catching up...

wow. i am really behind on this blog. here's what's been happening since i last blogged.

1. we finally got our house painted. we have been waiting until all the rain stopped in the fall. it finally did (for a couple days) and we got it painted. it looks really nice.

2. mckinlee has been curling her hair and wore it to school this way. something different. yay!
3. chris got his cholesterol checked and it was high. he has really been eating good since then. this meal was not what i wanted but it turned out to be pretty good. salmon on spinach and mixed greens with vinaigrette. after dinner chris said, "that was really good. even better than the salmon salad i had for lunch!"
4. we took ryan, camila and mckinlee out of school early last friday. we took them to lunch and ice skating. patricia and i froze to death for 3 hours watching them skate.
5. this is "our" new outdoor cat, dreamcicle. he comes for food and to sleep on our porch sometimes. chris is thrilled, hopeful that he will stay around and keep all the rabbits out of our yard.
6. we spent a fun week in waco. this day, mom took mckinlee and lauren to practically pikasso to be creative. here they are working.
7. here are the masterpieces just waiting to be fired. they were so cute when they were finished.
8. mom and i watching the girls paint.
9. mck & lauren downtown.
10. this was such a cute place we ate lunch at. i think it's called the olive branch.
11. my yummy lunch. wonderful potato soup!
12. taking mom and danielle's picture in spice. trying to get a picture for them to use for real estate. took some cute ones--just not any they were able to use. we found at later it needed to be vertical and i had taken them all horizontal! go figure.
13. mck took one of me with my short hair.
14. we spent the night at chris' mom and dad's and had a nice visit with them. she has been feeling so bad lately, but was feeling pretty good this day. i thought this was such a cute one of her and mckinlee.
15. we spent some time visiting grandaddy. right before we left to come home, we stopped to say goodbye. nathan was there with his guitar~so we all sang a song before we left.
16. when we got home, this is what we found! we were so excited.
17. i just loved this sign covered in snow.
18. dreamcicle's pawprints from his napping spot under the tree up to the porch.
19. mckinlee and i made these the other day. can you say delicious?
20. we took the girls skating yesterday. i just love all the music they play at skating rinks. takes me back to my childhood! (or at least the 80's.)
21. i had a few of the girls over to scrapbook and make cards today. here's michele and julie.
22. and mindy and me.
23. here's what it looked like outside my front door this afternoon. it was the perfect day to scrapbook. snowing outside~potato soup and coffee inside.
24. here's what the girls did while we were being creative.
25. here's a couple cards i made.
26. here are the other two.
well, that pretty much sums up what we've been up to the past week and a half.
off to watch full house with mckinlee. i just love that cheesy show. was uncle jesse the cutest or what?

fabulous friday finds

today my finds are a few of my favorite blogs. some of them are scrapbooking related, some home decorating and some organizational/simplifying your life. enjoy!

nienie dialogues
(she was in a horrible plane crash one year ago, lived through it and is really inspirational)

ali edwards
(one of my favorite scrapbookers. love her style and her handwriting.)

just be blogged-tara whitney
(one of my favorite photographers. if i ever go to california, i would LOVE for her to take our pictures!)

ohdeedoh
(such cute decorating ideas for kid's rooms and other neat ideas)

mnmlist
(really gets you thinking about simplification)

just me, my soldier and our two little chicks
(she used to live in waco. just love her scrapbooking and decorating style. and she has the cutest, funniest kids.)

stacyjulian
(another inspiring scrapbooker. love her sense of color and her organization.)

lisa leonard
(makes the most amazing jewelry.)

a beach cottage
(danielle posted about this blog. how i wish i lived in a beach cottage just like this one.)

smitten kitchen
(amazing recipes. love her photography too.)

those are just a few of my favorites. hope you enjoy them! have a great weekend.

grandaddy

prayers are with my sweet grandaddy as he is about to go in for surgery. he fell and broke his hip last night and is in horrible pain. he also has been recently diagnosed with bone cancer and apparently it is everywhere. we don't know if he will make it through the surgery or not--so i just pray that he and mama jeanne feel the peace from god's holy spirit and know we are all thinking about them and praying for them.

the monday update

hope everyone's week is off to a good start. it's sunny here and supposed to get up to 70. what?!? this crazy texas weather.
we are having the outside of our house painted. so i sit here typing to the sound of a whole crew banging, hammering, moving ladders, etc. i just hate having workers in or around my house. i feel so exposed since i always leave all our blinds open. when i was washing dishes the other day, one of the guys outside working had no other place to look except at me at the sink! (of course, i could close all the blinds--but i don't want to do that.) so i'll escape up here at the computer or in my room (where our blinds are always closed. isn't that weird? i almost never open the blinds in our room.)
enough about having my house painted. (if you were hoping for more interesting reading, you can probably stop right here. :)
i haven't been in a blogging mood lately. i still need to post about our camp and i will do that this week.
i've been so cold i haven't done a lot the past week. i don't like to be out in the cold, so i've just done boring stuff around the house. and now that it's finally sunny and pretty, i can't leave. (painters, you know.)
friday mom and les spent the night so they'd be close for staci's memorial service. that was saturday afternoon--it was emotional and so sad. i just hate seeing people in pain and grief. it was such a gloomy, gray day. it seems like funerals are always on days like that. we were all in a kind of gloomy mood the rest of the day.
sunday, chris had a talk in garland, so we got to visit a congregation i had never been to before. we went to chili's afterwards and had a nice dinner with a table-full of new friends.

i meant to post these pictures a few weeks ago when we had the visit of our new c.o. and his wife. she is so sweet and vivacious (even though she is battling stage 4 cancer right now. that makes us so sad.) mckinlee got to work with her one day and just loved her!
here she is with a group of girls on sunday before the meeting.

a terrible picture of me(i thought my hair looked much better that that), but i wanted to be sure i got one of her with mckinlee and me.
this is a card that mckinlee made for her telling how much fun she had with her and how she'd miss her until our next visit with them.
last thursday was our girl's breakfast at breadwinners. here is me, kelly and zane.
here are the others that got to come that day. we always have a lot of fun and yummy food.
you've all seen pictures of miss sadie belle's shower on danielle's blog, but i had to include a few on mine too!
the garland we made (sad to say, because i had been so busy and just my procrastination problem in general, danielle was helping mckinlee and i make the banner to her own daughter's shower that morning. sad, right? it did turn out cute though.)
my first diaper cake. i thought it turned out really cute. (did you know you can find out how to do just about anything on youtube?)
look at all those gifts. danielle opened presents forever. she even had to get up half way through and take a bathroom break!
i thought this was a cute one of me and her (or is that she and i?)
she got the prettiest things i've ever seen. so many darling outfits (her mother-in-law said everyone got things for a mini-danielle!) and so many handmade things that were beautiful!
these were "heelarious!" (that's what they're called. baby's first high heels~isn't that hysterical?)
during the shower, the guys went fishing. here is les cleaning fish in mom's kitchen. i thought she was going to have a heart attack! (see her in the background ?) it was pretty funny but i doubt it will ever happen again! mckinlee and i had never seen fish being cleaned before, so we had to watch for a while. les said he'd never seen such a picture taking family. i think he thinks it's odd what we take pictures of! (just capturing everyday life, right? ali edwards would be proud!)

well...that's about it. better get to my laundry and dishes (while hiding from painters!)

word-full wednesday

i had the best intentions of getting right back on track with the monday update, but that didn't happen. i was so tired from the week and weekend and had so much laundry to do, that the old blog didn't make my list of priorities.
but now i'm back and will do a little update on things that have been going on since last week.
the sunday before last was our annual "clothes swap party." there is a lady in our congregation that does this every december at her house and it is so much fun! you clean out your closets and bring any clothes, shoes, bags, accessories and even home decor stuff that you don't want anymore. everyone places their stuff on the appropriate rack (depending on size). there is a separate area for accessories and home stuff. then it's basically a free-for-all. you just start collecting stuff to try on or take. you take as much or as little as you want. this year i got a ton of stuff! danielle wanted to see some of the things, so here are some of my great finds.


these 2 summer dresses. really cute on and fit perfectly!

cute tanks and short sleeved blouses.
gray tank and black sweater (cuter irl than in the picture!)
how cute is this jacket? i wore it tonight to gymnastics--it was SO cold!
a darling plaid trench coat.
cute white a & f and gray banana republic crop pants
so many skirts...these aren't even all of them!
the brown one is really cute irl--velvet with tiny dots. isn't that pink one adorable? very anthro, no?
i even got jewelry!
so that was all i took pictures of. but i got a ton more stuff. (i even had to go buy more hangers!) and the best part is it didn't cost a thing! if i don't wear any of the stuff in a year, then i just take it back to the swap next year. it's such a nice way to get rid of stuff you don't want and find something new to you. there is also a lot of food and drinks--and it just turns into a fun time with everyone comparing their finds and laughing a lot.

i didn't get these at the swap, but mom had given me coupon to dsw, so i had to get something! aren't these the cutest, most impractical shoes you've ever seen? i thought so--but i couldn't leave without them. i even wore them today and they're pretty comfortable.
i still need to post pictures of the camp we went on (not that i want to relive the memories). i'll do that later this week.
it is supposed to be 19 degrees or lower tomorrow morning! that's cold for us texans--bundle up!

the monday update

just a little note to say i won't be blogging this week.
as a lot of you know, we've had a tragic death in our family and i really just don't have the energy or desire to blog.
we will also be out of town most the week. mckinlee and i leave for the 5th grade camp on wednesday, come back on friday and leave again to go to waco for danielle's baby shower!
hopefully, next monday will be a plethora of pictures and good memories.
have a good week and give those you love an extra hug.

fabulous friday finds

it's friday! yippee! although every day this week has felt like a friday since we've been out of school all week--no complaints here.
today my finds are one of my favorite things--purses!
i'm still having trouble putting pictures on my blog--so these are what would load! (all photos came from their respective websites or from a search for that website.)



1. target
faux croc tote~these come in a variety of colors and i actually got the black one and have
been loving it. it holds a lot of stuff!
2. forever 21
this cute tote is apparently in a lot of controversy since it replicates too closely the dior one. but i'm pretty sure someone can tell the difference between $20 and $1900!

3. vera bradley-carnaby-pleated tote
i just loved this one! and i'm not really into some vera bradley, but i saw a lady at a coffee shop carrying this and irl it is very fallish and oh so cute! (i may be sporting this one soon!)

4. another cute vera bradley. i think the fabric is puccini. not quite as fallish, but still cute.
5. fossil
usually not into such graphic patterns, but really liking these colors together.
6. another fossil
i've seen this one irl and it's really cute. would be cute for fall or spring/summer.
7. kathy van zeeland
i like some of her things. this one has the style i like (i have a leopard one similar to this) and i'm really liking these gray/taupe colors.
8. another kathy
don't know that i really like the heart/crown thing going on, but cute nonetheless.
9. coach
this is probably my favorite out of the bunch. i'm really into gray this year and this style and that chain i just LOVE!
10. another cute coach. really loving the metallic trim and all those little tags!
11. a cute little thing from anthropologie. would never buy a purse this small, but i just love all the embroidery on it and the different fabrics.
well...that was fun. kind of like going shopping!
which is your favorite??