Friday, December 5, 2014

Survival Week

Well hello there. Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas to ya!! We got back from our 9 day stint in the Big Easy and I got the bronchitis. Aint NO body got time fer dat! Especially this time of year!! Doesn’t my body know that little piece of vital info? Apparently not. Today, even though my energy is sacked from last night’s parade, my chest feels like there is hope on the horizon.

As my title to this much anticipated blog post states, this week has been that of survival. Get up, get the hubs and kids off to school (which leaves me feeling like I ran a 5k by the time they are out of the door) and then fall into bed and sleep until they all come home 8 hours later. NOT. I WISH. I did stay in the bed a lot on Monday and Tuesday snuggling (while hacking) with my feisty lil’ ray of sunshine only to get up and do the essentials: wash clothes, pour ingredients into the crock pot for supper and pick and deliver kids when I had to. I know I’m not sick enough to complain and def not as sick as I could be or as other people are today but just this little set back really has be thanking the Lord for my general over all good health!!

I’m really looking forward to this weekend. If we’d had any thing planned for it, I’ll be honest and say that I probably would of canceled it. I’m really hoping that nobody else comes down with any thing but I’ve resolved myself to the fact that they probably will and that will be ok. Right? Right. We are spending Christmas here at our house this year and there are not enough words in the English language to express how excited we all are!! It’s been since I was expecting Olivia that we’ve spent a Christmas here, so 4 years ago. Since we don’t have to haul any thing 500 miles, we may have gone a little overboard this year. But that’s ok too, right? RIGHT!!!!

James rode in the Christmas parade last night as King of Whigham. He looked so dang cute up there!!! Audrey was asked to ride on the school’s float dressed as occupation of her choice and she chose a teacher! Im so very very glad that it was not cold last night, it was a balmy 69 degrees as we rode through the streets of Cairo. Jon rode in the Polaris with James and I was going to as well but they asked me to ride on the float and help hold a reindeer that kept falling over. Olivia rode in my lap and as we rode under the lights downtown she looked up at me and said “Mama is this our town?” Made me get all teary eyed!! We live in such an amazing little town and I am so thankful that my children are being given the opportunity to know small town life and appreciate it and feel and know that they are a part of it.

I set the bar to high for myself most of the time and end up in failure most of the time so I will sign off for now and hope to post again soon about our trip :)

Disclaimer: King James was hyped up to get to his car but when he got there his mood immediately changed. After some “prodding” I discovered that he realized he was not going to get to catch any candy. #childhoodprobs










Saturday, November 1, 2014

The Last of October

We had a great week, albeit a busy one. We’ve had a great month, in fact, even though it’s been a tear your hair out crazy month it’s been good. And even better has been these last 2 weekends where we have stayed home all saturday long and did nothing except whatever we wanted to do. For instance, Jon got up at the you know what crack of dawn to go hunting in 30 degree weather with 20 mile an hour winds this morning. And I slept until 9:15. Amazing. How is that possible you ask? Well James and Audrey are at the age where they go turn the t.v. on and watch it until I wake up, no prob. Olivia sometimes is cool with that and sometimes not. This morning she was cool with it but it was not because she was being thoughtful of me. No, it’s because she could eat candy this morning if I stayed asleep. Oh well, for me on a Saturday to be able to actually sleep late.....

This week was Red Ribbon Week at school to raise awareness about drugs. I find it ironic that they chose a 70’s theme and a Rock-n-roll theme. Aren’t we trying to raise awareness AGAINST drugs? Yes. So why are we encouraging the children to dress up as people from three of the most drug induced decades in American History?? Hey, I’m just saying how ironic it is! We (I) had so much fun coming up with ideas and ways to dress them!! I’m not the type of person to go out and spend a lot of money on costumes. In fact I usually wait until the absolute last second available to make any kind of plans for a costume so that’s probably why I don’t spend a lot of money on them. I was a little more prepared this year simply because Jacob’s mom called to see if James would want to be his twin on twin day. So we started talking and planning about a week in advance. Oohhh la la.


It’s either this stiff, deer in headlights look or... 


Silliness. I like the silliness personally



Tuesday was dress up day at dance so Miss Olivia went as an elephant using Audrey’s first recital costume. She was totes adorbs. And everyone squealed with delight to see an elephant in the midst of all those Princess Elsa’s :)


And wow do I need to clean and re-paint my back door. Heavens to Betsy I had no idea just how dirty and chipped it was until I took these pictures. Any suggestions for a new color? I am thinking red or possibly going all out and being that house in the neighborhood with the turquoise blue doors.


On Thursday we had the spotlight program at school where James and Audrey were both awarded with All A’s Honor Roll and meeting their A.R. goal for the 1st 9 weeks. I’m so proud of them!!

On Friday there was a “Halloween snack” that I helped with and I got there a little early (SHOCKER!!) so the teacher told me to feel free to walk around the class room and take pictures while the kids were reading. So.....guess what I did?










Monday, October 27, 2014

Kings, Pumpkins and 5 pairs of Socks

I absolutely love this time of year! And the weather here has been absolutely perfect the last 2 weeks and next weeks forecast looks to be more of the same. The mornings are cold enough that you have to wear a jacket outside but you can shed it by the afternoon because it warms up very nicely with out any humidity and the evenings are just as great as the mornings. Nice and cool to be able to enjoy some hot chocolate out on the porch swing. My favorite!!

Friday was a wonderful day and not only because of the weather. My daddy made it home safe and sound from East Africa!! James won the King fund raiser at school (yay!) and we painted pumpkins and played socks for our Fun Family Friday. Socks? Hold that thought!

To say that I am excited that James won, meaning he raised the most money out of the 12 boys that were competing, would be an understatement. Selling those tshirts was a huge undertaking and even though all the money we raised goes to our school’s PTO seriously makes it worth the effort, if he hadn’t won I possibly might could of been slightly disappointed that all my hard work was uh, just that; hard work. But to be able to put that smile on his face and the excitement in his eyes when they announced his name as the winner, was 100% worth it and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat!! He didn’t think he was gonna win and Jon and I were very skeptical just because we know how much of a competition it can be but as the Principal had each child sit down after telling each bracket of money raised and James was 1 of 2 boys still standing I punched Jon in the arm and whispered “I think we may of done it!! I think we might have just won this thing!!” We raised $1385.75 and while that is a very large number I knew that the child who won last year raised a little over $2000!! So you see, the bar is set pretty high!



I had some lovely pumpkins sitting on our porch and the kids have been BEGGING to paint them ever since I put them out there! I really enjoyed having the plain, normal pumpkins sitting there with my gigantic mums, they were a nice touch to the fall decor and they really  helped to take your attention off the cluttered porch (if you follow me on instagram you should be laughing right now!). But being the good, kind, generous mother that I am, I finally caved to their continuous begging and we all painted pumpkins in the front yard for Fun Family Friday!! While I enjoy the fact that the wildly colored pumpkins are just another reminder that kids live here, I think I may have to go back and get me some more plain pumpkins :)





I have yet to go out and snap a picture of the porch as it looks now but I will!! It’s wild!

A new tradition that has been added to our FFF, is the game of socks. Jon heard someone talking about it on the radio one day and decided it sounded like fun and once he introduced it to the kids, thats all they want to do! I’ll admit it took a little to get me on board but now I highly recommend it. It’s tons of fun!! Basically what you do is everyone puts on socks and pulls them up as high as you can get them, you put your feet all touching at your toes and scream “SOCKS” and you start scrambling to get every ones sock off their feet while trying to keep yours on. Who ever has at least one sock still on by the time everyone else has had theirs ripped off, is the winner, winner chicken dinner. It’s a blast!! One day I will have to set up the camera on the tripod and give you all some laughs!!








Wednesday, October 22, 2014

A little October for ya

I have been one busy woman since my last post!! I drove out to Hattiesburg to help throw my sister in law, Angela, a baby shower. And I went by myself. What? Yep, I sure did and I enjoyed every minute of quiet solitude on the way out there and back and even though it was strange and weird and at times a little lonesome, I greatly enjoyed visiting and working with everyone with out having to say ‘No and stop that and don’t climb on that and leave your brother and/or sister alone” 1865 times :) The shower was a huge success, everything went off with out a hitch and Will and Angela received some wonderful things to jump start their soon-to-be-always-adding -to baby collection!!




Emily made the cake banner. So cute!



The homemade sugar scrub Emily and I made. And some straws. Haha!



Em, pinning the corsage


Antique cookie jar from Nenie



All the hosts for the shower


Yes, I realize it’s weird that my hand is on her belly. Sorry not sorry :)



Ashley always does beautiful flowers!!



Mommy and Daddy to be :)



As soon as I got back from the ‘Burg I jumped full force into the King fundraising project and I do mean PROJECT. I really had not anticipated the huge amount of work that goes into it and had my eyes opened wide to fundraising. And I do mean WIDE. Hats off to you people who do it on a regular basis. And especially to those who don’t wait until the last minute!! Wow. I plan on devoting a whole post one day to the numerous things I learned during the 6 days I ate, slept, dreamed and panicked those Kay-Row shirts :)



I’ve also organized a little daily shooting project for myself and another good friend who’s starting to get her feet wet in photography. I get bogged down so much with life and the numerous photos that I have and have yet to print that I find myself not even wanting to pick up my camera a lot of times. And my skills are suffering for it. Hoping that having a friend to talk about daily photos with and a little motivation for picking up that camera every day will get me back in the swing of things!


Yesterdays theme was “Shake it off!”





Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Early morning drama



I wake the kids up at 6:30 every morning. That gives them plenty of time to get dressed, brush teeth, eat breakfast and forget a few things :) Well, Olivia came down stars this morning at 6:30 and asked if she could wake up James and Audrey. I’m thinking that was not the best idea, even if I went up about 2 minutes after her. Within that time frame, Olivia some how managed to stuff 3 of Audrey’s Lego’s into the holes on James’ Lego table which sent my at-times-overly-dramatic-7 year old-daughter into a a sobbing-door-slamming-almost-fit. Which made Olivia drop her shoulders, hang her head and say “I told her I was so sorry Mama. She makes my feelings go away” and then she sulks off down the hallway wailing while Audrey is sobbing and getting dressed in her closet with the door closed. During all this mayhem, James ran into his bed and “hurt” his shoulder which landed him in a ball on the floor sobbing. I guess since his sisters were crying James felt like he was getting left out and needed to join in. I kid, I kid :) All this happened in less than 5 minutes and I was left standing in James’ room very bewildered and trying not to laugh at the breakdown of huge proportions happened so quickly. Life is fun around here and as some comedian that we like to watch said one time “People with ONE kid just don’t count!"

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

A Mustache’s Lady Bug

The big 7 partay went off without a hitch on Saturday. And there was NO cake drama. Can you BELIEVE it??!! Well, ok maybe there was a little bit, on Friday. I attempted a do-it-yourself tie dye cake and it was horrible. Reeeellly, reeeeellly bad, I tell ya!! But as I get older and more wiser     I know my history with birthday cakes and decided to try my hand at something really different when no one else was around and have a simple no fuss, no stress, all icing out of a pre made tube Plan B. Plan B worked very well when Plan A went to pot. That Plan A cake could very well go on a top 5 list of epic Pinterest fails :) 




They got to play for an hour on the gymnastics floor and just had a wonderful time! All 17 children never stopped running or jumping and there were no injuries which is always a good thing!!



We had an hour and a half at the Y before we had to pack it up and make way for the next party. I wasn’t to thrilled with that, considering what we paid them I felt like it would of been nice to give us at least an extra 15-30 min but whatever! We made it work. It was kinda like, here jam this cake in your mouth then wash it down with a sip of your drink. Now come over here and open all these presents. Do it quickly but don’t loose any thing especially the cards. Happy Birthday now we have to leave :)

The only thing I was really disappointed in because of the rush to get out of there was that we didn’t have enough time for the photo booth like I wanted. I snapped these 1st three before everyone got there thank goodness cause it was just madness and mayhem afterwards to try and get it done.



Olivia’s expression (bless it) just cracks me up. Is this not the typical disgruntled, over stimulated birthday party look? If you will notice in the bottom right hand corner she has a little band aid on her finger. Just moments before she smashed it in the water fountain and then somebody had the audacity to get that princess crown before she did and she had to wait her turn. It is HARD being 3 years old.


p.s. i was also really frustrated with the horrible lighting and i had to deal with some pretty ferocious color casts. my hard headed self worked it out in manual for most of the time and when i switched over to auto it was even worse so the fun processing i had in mind for the photo booth pics was sorta a wash. pun intended :)