Belated Birthday Post

I really do not have a good excuse for my lack of blogging lately. We have been busy with the ordinary chores of life and I have not had time to just sit and focus on the blog. Alan has had a really shouldn't be legal busy month at the hospital and I am trying to soak up every minute with him when he is at home.  Can I brag on my hubby for just a second? This month he is working 15-16 hour shifts in the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU), multiple days in a row (some days, some nights) and once he enters the hospital he never sits down. Not only is he busy but he is constantly making decisions that mean life or death for his patients. These patients are so so sick, and he is handling the pressure like a champ! I am amazed at his dedication and passion for his patients. He will come home at night after a shift and research medical diagnosis that his patients have to ensure that he is treating them properly. And he NEVER complains about how much he has to work or how tired he his. God has called him to be a Doctor for a reason and I am realizing why more and more each day.  He makes me so proud to be his wife. 

Now on to the purpose of this post, to share our recent Birthday fun! August is a huge month for celebrations.
 August 20th- Mom and Dad's Anniversary
August 23rd- Mr. Cease's Birthday
August 24th- My mom's birthday
August 25th- My birthday
We have so much fun celebrating and it is a great excuse to eat big and have cake multiple days in a row! 

Birthday Celebration #1 was spent at Fleming's Steakhouse (delicious) in Birmingham. It has become a tradition for mom and me to have joint birthday dinners. I love that our birthday's are just one day apart. Since we are almost twins (personality & looks) it only makes sense that we share a birthday! Here are a few pictures of our family birthday dinner.....

Birthday Girls! 

Always a treat to spend time with these two

The girls :)  

My Honey 

This baby loves limes! 

Love my family to pieces!  

Present time!!  

She was just learning how to walk. So cute! 

Birthday Celebration #2 took place at one of our all time favorite places, Lake Martin.  We celebrated mine and Mr. Cease's birthday twice! We had a delicious Mexican Fiesta with The Shaws' on Saturday night and on Sunday, Meghan and JD came down for a cookout and some yummy cake and homemade ice cream!

Mexican Feast 

Birthday Brownie :) 

Last weekend at the lake for the summer :(

Not the best quality...thanks iPhone.

Adorable cake from Olexa's thanks to Lisbeth! (And it tasted just as good as it looks)

Happy Birthday to us! 

More presents :) 

I had a wonderful Birthday and felt so loved all weekend long!  I wish for many, many more in the years to come! 

We have a couple of really exciting events planned next month! October will be a lighter month for Alan and we are taking full advantage of it.  I'll try to keep ya up to date on the fun :)

See ya soon!

Happy Times

Weekends have been quite the highlight in my life lately. I find myself singing "Everybody's workin' for the weekend" throughout the week because our weekends lately have been full of fun!! The past two weekends were extra special because I got to spend some quality time with my wonderful family and some pretty awesome friends. I will try and do a "Weekend Recap" to fill you in on all the happenings....

Two weekends ago, Alan had to work allllll weekend long, so I decided to go home and visit with my family.  My wonderful boss was gracious enough to let me have Friday off and I headed for Sweet Home Alabama Thursday evening. I was able to stop in Birmingham and grab dinner with my best friend, Courtney. We were too busy chatting it up to get a picture but it was a much needed reunion and I could have sat and talked with her for hours. She is such a blessing in my life and I sure do miss not living in the same city as her.  After dinner, I was headed for Arab. I realized on my way home that I hadn't been home since Anna Scott's (my neice) first birthday party back in early May.  That may not seem like a long time to some of you, but for those of you who know me, that is almost unheard of! I spent the weekend with my family and got to have lots of play time with Anna Scott. She is such a fun age right now and I loved seeing how much she had learned in just the two short weeks it had been since I saw her!  We spent the weekend mostly eating and sleeping, what I do best :) We  did throw a little exercising and shopping into the mix as well and it wrapped up to be a fabulous weekend at home. Only thing that was missing was my Hubby.  Here are a few pics from my weekend at home. (These were taken with the i-phone so the quality is not too hot)

Me and the best sister eva!

All dolled up

This lil stinker has stolen my heart.

On my way back to Mississippi, I stopped for some TCBY and got to catch up with my all-time favorite 5th grader! I was Lowery's nanny when I was in college and I fell in absolute love with her. Her parents are wonderful and she is like a little sister to me. She is growing up so fast I can hardly stand it. I loved visiting with her and hearing about her incredible summer. I told her that I live vicariously through her....and I meant it. She is a blessing to me.

This past weekend two of my best friends from home, Megan and Haleigh, and their husbands came and visited Alan and me in good ole Mississippi for the weekend!  A little background info: 
Megan and I have been great friends since high school. She and her husband, Scott, were high school sweethearts so we all have been great friends for many years.  We both moved to Birmingham after high school for college, I attended Samford and she and Scott attended UAB.  Megan and I have personalities that just "click" and I love her sweet, calming spirit. I was in their wedding a few years back, and Megan was in ours this past April. 

Haleigh and I go wayyyy back.  We have been friends since we were preschool age. We lived two houses down from one another growing up and have countless stories of our childhood, both good and bad-ha!  We have had our share of ups and downs throughout the years but have remained great friends.  I am so glad that our friendship is now stronger than ever! She also married an Arab boy, Joseph, and they are just perfect for one another.  

I was so excited the entire week approaching their arrival that I could hardly stand it!! I was in desperate need for some friend time.  The weekend came and went so quickly but we had an absolute blast! We ate several delicious meals, did a little shopping, a little tanning, and a LOT of laughing.  I literally laughed until I cried and it felt so good to just kick back and relax with old friends.  It was one of the best weekends I have had in awhile and I can't wait til we all can hang out again! 

Mine and Haleigh's birthdays are in August and Megan's is in July so we did a little celebrating while they were in town!

Megan, me and Haleigh. Thankful for these two and our friendship!

We took the gang to Keifer's for lunch on Saturday. By their "ooos and ahhhs" during the meal and their clean plates I think that it was a success! 

One of my best college friends (and old roommate) Casey, is living in Jackson to complete her schooling to be a Physician Assistant. She stays super busy and I am so glad that she was able to meet us for lunch!

Just looking at this picture makes me laugh! Such a fun group of friends!

After lunch we hit the pool. Scott decided to do some poolside yoga before showing off on the diving board.

And there he goes....He was the entertainment for the afternoon!

Alan decided to get in on the action. This may or may not have ended in him landing flat on his back :) We all had a good laugh.

Love this!

Before our yummy dinner at Bravo! on Saturday night. 

Thanks to the  Dobbs and Cooleys for taking time out of your busy schedule to come hang out with us for the weekend. We loved having you in our home and can't wait for you to come back!! (Next time, we will make sure that the hot tub isn't on set to 110 degrees and doesn't burn your skin off...haha!) 

This weekend I am going to catch up on sleep and relaxation.  It will be the first weekend since we moved to MS that I will have absolutely nothing to do and I am pretty excited about it! I intend to sleep as late as I want, watch as much TV as I can stand, and clean my house. Sounds fun, huh?  Hope your weekend is just as relaxing and refreshing! 

See ya next time! 

Fun-Filled Family Weekend

The one big bad negative about living in Madison, MS is that me and Alan are, what we consider, far away from our families. I am five hours away from my parents and three and a half hours away from my sister, her husband and my niece. We are also three and a half hours away from Alan's family. For some, this may not seem that far away at all. However, considering we have never been further than an hour and fifteen minutes away from our immediate family members and have lived in the same city as most of them our entire lives, it is quite a change for us. So when weekends like this past one happen, I am in hog heaven! My mom, dad, sister and niece, Anna Scott, came to the pretty little city of Madison, MS to visit for the weekend. We missed Scott, my sister's husband who had to work, but I am sure Mary Catherine will bring him to visit very soon. Here is a recap of our fun-filled weekend!  

They arrived Thursday night to a meal cooked by yours truly!! It was my first attempt to cook for my family (besides Alan). I was so nervous and slaved in the kitchen for two days straight trying to make sure every last ingredient was perfect.  They cleaned their plates and couldn't stop talking about how impressed they were with the food. Either they were being truthful and it was really good, or they love me too much to tell me it wasn't :) 
On the menu:  Garlic Parmesan Crusted Chicken, made from scratch Mac & Cheese, Green Beans, and a Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie topped with Ice Cream for dessert. (I give pinterest all of the credit.)

During dinner, Anna Scott decided to explore the den area and found the "balls" on my coffee table to be quite entertaining. So much so, that she decided to tear one up! She got off easy because she is just way to precious to get upset at her. We took pictures of the mess she made instead! 

On Friday, I had a tennis lesson at the country club. I scheduled it for Friday, so that Anna Scott, and of course Mom and Mary Catherine, could watch me play. I knew that she would love it since her favorite thing to say and play with is "BALL!" She was happy as a lark in the 98 degree weather watching me play. I can't wait to start teaching her lessons! 

We went to the Pizza Shak for dinner on Friday night. Alan and I had never been there but we heard it was a must to try in Jackson. And let me tell you, we did not leave disappointed. It was some of the best pizza we have ever tasted!

When we got home from dinner, someone discovered the putting green in our back-yard. She LOVED it!

"Ball" Heaven

Mary Catherine, Dad and I went for an enjoyable run on Saturday morning. This has started to become a tradition when the three of us are together and I really enjoy this special time. After our run we showered and headed out to do a little shopping and grab some delicious lunch and ice cream! There is a Cold Stone Creamery right around the corner from our house. Although this sounds like a great thing, when you love ice cream as much and Alan and I do it can be quite dangerous. We are going to have to limit ourselves to how many times (per week) we stop by for a scoop.

Before they left Saturday evening I knew that we just had to take Anna Scott to the park near our house. It's called Strawberry Patch Park and is such a cute area. It was a play ground for kids,  a walking trail and a pond. We visited with the ducks and Anna Scott got to swing, one of her favorite things to do!!

We had such a wonderful weekend!  It was so nice to for everyone to be in the same place for a couple of days (missing Scott, of course!).  The hardest thing about this move for me is feeling like I am missing watching Anna Scott grow up. At her age, she is doing new things every day and not being close to her breaks my heart.  I loved watching her do all the new things she has learned since I last saw her.  My favorite thing is hearing her sweet little voice say "ball" and then grin from ear-to-ear! I am so grateful that my family makes the sacrifices they do, despite their busy, busy schedules, to visit me and allow me to get my "family fix."  Even though we don't get to see each other as often as we would like, it sure does make the times that we get to see each other so memorable and special.  There is nothing quite like family, and I am so blessed with mine!!

Unfortunatly, cleaning house, laundry, and a trip to the grocery store are calling my name. 

Happy Sunday! 

June Wrap-up: Beach, Lake, the Move, and Memphis

To say that I have been busy the past few weeks would be huge understatement. And the fact that I have been without internet service (or TV) for the past TWO weeks has put a huge hold on things such as blogging. But as of today we finally have internet access (still no TV) and I am ready to hit the ground "blogging." I will try to wrap up the happenings of June in one post. Please bare with me, it's gonna be a long one! 

Mid-June the Stewart, Cease and Laney crew headed to the beach for a week.  Our trip consisted mostly of eating, sleeping, shopping, jogging, swimming, tanning, and did I say eating? We had an absolute blast. It is a rare occurrence for all members of my family to be in the same place at the same time due to our crazy busy schedules, so we soaked this week up. We laughed until we cried and I cherished every moment. 

What would I do without him?

Wonderful Parents

Miss Priss was ready to hit the beach! She LOVED it!

Girls, Girls, Girls

Aunt Allison loves this baby! 

 Once the beach trip ended we headed back to Alabama and spent a relaxing weekend at the lake with Alan's parents.  The Ceases treated us to a delicious meal at our favorite spot on the lake- Springhouse. This is where we ate the night that Alan proposed and it will always have a special place in my heart, not to mention they have the best shrimp and grits in the south!

 After our weekend at the lake we were off to Birmingham for a week of all work and no play.  The time had come for us to pack up our Birmingham home and head to Madison, Mississippi. Alan is completing his residency in Emergency Medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) in Jackson, MS.  We will be spending the next four years here in Mississippi. We have been here for two weeks now and I can already tell that we are going to love it. We are living in a adorable sub-division in Madsion, MS, a super cute area about 10 miles north of Jackson.  Both of use are actually working in Jackson.  Alan of course is at the UMMC and my office is only one mile down the road! I am working for a Surgical Breast Oncologist as his Nurse Practitioner. I am so excited about my new job (more on that later).

With mixed emotions and much excitement we managed to load up all of our "stuff" onto a massive U-Haul truck, travel 3 1/2 hours to Mississippi, and unload the U-Haul in a days work.  Of course, that would not have been possible without help from our wonderful family and friends. We thank you! 

Noone I would rather begin this journey with other than this guy.

I would have packed up this bundle of joy if her Mamma and Daddy would have let me.

This was on closing day and is a tad blurry but welcome to our new home! We love it!

*Home Sweet Home*  We accept visitors any time!! I will be posting more pictures of the house soon so stay tuned.

 :)

 Last but not least, this past week I was sent to Memphis for four days to train for my new job.  I was extra excited about this work trip because I got to stay with one of my best friends from college.  She works as a nurse at St. Jude and graciously opened up her adorable condo for me to come crash for the week. Robin and I were sorority sisters and nursing classmates at Samford.  She was a bridesmaid in our wedding and I loved getting to spend a week with her! It felt like the good ole' days and we loved it! 

Robin took me to Jerry's Sno Cones in Memphis. A must if you are visiting the city. They were delicious, especially in 104 degree weather!

It just so happened that Lady A was in town while I was visiting. We had a wonderful evening sitting on a blanket, singing along to this amazing band.  If you haven't heard Lady Antebellum live, I recommend you do so. It  was a perfect ending to a wonderful week with this sweet friend.