a fair fish

The fair is in town!

My favorite part is looking at the animals!  I just love this sweet pig nose.

What a cute little lamb.  I had to take a picture because it reminded Layla and I of Layla's lovie...BeBe!

Layla won a pickle and a fish.  A real fish.

Hayden won a stuffed animal banana with dread lock hair, but he didn't let me take a picture of him.

The fair was such a great place for people watching. It was a fun night and now we have a new family member, a goldfish who now has the name Billy. Yes, Layla named her fish Billy.  I think Billy is an appropriate name for a goldfish won at the fair. 

Football time in Texas

We finally made it to a Midway home football game!  

The first Midway game of the season it rained and the second game Hayden was feeling awful, so we finally went to a home game last night. As a member of the Panther Pack, Hayden got to run onto the field before the football players run out.  He was feeling shy about it, but he did great!  

Layla participated in a Goal Tenders dance clinic a few weekends ago and she got to perform with them before the game.  It was a fun and busy night with kid activities.  I loved being at the game because I just love Friday night football.  As a little kid before I was a cheerleader or in the band I attended football games.  Layla had fun last night just as I did when I as a little girl because she got to hang out with her buddies. 

I'm thrilled to work for and send my kiddos to such a great school district.  I'm looking forward to many more fun Friday evenings under the bright Friday night lights.  I hope to head to my high school too for a game or two!  #Cubforlife

Friday Night Lights!

Last night we took the kids to their first Baylor football game!  McLane stadium was so awesome!  We all had a wonderful time even though we were tired from a week of school activities.  

The band was fun to watch before the game started.

We loved watching the Baylor Line run in too!

Baylor won and we all had a blast!  Sic'em Bears!!

sloppy joes and sparklers

Gary worked late tonight so we stayed in and I made sloppy joes.  I've never put cheese on my sloppy joe, but I did tonight and it was a.maz.ing!  We had BBQ chips with our sandwiches and they were good too.  I had forgotten how yummy they are.

I really love our outdoor area.  I can't wait to buy a home to live in 'forever.'  I want to make the backyard all our own.  Our family is constantly outside and so the house can be cool, but the backyard must be off the chain awesome!

After our dinner we decided to play with sparklers.  It was a fun low key night, but it's those nights I love the most.  This little sock footed lady remembers getting burned by a sparkler once, so she was super cautious with her footing and where the fire fell!

We love weekends!!

tacos on Friday

Layla was invited to a sleepover, so it was just Hayden with us for dinner Friday night.  

While I was dropping Layla off for the night Gary asked Hayden what he wanted for dinner and he said "On the Border and 7-11!"  Ok...that is pretty specific buddy!  He said he'd never been to OTB and he saw a commercial and wanted to go.  I'll never turn down Mexican food, so I was all in on that!

He ordered build your own tacos from the kids menu.  It was the coolest thing ever.  I didn't even know that was an option.  He got 3 crispy taco shells, taco meat, rice, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes.  He did a 'Hayden vs. food' challenge and the tacos lost.  He devoured them in minutes.

We ended up skipping the 7-11, home of the slurpee, trip because he was full from the tacos, but I'm sure now that we live near 7-11's again we will visit them often especially in the hot summer months!

42!

Gary is 42 years old!!

We are expecting snow here in Georiga!  As the clouds began to move into the area we decided to stay close to celebrate.  There is a Longhorn Steakhouse nearby, so we all ate steaks.

The bread was so delicious.  I made sure I just ate one piece 'cause I could have taken down the whole loaf with that warm sweet butter.

My food was out of the world delicious, but it didn't photograph well at all.  It's actually quite disgusting looking.  I got a fillet topped with lobster and hollandaise sauce.  It was sitting on asparagus and served with mashed potatoes.  It was a great steak full of flavor and yummy lobster pieces.  Gary ordered a ribeye and he enjoyed it.  He is kind of a steak snob.  He prefers to grill steak at home so it's cooked to his liking.  He was pleasantly surprised by a nice juicy steak!

The kiddos ordered smoothies as their drink and they were topped with whipped cream and cherries.  It seemed like they ordered dessert first!  We had a nice birthday dinner and then we headed home to sit by the fire.  The weather is nice and cold and perfect for some snow.   We are hoping to get snow tonight since we had a snow day today.  The kids were home from school and watched for snow all day long, but all we got was rain.  Hopefully they will wake up to some white stuff to play in! 

Happy Birthday to Gary!

on the mend

I pretty much jinxed myself saying I haven't been sick in ages.  I'm siiiicckkkk.  I'm using every single oil I can to get through this cold though.  I'm rubbing and diffusing and breathing in the hot steamy oily water.  It helps and I'm going to cut my sick time in half.  I'm on a glass half full mission to blast this cold away.  After a friend recommended it I used rosemary and peppermint in my boiling pot.  My skin looks amazing because I got a facial at the same time. ;-)

Lily is enjoying my lazy days on the couch.  I've read 2 books so far this week and am starting a 3rd book.  I'm missing my workouts, but I just want to feel better, so I'm not guilting myself to death about missing a week of lifting weights.

My throat hurt so bad this morning and I had enough.  I don't usually ingest my oils, but DID! I poured honey and a few drops of each of these oils, peppermint, frankincense and lemon into this medicine cup.  I swallowed it down really fast and WOW!  I thought I was going to breath fire for a few minutes, but dang it.  I CAN BREATHE again!

I whipped up a 'whatever I had in the cabinets' chicken soup and enjoyed it with an audience in front of the fire.  These dogs are starving, you'd think I never feed them.  The kids will be home from school soon and I'm hoping to feel better.  Gary has been out of town and you know crazy things happen when he's gone, like this and this and kinda like this week.  I'm siiiiccckkk.  LOL!  

It's Friday and a cold front is heading our way.  I'm ready to stay all warm and snuggly this weekend and enjoy time with Gary when he gets back into town tomorrow!

Ugly Sweater fun!

We got all dressed up in our ugly sweaters and ugly socks and headed to celebrate the season with friends!

Selfie stick fun y'all!  Lily stuck her tongue in my FACE!  And Daisy is not a happy camper!

My hot date, as you can see, is Cousin Eddie!

My little Kate!

Layla really worked hard on our Santa hat dessert.  It was a fun pinterest idea and they tasted amazing!

I sure do love my little creative chef!  She's great in the kitchen.

This is sadly the only picture I took of our night with friends.  I was just having too much fun and isn't that Sangria gorgeous?  Honestly my new girlfriends aren't that into social media and they don't even have Instagram.  What?  It's all good, but maybe I can talk them into joining! ;)  I really am doing a good job putting my phone away lately though.  I'm trying to be more present this holiday season.  It's hard for me to not take a million pictures!!

Our gingerbread creations!

I found a fun gingerbread village while shopping today.  Each of us get one of the mini houses to decorate.   Yay!  This one is mine. I just love my little gummy bear home owner.

I bought tons of extra candy because there is no such thing as too much candy on a gingerbread house!  Oh my word, have you had those mini twizzlers?  Holy yummy!  I could eat the entire bag and I don't even really like regular twizzlers.

These two are serious about their creations.

Layla's

Gary's

And Hayden's

We had a fun Friday night!

Friday Funday

It's Friday and that means the last day of school before Thanksgiving break.  Wooohooo!  Another break y'all.  Georgia loves to take school breaks!

The pups are getting groomed and momma is cleaning the house.  Yay for Friday!

It's Friday once again!

We made it through another school week here in Georgia!

Rice crispy treats are the best way to start the weekend!  I'm going to try not to eat the whole pan, but I always end up eating 5 or 6 of these things until my tummy hurts and then I don't want any more.

Gary and I had the same idea for dinner.  We haven't had Mexican in ages, so we hit up our favorite spot and it didn't make me sad.  It's so good every time!

We had an early dinner and there was still tons of day light, so Layla met up with a few friends.  I decided to take a walk with Hayden and be nosey.  Just my opinion, but kids think they have the best plans, but then come to find out they are at another friends house and this momma can't handle that.   The texting and planning don't come across as they should and confusion is like whoooaa!  {I know I know, as kids we used to leave our houses at 8 am on a Saturday and not come back until dinner time.}  I'm not down with that.  I watch to many news shows and see too many kidnapping cases.  If I can keep up with my kiddos and feel comfortable that is for the better.  The second I can't find someone and I'll go all kinds of DRAMATIC on everyone.  My kids know the drama side of their momma and they prefer me more calm.   I'm thankful for mom friends in the neighborhood that I can text to keep track of ALL our kiddos.  I want to give Layla a little independence, but seriously she's 10 not 16.  We will find a balance in this area, but it will take time and trust on all our part.

This is exactly what I think of Friday night.  The week is done and emotions are always high.  Tears happen and eyes get glazed over tired from the past weeks activities.  I love easy relaxing Fridays because they are so very NEEDED!

2nd week of school celebration

The kiddos survived their second full week of school, so we decided to treat them to a dinner out!  We jumped in the Jeep and off we went.  You know crazy momma had to take a selfie!

These pictures are courtesy of the iphone self timer app!

Hayden and his faces.  sigh.  Every single picture we take he is making some kind of goofy face.  

We ate a new to us restaurant called Henry's in downton Acworth.  We ordered calamari and hush puppies as appetizers.  Their hush puppies are to die for and I could have eatten the entire basket.  I ordered blackened catfish on a bed of jambalaya.  Hayden settled for chicken strips, but he did tell the server they were the best he'd ever had.  Layla had penne pasta with Alfredo sauce.  Gary had some amazing looking dish with cream sauce filled with chicken.  The atmosphere was amazing and it was definitely kid friendly, as it was so loud in there.   We had a fun night out and left for home happy and full!

meet the teacher

Today we went to school for the kids to meet their teachers for the 2015-2016 school year.  We made the rounds around the school and the kids caught up with a few of their buddies too.  I'm excited for the kids to have a full year at their school.  They started last year in November here in Georiga.  I think it's confusing and frustarting to start mid-year.   They are excited about seeing all their friends and I am excited about getting back into a routine!

  

Everywhere we look in our neighborhood we see Kona Ice.  Why didn't we think of that?  Starting school earlier than normal is a bummer, but Kona Ice makes everything better!