Happy Weekend

Well, it's the weekend and I'm so excited. The weather is supposed to be nice, so hopefully a trip to the park, zoo, some yard maintenance and a cookout with dad. My dad is in town house hunting and I hope he finds something he likes. If he does he'll only be about 30-40 minutes from us, a lot better than 8 hours that's for sure. Happy Retirement Dad!!
The boys are doing great and getting along great with each other as much as can be expected. D had a cough for a few days but I think he's over it now, thank goodness. The next few weeks will be pretty busy. I don't know if I'll have anytime to start scrapping again until after our vacation. My dad is here this weekend, the in-laws next, friends from STL the next and then off to Hawaii!!! We are getting so excited about our trip, it is a repeat trip we took several years ago but we said we would go back for our 10 yr. anniv and away we will go!!! I'll post some pics from our outtings this weekend later. Love to all....

The week has begun

Well, we had a great weekend. Uncle T came in town and the boys had such a great time playing with their uncle. The big boys had a golf outing and really enjoyed the bonding time! We did a little more house looking for them incase the other plans fall through. I wish the weather would of been a little warmer but oh well.
The countdown continues... only 4 weeks till our trip. I am getting more and more excited as the weeks get fewer. It's almost time to start shopping for outfits, ugh, fun but not so fun if you know what I mean. I am getting a little nervous about leaving the boys but that's just the mommy in me. I know they will be just fine. I have started gathering little goodies to leave for them daily while we are gone. I got the idea from a book I read, and thought it would be neat. I will leave a basket for them to check daily and see what goody they get for the day. Just a reminder to them that we are thinking of them!
I am getting behind again on the scrapbooking! I am going to try to get some done this week and try to catch up on my Elsie Challenges. I want to try to finish B's 1 yr book so that I can start doing some little mini occasion type albums.
I have quite the to do list here for the house and I am going to also try to tackle quite a few of the tasks this week also. I want to get as much done as soon as possible before it really gets warm and I'll be spending my days off with outings with the boys!:)
Dad, hope your house hunting is going well. We are looking forward to you guys being closer to us and the boys! I am anxious to know how the trip goes! I'll be waiting to hear from you.
That's all for now, I'll blog more later. Oh- and can you believe AJ voted off American Idol. Wow, but of course I don't vote so I guess i can't complain. And for any of you that watch the Apprentice, ha! Trump is something.....I love his attitude sometimes. The poor guy that called himself white trash...see ya, You're Fired!! That was great!
Till next time.......

Here I am

Well for those of you that are wondering where I have been, here I am. Things have been busy around here. My girls weekend was fantastic. We went to our fav Mexican restuaraunt and had lots of laughs and pitchers and pitchers of Margaritas!! Ole! P decided she wanted to know what it was like to have something like double H size hooters. Ha! A let her borrow the bra and out she came from the bathroom with it on top of her shirt stuffed with towels. How funny it was! A guy even came over from the bar to check it out and his wife came too! It was so hilarious, we figured that couple would be heading to Wally world after dinner to look for such a bra!! Ha... Saturday my friend Crystal and hubby came in town from STL. Me and C headed out to meet up with the girls at a bbq place and the boys stayed home all night playing with the kids and hanging out. The girls then headed to a really cool store that had more jewelry than you could imaging(costume type but really cheap) and handbags and sunglasses. I resisted the temptation to buy anything but I can definetely see my self going back another time! We headed back to Linda's and ate some absolutely wonderful shrimp etoufee that she makes. It was really great and didn't take her long to make it. We then watched big momma's house 2, didn't think I'd care for it, but it was actually pretty funny!! Took C & R for a drive around Memphis on Sunday and showed them a few of our sites, not to overwhelming but hey at least they can say they saw Elvis now! Not really but there were a few look alikes walking around outside of Graceland. Too Funny! Before they headed out on Mon. we took a little trip over to Tunica to catch some lunch at the casinos and drop a few coins in the machines! Well lunch was good but the best part was I actually won 200 bucks on the quarter slots. I couldn't believe it, yes that was my actual winnings! I have never won at the casinos before anymore than a few dollars, so of course after the winning I was done for the day, cash out and away we go. We had such a great weekend and the boys loved playing with our company, D sure didn't want them to leave!
The rest of the week was spent just catching up on laundry and house work and of course the dirty word, WORK. I am thankful though to only work 3 days a week , what a blessing that has been. It gives me time to do things I need to do, so that I can spend the rest of the time playing with the kids. The weather has been trying to warm up, so the kids have been playing outside in the evenings, they enjoy that alot!
Well we also broke down and finally traded M's car for an suv. He had about 100,000 miles and needed something a little more reliable as it was starting to have issues. We have really missed having the third row capability since we traded the yukon. So now we have a SUV again. It's really nice and Dev loves it and wants to ride in the "way back". We wanted to try to go as along as possible without a car note, but oh well, I feel better that now he won't be out in the middle of the country on business and the car break down and he would have to call for help from who knows who..... Needless to say, we're happy about the decision.
What else......Been totally working my butt off at the gym. Hawaii is only about 5 weeks away and I'm hard core at this point. I want to be able to enjoy the trip so I must suffer before right?! Well sorta, but my hardwork is paying off and I'm seeing results which is the best part. I am gaining my momentous will power and hopefully I can keep with it. I am on week three of my intense seriousness for weight loss and have already lost inches. I must say the pounds arent' quite falling off, but that's why I have measured my trouble spots. For those out there that need motivation, try measurements. Even though I haven't lost but a few measly pounds I have lost inches and my clothes are looser, that's the most important, and I feel great. GET MOVING! It will make you feel better about yourself and help you stay healthy for yourself, your family, and all of those that love you!
So, D had his first audition for the modeling thing. We haven't heard anything yet. Hopefully in the new few days. The agency seemed interested but there were so many others at the audition we were only in the room about 5 minutes. I hope to hear soon, if he will be called back. We'll see what happens.
Well that's a little of what's been going on here. The boys are doing great and growing up so fast. B is about to eat us out of house and home at only 15 months old. I don't know what I'll do when they are in HS. I might need to get an extra job just for food! We don't know where he puts the food, he's not overweight at all, just what I like to call a Buddha belly! A visit from Uncle T is this weekend and I know he'll be suprised how much the boys have changed since he saw them last in Nov. D is talking so much and saying things you didn't even know he knew and Bry has all the main sounds down and all the animal sounds, it's so cute. Well that's all for now. Hope everyone is doing well.

I'm a little behind.

Yes, I know I'm a little behind on the blogging thing! I promise to catch up soon, I have also abandoned my scrapbooking, (temporarily) but don't fear I will pick back up soon. Things have been busy around here. But, making sure to feed my soul with the girl's weekend! It is definetly something for all girls to do to reenergize!! It was GREAT! I hope to fill you all in soon. But for now, just a note to say I haven't fallen off the earth. More blogs to come soon....

Happy Valentine's Day

Well tomorrow is the biggest chocolate day of the year and I will not be eating any. What a disgrace I know...but my big goal is 6 weeks away (HAWAII) . The boys will come home with lots of goodies from school I'm sure, but I'll just take the extra to work. I am even baking a strawberry cake with cream cheese icing and strawberries on top to take to work. They hate me when I do that because I don't eat a bite! The trick is for me not to taste it, if I don't taste it then I'm fine, but if I get a taste I'm likely to eat the whole damn thing!! I am taking a new class at the gym called body jam. It's pretty cool, it's a dance aerobic class. We actually do some real booty shakin' in there so it's alot of fun. There is a wide variety of ages and skills too. I knew you could lose some lbs. by dancing all night and finally someone made a class out of it. It's popular too, it is pretty packed even for a Tuesday morning. Anywhoo..
My wonderful honey gave me my valentine gift yesterday since he wouldn't be here. He was so thoughtful! He bought me two new workout shirts and a pair of workout capris in the under armour stuff, it really keeps you dry and not sweaty. He also bought me the cutest Adidas sun visor and some mini head bands(never seen such a thing but he bought them for me since I was just complaining about how regular ones simply overtake my forehead) As he would say I "have a pea head" He was so thoughtful and I did need the new duds. I am glad for once that he didn't get me a super big red box of chocolates. That would be pure sabotage and we are working towards the same goal(fine bods on the beach) Ha.. not quite obtainable but we'll do our best:)
Not too suprised about Amy having a boy. I have known many people to have the same thing happen especially thinking girl and getting boy. But once you see "the boy stuff" there's no mistaking in most cases as long as you have a competent US tech. Her little boy was just being camera shy. I know she's very happy anyway and will really enjoy her little boy.
Well better go, time for book reading with the boys before night time. Hope everyone has a great Valentine's Day.

A Busy Week Ahead

Well the week has started off to a great start. Took Dev for his check up for the ankle and yeah it's healed! No more boot to wear, I am happy even myself. The Dr. said his leg was completed healed so that is such great news! Now we can get him back to take TKD like we were going to start doing before he hurt his leg.
Today will be a day of organizing and cleaning around the house. We have some friends coming down this weekend from STL to visit! It happens to be the same weekend my girlfriends come down too. They come down every few months and stay with a girl that lives not to far from me. It's such a great time of shopping, eating, drinking, eating, drinking, eating, drinking, drinking, well you get the idea. My friend will be going to hang out with me and the girls, while the boys will hang out at the house with the little boys. What a great hubby I have!! I think we'll take our friends to see Tunica also. It's a lot of casinos and stuff, but maybe we'll win a few pennies and then eat on comps. ha!
Painted the downstairs bathroom this weekend. It looks great, now just need a little more decor for the walls. I hated the plain builder grade paint that was in there, it looked so dull. It's not dull anymore that's for sure! I have tried the sponging before but didn't quite have the best color scheme. This time seemed to work out better because of the colors I think. I was able to paint right over the color already on the walls with accenting color. Two layers of sponging with slightly different color tints. I like it alot and the sponging works great with a sponge roller. I'm not great at touching up the corners but oh well. Bry tried to wipe the walls like he thought they were dirty...how cute!
Valentine's Day is approaching, but no real exciting plans here, hubby will be gone for a trip. But I did get the kids some little chocolate covered marshmallow treats and some chocolate sweet hearts. I put a little gift together for the teachers also. I didn't want to fill it with just candy so I wanted to find some other little things to put in it. It turned out really cute and only cost me about $5 a teacher, not bad in my mind considering I had to make six of them.! The pail came from the dollar section at target, the candles also from Target ($6 for 7 candles) A piece of chocolate covered raspberry candy, a roll of sweet tarts and a cute little crystal cube with a vase and roses etched inside (from dollar store! $1 :) ) and the chocolate hearts, also a cute little heart filled with seeds that we give out to patients at work, if you plant the heart it will grow forget me nots! Anyway it was fun to make and didn't cost much at all.
We actually watched some movies this weekend! We rented Open Season which was very funny and little Miss Sunshine, I did fall asleep and miss the end but I will watch that before I have to take the movie back on Wed. I did enjoy the first half though, until I fell asleep. MC watched a Jet Li movie called Fearless. I watched some of it in the middle of painting. I do like martial arts movies but didn't have the time to sit and watch that one this weekend, but MC enjoyed it!
Well better go start cleaning and organizing and even a trip to the grocery before the day is gone. Maybe I will have some time tomorrow to work on my scrappin' I hope so.!!

Photo collage

Here is a photo collage that I created with some new software I got for Christmas. The software has so many neat things to do with photos, I just have to make the time to play and explore all the applications. Eventually I want to make a movie that incorporates still photos so that I can have that of the boys as they grow up. One day I will work on that project.
Busy day at work today, kinda unusual to say the least but at least the day went by fast! Looking forward to the weekend, not sure what we're going to do yet, maybe take a drive to the lake to check it out or something. Checked out a Catholic school nearby for D to start preK but he won't be old enough. He misses the date by about 3 weeks. Oh well, we will just try to get him in next year. I can't believe in one year he'll be starting school (almost) boy how the time flies.

Play doh time

Dev and I had a play doh date! He had such a great time trying to make things. He wanted me to make an elephant (yeah susan!) but I wasn't sure if I could. I'm not the clay maker that's for sure. Anyway it was turning out alright and I asked him what I needed to add to him such as legs, eyes, ears and body. When we got to the tail he insisted that the elephant have TWO tails. I tried to tell him that elephant's only have one tail but he insisted....so......ours has two! He decided to make a bird, which to me looks like a mosquito of sorts. It is so fun to observe a child's mind at play.

All is well here, trying to catch up on housework from the weekend and get ready for the week ahead. We are also counting down to our trip to Hawaii......Yeah! Only two months left and I can't wait, guess I'll be starving till then though, HA!

PURE CONCENTRATION:

THE BIRD/MOSQUITO:

THE INFAMOUS TWO TAILED ELEPHANT:

Hat day.....

Well the snow has melted but it's still pretty cold outside! I know the boys will love it when the weather warms up! Had a date night last night! M suprised me and had my mom come over after work to babysit. We just went out for dinner, but it was really nice to enjoy a relaxing dinner without "Mommy" being said about a trillion times! (Although, wouldn't change that for the WORLD!)

Bryson loves to read books, but I think his next favorite thing is hats! He really enjoys putting on different hats all different ways. So of course I had to pic it for you to see.....

MiMi and Grandaddy J.....the boys are really missing you guys!!(Hint Hint)

SNOW PICS!

SNOW DAY!

Well yes we did get snow last night. The boys aren't going to school and I'm not going to work. It will be a play day:) I'm sure we'll be out in the snow in a little bit and I'll take pics and post them. I don't think the snow will stick though the high today is like 35. So we'll see.....

Superbowl Quick Recipes

Well it's almost Super Bowl time. I do like to watch football, although I really enjoyed it most when the Rams were doing awesome and even went to the Superbowl! Anyway, here are a couple quick recipes to try for game day or any other time you wish.

BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP
2 cans of chicken (large size)
1 cup Ranch dressing
1/4 - 1/2 cup hot sauce (depending on how much heat desired)
2- 8 ounce packages of cream cheese (room temp)
Monterrey or cheddar cheese shredded
*Mix all ingredients together except for cheddar cheese. Sprinkle top with desired amount of cheddar cheese. Bake at 350 for approximately 15 minutes, serve warm with tortilla chips or even celery.


PRETZEL SURPRISE
1 ½ cups crushed pretzels
½ cup sugar
1 stick margarine, melted
3 oz. Cream cheese
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 20 oz. Can crushed pineapple, well drained
1 8 oz. Container cool whip
*Mix pretzels, sugar and margarine together. Press ½ of mixture in an 8 X 8 inch dish.
*Mix remaining ingredients
*Pour over pretzel mixture
*Sprinkle remaining half of crumbs on top
*Chill
This recipe is great but definetely not sugarfree....:)

Hope you can try these great recipes.
As far as the weather goes.. it's way too cold here in Memphis. We feel like we are back in STL. They are even predicting the possibility of WINTRY MIX. Yuk!! I sure hope we don't get it.
Devin is doing great with his boot on. I know he will be glad to get out of it in about 2 more weeks. Bryson is talking more and more. He tries to repeat alot of what we say, it's so cute. He loves to watch the Baby Einstein movies with Dev and he also loves the Cars movie just like older bro.. Mike took Dev to Chuckie Cheese the other day. What a trooper. He said it was a zoo like mad house in there, but the key is that Dev had fun. And most of all he only spent $5 since it was so crowded. I'll be glad when it warms up so we can get back to the outdoors stuff like the park and the zoo and the pool!!!
Oh and Kelli, hope you don't drink up all the wine you bought for us.. Or maybe you CAN enjoy it till we see you guys in March. Just don't forget to buy more.. ha ha.

IN LOVING MEMORY..

This post is in memory of my grandfather Paul B. Cantrell. July 31, 1917- January 19, 2007.
He retired from the US Air Force as a Lt. Colonel. He was awarded many distinguished medals and awards as well as recognition. I have included the newspaper obiturary that you can click on so that you can read it. I regret that I did not get to know him better on this earth; as well as him meeting his great grandchildren. Although, they will know of him and his great accomplishments through me, my dad and my aunts and uncles. I know he will be greatly missed. We all know that he is in a better place and no longer suffering. I will miss you granddad.

Devin's Fracture!!???!!

How wierd is it?! Devin was complaining of his leg hurting. He has done this once or twice before but then seemed to not have pain anymore and would just continue running, jumping, playing as usual. This one day Mike decided Devin should go to the doctor for his pain.(Meanwhile, my grandfather had passed away and I was in Panama City.) The Dr. sent Dev for an xray and to our GREAT SUPRISE Dev had a fracture in his ankle in the smaller bone called the fibula. They had told us he would have to have a cast, but when we saw the ortho Dr. he said Dev only needed a walking boot for a few weeks. He even felt that the fracture had started to heal. We have no idea when he did it!! He is a trooper and doing very well with the boot with little to no complaints with it. Although, I know he will be glad to not have to wear it anymore, with 2-3 more weeks left and counting..... Here are a few pics of his boot. I told him he could decorate it with stickers if he wanted, but he didn't want to.

BABY MIKEY!

Just a test to see if I could get a slideshow to my blog page. It worked!!

HANDMADE JEWELRY

A friend of mine owns a company where she makes her own jewelry! It's great. I have a few pieces and they are great! She has traditional and also more contemporary pieces. Great gift ideas for the women in your life!! Girls love the jewelry, right?!!!!!!!! Check out her site here or you can visit from the link under a few of my favorite sites over to the right! Take a look, you might just find something that catches your eye! SUSAN.... I know you love elephants! It might me a little too much but she has displayed on her site a couple purses with elephants on them, pretty unique!! Check it out.

MY HONEY'S HOBBY

Here's some pics of my Mike's newest RC car. This one he actually built from a kit, meaning it came in a box in lots of little pieces that he had to put together one by one. He hasn't run it outside yet, because we're having so much rain, but we'll hope for the best. Look Tim he really did it!!!!!!!!!!!!

The boys already want to play with it!

A GREAT RECIPE

Well our incoming company got held up in STL due to horrible icy weather. What a bummer........But I sure don't want them to travel on icy roads! We will definetly have to reschedule!! The weather here isn't great either, it is raining and supposed to rain the entire weekend.

I have made two recipe books for people recently and have decided to make my own for myself. As I am gathering my recipes I felt I had to post this GREAT recipe. This is a must try and is not hard to make at all. It has just a few ingredients, only takes a few minutes to make and once cooled, TIME TO EAT!! I found the recipe online when looking for one for a work luncheon. Anyway enough on the history, copy this down and you have to try it!!!!


Sopapilla Cheesecake
2 8oz. Pkg cream cheese (room temp)
2 pkg refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract
1/3 cup melted butter
1/2 cup cinnamon sugar( ½ cup sugar mixed with 1 tbsp cinnamon)

*In 9x13 baking pan, unroll one pkg of crescent rolls and line the bottom of pan.
*Mix cream cheese, sugar and extract. Spread over crescent rolls. Unroll 2nd can of crescent rolls over cream cheese mixture. Pour melted butter over the top and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
*Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.
*Best served chilled.

Everyone that has tried this has loved it! Anyway I am going back to my recipe book and maybe I'll post a recipe weekly or so. Take care for now.

TO DAD

This post is just for you dad. The boys enjoyed seeing you at Christmas and Devin even remembered your long mustache before we even saw you! We are thinking about starting Dev in Taekwando soon. A new school Mike checked into has a 3-6 yr old. prog. It should be fun, he likes imitating daddy kicking on the kick target at home. We will also check into T-ball soon. I don't know the age specs yet, but we'll be checking soon. Devin hopefully will go back to school tomorrow, he had blood work and chest xray today due to fever for a few days, but they found nothing(which is a good thing) just a stubborn virus I suppose.
Hope the new BP meds work well for you. Hi to Dee also from all of us.
Keep an eye out on the blog for new updates soon. We are having company from STL this weekend so I'll post pics later from our visit.
Bryson is doing great also, and growing up so very fast, he's already trying to say several words and copies everything Devin does:) Love ya...

Happy New Year!

Well, it's been an eventful few weeks with the holidays and a sick child. Dev just can't beat this virus that he's been battling. He's home again today with fever and on his 3rd round of antibiotics, what a bummer.... I hope he gets back to himself very soon.

We actually had a New Year's Eve out this year. The daycare had a parents night out and we went to a friend's that Mike works with. We had a great time and actually stayed up to watch the ball drop...it's been several years since we've stayed up that late on New Year's,(we're getting old and with kids...)

I have finally started my scrapbooking again to catch up on Bryson's book. I am actually just starting it and he's almost 15 months old. But better now than never. I have decided to only scrapbook for each boy up to one year old. After that I am just putting pics in regular old fashioned albums. I haven't decided what I will scrap after I'm done with Bryson's book; maybe just special events or vacations or something. I just finished Dev's 1 yr book about 3 months ago. I think his books will be bigger than Bry's just because I took more pics, and with Bryson I didn't really have a shower. But the books will be great just the same! It's amazing to see how much they resemble each other as babies.

Just a few pages that I have completed.

I am looking forward to our friends from STL coming to visit this weekend. They were such great neighbors and friends in STL. I know Dev will have a great time playing with their girls. I just hope it doesn't rain the whole weekend, but we'll still have fun drinking and chatting.

Well I must go take care of my baby boy. That's all from here for now.