Austin

After a great time in Ft. Worth (including lunch today at my fav...Fuzzys) we left this afternoon and made it to Austin.  I am excited to spend the next two days preparing for and celebrating my sweet niece Haylie's birthday.  I can't believe how big they all are...Haylie is almost 4 (on Saturday)...Becca will be 2 in two months!... and look at how big this little peanut is getting...7 months old and growing like a weed...it seems like just yesterday was Thanksgiving and she was a little 5 pounder...just makes me so thankful that we live close enough to see eachother and let our kids grow up together! 

Coffee coffee

I know I said no posts til later in the week and here I am with a post...turns out I had a little down time this morning.  Speaking of this morning...if you know me then you probably don't talk to me much before I have had coffee...well when I am in ft worth either Donna or I usually goes to get coffee since she doesn't have a coffee maker (yes...I love her anyways!).  So this morning I woke up in time to go get it beforw my first client.   I ordered my grande americano black (because we don't do no wimpy coffee) and after I paid for it, the barista said the most blessed words known to man...or me..."we accidentally made two americanos...do you want the extra one free?"  Oh starbucks...I love you and your blessedly strong coffee and I love you for the 2 for 1 today!  The way to my heart is definitely coffee (take note!)!

Tour o Texas

I am currently on day 2 on our tour o Texas....jk...I am going all over though.  Me and the girls are spending yesterday until thursday morning in ft worth catching up with friends and of course I am doing hair.  The girls are doing their 3rd round of VBS at FBC Benbrook, our old church.  On Thursday we will head to Austin to help set up for my niece Haylie's birthday party on Saturday.  I can't believe she is almost 4!  I don't anticipate another blog post until Thursday or friday this week as I am so busy doing hair, so....so long for now!

Dancing with Cinderella

Today was the last day of ballet c amp and there was a visit from Cinderella...after she danced for them, they fot to dance with her.  I will post some pics and add more later but for now here is a video of Bria and Chey (and all the other girls) dancing with Cinderella!

Watch "Dancing with Cinderella-Ballet Abilene Camp 2013" on YouTube

Mommy daughter time

While Bria has been at ballet camp this week I have been spending time with Mk.  Yesterday my mom and I took her to paint pottery.  I love how she loves all things artistic! 

Today, Mike is out here with us and took the girls to chick fil a for lunch and then to go see the movie Epic.  I took advantage of the opportunity and went out to lunch with my mommy.  Soup and salad at Olive Garden...Yum!  Then we went and got pedicures.  It was nice to have some time just us and extra nice that we could relax while doing so!

Tomorrow is Bria's last day of ballet camp and she is supposed to dress up like a princess...she is of course going as cinderella...and also they will have a visit from Cinderella herself since the theme is Cinderella.  It should be fun.

Ballet camp and best friends!

This morning I the girls and I drove to Abilene for the week.  Bria is going to ballet camp at Ballet Abilene where we do ballet during the year.  Bria is so happy to be doing ballet again...she would do it year round if she could.  Bonus is that Cheyenne is spending the week in Abilene and going to camp with Bria.   They are SOOO excited!  Tonight Cheyenne is spending the night at my parents with us so the girls can have some extra time playing!  Should be a fun week!

Marykateland

So Mk sleeps on the bottom bunk in the girls room.  Today she decided to make a 'tent' by hanging blankerts from the top bunk to create panels and enclose her bed.   This evening I went into their room and saw a description of what happens in Marykateland...it is so cute!  I absolutely adore her creativity and imagination!  She is such a special little girl! 

Here is the pic of her bed and the pic of her sign from Marykateland.

Pay attention...

I always tell my kids that...and I try to follow my own advice...

However.....

Today we had our tball cookout for the end of the season.  It was a lot of fun.  During it Mk and one of her friends wanted to play with her bow and arrow.  So I let them. I was showing her friend how to shoot it and simultaneously paying attention to Mike and answering a question ...not a good idea....while I managed to shoot the arrow straight and not hit anyone, I also managed to get my arm in the way of the bow and when I released the arrow, the bow string pounded my arm and burst a blood vessel... I now have quite the whelp and I am sure it will be extremely colorful by tomorrow...  so. ..pay attention

This pic is from about an hour or so afterwards. 

National donut day

So apparently today is national donut day...which means free donuts....unless you live in the country where the closest donut shop is 30 miles away! 

So...as is watched my husband's countenance fall and my kuds realize there would be no donuts today...I suddenly thought...I can make donuts...and hey, its summer break, they can help, it will get them out from in front of the tv!  Double win!

So the girls helped me make donuts.  Mk is pretty good at measuring out and Bria did a great job beating the eggs!  They each cut out half of the donuts and I fried them up!  Oh and they are good...the girls agreed!  For the glaze I made three different types: vanilla bean chocolate milk glaze, strawberry orange glaze, and orange glaze.  Mk requested chocolate...Bria requested strawberry...and I made the orange for Mike bc he loves orange and I love him!    I also dusted the donut holes with cinnamon and sugar...I didnt want to mess witg glazing those little things...too messy!

The orange glazed donuts

Strawberry glazed

Vanilla Bean Chocolate Milk glazed (note the black specks from the vanilla bean...yum!)

Good thing I will be doing my ab challenge tonight...its day 7 and I haven't missed a day and I have been feeling stronger!  

FYI HERE is the basic donut recipe that I used and then I just came up with the glazes...the donut is an Alton Brown recipe...I love his recipes because they are usually simple and straight forward and they are always GOOD!

Farming time

Well, It is summer now, school is out, and since it is early June, it is also planting time around here.  The farmers have until I think June 21st to get the cotton in the ground.  This wouldn't seem to be a big deal, but we got some heavy rain a couple weeks ago that stopped all field work for a couple days.  And we had a big rain on Wednesday night that also has stopped farmers.  Don't get me wrong...we all LOVE the rain and we have been blessed to get quite a bit of it lately...however, when the field is wet and muddy and there are puddles, large puddles all over it, you can't plant.  So they wait and will probably be working a couple 75 hour weeks next week and the week after....that sounds so crazy to me to work that many hours in one week, but it is what they do and it works!    

Here is a picture of the hail that we got the other night with that wed night storm.  I think we got around 2 inches over the course of the evening.  When the hail started it sounded like a horse race on our roof...it was insane!!!  We opened the door and watched...it got pretty big!  I saw some bigger ones fall, but they were a bit farther from the house and I wasn't going to trapse through the mud and in the rain in the dark to find those pieces of hail.  There was no shortage of hail this size close enough to the house.  Also, the outside pane of one of our double pane windows (that was just installed last fall) at the church was broken by the hail...it was no joke!!

The other day as I walked out of the church, I saw Bria run over to this historical marker out in front of the church and start holding on like she was plowing a field...it is an old plow after all.  It was super cute!  Maybe she's a little farm girl at heart....she is our little Texas baby!

Funny funny funny

If you have kids and need a good laugh, watch this!!! Hilarious!  I almost did a spit take with my coffee!

Watch "Jim Gaffigan: Mr. Universe - 4 KIDS" on YouTube

No power ....no problem

The power went off at our house again today.  It went off around 11 and after about an hour we decided we didn't want to stick around a hot house (its projected to be 103*) and we sure didn't want to lose any more food with our fridge not having power.

Sooooo...we packed up the contents of our fridge and the kids and Emery and headed over to Mrs Sheila's house.   Not only does it have an extra fridge to keep our food cold but she also has an awesome pool!  We turned lemons into lemonade and had a fun pool day!

Here are some pics of the girls and a couple videos...mk wanted me to video her doing a cannonball and bria wanted me to video her "stirring the pool" ..enjoy! 

Ps...just got word from the power company that our power is back on! 

Challenge extended...

I am trying not to get discouraged bc I haven't been out for a run in almost two weeks...life was absolutely insane the last two weeks.  I don't want to make excuses...I am mad at myself for not going.   I didn't go when I had a chance and then when I was ready to go something would come up and Mike wasn't around to watch the girls.  It comes down to having a better plan and sticking to it...planning the night before when I am going to go for a run and then going.  That is my goal.  

On a completely separate note but slightly related, someone posted a link to a June 30 day ab challenge...so I decided to do it!!!  We are 3 days in and I have done it every night.  I hope I can keep up with it but either way, I am just going to try my best and push myself to do more than I think I can!  Mike is doing it with me and that is nice.  Its not too late...you can do it too!  Then we can cheer each other on!