Before & After

I really like the panorama option on Chris' iPhone. So here is our before & after gift opening photos this year using the panorama.

Merry Christmas!!!

What Hadlley was up to today

So I came home from work to find Hadlley hanging upside down from the ceiling fan today. Lol. Guess he was hungry hanging there all day because when I got home from picking Logan up from school just a few hours later he was sitting on the kitchen counter with little mini elf kisses all around him. There was also a candy tree dish full of kisses with almonds. Yum yum!! Thanks Hadlley for the treat.

5 more....

Stephanie has been changing the date on the countdown pillow every morning. Well this morning it was already done when she went to do it, & who happened to be perched up top? Yep, Hadlley.

Brushing teeth

So I really think our little elf must dream of being a dentist. He's left tooth brushes & timers for the kids before & then last night he must have feel asleep brushing his teeth because this is where we found him this morning.

Straight from the North Pole

Straight from the North Pole our Hadlley arrived with a pit stop in the high school parking lot for a little tagging fun.

Stephanie went right after school to a friends house for a gag gift Christmas party. So she gets to drive around with all that. :)

Silver Dollar City

"Santa" brought us season passes to Silver Dollar City last year. We have put them to good use by visiting in March, twice this summer, & then again yesterday. Possibly Chris & I will make a quick trip to ride a few of our fave rides if we go to Branson for our anniversary.

The kids, myself, & Retha decided we wanted to see the Christmas lights & we made a quick trip yesterday. We arrived in West Branson a little before 4. We had already planned to eat fast food dinner as to not have to eat in the park. We encountered lots of traffic. The line to park was backed up to Hwy 76. Even though it was crowded we had fun. The weather was wonderful. Just a little cool (almost hot in line for Wildfire).

We rode:
Wildfire
Thunderation (twice)
Fire in the Hole
Train
Swings (only kids rode)

We enjoyed:
Christmas tree lightning
Funnel Cake
All the lights

The look

This is the look I get often from Logan when we question him about anything.

Visit & Upside Down Cake

Visited my parents today. I always go over to visit with them for their birthday. And since my moms birthday is next Friday we (kids & I) went over today. It was a relaxing day & we enjoyed pulled pork sandwiches, cupcakes, candy, ice cream, soda stream drinks & upside down cake. No seriously......the dessert/cake I made & so carefully placed in a cooler to keep cold on the drive over turned upside down & fell out of the cooler on the second corner I turned. Lucky for my backseat the Saran Wrap mostly did its job & held most of it. It just wasn't as pretty :( still tasted okay once Momma squeezed the chocolate from the drenched Saran Wrap back onto the cake.
Momma repotted a flower & gave me 4 stalks of a cool flower (sorry don't remember the name). Unfortunately I will most likely kill the plant (like all the others she's given me). My goal is to not make it dead. That's what I told Chris.
After repotting the plant we realized it wasn't cold outside like the last few days & then we enjoyed sitting out on the back deck just talking.
It was a nice relaxing day!!

Homecoming Parade/Game

Stephanie walked the homecoming parade with the club she is in last Friday. MAC (Mountie Art Club). The parade just happened to stop right in front of us so I was able to capture a few photos with her & the club. She then went to the game where the Mounties came out the winners over Springdale. 47-42.

Missi

Wore my hair down one afternoon after work & decided to try snapping a self portrait to text Chris. The text read "Wearing my hair down, not sure how long that will last :)" He likes my hair down better, but I don't like it on my neck/face so I don't wear it down much & usually leave it how it's fixed for work.

Since I don't seem to include many photos of myself I decided to for a change.

Birthdays

September is a busy month for birthdays around this house. We never let the kids take the day off school for their birthday, but ever so often Logan's will fall on Labor Day. This was one of those years. We enjoyed all the family over the Sunday before (Chris had to work Monday). Then out to eat on his actual birthday. Chris' birthday was Tuesday & we celebrated with dinner out once again. Then on Friday I surprised Stephanie with a half cake for her half birthday. I saw this idea on Pinterest & it sounded like fun. Plus another reason to eat cake ;)

Remnants of Hurricane Isaac

Just sitting in line waiting to pick Logan up from school on a very soggy day. It started late last night with wind (nothing bad) & then the rain reached us. It's been raining off & on since. Should clear up mid day tomorrow. Crazy to think that a storm can hold together & drop so much rain over so many miles.

Summer Recap

Since school has officially started I figured it was time to do a post on what things we did over the summer.

School was out earlier than ever before due to no snow days. That means we had a longer summer than normal which was nice. Last day of school was mid May.

So without further ado..
We enjoyed
Sleeping in
Taking naps
Grocery shopping in the middle of the week & not on a busy weekend
Library trips
Red box movies
Beach vacation
Two trips to Silver Dollar City
Hanging out with friends
Having friends over
Pool
XBOX/Wii
MLB Network
Fresh garden tomatoes
New living room furniture
Senior pictures (although I'm certain Stephanie didn't enjoy them since she blacked out @ one point & a photographer & myself had to hold her so she wouldn't fall down while the other photographers ran for fans, chair, & water)

First Day of School

Only 4 more of these photos for Logan. And no more for Steph!! I think she is VERY happy about that. Other than Stephanie's Kindergarten First photo every photo on the first morning of school has been taken by the same trees in our front yard.

Our week in rewind

Sorry about some photos cut off & large. Blogger wouldn't ever upload photos from my phone to my account so I had to text them in & it cuts off some (like the loveseat which has cup holders & a storage place in the middle). Here is our last week in rewind~ Saturday (yesterday) I was looking online for foldable water bottles & came across something that said Dollar Tree has them. So Retha & I headed to Springdale to see if I could find some. SCORE I found them & only $1. They should work for any more Silver Dollar City trips we have planned. And much cheaper than the $5.99 ones at Silver Dollar City or the $9.99 name brand ones I found online. Then I decided to stop at Funiture Factory Outlet & check out prices of funiture since they were having a big sale. We need living room furniture badly. Honest, I only wanted to price check. However I left with a truck load lol. Couch/Loveseat. Recliners on ends of both pieces so the whole family has a recliner. The loveseat also rocks too. I LOVE LOVE LOVE them!! We like to have never got them in the house, but finally they fit thru the door (after taking the backs off..........how nice they make them so that can happen)

Friday We swam & I finished a book from the library

Thursday We were going to take a friend of Steph's with us to Silver Dollar City however our free guest passes were for after 6pm only so I had to call & let her know. However in a couple weeks our next set of guest passes are for all day & it's still before school starts so we'll be heading back just me & the kids (with Steph's friend). Chris comped off work so he was able to go with us, he will not be going when I take the kids so that means that we will be able to go into Branson & do a quick outlet mall shopping before SDC. :) Oh and it rained FINALLY!! We needed it because we have our own golf course course looking backyard from lack of rain. It's so green where it is because that is where the water runs from doing backwashes on the pool.

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Wednesday I met up with 3 friends from highschool in Springdale for lunch. Laura is so good about setting it up every summer. After I came home from lunch we swam :) Tuesday I pinned some peanut butter cookies on Pinterest & they were GREAT!! So easy & I had all 4 items I needed to make them on hand. We swam.

Monday We swam, yes we FINALLY got our pool ready after vacation & have been enjoying the water each afternoon. Sunday Relaxed all day to recover from the garage sales over the weekend. We loaded up almost everything & Wallace dropped it off to Salvation Army for us

Our Monday (a couple weeks ago)

My car needed an oil change a few weeks ago. Good thing we brought books & the dealership has computers to use (or play games on). We were there for two hours.

Outake Fun

I know I normally only show the best of my photos on here, so I thought it'd be fun to show you some of the rejects outakes. You'd think my kids after 17 & 13 years would be used to me taking photos of them & be more "helpful". I mean for goodness sakes I even have a tag on the front of my car that says Mama-razzi.

Logan (yawn) "So bored"

I actually like this one, but they are goofing off so much I included it in this post. Steph "HA HA"

Steph "Wonder if mom will notice my hair all over my face?"

Steph "I don't mind my hair, I don't think mom will care either"

Eyes shut

Logan "Wonder if she'll go away if I pretend she's not here?"

Geez wheen is this gonna be oveer?

Steph "YIKES! What was that?"

Logan "Oh Stephanie, it's only mom taking photos AGAIN"

Beach Vacation Day 7 & 8

Day 7 (Sat) We headed into Gulf Shores to go to Souvenir City which we think is the best souvenir store in Gulf Shores. Once we got back home & ate lunch we went down to the beach to do some sand dollar hunting in the water. A couple boys were finding one after another so we wanted to get on in the action. We found some along with some large shells & a clam shell. Enjoyed reading under the canopy & round 2 of photos. This time the whole family got in on the fun.

Day 8 (Sun) Before we left everyone but me (again) saw the fox. Of course no one got a photo of it :( We left for home at 8:00am (had to stop to drop keys off at rental company & for gas in Gulf Shores & left Gulf Shores about 8:30-8:40. There was a lot of I-40 construction out of Little Rock so Chris decided to try coming home from south AR. We usually stay on interstates & come up from Mississippi into Memphis on I-40 into Little Rock. The road in south AR in the past was 2 lane & you would always get stuck behind slow drivers. Well they have changed it all to 4 lanes & we had smooth sailing & ended up getting home at 9:11. Fastest time EVER for getting home.

Beach Vacation Day 5 & 6

Day 5 (Thurs) We stayed at the house all day (meaning we didn't drive into Gulf Shores which is 22 minutes one way). We loaded up the crockpot for our pulled pork sandwiches & enjoyed the day by reading, napping, & sitting on the beach. Neighbors in the next canopy started feeding seagulls & FREAKED me out. So Chris & I headed back up to the house. Later that night Chris & I went back down after dinner to enjoy a long (mile & half) walk on the beach. We found lots of shells. Steph twisted her ankle skim boarding earlier in the afternoon.

Photo of Wallace (Chris's dad) but look at the people in the background to the left (green swimsuit) They were the seagull feeding neighbors.

Day 6 (Fri) Naps, beach fun then a break for dinner then back down to beach for more fun. Sand dollar hunting (I found 1).

Beach Vacation Day 3 & 4

Day 3 (Tues) We set up a canopy that we bought just for this trip. It was great shade & we all loved not having to lug beach chairs down/back to the beach/house every day. We left them down under the lowered canopy each evening. Not sure why it's taken us so long to get one. We stayed down at the beach from about 11:00am to 4:00pm (with a short break to eat lunch back up at the house). That evening we did round 1 of the photos with the kids. From staying at the waters edge all day & Logan hardly under the shade any he did get a little sunburned. Mainly on tops of shoulders.

These are my favorite photos from round 1.

Day 4 (Wed) Shrimp basket for all you can eat shrimp. I was the only one that had chicken strips this time. If you haven't figured out yet, I do not eat seafood of any kind. After lunch we all went to the scrapbook store that's in Foley. Retha & I have made a stop there each year for the past 2-3 years. Then we went to the outlet mall there in Foley (basically just around the corner). The guys, & kids headed to the ice cream shoppe, Chocolate Corner, on the way home. Retha & I stayed at the mall & went to a few more stores then stopped off at Walmart for a couple more things we needed.