Blessed Day

Yesterday's Summer FUN Challenge event was a special time with daddy and the kiddos so no pics to post for that! I've recently started a bible study on the book: Created To Be His Help Meet by Debi Pearl so on Tuesday nights my living room is filled with amazing ladies that have been called to take part in this study with me so my awesomely sweet husband chooses to take the kiddos out of the house to give me a chance to focus on the study and not have to worry about someone wanting me for something or messing with our books or what not. So super dad took the kiddos out to dinner at McDonalds and then headed to...WALMART! Wahooo! LOL They spent time looking at video games and toys and just enjoying their time together.

Today we were blessed with some visitation time with my stepson, Taylor! We were supposed to have more time with him but that's a big ol' can of worms that I don't feel like opening at the moment! Let's just say that it happens A LOT and it's not something hubby or I really appreciate or like very much...but, what can ya do? This is the hand we've been dealt and we do the best with what we get! I've learned to REALLY lean on God to get me through the aggravations! Anyways, since our time was cut down to just a 7 hour visit, we wanted to be sure to include Taylor in on the fun stuff. We decided to grab some McDonalds (wow, this just shows how unhealthy we are, huh??? McD's two days in a row! OOPS) and we headed to the park to enjoy the gorgeous day!

The boys thought these signs were hilarious so I HAD to take a picture of them with the signs! LOL Boys and potty humor go together like cookies and milk! :)


The kids had fun playing on the tire swing and even hubby joined in on the fun!





We bought this shirt for Taylor's 13th birthday (see previous post about the FarmVille party) and we think it's pretty rockin! :) It says "I'm kind of a big deal on FarmVille"


And since we don't get a whole lot of time with Taylor, I have to take every chance I get to snap some pics of all our kiddos together! So, here are some of the pics of our photo shoot! LOL

A first for Keegan!

I wasn't sure what today's "special plan" was going to be and the day got away from me pretty fast! I was just going to have us play board games or something but then we decided we wanted to order Little Caesars for dinner and then the idea got brought up that we should call my sister-in-law, who happens to work for Yellow Cab Taxi. Keegan was BEGGING to take a ride in her taxi so that became the fun plan for the evening! LOL Keegan seriously was squealing with excitement and bouncing off the walls while we were waiting for Jessie to come and pick him up! He was even sitting on the window ledge, staring out at the driveway and he kept checking his watch to see how long it'd been!

At last, Jessie arrived and Keegan booked it out the door! Of course I had to take a million pictures to commemorate this special occasion! LOL Keegan's first taxi ride! :)





Today I also ordered Keegan a Snuggie that he's been begging for for months. I joked with my husband that we're raising the next generation of white trash...a kid that gets excited about taxi rides and Snuggies! LOL Oh and sorry for the funky picture coloring, I didn't realize it until later that I had the setting all wrong on the camera!

Summer Lovin :)

WAHOO, IT'S SUMMER!!! So we homeschool all year long but we're really laid back about it, especially during summer months. I'm so excited about everything that goes with summer...bbq's, camping, 4th of July, picnics, beach days, hiking...adventure!!! I have a mission this summer, that I'm hoping will become such a normal part of life that I do it all year long. My mission is to do at least one fun project or activity everyday this summer with my kiddos. I'm going to try to take pictures during each special event but as you know, sometimes you can't take the camera with you. Yesterday we had a BBQ at a local lake but it was so windy at first that right after we ate, we loaded our stuff up so it wouldn't blow away and then went over to the water, where the kids splashed and played for awhile. It amazes me that no matter how windy or cold it is, kids don't care, they'll jump right in and play around! I love it!

So far this past week we've had a picnic at one of the elementary schools with a friend of ours and her kiddos, where the kids got to ride around on bikes, eat our picnic lunch and play on the playground for 3 hours.



**FYI, mom wasn't using her brain properly and neglected to administer sunscreen on herself (she did however get the toddler covered) and dear ol' brainiac mom has a RAGING sunburn on her back, shoulders, arms and shins that hurts even 3 days later! Yes...lesson learned! LOL

We had a fun lunch of english muffin pizzas one afternoon, where Keegan got to pick what toppings he wanted and make his own pizza. He loved being in charge! :)


We just bought a new tent that fits our family a whole lot better. It's like 18x10 and can fit both of our queen sized air mattresses, Tatym's playpen and still have plenty of room for our stuff. My hubby, who happens to be the world's BEST dad (and husband), was itching to set the tent up to check it out so it's been up in our backyard now for like 4 days so the kids have been having a blast playing in it. Hubby even had a campout with Keegan the night before last. I love our new tent!


It's been raining a lot here lately so one day this past week, I took the kiddos on a puddle jumping walk! We walked around the neighborhood on the hunt for massive puddles which we found some great ones! I couldn't take the camera along for obvious reasons! LOL Tatym was soaked from head-to-toe by the time we got done and Keegan was soaked up to his waist! It was a blast and definitely something we'll do a lot more now that Tatym is getting older...but hopefully it won't rain like that very much this summer! *Wishful thinking!*

We went on a walk around the neighborhood on a sunny day. We walked down to my grandparents house to check on our garden and then we stopped at the park and played for a little while.

Have I mentioned how much I love being a mom?! I feel so blessed to be able to stay at home with my kiddos! It's the best "job" I could ever hope for and I'm cherishing the time I have with them!! <3>

Go A's!!

Well, today marks the end of my son's baseball season! Today was Jamboree day which consisted of us having to be at the field by 7:45am where Keegan's team played 3 mini games over the span of 4 hours! Praise the Lord, He blessed us with sunshine which is a very welcome change to the massive amounts of rain we've been getting! On a side note, who in the world thought of giving baseball players, especially young players, white pants??? Obviously someone that didn't have to try to keep those things looking clean! LOL It's been a LONG day and thankfully it's nap time for the wee one and I'm getting us packed up to go see my sister, to celebrate her birthday!

Thought I'd share the little treat I made for the BBQ today, yellow & green cupcakes (team colors):

A FarmVille Birthday Party

My stepson, Taylor is turning 13 at the end of the month and we haven't been able to throw him a real birthday party since he was like 6 or 7 because of how far away he lives and that he always had school or other plans. We've driven the 5 hours over to take him out to lunch and then drive back home so this is an awesome chance for us to celebrate with him! He's a total FarmVille addict so I figured it would be a fun party theme!


I drew out the FV logo and wrote HAPPY BIRTHDAY around it and printed out various FV objects to put around the sign. I got a plaid picnic table cloth to cover the cake table to give it more of a farm feel.


I printed out these pictures and added Taylor's head to the body.

For those not familiar with FV, they don't just have farm animals, they have a bunch of other animals too so I found this monkey pinata at Walmart and thought it would go great!

I searched and searched at Walmart for farm stuff to use for decorations and this is the best I could come up with! Little People farm sets! My daughter (she'll be 2 in July) LOVES these of course so we'll give them to her to play with when the party is all done!


You can see that I bought some fake money then printed out the FV cash logo and taped it to the front and spread gold coins around the table too.

Can't have a party without decorating with streamers, right?! LOL We also printed out bigger pictures of FV animals and barn and taped them around the living room.

And no party is complete without the birthday cake! We always buy this cake from Albertsons, it's a white cake with raspberry filling and white buttercream frosting so I just bought a tub of buttercream, colored it green and slathered it right on top of the cake (so yeah, double the frosting...soooo healthy LOL) then I printed out more FV pictures onto cardstock and taped them onto toothpicks to decorate. I used candles and toothpicks to make the fence and crushed graham crackers for the dirt plots! Pretty easy and turned out cute!

I also have been decorating our front window for birthdays since we've had kids so I drew out the FV logo again and just wrote HAPPY BIRTHDAY (backwards so Taylor could see it when he got here) and that we love him!


I can't believe he's turning 13!!! My hubby and I started dating when Taylor was just 2 1/2 years old, still wearing diapers! I remember when he was 4 and 5 he'd say he wanted to marry me! Awww... then as he got older things got a lot harder, there's been a lot of fighting and he didn't like me for a long time. I've said hundreds and hundreds, maybe even thousands of prayers and every so often over the last couple of years I'd see a glimmer of hope that things were slowly getting better. This past year things have been really great and the visits have been especially nice the past 2 months so I'm getting really excited to see what the Lord is doing in our lives and in our relationships! We're so excited to celebrate with him and I look forward to seeing what kind of man he's going to become!

The Swagger Wagon---LOL!!

This youtube video is HILARIOUS!! I personally LOVE the Sienna mini-van commercials and this music video had me cracking up!! Just thought I'd share! :)

Blog-aversary Giveaway

So I finally got around to posting a giveaway! Head over to my blog The Sassy Scrapper to learn how you can enter to win!! GOOD LUCK! :)