End of the week

Yay! It's Friday! I'm so happy. It seems like it's a been a long week for some reason!
I am happy that I found this great guy this week! I went to Lowe's for a few things and I wandered through what was left of the Halloween decor. Yes, they are already putting up Christmas and getting rid of Halloween. I found this great guy on sale! His eyes light up, but I'm not sure how yet. The batteries were dead and I haven't gotten to the store for more. It's the watch type batteries that he needs. I hope he doesn't have red eyes though...kinda creepy!

I pulled out the Halloween glasses for the boys and made them some skull juice. I have a skull head ice cube tray and put some water and flavored Mio to make some colored skull heads. I didn't have any food coloring so I used the Mio, it worked just as well. The boys liked it very much!

I did pick up some other fun treat stuff to keep the Halloween theme going but I won't pull out my next treat until this weekend. You'll have to check back to see what it is!!

Well it's the first soccer games of the season tomorrow. I hope they don't get rained out. Dev's team has had one practice and Bry's team didn't get to practice this week due to the rain. The games should be interesting to say the least! The boys are excited though and can't wait. Unfortunately their games are at the same exact time. They do play at the same location though so I should be able switch between games during half time.

I'm hoping to get a new camera for Christmas or even my birthday!! I used to love the idea of carrying a small pocket size camera. But now that the boys are into sports and other things I really want a fancy smancy camera that will take some awesome pictures! My camera doesn't do well at all for fast motion or sports pics so I really want to get one so I can get all the action shots! 

  

  Happy for me that I got up again this morning and worked out. That makes 4 days up at 430am this week! Whew.....I must say it is paying off though so I want to keep it up. So, tonight is my cheat night for food. I'll be trying to decide all day what I want!! I'm thinking maybe Mexican or Japanese...or BOTH!! LOL...just kidding. If I go Mexican I need to have margaritas with it so I'm leaning that way, I miss my margaritas!! yum!! I think the boys would prefer Japanese. Bry is my sushi eater too! Of course only the cooked stuff, he loves the California roll!! I have to say the boys are great eaters. We have made some new dishes this week in our quest to be healthier. Earlier in the week we had shrimp scampi over spaghetti squash. The boys chowed it down and only at the end did I tell them what it was. After their first helping I just asked them if they wanted more noodles...LOL.... They didn't know much of a difference, they liked it! Then Mike made some Zucchini pancakes..wow!! Those were really yummy. They are not pancakes you eat with syrup, more like a fritter. The ingredients are things like egg, Parmesan cheese, zucchini and maybe one other item. The boys loved those too!! Last night we ordered a pizza for the boys because it was a school fundraiser for their school. Dev wanted his with onion, bell pepper and mushroom. I love that they will eat more than just pepperoni. Bry went with pepp and sausage last night. He usually likes black olives on his also. He has been a little under the weather this week though. He has a cough and runny nose. I think he is headed to the upside of it though, at least I hope so. He has been a little cranky, but he's been eating pretty good still so I know it's not too bad...he really likes to eat!!

Sunday Mom and I are taking a road trip. We are going to an IKEA store near Miami. I have never been but I've heard alot of people talk about it. I have never lived near one so finally we are close enough to make it a day trip. I think it's about 1 hr and 45 min from us. So Mom and I are headed to check it out and make it a day of shopping, or browsing and sight seeing. It should be fun! 

If you aren't on FB then I must share that I've now added another animal sighting or animal warning sign to my collection of interesting things since we've been here. The other night right down the street from our subdivision the boys and I saw two cows just grazing right along the sidewalk! Wow, they got out from somewhere. It never occurred to me to report it ....LOL... but when we came back home and passed the area, the cops had the road blocked off and I guess they were searching for them. Too funny! I guess next time I'll call to report the runaway cows! So now I've seen....a dead wild boar, a living and dead bobcat, a large snake, an alligator in the water ditch while riding my bike, deer, armadillo, various birds, what else?? , panther crossing signs, bear warning signs ( they have had bears in people's backyard about 25 min south of us!) , oh yeah an aggressive alligator warning in our neighborhood, and it seems like there has been more but can't think of it right now. It's become hysterical to me!! I moved to the zoo!! ha ha...at least it's interesting!

Well I hope everyone has a great weekend and stay safe if Karen is heading your way!!!! Toodles. By the way I rarely proofread my posts so please excuse any errors. I do use spell check now but that's about it!! LOL.

Yada yada

     Well I was just reminded why I blog. I was looking for a picture from a party I had in the past to share with a girl that wanted to know how I decorated for a certain party. In looking back through my old posts I was so happy....it was so nice seeing old pics and things we did over the years. Even though at times it may seem like random ramblings, it is definitely just a little peek into our everyday world. I want to find a way to get it printed for a long term keepsake. I think a friend of mine made her blog into a book so I'm checking into it. Wow....looking through old posts and pictures really encourages me to keep doing this journal of our life. A journal is exactly what it's like and I get to include pictures!
    So Dev did get to have soccer practice yesterday finally!! He was so excited! Bry even got to practice a little bit with him. Bry is supposed to have practice today but rain is predicted...boo! I sure hope it holds off so he can have his practice. I think next year we will check into getting the boys into a competitive team. They seem to be pretty good at soccer and sometimes I think the rec league isn't enough of a challenge for them.
     I just realized that I didn't take any pics of Mike on his birthday.Wow...how did that happen? I am usually always taking pictures. He got lucky this time but I'll have to make up for it on other occasions and next year!
     Dev is still enjoying drawing in his free time. Here is a sample of one of his drawings. He is into drawing Ninjas at the moment. Very detailed!
   

Mom and I did a little Halloween shopping yesterday and came across this!! What a great wig, I couldn't help but take a picture wearing it!!

Of course October isn't complete without some fun glasses!!

I love this girl skeleton I found at Michael's! She is even holding a Mardi Gras mask in honor of our short residence in Louisiana...ha ha!

Just a little decorations I got put up. This one includes the picture of when I had a witch party. It's hard to see the picture here, but it was about 16 of us girls all dressed up as witches for a great party! I love to put it out every year! I miss those girls! I hope I can meet another group of great girls around here so I can start having my parties again!! I really miss the parties!! I love to entertain!!

Also got this cute tablecloth at Michaels. It was only $1.99!! you can't beat that!

And, gotta love the Dracula window clings!!

I did get a few yard decorations put out also. I am still in search of something else for the yard...I will know what it is when I find the right thing!

Wanted to post this cute picture of Dev on his birthday morning... He was so sweet telling me that he loved my homemade sign! 

   The boys did just fine riding the bus this week. They didn't have any trouble! I knew they would be OK, but Momma always does worry just a little bit!
   
   What else...well this is my 3rd week of getting up at 4:30am so I can workout before I go to work. I am not a morning person but it is the only time I can make sure I workout. I think I am finally getting used to it. I still don't like it, but I'm getting used to it. I have about 2 months before my girls trip to NYC for my 40th birthday!! Me and three other girlfriends are spending four days in New York to celebrate mine and my girlfriends birthdays. Her birthday is only 1 week before mine and her sister and my friend Denise are joining us! It's going to be a blast!! I sent off for Michael & Kelly tickets but I don't know if we will get them. That would be cool!! So anyway, I'm trying to lose some pounds before the trip. I always do better with a motivational tool.

     Survivor is on again!! I like the show, and don't mind watching it but I am a little annoyed that they keep bringing back some of the same people over and over and over again!! Seriously, in my opinion I don't get it! I know there have got to be thousands of people out there that want to be on Survivor and they keep bringing back the same people! Wierd!!

I am going to be browsing Pinterest for some serious storage solutions! Our house has little to no storage space! Funny thing is I got rid of tons of stuff for this last move and I still have tons of stuff that I need to find a place for!! Alot of it is memorabilia and things that are sentimental. I'm going to have to find great storage solutions for tight spaces!!

    I found Bry a Halloween costume! yay...but the size I had to buy him is amazing! I bought the size I thought would fit Dev and be a little big on Bry. Nope!! It fits Bry perfectly and wouldn't fit Dev. I think I might have to move to the adult costume sizes for Dev, mainly on his height! wow.... so Bry is going to be Spiderman. It's a perfect costume because it's fairly light weight and has a cloth face mask instead of one of those plastic ones. I think it will be perfect for our Disney trip also. Now I still have to find something for Dev! Still searching....

    HAPPY HUMP DAY!! Lol....are you tired of that saying yet? ha ha...the boys love the camel commercial!!  Toodles for now!

Progress

   Well the house is coming along. Slowly but surely I am making progress. Baby steps...trying to take it one room at a time and get things set out, pictures hung etc. This weekend I was able to get quite a bit done on Saturday with some of Mom's help. By the way a great tip for hanging pictures....put a little toothpaste on the back of the picture and then once you have it lined up where you want it on the wall press it against the wall. The toothpaste will show you where to put your picture hangers and then you just wipe off the toothpaste! We saw this online and tried it this weekend. Wow..it worked great. The pictures were hung in the right place the first time!! Saturday night Mike and I went out to dinner to celebrate his birthday. It was a nice casual dinner and we got to watch some of the college football games, his choice of course. LOL.. but I didn't mind.
    The boys are disappointed because they haven't had any soccer practice or games in two weeks. The rain has saturated the fields and ground everywhere. Luckily we haven't had any rain since last Friday so hopefully they will get to practice this week. Although, rain is predicted in it's usual fashion for the afternoons later this week so we will have to see what happens.
    The boys got their bus pass for school. They rode the bus for the first time this morning to school. Dev was excited, I think Bry was pretty nervous. He is mostly nervous about being able to know what bus to get on in the afternoon. I have to admit I'm a little nervous too, but I told them to make sure and ask teachers for help and they will do fine. I think it will only take this one day and they will be pros at finding the bus home.
     I'm excited that it is October. I love decorating for Halloween. Although in going through my decorations, I'm a little disappointed because it seems I don't have as much as I thought. Oh well, thanks to Pinterest there are many cheap decor ideas I'd like to try! yay.... We still need to figure out costumes for the boys. I found a great superman costume at the Goodwill but it was too small for Bry. Boo....so we are still searching. I want to find something comfortable for them to wear though, because we are going back to Disney for Bry's birthday weekend! We are also going to Mickey Not So Scary Halloween party at Disney and the boys get to wear costumes (us too...) and trick or treat throughout Disney. So I want to find something they can wear that will allow them to ride some rides and also be comfortable. I found a cute Pocohantas dress for $5 at Goodwill, it looks brand new and also found Mike a Dracula cape. I know he won't dress up much so the cape was perfect! Now to only find the boys some costumes. I did find a clown costume but Bry's first question was "Is it a creepy clown?" LOL....I don't think it looked creepy but I still didn't want him to wear a clown costume....LOL...poor clowns.
     It was so nice that Friday evening the boys and I took a bike ride. We were so happy it wasn't raining and then we stopped at the playground. The boys were so funny. They were making their American Ninja Warrior obstacle course. Very creative, they had a blast.!

Well I think that's all I have at the moment...toodles.
   

10!

Wow...my baby is growing up!! So he looks exactly the same just taller!!!

I can't believe he has hit the DOUBLE DIGITS!!! 10 YRS OLD!!!

More pics and updates soon!

It's no surprise

        So....to say we had a good weekend in Disney would be probably an understatement!! Wow...what a great trip!! We got to our treehouse Friday evening. Wow!! That place was great!! I took tons of pics!! It was just like what I thought and it was awesome! We also got a great location also, we were right next to the boat launch and also the bus stop. We quickly got a little settled in and headed to Downtown Disney for a little shopping. The boat ride was fun. It was dark so it was like we were heading down a jungle river and you could see the other treehouse villas in the woods. Lots of people shopping in downtown and Dev found something he liked of course. My frugal Bry found a small item he wanted but that was it. We then headed back to the villa to settle in for the night and prepare for a full day on Saturday.
        Dev was given a Happy Birthday pin to wear and everywhere we went everyone was telling him Happy Birthday. Saturday we headed to Hollywood Studios. We got a little later start than I would of liked but I tried very hard not to be the vacation drill sergeant like i usually am...ha ha... After a little hiccup picking up our tickets we were on our way into the park. Lots of walking and more walking. We saw some great shows and Mike and I rode the Rockin roller coaster for the first time. Needless to say we loved it. We waited all day for the Toy story ride fast pass time to arrive. Mom and the boys rode while Mike and I waited. It was warm but tolerable and it wasn't very crowded. Yes it's Disney so there are lots of people but it wasn't that bad. We decided not to hang around for the Fantasmic night firework show. We have never seen it before but I think everyone was pretty tired of walking and ready to go by 6pm so we headed back to the resort for some dinner. After dinner Mom and I convinced the boys to enjoy the pool instead of going back to downtown Disney. They swam and we relaxed by the pool, ahh... it was nice.
     The boys agreed on who would sleep on the top of the bunk bed fairly easily. I was surprised but Bry won out and slept up there both nights. After breakfast on Sunday we went to Animal Kingdom. As we entered the park the sweet lady attendant asked Bry if he wanted to share in his brothers happy birthday wishes, so she gave him a button to wear also. ha ha...Little did she know we'd be back for his, but he loved it anyway!!  So all through the day Sunday both boys got Happy Birthday wishes. The crowds were pretty light. We went straight to Expedition Everest roller coaster. Only Dev would ride, so me, Mike and Dev rode. We went into the single rider line and got right on. I switched with another girl and Dev and I got to ride together anyway! yay! Dev was scared and almost didn't ride it, but after it was over he loved it. Then, he told me he was shocked that he rode that ride when he was seven!! lol....yes he did!!! Bry didn't want anything to do with it. Bry did ride a few small rides but didn't want to do any of the bigger ones.  It was a nice trip, we got to do several things at both parks that we didn't do the last time we visited them. We ate a real late lunch and then headed home. We were lucky and it rained while we were in eating lunch and we were all done with the park. The weather was much more humid on Sunday but still nothing like a hot day in the mid summer.
     So I have tons of pics to share so I'll have to figure out how to share some of those in the easiest way possible.
Toodles for now

It's happy happy time

Yay...it's time to have a celebration weekend!! I'll post pics for sure. I can't believe my baby is turning double digits....10!!!! Hope everyone has a great weekend!!!!

And we are staying in one of these!! whoo hoo... It's a treehouse villa!! This will be so cool! He is so excited!

Toodles!

Not as planned

    Of course the weekend didn't quite go as planned. I did get my hair done so I'm happy for that. My appointment got moved up to a earlier time on Sat so we didn't make it to the flea market. The day  seemed to go by so quickly I just can't believe how fast it goes when you don't want it to.  For some reason the rest of Saturday is a blur....
    Sunday was a busy day. After Church we headed to get the boys some new soccer shoes and shin guards. We found out that now Dev has progressed into the Men's sizes! Whoa...no longer shopping in the boys shoe section for him! Yikes, which also means higher prices! We negotiated with him for the ones he really wanted. We were only willing to pay a set price for the cleats. He really liked ones that were $5 more(of course) so he agreed to pay the extra money out of his own money. That was fine with us! Oh yeah, proud Mommy moment from Mass this morning. The Priest was asking people to please help donate to the "poor box" as you left out the doors to help the Ministry for people in need. Dev leaned to me and told me to take $2 out of his money so that he could put it in the box. I was very proud of him for wanting to do that all on his own!  The rest of Sunday was spent looking for some new furniture. The boys weren't too happy but the weather wasn't good for the pool so they weren't missing out on swimming. They did really good and I was proud of them for hanging in there as we went from store to store. Yes we did find some things we liked, so now we just have to make the final decision.
   Tomorrow we have a parent teacher conference with Dev's teacher. We don't seem to be on the same page as the teacher. I feel like I don't know what he is doing at school, or needs to be doing. He hasn't brought hardly any work home to work on and then he has tests and doesn't do very well on them. I have asked her several questions through email and I've decided an in person conference might be better so that I can get some answers...I little stressed about this. It's not like either of my boys to not get good grades, so I need to figure out what is going on and get things straightened out. Some of  the same issues with Bry. He is getting pretty good grades overall but he'll bring home a test he did poorly on and tell us he didn't understand what he was supposed to do. Again, papers, study guides etc were never sent home prior to the test for us to help him study. I am setting up a conference with his teacher also. I feel the boys need things to study at home especially if they are not learning it well enough from the in class lessons..ugh...anyway I could type on and on about this. Hoping to get it worked out in the next week or so.
     First soccer practice of the season tonight. But I have a feeling it might get cancelled due to our typical afternoon thunderstorms. I know the boys will be disappointed if that happens!
     Well that's my Tuesday update. Feeling a little better today than yesterday but still stressed. I just need to get the boys school situated and then get our routine back in order and I think I will do better. We do have a fun weekend ahead  planned in Disney for Dev's birthday celebration weekend. He is so excited but bummed that it's such a short trip. He is already planning what he is going to buy from the Disney store. I'm keeping an eye out on the weather hoping we don't have to wear ponchos all day! I'm so ready to get to the Happiest Place on Earth!!!!!!
Toodles
   
 

One word for today

BLAH!!!
It's not like me but totally feeling blah today...I'm sure I'll get over it...well I have to but for now...

BLAH!!!

It's that perfect day

FRIDAY!!  Whoo hoo! I am really happy for today, the weekend is here! We are planning to check out the local flea market in the morning. It's supposed to be huge and lots of great stuff. For some reason the boys are thrilled to go to it. They have never been to one before so I'm not so sure what's exciting but that must be it, it's something new! I am also getting my hair done! yay! It's about time, my hair has been needing something done for awhile but with all the moving and stuff it hasn't happened. I'm going to try out a girl that someone at work recommended. I sure hope I like her and that she does a good job. Then hopefully we can get out looking for a few things we need around the house. Of course, more emptying of boxes and organization planned for this weekend too. Since I'm working now I haven't had time to do all the stuff I normally do. I would say at this point I would of already had the house pretty much set up and organized but not on this schedule!

The weather here has been great. People here complain it's hot, but for us it's been so nice. Yes there have been some hot days but not much humidity and almost always a breeze from the water. I think we almost broke a record high of 95...whoa.....much different than the over 100 temps we have endured in the past. I guess in a few years we will become more of a heat wimp too...ha ha.. The only thing is that we are in the rainy season right now. When they say rainy "season" they really mean it! I think it has rained almost every day since I've been here since the end of May. Now before that Mike said it almost never rained from Jan to May. So it's interesting. Sometimes it is down pours that last and sometimes it's a quick shower and it's over. I think we are almost out of the rainy season. I am loving the weather and I can't wait for the soon to arrive temps that we can open the windows and patio door and enjoy the cool weather!!

I bought some new coffee flavors from Target last night. The only disappointing thing is that after getting home I realized the Pumpkin Spice is decaf! Boo! I think I will take it back instead of mixing it with some regular coffee like my hubby suggested. I tried the Candy Corn this morning. It was good. It did not have a strong flavor at all, in fact it was a very mild taste almost like a Vanilla to me.

I will be looking for the Pumpkin spice full caffeine version though!!

After almost 3 moves I still have the boys growth chart that I just put back up on the wall. It's amazing to see how they are growing. I also like to see the comparison of both boys and how tall they were at the same age. Amazingly I think Bry has been just barely taller than Dev at each birthday. So we will see where Bry falls once his birthday gets here next month. The other amazing part is that they are almost as tall as I am!! That's crazy! Also Dev wears the same shoe size that I do. We could literally wear the same shoes. Good thing he's not a girl...he would totally be stealing my shoes to wear right now I just know it!! LOL....

I hope Sunday is nice so I can get to the pool with the boys. When we first moved here the beginning of the summer we were at the pool daily!! It was wonderful. Of course now with school and work it doesn't happen often. Since we've been in the house these 3 weeks we've only been to the pool once. So hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can enjoy the pool. Our subdivision has a really great pool!

I think that's all I have for this TGIF. Toodles and have a great weekend!!

So this is it!!

Ok, so here goes nothing. I am going to try to keep up my blog yet again. So many of you family and friends have told me that you miss seeing what we are up to. Even though I'm on FB and so are many of you, I know it's different. Yes I post random events and pics on FB quite a bit, but I'm not going to post more intimate family moments with all of FB world. I do miss my journaling of our life events and daily happenings. So I've decided I need to get back on here and BLOG. Things have been nothing but busy over the last two years. It hasn't been boring that's for sure! Lots of things happening, lots of new things to see and do and lots of old things missed. We are making it just fine though and I know it's all in HIS plan. I'm excited for our new adventure in Florida!!

So this is my official "back at it" post. This goes for many aspects of my life also. Now that we are (sorta) settled in I can start to get a normal routine back in my life and in the boys life also. They have done pretty good with all this transition stuff but I know they do miss our old routine. So it's my goal to create our new routine!

Some of our most recent updates incase you missed it:

*We now live in Florida! It's great! I must say I love Florida..the weather...being close to the beach...and being close to our favorite spot....DISNEY!!
*We just moved into a new house. The housing is much different here than we are used to, but we found a house we like. We have boxes everywhere and rooms with not much furniture in them. We sold alot of our furniture before we moved from Louisiana. We didn't want to pay to move all of it and also didn't know what type of house we would move into. Shopping is on the agenda!!
*Mom moved to Florida too!! She only lives about 15 minutes from us. It's great. She picks the boys up two times a week from school to help us out. It's nice to have family nearby since we are so far away from other family!
*I am working full time. Yes this is a change for me. I know I'm spoiled but I liked it that way. I haven't worked full time since before Dev was born! But honestly right now full time is what we need. My job is great though and I really enjoy it. It also helps that I only need about 20-30 min to get to work and there's no traffic! I go between two offices and one of them I get to drive over a bridge with beautiful water views!! I love it...and I get to see the standstill traffic headed the other way! LOL  My usual commute has usually been a minimum of 45 min and closer to an hour so this is excellent!! Also one of my work offices is almost walking distance to Mom's so I drop by on my lunch break  :-)
* The boys are adjusting to their new school. It's been a little bit of a transition. I am still trying to adjust and not sure that I'm quite happy with it yet, but I'm trying to give it a chance. Mainly some teacher issues I'm dealing with. The boys seem to have made friends easily though so I'm happy about that. They also have many neighborhood boys to play with and that makes them very happy!!
*The boys are back to taking Taekwondo. They are really enjoying it. They started in the summer as a summer camp at the TKD school. The great part is that it's right across the street from their school. So now they go to aftercare at the TKD school 3 days a week and get to take TKD classes also. Many of the kids from their school obviously go there too so they are able to know many of the kids.
*The boys are starting soccer next week. They have been itching to play so I'm happy it's starting. Bry has been begging to play football but I'm not ready for that! I did ask them if they wanted to play flag football because I saw a flyer for flag. But neither boy was interested. I guess they felt it wasn't quite real football. That's totally OK with this Momma!!
*Mike is doing well. He was thrilled for us to finally join him after being here for 5 months by himself. His new job is going well. He only does day travel for the most part and covers a large area of Southern Florida.

Well that's the short story of our recent updates.

We just celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary! We spent a wonderful weekend away just by ourselves at Disney's Vero Beach resort. It was FABULOUS!!  We didn't do much and that was the point. Just mainly laid on the beach and watched and listened to the waves roll in. We had such a great time and got to learn alot about sea turtles! I even watched one of the workers dig up a hatched turtle nest for research. They do it daily checking for turtles that couldn't get out of the nest. It's very scientific actually! The nest she dug up had 100 hatched eggs and 1 unfertilized egg. All the turtles got out! They have 5000 nests on a 4 mile stretch of beach!! One evening we came up just in time to see the worker with a bucket of turtles she had found in nests later that morning. She was waiting until dark to release them. We walked down to the beach and watched her set them on the sand and they waddled out into the ocean to try to make it! It was unbelieveable!! Again...we had a FABULOUS  time!!

So keep checking back for updates! I think you can subscribe to this blog too somehow and it will email you when I make new posts. I'll check on that and let you know in case you are interested in following what we are up to down here in sunny Florida!!!

We miss all of you!!

Toodles.....

The boys got me some really cute Christmas toe socks for my birthday. Although, someone else seems to be keeping their toesies warm instead of me!!

Our Santa pic from breakfast with Santa. Ok, is it me or are the boys getting really big....yikes!

My little shepperd dressed in blue! How could I miss this smile!!

One  morning Mark the Elf left a note on a yellow something that told the boys to plug it in with Mom's help. Once it started to inflate Bry was so happy....it's SPONGEBOB!!!

More Elf antics.

This week has really flown by! I can't believe the boys only have 1 week of school left until Christmas break!! I have most all presents bought and wrapped so that's good! Just working on a few stocking stuffers and I"m done. Mike and I aren't exchanging gifts this year. With all this moving business, it's best that we focus on what we need and not what we want. Plus, we are taking a trip to FL over the Christmas break to check out our new area to live. So our trip will kinda be a present in itself. 

Hoping to drive around tonight to look at some Christmas lights. Then tomorrow we are joining some friends for dinner and then going to check out a light display in New Orleans. It should be alot of fun!

I've been in a cookie baking mode lately. We made some this week and I hope to make some this weekend and next week too. It's sad that this is my 2nd year in a row to not have a Cookie Exchange party. Boo...a friend in MS is having one this weekend and I'm sad that I'll miss that too. I hope by next year we will be settled and that I will have met some people so that I can restart my yearly tradition. It was so much fun planning and hostessing the parties! I sure miss it!

On a sad note: the tragic news today in the CT school is just heart breaking and there are no words. I have been teary eyed all afternoon watching the coverage of the terrible event. At times it was hard to hold back gushing tears.  Unimaginable! It is just unspeakable! It does serve as a reminder though that you must live in the mindset of today! You can not dwell on yesterday or wish upon the future. You never know what each day will hold and you must cherish each day and live life to the fullest!! Have no regrets and remember to show and tell everyone in your life how much they mean to you!! Love to all!!

Mark strikes again, he copied Dev's evening activity of making snowflakes! The boys loved it! 

I had a great birthday on Friday! I had the day off from work, perfect. Mike spent the day with me and we went downtown to pick up my race packet for the 1/2 marathon. They had this board with all the registered racers' names on it. I was able to find mine after some searching. Pretty cool. The weather was set to be pretty fantastic for the race. Then Mike and I enjoyed a nice lunch in a Greek Lebanese cafe downtown. It was great to have a nice relaxing lunch just the two of us. Then a little shopping and then quickly time to pick up the boys from school. I took some me time in the evening and went to the school to help decorate for the Breakfast with Santa. It was fun, me and another Mom created the backdrop for the Santa pics. Drawing, cutting, gluing and designing...right up my alley. Lots of fun. Then I went home and enjoyed a nice evening with all 3 of my boys. My birthday wish was for Mike to handle everything that had to do with any meal for the weekend. Ah....what a nice relief, and he did pretty good! I didn't have to think about what was to eat, shop for food to eat, cook any food to eat or clean up any food that was eaten...what a great gift! LOL!

Race day! Mike dropped me off so I wouldn't have to worry about parking and then came back later to see me cross the finish line. I have to say 3 times might be enough for me! I didn't train as much for this one and I could sure tell. Actually I did great up to about mile 10, I had maintained my goal time at mile 10. But then it went downhill from there. I got tired, had to do some walking and then mile 11 my calves starting cramping. I have never had that happen in the other two races! So I did a good bit of walking and running and finally crossed the finish line. It was not my fastest or my slowest time so I guess that's pretty good. I'm happy it's over and I will not fall pressure to my friend wanting to do a full marathon! NOT GONNA DO IT!! In fact I really don't want to do more than a 10k (6 miles) or 10 miles in any other races. Hey...it's tough. I'd rather run the shorter distances and have fun, than run longer and be cussing the last 3 miles...ha ha ha!! But...happy... my 3rd 1/2 marathon done!!Yay!! It was also so great to have my boys and Mike watching me cross the finish line!!

AWESOME MEDAL!!  I think it's the biggest of my medals and the heaviest!! Wowzer!!

I'm looking forward to Christmas!! The boys are so fun this year and very much in the spirit! Especially with Mark the elf! They are always talking to him about what they want, and even left him a note to take to Santa...which he did!!!

Tonight is Bry's Christmas program at school. I went the other day for the dress rehearsal. I have to admit, I missed when his class sang their song. I mean really....75 kids all dressed in the same exact sheppard costume...I never found him!! I got confused that it was two classes up there and not one so I missed him...boo! When I told him I couldn't find him because they all looked the same, he sweetly looked up at me and said, " MOM, don't you know my face looks like thisssss!!" (With the most adorable smile!) It was priceless. Anyway Mike is going to watch tonight, I'm telling him exactly where Bry is! They only give 2 tickets per family due to limited capacity so that's why I went to the dress rehearsal and Mike is going tonight. I am staying home with Dev to work on his computer Math. He has the 5th highest points in the whole 3rd grade (75 kids). So we are trying to get him in the top 3. He loves Math and thank goodness I enjoy it too, or he'd probably be in the bottom 3...ha ha..

Well this is it for now, I have a few pics to post of Mark the elf and some from Breakfast with Santa on my next post, so keep a look out. I'm really trying to stay more frequent on here, for those of you that are still out there! Toodles. 

Our red friend

Our Elf Mark has been busy. He got into the candy canes and started to hang them on the tree.

He TP'd our tree! LOL

He got a little creative!

This was funny. Mark is in the bathroom. Our house is on the market, so Dev was worried that someone might come by and touch Mark while we were gone, so he left a note.... too cute!

The boys are really enjoying finding Mark every morning.

Well this is my short post for today. Gotta run and get started on homework with the boys, get a treadmill run in, cook dinner, work on computer Math with Dev, then make sure they take showers, clean up the house, and get settled for bed and ready to start tomorrow...whew...just a little to do! ha ha...

Shame on me

I know, I didn't get back on here to post like I said. boo!! Time just seems to fly by so quickly!!
Biggest news...most of you already know. We are moving again! I know...I sure hope this next move becomes a permanent home for us. I don't want to keep moving the boys around once they get older. Bry is very excited to know that there is a beach...too funny! "What?? Florida has a beach???" And of course we will be much much closer to Disney!! whoo hoo!!! We will somewhere in the vicinity of Tampa once we get moved.
My work is going well. It's very flexible and I really love that. I sure hope I can find something similar when we move. I've been helping out in the cafeteria at the school once every couple of weeks. I enjoy being able to help at the boys school and it's funny to listen to what all the kids have to say about what is for lunch. The 2nd 9 weeks is almost over at school and so far both boys are on track to make straight A's again!! yay!! so proud of them!
Our Elf Mark has arrived again this year. He did make an appearance earlier in the year when he snuck into our suitcase for our trip to Houston. The boys opened up a zipper pocket and yelled...Mark!! ha ha ha....yep I guess he wanted a mid year vacation. He has been really entertaining the boys this year. I hope to get some pics of the action on here this week of some of the things he has been up to.
This coming Sunday I am running my third 1/2 marathon! Unfortunately I will be running solo this time, no buddies to join me...boo hoo! But luckily Mike will be in town so he and the boys can be waiting for me at the finish. I haven't trained like I planned for this since we've had so many things happen in the last few weeks. But I'm going to get out there and just truck along until I cross the finish line.
Well this is my short update for now.I hope to get back on here with pics and more chatting this week. Toodles....

Ready for this!

I know it's been a little over forever since I've been on here. You've probably given up on checking on me...so sorry. Again, my excuse is time. But, there's seems to be so much going on that I should probably get back to sharing it and having a journal of our life's journey. So...my plan is to get on here tomorrow and share our major updates! Toodles..hope you check back soon!

Thinking thoughts

I saw this on FB and really loved it!! So I had to share it here too!

We had a great trip to Houston this past weekend. It was a  mini vacay for our anniversary weekend. We got lucky and had great weather. Except that is was very very hot!! But, at least we didn't have a rain out weekend. We did remember that we would never make it as a team on Amazing Race! Mike and I don't do well navigating together around an unfamiliar place. Even with a GPS we managed to make several wrongs turns and we couldn't agree which way to go. Hilarious! Other than that, great weekend. We visited an Art Car Museum. It was cool but I was disappointed that there were only a few cars compared to what was shown online, but we did see some driving around too so it was a little bonus. We ate at a fabulous burger place called Smashburger. It was so yummy! Basically they have any burger you want or chicken or even veggie if that's your cup of tea. Then we took the boys to the Natural Museum of Science. Wow, it was amazing!! It was such a huge and wonderful museum. They have a very extensive Dinosaur or Paleontology area that was so cool!! Many other exciting areas too. They both had a blast. Bry also got another smashed penny. I know you've seen those machines in tourist spots that smash a penny and put a logo on it of where you are visiting. He started collecting them so now we get one everytime we see one of the machines.

The next day we went to the zoo. Another fabulous place!! Also another smashed penny!
I have to say it might be the best zoo I've been to. The St. Louis zoo is pretty amazing but I think the Houston zoo might top it. It was very very hot and we sweated to death but still had an amazing day! Later in the evening we went to a free performance of Bollywood. Well the show was pretty good, not quite what I was expecting in the fact I expected more dancing and it was more like a play. We really enjoyed it but had to leave early because the boys were so exhausted. We left 1 1/2 hours into the play. I think it might of been 2 hours long or so. I hate we missed the end but we enjoyed the part we saw.

The final day we went to the Houston Galleria to walk around before we left. It is a huge 3 story mall. It was great too! Basically everything we did was great, so I'm happy about that!! I would love to go back with some girls so we could browse in all the fancy stores. My boys weren't that into all the stores. They had all kind of high end stores that would be fun just to walk around in, no buying for me in those stores...hee hee.

It was nice to get away and see a different area that I had never seen before. Houston is huge and I know I didn't even see a tiny piece of it, but still loved it!

Well that's a recap from our weekend and now I'll share a few pics. Toodles for now.

Swimming at the hotel

My little monkey checking out the monkeys!

Yes Bry has a blue mouth from his blue slushy drink ha ha.

Check out this huge anteater!

More monkeys!

The Lemur Momma has a baby on her back!! So cute!

Waiting for the train!