Mountain Wedding

Robert and I had the opportunity this past weekend to travel up to Mentone, AL for a friend's wedding.  My parents were troopers and took all the kids for 1 night so we could go.  It was SO MUCH FUN!!! 

The couple married over looking the valley.  BEAUTIFUL!

After the ceremony, everyone enjoyed cocktails and hors d'oeuvres and watched the sun set.  It was absolutely gorgeous.

The attire was black tie and boots!  Definitely the most comfortable attire for a wedding.

A little windy.  ;)

After the ceremony, we were bussed back over to their farm where the reception was.  Amazing.  No detail was left out. 

There were flowers and boots hanging all over the place. 

The food was so delicious!

So many of our friends were there and we had so much fun celebrating all together!

Once the dancing started, we didn't leave the dance floor. 

The bride, her sister and me. 

Literally we danced the night away! 

Even Matthew Mayfield got up and played a song.  Yeah.  It was like going to a concert!

The night ended with fireworks and then we headed back to our bed and breakfast. 

Which was quite charming.  Yes, charming's the right word for it.  :)  After breakfast I asked the owners if I could check out some of their animals.  I saw some miniature donkeys as we headed out for the wedding the night before and knew I wanted to check them out up close. 

They had a TWO WEEK old donkey and a four month old donkey and a couple of others.  They are all named after royalty.  Charles, Diana, Camilla and Henry.  The owner said they hadn't named the new little girl donkey.  I told him, "You have to name her Kate after the new princess!"  He said, "Kate it is!"  Glad I could help out.  :)

Look how cute!!!  The kids would have loved it.  The couple who ran the B&B also sent home a dozen farm fresh eggs!  They gathered them the night before.  Now THAT is fresh.  And I'm always shocked at how much better they taste!


Now back to reality.  Our first full week of school.  And Lillian is doing much better.  It's not that she didn't want to be away from me on that first day of school or anything, she just pulls "stunts" like that every so often.  The past 2 days, she's been the first one all ready (backpack on and all) at 7:30 a.m.  Then asks me every five minutes when we are leaving.  We don't leave for school until 8:20!!!  So cute!!  She loves it now.  It's still so funny watching her walk in.  She's so tiny compared to everyone else!!

Olivia and Landon are off to a great start as well.  Olivia is staying super organized and eager to get everything done when she gets home.  Landon is reading SO well, and stayed on green all last week.  I've seen some much better attitudes from him and sounds like it's coming out at school too.  :)

80 and 31

Over the long holiday weekend, we celebrated 2 birthdays at the lake.  My grandmother turned 80!  Wow!  Go Sugar!  And still going strong.  We had everyone together - even my brother and sister-in-law from Houston. 

Robert celebrated his day by doing none other than his favorite thing to do at the lake - WAKEBOARDING. 

My man is pretty good.  Check out some of these jumps he LANDED!

Yep.  Pretty hot, eh?  Now that he's "in his thirties" I'm sure he'll be wanting to keep himself young by learning some new tricks.  ;-)




Did you know you can just buy a helium tank and 50 balloons for $35??  That's a steal if you have ever gone to party city or walmart for them.  And I'm proud to say that NO ONE got crazy and inhaled any of it! ;-)

My sister had a great idea to print out these little card and write a few favorite memories of Sugar, hand them up, and then let her guess who wrote it.  SO cute and lots of fun memories we've had with her!

My uncle cooked some YUMMY burgers and we ate and celebrated her. 

Happy Birthday Sugar!!

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROBERT!  I love you!!!

Robert is NOT a gifts person.  So I took my mom's advice and got him something I wanted too.  ;-)  Great advice, huh.  So I purchased a Keurig for him!  I think we've both been wanting one and now seemed like the perfect time.

NOW, I just have to figure out how to get the best deal on K-cups.  I had my coffee couponing and sales down pat and never paid more than $2/bag for coffee.  So now I'm going to have to figure out how to get some good deals on K-cups!

ANYONE KNOW?  I've heard of using a Bed Bath and Beyond 20% off coupon, but just wondered if there was anyone out there that knows of a good deal. 


I have lots more pictures of the long weekend that I'll share this week.  We had so much fun we flat wore ourselves out!  I've stayed home all day today just hanging out and doing laundry!  Fun times!  ;-)

First Day of Summer!

I'm sitting here and it's not even 1:00 and I feel like we've done A TON of things already today!  All I can think about is how I'm gonna keep these kids entertained all summer AND keep the house up!  I know we'll have a bit of a transition period, and I have always pulled through.  Still, not fun.


Even my sweet husband called me this morning and after a bit of conversation on his part, he said, "Now, how are you?"    ME: "Fine!"    HIM: "Emotionally????"    ME: "Yeah, I'm good!"    HIM: "Physically? Mentally? Everything good?"    ME:  "Yes, Robert, I'm good!"


It's funny that he's learned to ask that because you know how we girls can get on an emotional roller coaster.  There have been days where I tell him, "I don't know why, but I'm feeling *insert emotion* and I just want you to know."  And I think he appreciates the warning sometimes.  ;-)


SO, backing up a little, yesterday the kids got out at 12:30.  We came home, ate, rested, and then spur of the moment loaded up to go to the McWane Center.  Perfect in the afternoon, hardly anyone is there!!

Bed of nails...

Some seriously cool fish!  The green moray eel is always hiding.  I've heard he's HUGE!

Stingrays and sharks galore!  I have to practically keep Rhodes from jumping in!

Can you guess who pressed their face in here??

It's Lillian.


And this boy...

I threw away all his bottles yesterday and he was M-A-D!!!  Seriously! Swattin' his little hand at me when I offered him a cup.  He drinks out of cups all the time.  Just wants a bottle for his milk. 


Can't believe he'll be 2 in a few months!!

The past couple of weeks, I've been shifting the kids bedtimes a little later.  Since is summer I figured we could all stay up a little later.



And then they got up at 6:00 am.  SERIOUSLY!  Every other day, I'm having to drag them out of bed, and the first day of summer they do this to me!?


Just a little indoor hula hooping last night.

Wanting to keep up my walks without having to buy a quadruple jogging stroller, we loaded up the car with the bikes and rode around this morning.  I ran/walked, and the kids rode and rode....and definitely had a blast.  Not to sure how long we're going to be doing this....it got hot fast!

A little snack, and we're good to go!

After lunch, and a few chores (the girls had a lesson in folding clothes!), they begged to go play outside in the water!  Perfect way to kick off summer!

And that's how I've stolen a few minutes on the computer!  I'm sure Rhodes will wake up soon and we'll head out for a couple more errands, and then dinner!

I can't wait until the free summer movies, and all the library stuff kicks off next week!


Oh, and as you can see, I've ditched my fancy DSLR for Instagram.  Hope you're okay with that!

Engagement Celebration!

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated the soon to be married couple!!  Walton and Margaret and lots of friends all came together!  It was so much fun to have a little night away from the kiddos and hang out with adults!





The sweet couple!!!

My beautiful grandmother, mom, and sister!

The girl cousins on my mom's side!  We are all going to have a blast at the lake for the bachelorette weekend!  I can't wait!!!

Me and my little brother!  I still can't believe he's getting married!!!

Robert and I. 

Dear Husband, don't you know I have a blog?  This could have been a (rare) cute picture of us!  If you dare make silly faces again, well.....I will post them! ;-)

That's better!


Just a few shorts weeks until the big day!!!  Can't wait!!

Provisions

I have found myself recently reflecting on how the Lord has provided for us lately and wanted to share.  And really record for myself, so that I can go back and see how His helping hand was always there.

Long story short, Robert is working (SUPER HARD btw) for a company that requires "full time" work for "part time" pay.  He's learning a lot and making lots of contacts!  And I have a hunch he enjoys it.  It's contract work, so he can possibly negotiate later - assuming they can't live without him.  And I'm pretty sure they can't!

BUT, we've had to whittle down the budget and be as frugal as possible.  We've had to really lean into the Lord to provide!  And He has!

These are a few of the lastest ones.

1)  Robert's car was hit TWICE recently.  One was a hit and run, and the other some one backed into his car.  So after going round and round with insurance companies (a pain), the other people (double pain), and car repair places (triple pain), some how we ended up getting our car fixed (even better cosmetically than it was before) we ended up with an extra $900 some odd dollars!  Which went towards Robert's painting company's taxes!  THANK YOU LORD!


2)  We've had these couches in the den for a long time.  They've been very well loved on couches with kids and pets!  The love seat in particular was torn way past the cushion.  We kept it covered with a blanket.  Robert swore he would NEVER purchase new furniture until the youngest child was like 10 or something.  Wow...we had a long time until then.  Well, we decided to go garage saling one weekend.  We pull up to the first house where it just happens to be Robert's new boss' house at this new job!  Before I really knew what was going on, I said that I liked a couch that was for sale.  He tells the wife of his boss and she basically "claims" it for us even though someone else had made an offer.  We were full expecting to pay $125 for it but when he went to go get it, his boss wouldn't even think about taking any money for it (and sent back some stuff for the kids too!).  And it's not a love seat - it's a SOFA!  And I love it!  THANK YOU LORD!


3)  And then there are the little things.  Especially for me.  What girl doesn't like to get pampered at the salon with a nice hair cut and color!  ME ME ME!  Well, I pretty much cut way back on hair cuts and such because I just plain didn't want to spend our money on me that way.  Well, I went to some dear sweet friends' clothing show the other day and "won" a free cut and color from my one of my friend's hair stylist!!!  I mean - PERFECT TIMING!!!  And the hair stylist was there and I got to meet her and she was SO CUTE - definitely someone I would want cutting my hair.  Of course that was based on personality alone, but still!  THANK YOU LORD!



These are just a few of the ways recently that we have really seen God show up!  And I just love the funny ways God works!  I mean, who would have thought that having 2 wrecks would somehow provide for us!  God is so funny!  I'm sure there are more than I can think of right now, but it is fun looking back to see all the ways!  His ways are so much better than our ways!

Are there any ways God has shown up for you lately!??

The Great Migration: Part 2 + VDay

Valentine's Day just so happen to coincide with the Great Migration part deux.  It first started out as Mac (my BIL) was going to come over to help move the BEHEMOTH desk Robert uses.  THEN, it was changed to - Mac and Lacey are coming over and we are going to cook for y'all for Valentines.  AND he's going to help me move my desk.

Upon further review, measuring, and removal of the office room door, it was made known that this was no easy task.  

So I cooked my own Valentine's dinner.  And everyone elses too! :-)

Seared/grilled fillets, roasted potatoes with Parmesan.  A little zinfandel and fancy quesadillas (brought from Mac from work) and we were set!  And it was all ready after the desk was FINALLY moved!

Empty (dirty) little room!

This furniture (that weighs a million pounds) apparently is super nice office furniture.  A previous company that Robert worked for was moving buildings and just wanted to get rid of it.  So we gained a huge desk, other smaller wall desk, and a bookshelf.

Though it is not the office furniture I personally would have picked out, we hardly say no to FREE! :-)

Plus it suits Robert pretty well.

Ginormous desk....and a little helper!

Not sure it it's going to get in there...

I was just clicking away! :-)

WHEW!  It made it!  This is the set up right now! 

Hopefully it'll stick!

I think he was pretty excited to get down there the next morning!

And I got to clean up and try and figure out what exactly I'm going to do with my new space!!