My West Texas Tropical Oasis... ...What?

Design on a Dime

The chairs are from Target, the rug, pillows and coffee table are from BigLots
You know how when you've wanted and wanted something for so long and you finally get it you just want to do a happy dance. This is why I'm dancing. It happens 3 times a year I get my way. Christmas, B-day and Mother's Day. I've known for quite a while what I wanted for my b-day -patio furniture. Thankfully, dad knows I like the color green and he gives me $$ for my b-day and christmas. Mark, on the other hand says "What do you want?- Well, go get it and pick up a card and sign me name to it while your at it. " It may be unconventional to you, but it works for us. So thanks to dad and Mark I got my West Texas Tropical Oasis.

What dad wanted was for me to spend the money getting a manicure, pedicure, massage and maybe some clothes. But I wanted wicker furniture. Some people want jewelry, some people want the pedicure but I always tend to spend it on the house or kids instead of myself. In the spring, summer and fall we spend our days outside hunting bugs, playing in the sprinkler and eating popsicles and getting sticky. Now while the kids play I can prop my feet up and relax.

If these seems selfish, it's not. I wanted these chairs for all of us to enjoy. So just give me a call when you want to come sit in the shade with me, while the kids play away. Or a couple of my friends have already come over to sit outside at night to enjoy the breeze and stars.

I know your thinking, where's the pool? Yeah Right. 100 b-day's and mother's days and that still won't happen but we do have a 1 ft. pink kiddie pool. :)

In Honor of Maggie

Lalla, Erica, Whitney, Becky, Whitney, Maggie, Holly, SanDee, Kelly, Jeri Lyn and Me
I just love little baby clothes! Notice the UT duds?
Oh sweet Maggie... It was an honor to have your shower at my house. Everyone seemed to have a good time and I am so glad we were a part of this for you and Baby Jack. He's going to be so cute and stylin' with all his new goodies. Thanks to all of those who were so willing to help. Everyone was so kind, you have some really sweet family and friends. To recognize your adorable nieces I make them honorary hostesses for being so very helpful.

I can't wait to see the little man when he gets here but in the meantime I can't wait to see your precious nursery! Thanks again for the honor of hosting your shower, I'm truly blessed by your friendship.

It's a been whirlwind

Oh me oh my...

Well, I finally finished the cake. I cheated. I knew it would be down to the minute as far as time with all the events of the last couple of days so I painted letters for Jack and stuck them in the cake with sucker sticks. It's cute, yet simple. Kelly came by last night and set up the boxes, vase, wagon and bears and I must say it looks adorable. I'll be happy to see all the goodies the other hostesses are bringing in the morning.

Matthew and I had a date tonight. I always call it a date when it's just the two of us because we don't get much alone time. One of his classmates was having a birthday party so we joined in the fun. I'm actually glad I took a break away from the house and all the little tasks I needed to finish. They still got done but I felt refreshed when we got home and I got to finish the cake and cleaning while the kids were asleep :)

Mark stayed home with Abba and watched Mariposa while we were gone. Mark is really good about sitting down and watching movies with the kids. I can't seem to sit still watching a movie while there is laundry and dishes and everything else to take care of. If the movie is entertaining them, then I think I need to accomplish some tasks.

Check back tomorrow for cute pictures of Maggie and all our sweet hostess friends. Also, I was talking with a few of my friends recently who don't know about Air 1 - So if you are one of those who hasn't tuned in to the best Christian radio station ever, dial up to 90.5 and happy listening.

Happy Easter

It was burr cold on Easter morning. And did I mention it was windy. So the Easter bunny delivered eggs indoors. The kids had fun hunting for eggs all through the house. He started in each of their rooms with colored easter grass. Matthew's was green and Abba's was yellow. So the kids only picked up the eggs that were on their color of easter grass and it worked out perfectly! Did you notice they are in their Christmas pj's? CUZ it was COLD.

We went to a different church on Sunday with some friends. Their reinactment of Jesus being crucified was beautiful and of course deeply moving. I was crying and crying and yet happy that the children got to see it so beautifully done for the 1st time in their lives. They weren't frightened and understood what was happening. It was a great lesson for them to see what Easter is truly all about.

Afterwards my precious family came over for lunch. Everyone pitched in by bringing delicious food (and too much of it) along with some super yummy desserts. The kids had to wait until Boba and Patricia got here before I gave them their Easter baskets from us. Of course, they just wanted to play with their goodies instead of eat lunch. But they were well entertained so we could enjoy some sweet family stories and "grown up talk". You know, the kind you couldn't stand when you were a kid, but are now engrossed in.

Well I'd better scram, the time on my computer says it's almost tomorrow.

Spring Break

Abba and I fixed up her ponies and we took them on parade at the zoo in her shopping cart.
Matthew enjoying the blue tractor at Boba's warehouse on our way back from the zoo.
Taking a swing at the 3rd annual Easter egg hunt in Anson.
Not even ALL the kids are pictured here at the "By invitation only" amazing Easter egg hunt.

I can't believe it's Friday night and Spring Break is almost over. So far we have done most of what I set out to do: Coloring eggs, picnic lunch at the park, picnic lunch at the zoo, riding bikes, took the kids to eat (just the 3 of us) to lunch at a restaurant of their choice (Olive Garden) and we trecked over to Anson for an egg hunt. Unfortunately we haven't slept in and we've skipped most naps. But truthfully we've played hard and had lots of fun.

We did take Abba's ponies on parade to the zoo. We ran into some friends who thought I was Crazy for letting her push the shopping cart through the whole zoo but she actually did it the entire time all by herself. The end of the week has been beautiful weather and we truly have enjoyed being outside.

I have to say when we were invited to the Easter egg hunt in Anson I was expecting maybe 15 or 20 kids at most. And was totally suprised at the amount of kids 50 to 60ish and the amount of eggs they all got. They really put on a great party. (It was cute to see all the parents hunting for the hidden horseshoe - I felt like I was on a page in Where's Waldo) Maggie and I carpooled over for the event and had a blast. I even ran into some of our extended family and many of our out of town aquaintances and friends. Fun, Fun, thanks for inviting us.

This week I'll be getting ready for Maggie's shower here at the house. Along with the kiddos going back to school and me going back to work it's going to be a lil busy. Don't forget dance starts back and so does soccer practice.

The month ends with lots of special birthday's - Happy Birthday Martha, "B", Susan, Shana and Jared. Happy, Happy!

School Parties

Hi everybody, sorry I haven't posted in awhile. With work and parties and laundry :) I've been busy. First of all I wanted to say thanks to everybody for going out of your way to make my birthday special. I got lots of cards, e-mails and visitors. Our girls night out turned into "all about me". Thanks to all of you for the delicious dinner, dessert and movie. Cute movie by the way (27 Dresses).

I also took the kids to see Horton this weekend. Also adorable, just be warned they teach the kids how to call each other names. Why do they do that? It's a KIDS movie, can't they leave the questionable humor out? We did enjoy it and I'm sure I'll buy it when it comes to DVD. Just a warning.

We also had school parties this week. Abba's class hunted eggs with my class on Thursday and Matthew's class had an all day party on Friday. His teacher spoiled them for the day. Since they are studying the letter W they had homemade waffles for breakfast at school and a pizza party for lunch. Since it was windy I picked up big bubble wands for the kids to play with before their easter egg hunt. It was just the right amount of wind and the kids had fun. (see picture above of Matthew's entire class of 6)

For those of you wondering about our health. Mark is still suffering from the lump in his throat. He takes up to 4 muscle relaxers a day. They have scoped him and found nothing so keep Mark in your prayers for healing. They still don't know what it is. As for me, thank you Kerri, I'm back on my product and feeling tons better. The kids are feeling great and excited about Spring Break. I'm going to try to do something fun for them everyday since we aren't traveling over the holiday. Yesterday we colored easter eggs and today we are going to play at McD's. We also have plans to PYOP, visit a couple of parks and go to the zoo. If you have any other fun ideas to keep them entertained please share.

Are you ready for a good laugh?

I'm sure you could all live without seeing it but then who would laugh with me? Yes, me as a blonde. I'm sure you are asking why oh why would you do that? It's just un-natural! Well, at least that's what Mark said. It was one of those moments of weakness. I was already high-lighting so I thought why not, I always wanted to know if blonde's really do have more fun?

Anyway, this is to lead up to the 5 random things about me. I was tagged by Julie a long, long time ago but I've had a hard time narrowing it down to only 5. :)

1. I was blonde once.
2. I have a natural space between my 2 front teeth like Madonna. Yes, you don't know it's there because I had it bonded. Trust me, it looks much better on Madonna.
3. I USED to have OCD. Key word is USED to. Mark told me while I was pregnant that I had to quit being compulsive or I was going to corrupt our kids. HA
4. This is even harder to believe but I used to be painfully shy, truthfully.
5. I have a scar on my leg the size of a "pot pie". When I was little I pulled a pot pie onto my lap after it had just been taken out of the oven. Actually now it's about the size of a pizza that feeds 12 :)

Again, I had a hard time picking only 5 weird things about me. Stay tuned for 5 places I've been. Again, hard to narrow down but I'll pick my favorites.

So Happy Together...

Matthew and I had fun at our local party place for one of his friends b-day parties. I told him it was a date night for the two of us. We raced go-carts, & I got to watch while he played laser tag. Never having played laser tag before, it amazed me how he automatically knew what to do. His little vest was heavy and swallowed him but he was a trooper.
Later, we won 500 tickets at a spinning game. It was the largest amount you could win so we hit the JACKPOT. Everyone stopped by to see our tickets piling up. He didn't mind sharing his winning tickets with his friends and getting a CareBear to take home for Abba.
Next it was mine and Abba's turn for a date. I took her to the ballet on Sunday. It was quite long (3 intermissions) and suprisingly she sat through the whole thing. She can't wait to be on stage for her own dance recital. ( I wonder where she gets that from? )
Her favorite part of the ballet was "the bad guy" (the witch) and the big bad wolf. She's always loved the big bad wolf.

It's been normally busy around here. I did get to go to the Friday night events of our Ladies' Retreat from church. Everyone worked so hard to pull it all together and I had a blast playing BUNCO afterwards. My partner at one part in the evening rolled a bunco - picked up her dice and instantly rolled another one. I've never seen that happen and I screamed louder than she did.

I'll be posting quite a bit in the upcoming weeks so stay tuned... Lindi