2nd Annual Clark Jackson Invitational

About a year ago, right after we had Clark, Bob’s brother Brian was coming to visit (and meet Clark for the first time) from Florida.  He went to Virginia Tech also, so we have a lot of mutual friends that live in the Baltimore/DC area.  As he and Bob were discussing his upcoming visit, they decided to get some guys together to play golf.

One thing led to another and the Clark Jackson Invitational was born!

Last year they played 2-man scramble with about 12 guys and while the men were on the course, the ladies came to hang out with me and Clark and get ready for the BBQ after!  Some pictures from last year:

Original CJI golfers

Bob’s cousin Paul and brother Brian with Clark

Receiving the winning cash

Winners! Jeff and Bob’s cousin, Dave

Because everyone had such a great time last year, we decided to do it again this year.  And we weren’t messin’ around!  I mean, Bob even got a trophy made with the winners of last year engraved on it!But we’ll get to that…

This year there were 16 guys and they played 4-man scramble, with some other challenges like longest drive, etc.  We have a really good friend who works as a golf pro in Florida.  He wasn’t able to make it last year or this year, but he has officially been name the commissioner of the CJI and he made awesome score cards again this year using photos of Clark and all the guys playing.  The girlfriends/fiancés/wives came to our house to hang out with me.  We basically had a baby/dog play date with margaritas!  Seriously, there were 4 girls (and one who came a little later), 4 dogs, and 2 babies.  And we lost count of the margaritas :-)!

We could not have asked for a better day for the guys to golf.  It was just gorgeous!  When they got back, the winners were announced for each of the categories and the 4-some that took it all.  

Oh the winners?  Yea, it just so happens that both my hubs and my little brother were on the winning team.  The 4-some from back left: Andrew Atman, Ben Grossman, Sam (my bro), and Bob.  We’ll get the winners’ names engraved on the trophy each year, but keep it at our house for safe-keeping.

Then we ate!!  We had all kinds of BBQ foods, and one girl even brought Georgetown Cupcakes from DC!!!  Those were obviously a hit!

Once the BBQ started and the keg was tapped, I didn’t get a whole lot of pictures.  We had an awesome time hanging out in the beautiful weather, watching babies and dogs play together, and catching up with old friends.  Not to mention eating large quantities of food.

In the end we had 26 adults, 4 babies, and 9 dogs who made appearances at our house at some point on Saturday.  It was a blast!  Let’s just say we were exhausted on Sunday, but we can’t wait till next April for the 3rd Annual Clark Jackson Invitational!

Clark’s Birthday Slideshow

For your viewing pleasure:

Clark’s SUPER Party!

It is still sinking in that Clark is already ONE!!

We have had such a wonderful year with our boy.  He is sweet and friendly and just so stinkin’ cute!!  We could not be more proud!  So to celebrate, we knew that we wanted to throw him a birthday party.

With a name like his, it’s hard not to think of Clark Kent.  Even Clark thought of himself as Superman. (Remember his 4 month photo?)  So I really wanted his party to have a Superhero theme.  (Which you may have guessed from my hint a couple weeks ago)

Bob found really cute invitations on Vistaprint that totally fit our theme and featured a little boy that we both thought sort of resembled Clark.

I went with yellow, blue and red as the main colors when I set the table with our party food.The red table cloth is just one of those plastic ones you can get at any party store (they are pretty cheap and I like to use them when we have parties because you can just throw them away after if any big spills/messes happen).  The blue and yellow “runner” is made out of fabric napkins that I already had.

You can see from the picture that we had a lot of food.  We chose to go with several choices of heavy hors d’oeuvres instead of a meal.  Here’s a menu breakdown:

• mini pigs in a blanket
• sausage wontons
• homemade mac n’ cheese
• deviled eggs
• italian pinwheels
• baked brie
• cocktail meatballs
• homemade salsa and chips
• veggie tray
• fruit salad
• potato chips/pretzels

We hung a few balloons over the table and I made some tissue poms to hang above the bay window where we put the gifts.

We sort of have two doors that lead into our house.  The front door that opens to a small vestibule with a coat closet and then a door that leads into the living room.  I decorated the living room door to look like a telephone booth.  Ya know, so everyone could change into their alter-egos before coming in to the party.

I hung Clark’s monthly pictures from the mantel by stapling them to a couple pieces of thick ribbon.  I also had a lot of fun making comic book speech bubbles to hang around the house.  (BANG!)

See that last picture of Clark on the mantel?  On Friday, my mom and I dressed him up as Clark Kent for a little photo shoot.  I made the blue onesie and he wore it on Saturday for the party.What a cutie!  This picture cracks me up!

On one of the walls in our living room, I wanted a comic book-esque city scape for people to use as a photo backdrop to take silly pictures.

My mom and brother-in-law Kevin did an awesome job executing the project!  It came out exactly how I had envisioned it!I made a few props (a cape, couple masks and some speech bubbles to hold) and a few people were brave enough to take some pictures at the beginning of the party.

Bob’s mom, Bob’s sister-Leslie, my sister-Ellen
(Hope my mother-in-law forgives me for posting this picture)

Christine and Dave
Seriously…save the date photo? 🙂

Clark with Christine and Brittany (appropriately in her Clark Kent glasses)

My dad with Clark

And of course I wanted a family photo.  This was the best one we got because Clark thought my mask was hilarious.The speech bubbles got used for regular photos too, since some people felt “too cool” for the backdrop.

Kara, Rusty

My Mom and her dog, Jake

Most of the guests were adults.  But Clark got to play/flirt with Izzy (20 months) while we all oohed and aahed at how cute they were.Oh yeah, and see the TV in the background?  I made a slideshow of pictures from Clark’s first year that we played on mute in the background throughout the party.  (I’ll post the slideshow later this week or next)

Of course, no birthday is complete without cake!  Clarky got his own cupcake when we sang him Happy Birthday. He kind of liked it, but by this point, he was pretty tired so he didn’t eat very much.

I had big plans to decorate the cake in some really cool way, but when it came down to it, I ran out of time and ended up with this.It’s a double layer yellow cake with chocolate icing.  My mom made it, and the tray that it’s on is the one she always used for our birthday cakes growing up.  Gotta love that 70’s yellow paisley! 🙂

Shortly after cake, Clark went down for a nap, so most guests started leaving.  I made sure guests didn’t leave empty handed.  Everyone got a little bag of sugar cookies that I decorated with a number 1 in the Superman symbol.  This was after the party, when most of the favors were gone.

When Clark woke up, we opened his gifts.  (Clark is so very loved by friends and family!!)  Our mantel still looks like this from all the cards he got.It was a great day of celebrating our little guy and a full year of being parents!  Thanks so much to friends and family who helped make it so special!!  (And a special thanks to my mom, Leslie, Kevin, and Ellen who REALLY helped with cooking and setting up the decorations!)

Party Prep: Sneak Peek

Clark turns ONE on the 15th (next Friday)!!!  WHAT?!?!  Crazy.  His party is that weekend, and I’ve been trying to get a head start on the decorations since we’ll be out of town this weekend.  Here’s a little peek at some of the things I’ve done so far.  Can you tell what the theme is?

I’m beyond excited to celebrate this little guy’s first year!!

Christmas Stuff

Merry Belated Christmas!!

I can’t believe today was the last day of 2012!

We spent the holiday in Florida with Bob’s family, but before we left, we had our annual Christmas Party.  This was our third year hosting it.  (The first year we had only been moved in to our house for a couple weeks and our upstairs bathroom was completely gutted except for the newly-installed toilet.)  But, it’s always such a good time.  Our recurring theme: “Ugly” Christmas Sweaters.My brother, Sam and sister, Ellen.

Me and Bob’s brother, Brian. TWINSIES!!

Some people went rogue and wore footie PJ’s.The newly married Mr. and Mrs. Leggett!

Some people were lame and wore regular clothes :-)!

The future Mr. and Mrs. Bergdoll

Another tradition at our party is the white elephant booze exchange.  Unfortunately, I did not end up with this humongous bottle of wine, BUT…my sister did!

We also play another game.  Last year it was Minute-to-win-it Christmas games.  This year it was Christmas Pictionary.  Bob was the “game administrator”.Some more pictures from the night:

 

Clark spent the night at my parents’ house, but we got our baby fix from these cuties:

The night ended with a dance party in the basement.  It was such a fun night!  We already can’t wait until next year!!

In other Christmas news, this little guy was the star on our Christmas Cards this year.  So much cuter than Rudolph, don’t you think?He didn’t look so cute/happy when he met Santa.  Apparently, bearded, jolly, fat men are not his thing:He cried so much, he made Santa upset!Thanks a lot, Clark.  I lost a bet with the photographer for this!

Christmas in Florida meant Clark’s first time on the beach:He loved it!  He also loved trying to eat the sand.  I guess that was to be expected…

Overall, we had an incredible Christmas season.  We couldn’t have asked for a better first Christmas with Clark!

I’m sorta sad that the year is over :-(…

Happy New Year!!!