The result of spending 2 hours in Hobby Lobby with Mom...

Mom came to visit for a few days from Illinois while Dad is away on business for the week.  We decided to go to Hobby Lobby.  I had a couple of things on my list, but we wandered the ENTIRE store.  So fun!  And so dangerous for the wallet!!

Near the end of our shopping trip, we came to the section of the store that displays flower arrangements, wreaths, etc.  I have wanted to make a wreath for my front door ever since we moved in.  (My sister-in-law was super sweet and gave us some wreaths, but I also wanted a wreath that was more "me" I guess...  Nothing wrong with the other wreaths though, and I really appreciate them!)

I bought a wreath (which was not on my shopping list when we walked into the store), knowing I have tons of flowers leftover from the wedding.  I am NOT crafty or artsy and have a terrible time getting the cool visions in my head to become a good-looking reality.  So, I asked Mom if she would help.  Thankfully, she agreed!  And, she not only helped, she pretty much made the entire thing on her own.  She is very crafty and artsy, for which I am grateful!

I am so excited to have a personalized wreath displayed on our front door now!  It was made by my amazing Mom with flowers and ribbon from my wedding.  I so way love it!!!  Thanks, Mom, for being so willing to use your talents to make this awesome wreath!!!

You're welcome to come visit me again any time  ;o)

The new addition to the David Wheeler family!

Look at what we now have living with us.

What's that you say?  Looks like an empty aquarium??  Look again.

 

It's a fish!  Named Crush!!  The dumbest fish I have ever seen...  That used to belong to my 5-year-old neice.  (Don't tell her it's here; her parents wanted to get rid of it and my neice thinks her fish is simply "on vacation" ;o)

Dave and I have been talking about getting fish ever since we got married.  We haven't yet because it costs a lot to get started (aquarium, food, filters, rocks, plants, fish, etc.).  When my sister-in-law offered her aquarium for free, we jumped on the opportunity!

However, their fish is NO FUN!!!  It is scared of people walking up to the aquarium to look at it.  It swims away.  No joke.  And, even when no one is standing right by the tank, it is hiding under the filter.  All the time.  Except when we sprinkle fish food in.  It will come out from under the filter just long enough to eat.  Then right back into hiding.

I am so way not kidding!!!  It is a boring fish and I am itching to get our own fish that do more than hide.  I thought fish were supposed to SWIM.

So, when we put OUR little Wheeler fish babies in our aquarium, you will be the first to know and see pictures of our new additions!! And, if they swim, maybe I can put up video to prove that our fish can actually swim!  lol

The coolest funfetti cake cookies ever!

I wanted to bake some cookies to add to Tamara's package I am sending tomorrow.  My favorite (and the quickest and easiest) to make are cookies made from Pillsbury Funfetti Cake mix.  So yummy!!!  But, to put a different spin on them, I colored the batter.  So, instead of just the regular white/light yellow color cookies, they turned out red, blue, green, and true yellow.  Fun!  Tamara will love them!  :o)

Ok, so the red is more of a pink, but you get the idea...

And, no, the blue does not taste like blueberry ;o)

99 cent Sunday afternoon fun :o)

So, I was at Michael's yesterday and saw these fun balloon helicopter toy thingys.  So, I bought 2:  1 for Dave and I and 1 to send to Tamara.  They were more exciting than I anticipated.  lol

Oh, and it really does whistle  :o)

It's a Saxon Family tradition!

This morning, Dave and I drove up to North Atlanta to the Abamonte's house for breakfast.  (Bryan is dating the beautiful Ariel Abamonte and I love her family!)  Bryan was making breakfast for them and invited us up there so we could try and spend some time together since his return to LSU is fast approaching.

He made goulash (a Darah-original with hashbrowns, eggs, meat [bacon, ham, sausage, etc.] and cheese).  It was tasty!  They also had a fresh fruit salad (super yummy, especially because it had kiwi in it!  lol), waffles, orange juice, and I had made some cinnamon struesel muffins to share.  Quite the delectable breakfast spread!

Someone asked if this was tradition for our family and Bryan and I got to explain our typical Saturday morning routine while growing up.  It is tradition for us to eat a yummy breakfast together as a family each Saturday morning.  I really like that tradition!  Especially because I love breakfast foods and also because it's one of the few days of the week that we can all sit down and eat together.

So, a huge thank you to Bryan and the Abamontes for the amazing Saturday morning breakfast!!!

One of my favorite accomplishments as far as chores go today is this:

There are NO dishes in the sink!  That makes me feel so way great!!!

I didn't take a "before" picture because it would have been quite embarrassing...  There was a week and a half's worth of hand-wash dishes, so the left sink was overflowing.  (Granted, my sinks aren't that deep, so they fill up fast...)  What a lazy bum I have been all week!  So, I have done the ONE
thing that I absolutely wanted to accomplish today.  Yay!

Oh, and I have loved seeing the pockets of sunshine that have appeared on and off throughout the cloudy, misty, slightly rainy at times day.  :o)

Bon appetit!

My sister, Jennifer, spent a couple of weeks in Italy last month.  Being the sweet sister that she is, she brought back souvenirs for all of her family members.  One of the things she gave Dave and I was a package of authentic Italian-made bow-tie pasta.  I love pasta and was excited to try real Italian pasta!!!

Since I have been so way craving some garlic Texas Toast for the past few days, I decided that tonight would be Italian Pasta Night at the Wheeler home.  :o)  It made a super yummy meal!

Thankfully, we have enough pasta for another meal!  After it's gone, I guess Dave is going to have to take me to Italy to buy some more amazing pasta!  ;o)

Thanks, Jen!

an "I need ice cream" kind of day

So, I really, really, really would like an enjoyable, profitable job I can do from home.

When, you ask?  Like so way yesterday.

Is this too much to ask for or hope for?

And, I don't really want to teach piano lessons....  That would be a last resort.

Any suggestions?  Words of optimism?  Or yeah-right-only-in-your-dreams "pep" talks?

Yay!!!

There are more pictures hung on the wall (finally)!!!!  It's feeling more like OUR home now!  :o) 

It freaked me out, though, the first time I walked past and saw it out of the corner of my eye.  lol

Can't wait 'til we can finish getting the rest of the pictures we want hung up in their spots! 

A Magical Friday!!!

This past Friday ended a pretty busy and stressful week.  So, I was extremely happy to see it come, just for the mere fact that it was FRIDAY!!!!  Little did I know, the day would be more magical than I originally thought it would.  :o)

For lunch, a friend and I went to Chick-fil-a.  I love, love, love Chick-fil-a!  But, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE their peach milkshakes!!!!!  Yes, I got a peach milkshake!  The first one of the season and it was amazing!  It tasted even better knowing it was a free peach milkshake!  (Too bad the "free" part didn't have to do with calories.... ;o)  It was free because last month's coupon in their 2011 Cowlendar was a free small shake.  Did you know that Chick-fil-a accepts ANY Chick-fil-a coupon, expired or current???  That is awesome and something I wish I'd known a long time ago!  So, never, never, ever throw away a Chick-fil-a coupon!

Oh, and that is definitely NOT going to be the only peach milkshake that I have before they take them away again until next summer.  Don't you worry!

Another magical moment was when Dave and I pulled up into our driveway after work.  Dave saw a package on our front porch and we figured it was another part for his VW bug that he'd ordered.  Nothing super exciting to me.  (Sorry, Dave!  It makes me happy that you're happy when you get the parts you order, though!)

As I get closer to the package, I can tell it says "Dave & Darah Wheeler" and it's written in VERY familiar, wonderfully legible handwriting.  That belongs to MOM!!!!  She sent us a magical care package that included:

• made-fresh-in-Illinois peanut butter cookies
• a cute stuffed koala bear with a note about a bear hug from Mom on it  :o)
• a bag of my favorite candy:  Reese's Pieces
• a little race car for me to put together while Dave puts his real car together  lol  ;o)
• some Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies that have Reese's Peanut Butter Cup pieces in them for Dave
• 2 balloon punch balls (a blue and a yellow one, our favorite colors!)
• and some very special homemade no-bake cookies

The thing that makes the no-bake cookies so special is that Mom found a way to make them without chocolate or coconut (two things I really don't like).  What the?!  Who does that??  My Mom is genius!  She used peanut butter and they are delicious!  Oh, and instead of M&Ms on top, she put Reese's Pieces.  Yum! 

Mom, you are so way amazing!  Thanks for the package!!!  I hope one day that I can be as good to my kids as you are to yours.  Thanks for listening to promptings and for being so thoughtful!  I am such a lucky girl!!!

That just totally made my week!

So, here's a picture of the two punch balls.  Dave's is the blue one and mine is the yellow one.  We each blew up our own balloon (mine deflated a bit overnight...) and we blew them up using two totally different methods, which I find funny!  I had told Dave he would probably have to help me blow mine up because I have really bad lungs and struggle simply blowing up balloons sometimes.  He said ok and went out into the garage.  I was like, whatever....  Luckily, I was able to blow it up myself!

As I was blowing mine up with shear lung power, I hear the air compressor start up in the garage.  What the?!?  Dave comes back in the house in a few seconds with a huge balloon.  lol  I would have never thought to do that!  Boys and their toys  :o)

Play Ball!

In church today, we sang "God of our Fathers," "America the Beautiful," and "My Country Tis of Thee."  I was disappointed that we were not getting to stand and sing the national anthem of the United States of America...

I leaned over to Dave right before we sang the closing song and said, "Since we are not singing the national anthem here, you get to sing it with me while I play it at home after church, ok?"

He got a cute smile on his face, looked at me, and said, "You can play it and I will listen to you sing it beautifully.  Then I will play a game of Wii Baseball." 

LOL

That completely distracted me for a couple of minutes while I tried to stop laughing and compose myself.  What a supportive husband I have!  ;o)

Darah's Got Talent

Now, I don't intend to be haughty or pretentious with this post or it's title.  However, I want to share some insights I've had over the last few weeks in the hopes that maybe you can have similar insights in your own life.

At church in recent weeks, it seems like there has been a lot of talk, preaching, teaching, and discussion about talents and gifts.  In one lesson, we were asked to write down six of our talents.  I could olny come up with two.  I was feeling pretty loser-ish after that...  On the way home, without explaining why, I asked Dave to list of some of my talents.  He came up with a whole bunch.  I was shocked!

Talking them over with him, I knew that I have been blessed with more than two talents, for which I am very grateful.  I have been thinking about that alot ever since then.  Last night as I was playing the piano, I came to another realization.

A little backgroud first...

I started "officialy" playing the piano before I was 8.  Most of it has come pretty easily for me, for which I am also extremely grateful.  However, it has taken a lot of hard work, tears, and lots of PRACTICE (agh!  I just typed the dreaded P word!!!  nooooooo!!!) over the years to get to where I am today.

As I was playing the piano yesterday, I realized that even though I haven't played regularly since I was in college (over 7 years ago), I have improved ALOT since then.  Crazy!  I sat there wondering, "How the heck can that be?!?"  If I'd been practicing all the time, I'd know.  But I haven't been playing enough like I should to show lots of improvement.

Then it hit me.  I think the reason why is because ever since I was 12, I have been sharing my talent.  Mostly in church settings, but sharing it nonetheless.  Heavenly Father has been true to his promise to help my talents increase as I use them to serve.  It never hit me how true that was until yesterday.

I feel so way blessed!  I am very, very grateful to have the opportunity to share and serve; I am equally grateful to see the blessings and increase that have come to my talents and gifts over the years.  So grateful!!!

Happy Holidays!

Yes, in a few hours it will officially be the 4th of July Weekend.  Yay for America!!!!

However, I have had Christmas songs in my head all day today.  Where did they come from?!?  Especially the Carpenter's version of "Oh there's no place like home for the holidays." I guess I must really be wanting another Christmas in July ;o)

I'm not complaining, though, because I love Christmas music!

It really makes me want to watch "Elf" tonight  :o)  Think my handsome husband can be talked into watching it with me?  We shall see!

So, happy holidays, whichever holiday(s) you're celebrating at the moment!  lol