I noticed some Robin eggs in the tree next to the house. We weren't sure if they would be okay because they were kind of exposed. Sure enough, they were! I snapped a couple of pictures of their fuzzy little heads before the flew the nest. They're so cute but you have to look close!

Then I was working at the Taste and got a text from Josh with lots of !!!'s...unusual for him, but I was running around like a crazy lady so I didn't have time to check it till later. He was texting to tell me that 5 baby bunnies had made their home in our garden! We were so excited!! I told them they could eat all the green beans if they wanted! (You can see some of the damage they did to the leaves but I think they left the beans alone.) The next day, 4 of them were gone (or at least we couldn't find them in there) and there was one lone little guy. Now he's gone, too. :( But they all left just in time for us to start picking the garden. Can you even handle their cuteness?? (This is just 4, the other little guy was off on his own.) Birds, bunnies...even a wasps nest! Looks like there might be some fertile air floating around the Wright house!! Let's hope that carries to the inside of the house, too! (The air, not the wasps of course!)

Josh & Lincoln's Birthdays: @ the Zoo and such

Since Josh and Linc have birthdays just a few days apart, we had a lot of celebrating all packed in! First, here are some pictures from Lincoln's birthday party. What kids party is complete without a pinata?! Here are some pics of J opening his presents on his birthday:

We told Linc he could choose anything he wanted and we would make a special day for just him. He could pick the park or the Children's Museum, the Indy Zoo, the pool...whatever he wanted. He chose the Indianapolis Zoo (yay!). That was our first choice, too.

Here are Linc and Josh while I sing Happy Birthday to them. We got some so-so cupcakes from a new cupcake shop in town. When you've had More Cupcakes and Sprinkles Cupcakes, these left a little to be desired. But they were fun either way! Josh had the Pooh one (with honey), Linc had a Chocolatey Chocolate one and mine in the bottom there is an Elvis one.Blowing out the candles!
Alright! Birthday Buddies!

This picture melts my heart! I love that they have on their matching plaid shorts and brown shirts! We didn't even plan it!! Linc loves his Uncle Josh so much.
We all loved the giraffes!
Waving to the giraffes! We stood and watched the one at the trees for the longest time. He was licking the tree and Lincoln loved it!
Me and Dinks at the rhinos

I can't believe how big he is!

We had such a great time! He is such a good boy and loved the time with us without having to split the attention with Griff. We'll do the same for Griff in July for his birthday. Wish we could do it more often!

Lukey's Birthday

WOW! It's been a while! I have lots to catch up on after downloading hundreds of pictures the other night!

First up is Lukey's birthday! Our little man is 3 (aka 21)!! We had a doggie beer for him but forgot to give it to him. Last year it scared both of them because of the fizz so I doubt they would have drank it anyway. Instead, we had cupcakes...

March for Babies Walk

This morning, I had the pleasure of joining my two friends, Laura and Laura for the March of Dimes' March for Babies Walk. (Side note, I should introduce them Bob Newhart-style: "Hi, I'm Christina. This is my friend, Laura, and this is my other friend, Laura." We won't even go into the number of Laura's, Lauren's and Lori's that I either work with or am friends with...it's approaching a dozen!)

Anyway, we walked the 4 miles together and had a great time doing it! I could have fun reading the phone book with these girls! I can't believe how many people were at the walk, it was really amazing. But we got a little cardio in and between the three of us, we raised over $1000 for a great cause. Put a few professional fundraisers together and we'll get the job done! We had a fantastic day for the walk...it was gorgeous out with some sun, some clouds, and a really nice breeze! Here's a pic from before we started the walk. We were too busy talking to take any more pictures except for one with Sloop (in the middle) and Chester the Cheetah. I want to send a big THANK YOU to everyone who contributed to my fundraiser. I was so excited to surpass my goal!! So...thank you to: Annie, Josh, Ron, Patty, Jeremy, Lisa, Alex, Rhonda, Laura, Wendi, Mark and Mary! Thank You Thank You Thank You!!

After I got home, we pulled out the hammock and I was able to read and nap outside with the dogs and enjoy the breezy sunny weather! Everything is better when the sun is shining!!

Happy Spring!

spring has arrived!

Yay!! We were so excited last weekend when the weather was so gorgeous that we could actually get outside and play! We started a new flower bed on the side of the house (still to be finished) and did lots of outside projects. Josh tilled the garden to get it ready for planting and I power washed the front & side of the house and also the fence that was covered with bird poo. The garden looks great and we're excited to plant some new things this year! The trick is keeping the bunnies out.

Thankfully, we've had no tornado watches or warnings yet but we did get some hail. Usually the sight of hail will have me running toward the closet with my dogs in tow, but this was harmless hail so I let Lukey go outside and play. He couldn't figure out what was going on. (Don't judge his mullet.)

Spring is very welcome in the Wright household!

Shell's pub crawl

Here are a couple pictures from Shell's birthday celebration last weekend. It was such a great time!! I haven't seen people dance like that since our wedding!!

Here is the delicious cake that we had!

I couldn't even begin to put all of the pictures that we got because there are SO many. Josh and I had a really great night and I am pretty sure Shell did too!