In a nutshell....a very large nutshell...

I survived my Friday excitement with the kids.  We were at the Halloween store for 45 minutes and I finally urged Peter to make a purchase so we could get some lunch.  He opted for Wriggly Morty the Undead Clown. 

This would not have been  my first choice but he was quite thrilled with it. He also got a polka dotted machete to go with it because no undead clown in his right mind would be out on Halloween without his polka dotted machete.

Sarah wanted a Medusa costume.  The Halloween store did not carry one of those so we are going to have to find one online.  If I was crafty I could probably make one for her, but we all know that's not going to happen!

After the costume shopping, we had lunch at McDonald's.  I tried the Might Wings at Peter's request.  They were okay.  They were super crispy (like KFC chicken) and the crispy skin had a lot of spices baked into it.  We added buffalo sauce and they were okay.  I prefer my wings unbreaded though but I told Peter I loved them because he seemed to really want me to like these wings. 

Dan finally arrived  home from his trip to Ireland on Friday night and all was right with the world again.              cue the angels signing

On Saturday morning, Sarah and I put out this sign:

Sarah's former 2nd grade teacher was riding in the Tour to Tanglewood again this year and the route happens to go right past our house.  We made a sign last year and actually got to see her teacher ride by.  (I didn't get a picture last year unfortunately.) We were in and out most of the morning and early afternoon but we missed her this year. 

The Tour to Tanglewood is a 2 day bike race  that raises money for Multiple Sclerosis research.  Every year there are around 2000 bikers that participate and they raise over $1 million dollars each year. And since I have MS, it's a no brainer that we donate to Sarah's teacher.

And even though we didn't see her teacher, we still had fun making the sign and watching the bikers go by.

On Saturday afternoon, I headed to Charlotte for my friend's bridal shower.  It was held at a great little restaurant, 300 East.  There were 15 of us there.  We shared lots of tasty appetizers from the restaurant and some really, really good cupcakes. 

The cupcakes were from Cup Crazed Cakery. This bakery won Cupcake Wars on the Food Network!  And I believe it because the cupcake I ate was probably one of the best ones I've ever had.  And I've eaten my fair share of cupcakes.

Here's a couple of shots from the shower:

After church and lunch on Sunday, we headed to Tanglewood for a quick hike and then, just as soon as it started, the weekend was over.

And now it's back to the grind...groceries, laundry, housework, homework....you know - life!

Have a great week!

WIWS: The $10 Edition

Happy Sunday everyone!

I scored this cute dress at Target this past week. It was in the clearance section and I had a 20% off coupon. Final price = TEN DOLLARS! The dress is definitely for summer thanks to some cute spaghetti straps so I threw on my jean jacket and was good to go!

Dress: Target
Jacket: Kohl's
Wedges: Kohl's

Head on over to Fine Linen and Purple to see what everyone else wore to church today!

7 Quick Takes Friday.

I'm joining Jen at Conversion Diary for another round of Quick Takes.

Let's see if I can get to 7 or if I have to abandon ship sooner...


1. Dan's been in Ireland all week.  Boo!  But he arrives home tonight.  Yay!  That is assuming no problems with airports, weather, flight cancellations, etc.  Since there is always one issue or another with airlines (especially on Friday evenings) I always just expect him home a day later than his actual flight - you know, hope for the best, expect the worst. It keeps me out of the fetal position on those times when he gets delayed.

2. The kids aren't in school today thanks to a teacher work day of some sort and guess where my kids want to go today?  The Halloween store.  I can hardly wait.

Spending at least an hour or more looking at masks and costumes in a dark creepy store and then the kids begging for over priced costumes and getting upset when I set a price limit and then not being able to make up their minds on anything and then me dragging them out of the store and then finally getting them home and them announcing, "Oh, I wish I had gotten the blah blah blah mask instead of this blah blah blah costume" is exactly how I want to spend my day today.

Anyone care to join us?

3.  Peter wants to eat lunch at McDonald's today.  Thankfully, I can't remember the last time one of the kids asked to eat at McDonald's.  Thank heavens for older kids who can appreciate the goodness of Chick-Fil-A, Arby's, and Subway.

Last weekend, Dan and Peter went hiking with the Cub Scouts and on their way home they stopped at McDonald's to try the new Mighty Wings.  Peter loves wings.  He gets his love of the hot wing from me.  Although he prefers his a lot milder than I do.  He said they were good and wants me to try them.  So, lunch at McDonald's for "wings" and a trip to the Halloween store.  Should be an interesting day.

4.  Tomorrow I am heading to Charlotte to see some friends of mine.  One of my good friends from college is getting married in November and she's having a lingerie shower. I did something I haven't done in years.  Years!   I went to Victoria's Secret.

Back in the day,(waaaaaaaay back in the day) my bras and panties had to match and they had to be purdy - prints, colors, textures - nothing plain Jane for this girl.  And yes, this was when I was gainfully employed and spending tons of money on bras and matching panties in all hues of the rainbow was something I didn't think twice about.

Now I have approximately two bras. One white, one tan.  And I get them at Target.  And I usually buy my underwear in a pack from Hanes or Fruit of the Loom.  And the only criteria is that they be bikinis (not boy shorts, not granny panties, not thongs, not low cuts) just bikinis.  Color and fabric aren't important.  Oh, but there is one other criteria...how many come in that pack is key.  7 pair of print  vs. 9 pair of plain....you can bet I'll be buying the plain.

Oh how far the bra and panty proud have fallen....

5. While I was at the mall, I stopped into Charming Charlies.  What a cute store!  Tons of cute jewelry and accessories and it was all reasonably priced. 

The rest of the mall, I could take or leave.  Give me Target and Kohl's.  I'm in and out with what I need and  with zero hassle, zero trekking 4.3 miles to get back to my car and zero kiosk people trying to convince me to get my eyebrows threaded or my hair curled.  Ew...

6. There are just too many people trying to talk you into buying something at the mall.  I made the mistake of trying a sample of tea outside of Teavana.  That kid (who was quite the forceful salesman) lured me in quickly with two free samples of tea and before I could swallow and say thanks and head to my car, he had me in the store to try other samples.  And then he showed me the pots and asked which one I thought I wanted.  As I was trying to down my tea and plan my getaway, he gave me even more samples (I think he was trying to sample-guilt me into buy a $75 tea pot set) and then showed me to the bins of tea leaves.

He asked me which one of the 47 samples I liked the best and I told him my fave was the Dragonfruit Devotion Herbal Tea.  And it really was good.  I was going to find out how much the tea was and then get out of there before I bought one of those pots and some tea, because at this point I was like one of those kidnap victims who starts identifying with her captives and wants to protect them and help them. And that tea really was tasty and maybe buying a fancy teapot set with all it's cute accoutrements would be a great idea after all...

He pulled out the canister of the Dragonfruit tea and then proceeded to try to sell me an empty canister that you need to have to store the tea.

He started to measure the tea into this canister (so presumptuous, my little kidnapper was) and I said, "So this is $7.99 a pound?" (Because I could see $7.99 on the side and really, that was affordable.)  And he said, "No Ma'am. It's $7.99 for 2 ounces."

WHAT?  I almost coughed up my Dragonfruit tea.  I dailed 911 to report a kidnapping and literally ran out of that store.  I think that poor kid thought if he kept talking long enough, I would eventually snap and buy something.  And his tecqnique almost worked because y'all, if that tea had been $7.99 a pound I would probably be the proud owner of a cute canister filled with it as well as an overpriced tea set.

But I spend $7.99 on 9 pairs of underwear that typically last me a year so there is no way I'm spending $7.99 on a couple of cups of tea.  Although that Dragonfruit tea was pretty tasty....

7. Have a great weekend y'all.  I guess I need to hop into the shower so I don't look scarier than one of those masks at the Halloween store.

A beautiful way to start the day.

I sent the kids upstairs to get dressed and I began to wash the breakfast dishes.  I glanced up and noticed a strange pink hue coming into the windows. 

The sunrise must be gorgeous, I thought.  I opened up the backdoor and looked east.  I saw beautiful pink clouds adorning a pale blue sky.  A golden glow beamed from behind  the clouds. 

It was breath taking. I really should have grabbed the camera but we were running out of time.

I went upstairs to check on the kid's progress and Peter exclaimed, "Mom!  It looks weird outside!"

I told him the sunrise was gorgeous and was casting a pink glow over everything. He quickly ran to the eastward facing bonus room window.

As I walked toward the end of the hall, I could see his dark silhoutte in front of the pink and blue and golden sky. 

And even more than a picture of that beautiful sunrise, I wanted a picture of my son admiring God's handiwork.

I eventually got everyone out the door and in the car.  My husband is on a business trip so I had drop off duty.

As we were pulling onto the highway, I looked to my left and saw the end of a rainbow.

"Kids!  Look!  A rainbow!"  I announced.

"Where?  Where?" was quickly replaced with "Cool!" and "So pretty!"

And then, "Look! There's the other end!"

And that beautiful rainbow was beside us the whole way to school.

Picture Day really makes me appreciate a nice, simple school uniform.

Sarah's been practicing her smile for a week now.  Want to know why?

Because today is picture day!

And yes, apparently if you want to make sure you don't mess up your picture you need to practice your smile.  So I've seen my fair share of fake smiles this weekend.  I tried to coach her to a more casual less Disney Channel child-star smile. 

And then there was the outfit.  We took a trip to Target to make sure that we purchased just the right attire.  Apparently she was afraid I was going to mess it up if I did it without her. So off to Target we went.

She fell in love with this dress...

 Except we both hated the gold toned belt that came with it.  So we found a silver belt that looked much better with it. 

Up next was shoes.  Sarah loves shoes...boots in particular.  When she saw these grey boots she went nuts.  Since they sort of matched the silver belt (they have silver studs on the side you can't see) and sort of pulled the whole outfit together, I agreed and we got them as well.

As she was dressing this morning, she told me that she "totally could have made the gold belt work".  All she needed to do was wear one of her gold necklaces.  I didn't mention that the gold belt and the silver boots would have clashed because knowing my little fashionista, she would have made that work too.

Sarah fretted for two weeks about how to wear her hair. Curly, blown out straight, wavy, in a bun. After a lot of though, she decided a few days ago that she wanted me to braid it the night before so it would be wavy this morning.  

And then there's Peter.  I took him for a haircut last week because he was getting a little shaggy.  His self-imposed bald spot is almost grown in but not quite.  He doesn't care a thing about pictures or what he's wearing or how he looks.

Without his input, I bought him a red knit polo shirt (my boy looks good in red!) to go with a pair of red and navy plaid shorts he had already had.

I failed to remember however that his shorts were getting a little tight but then realized no one would see the waist of his shorts because he could just wear his shirt untucked.

But then, this morning, I remembered that his teacher is a stickler for shirts tucked in.  It's part of the uniform code that the boys must have their shirts tucked in at all times and their pants must be belted.  However this doesn't apply on gym day or a dress down day.  But Peter's teacher even makes the kids tuck in their gym tee shirt into their gym shorts.  It looks a bit ridiculous and she's the only teacher that does it but I appreciate the fact that his teacher is trying to instill discipline into these kids.

And since his teacher gives strikes for untucked shirts, Peter decided he better tuck his shirt into his shorts and wear a belt.  (4 strikes in one week equals detention!)

Sarah looked like a little diva this morning and Peter looked like a preppy stuffed sausage. Keeping my fingers crossed that these turn out okay because I am not up for redos!

WIWS: The She's (Built Like) A Brick House Edition

Joining the ladies at Fine Linen and Purple again this week for What I Wore Sunday.

I call this the She's (Built Like) A Brick House Edition because, well, in this outfit, I look like a brick house.  You can huff and you can puff but you can't blow me down.

I think the vertical stripes are making me look extremely solid today.  I've worn this outfit previously but never felts like I looked so stout.

Oh well....

 

Sweater: Target
Tee Shirt: Target
Skirt: Target
Shoes: Kohls

The tee looks pink in this picture but it's actually an orangish-red.  I think over all it's a cute outfit.  Perhaps dainty shoes with less wedge and more heel would make me look more statuesque and less brick house.

I think someone needs to go Fall shopping!

Five Favorites

It's Wednesday so I'm playing along with Hallie...

1.  Lately I've been on a BLT kick.  But frying bacon is such a greasy hassle and the precooked kind is expensive and just doesn't cut it in the taste department.  But thanks to Pinterest, I discovered baked bacon!

Just throw the bacon on a cookie sheet.  Place it in a cold oven.  Turn the oven to 400 degrees.  The bacon should be ready in 18 - 20 minutes.  So easy.  So delicious. No more frying bacon for me.

2.  While we are talking about food, I'll mention my Pepper Jack Pimento Cheese Toast Recipe that I posted yesterday.  These little buggers are so good.  My husband and I can eat 30 or more at a time.  We usually both end up eying the last one on the plate but he's a gentleman and always let's me have it.

3.  I love The Power of a Praying Wife and The Power of a Praying Parent by Stormie Omartian. These books are filled with prayers for you to pray for your children and your husband.  She covers almost every topic you could possibly want to pray for them. The prayers are beautiful and scripture-filled.
























If you want to pray for your family but have a hard time knowing exactly what to pray and feel like the normal prayers you rattle off quickly just aren't having the desired effect, please check out these books.  I don't think you'll regret it!

4. My Keurig coffee maker. 3 years ago (maybe 4) my parents got me a Keurig coffee pot for my birthday and I have used it multiple times a day since then.  Dan likes his coffee strong and dark.  I like mine a little less bold.  Before the Keurig I had to endure multiple complaints daily that the coffee I brewed wasn't strong enough or I had to brew it super strong for him.  Now with the Keurig, we both have our coffee just exactly how we like it!

5. Awesome Screenshot.  Recently I was right clicking an image on the computer screen to attempt to save it and I noticed at the very bottom of the right click menu that popped up the words Awesome Screenshot.  I clicked it since I was trying to get a screen shot.  Several options popped up and I was able to quickly crop the portion of the screen shot I wanted, save it to my computer and even add text, circles, lines etc.   Not sure how this magically appeared on my computer.  Maybe during a recent Firefox update?  Anyway, I'm glad it's on my computer now.  I quickly cropped and saved the images of the books and the Keurig in this post and now that I know I've got it, I'm sure I will find other uses for it.

Head on over to MoxieWife to see what everyone else is digging this week.

Beth's Pepper Jack Pimento Cheese Toast Recipe

I think it's finally time I shared with you all my secret pimento cheese recipe.  I mentioned it in this post of Super Bowl Party food I served.

I call it my secret recipe because I came up with it all by myself after eating a lot of very pricey Harris Teeter made pimento cheese (and after making it for 6 years, I have yet to share it with anyone).  As a stay-at-home mom I just wasn't able to justify paying $6.49 a pound for the deliciousness from Harris Teeter so I set about developing my own recipe.

And today, I'm going to share it with you!  Because really, something this good and this simple should not be kept to oneself.

Beth's Pepper Jack Pimento Cheese

8 oz. Sharp Cheddar cheese (grated)*
8 oz. Monterrey Jack cheese (grated)*
1 cup mayonnaise
2 oz. pimento
4 oz. jalapenos (diced)
1/4 teaspoon lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon salt

*(And it's really better if you buy the big block and grate your own.  I use my food processor to do this and it literally only takes seconds.)

Mix all of the above together and allow to chill for an hour before serving.

This cheese is good on sandwiches, crackers and even on hamburgers. But my favorite way to serve it is this way....

Beth's Pepper Jack Pimento Cheese Toasts

Slice 1 loaf of French baguette bread into quarter inch thick slices.  Spread the pepper jack pimento cheese on top of the sliced baguette.  Bake in a 400 degree oven for 8-10 minutes until the cheese gets all melty .  Take out of oven and let cool for about a minute before serving (if you can wait that long).  And enjoy!

The gooey, spicy cheese on top of the toasty, chewy bread is the best! 

A lot of times on the weekends, I'll pop a big batch of these in the oven and my husband and I eat them after the kids go to bed while watching shows we've DVR'd the week before.  To me, that's almost better than date night!  Not quite, but these are that good!


I'm linking up with Tasty Tuesday and Strut Your Stuff.

WIWS and a Weekend Update

So here's my less than stellar What I Wore Sunday outfit (which I actually wore to Mass on Saturday evening).   I wasn't even going to photograph it but Sarah grabbed the camera and insisted.  So I played along.  However, in typical sweet Sarah fashion, she snapped about 50 pictures without holding the camera still so most of them are blurry.  Here's the best I got...

Shirt: Tarjay
Pants: TJ Maxx (Or Marshalls...I always get those two confused.)
Shoes: Tarjay (From a long time ago...probably need to update the brown wedges next spring!)

For more Sunday inspiration, head on over to Fine Linen and Purple.

On Sunday, we headed to Childress Vineyards with my parents and my brother to celebrate my birthday and Dan's birthday.

After a yummy lunch there, we headed back to my parents house for birthday cake.  It was yummy too.

And for some reason, we decided that Sarah should be in charge of taking pictures of us with the cake.  And as usual, she took about 50 pictures and they were all blurry.

And my hair was doing something really weird.  I got some really subtle side bangs a few weeks ago and sometimes they have a life of their own....

Sarah insisted we do a crazy face in one picture.  Notice how we both made the same face.  13 years of marriage (and five years together before that!) and it's like we share the same brain.

After lunch and cake and a quick errand or two, Dan and I hit the couch to watch some football and the kids were doing their own thing.  The phone rang and it was one of Sarah's friends wanting to know if she wanted to go the lake for some tubing.

Sarah was thrilled.  We don't own a boat (well, we used to but that was waaaaaay back in the day before we had kids) and Sarah's never been tubing so of course we said yes and sent her on her merry way.

Here she is heading out the back door to the neighbor's house....

She looks so big and yet so little here as she's heading off for a fun evening without me...

Once she was out the door, Peter started asking if we could go to the Halloween store.

Yep, that's right.  As soon as September hits, my kids start perusing the internet for Halloween costumes and then  begging to go to the Halloween store.

Since we weren't doing anything else, I convinced Dan to go and off we went.

Here were a few of Peter's favorite masks...

And after 45 minutes we were finally able to get him out of the store.  We didn't buy anything because I know my kid.  If we buy something now, he will wear it for the next 6 weeks and want something new right before Halloween.  Plus, he enjoys the search for the Halloween costume almost as much as the actual owning and wearing of the Halloween costume and I figure we're going to have to go back to this store at least once more with Sarah so we might as well hold off on the actual purchase as long as possible.

And that, in a very large nutshell, was most of our weekend!

7 Quick Takes Friday

1.  It's my birthday!!!! Happy Birthday to meeeeeeeeee!!

2.  And yes, it's Friday the 13th but I'm not superstitious so no worries here.

3.  I am 44 and my husband turned 47 yesterday and to me that all just sounds really, really old.  Luckily I still feel like I'm 18...now if I could only get that wrinkle cream to actually work so I looked more like I felt.  Although the zits I still get do tend to give me a more youthful appearance.

4.  I was up at my normal 5:45 AM having my quiet time.  (I hate that people call it quiet time.  That makes it sound  like something your mom makes you do when you've outgrown your nap but she's ready for a break from you. But since I haven't come up with a better name, I guess I'll stick with that.)  I had just finished reading today's scripture when I opened Jesus Calling to read the devotion for September 13th.  A smile came to my face when I saw this...

She is always scribbling on my papers and I think she assumed I would be mad when she wrote this on today's devotion.  Nope. Not mad. I think it's the sweetest thing ever.  And she did it so long ago that she didn't even remember!

By the way, if you are looking for a good daily devotional, I recommend anything by Sarah Young.  She writes the devotionals as if God is speaking directly to you.  Powerful stuff!

5. I attended Mass this morning at the kid's school.  They attend Mass every Friday as a school and each Friday a different grade leads the liturgy.  This morning was Peter's grade and he was singing in the choir and reading part of the first reading.

He's done this many times before since we started attending this school in his 3rd grade year.  But this morning, he freaked out.  He didn't want to go to school.  He didn't want to do the reading because he was afraid he was going to mess up.  He begged me to let him stay home.

I said a prayer with him and told him I would continue to pray for him but that he was going to school and that he was going to do that reading and that he was going to do a great job.

He reluctantly headed out the door and on his not-so-merry way.

And of course, he did great.  The kids always do great.  The sound system or maybe it's the acoustics in this church aren't the greatest so I always have a hard time hearing the kids (and the priest for that matter!) but he did just fine.

Not sure why he was so nervous about it today.  The only thing I can think is that perhaps at the age of almost 11, he's worried that if he messes up he might get laughed at.

6.  I'm heading to lunch with the BFF a little later.  I'm looking forward to a delicious salad and good conversation!

7.  One more thing about Pete - his favorite music genre has recently switched from classic rock to heavy metal.  The better he gets at guitar, the faster he wants to play and who plays guitar faster than the heavy metal guys?  No one.

Last night, Peter was upset when he realized he missed the Megadeth and Iron Maiden show in Raleigh a few weeks ago.  I laughed and told him not to worry because I wouldn't have taken him to that concert anyway.

I went through a hairband phase in college but I never really enjoyed heavy metal.  Bon Jovi, White Snake and Poison were more my speed.  The heaviest I ever liked was Guns N Roses and Motley Crue so to think that I'm going to take my 10 year old to and Iron Maiden/Megadeth show is a little cray cray! He should know better.

Have a great weekend everyone and head on over to Jen's for more quick takes!

Going, going, gone!

We were at a ball game a few weeks ago and Peter rolled his eyes at me.   I told him he did a pretty good job because he almost got rid of his irises and all that was left were the whites.

So he proceeded to practice rolling his eyes at me until he could achieve total whites. That's my boy.  If we're going to be disrespectful, let's do it right!

Going....

Going...

Gone!

Five Favorites

I'm finally linking up with Five Favorites which is being hosted today at Camp Patton.  So, what are my Five Favorites this week?

1.  After this incident last week, I painted my toenails my all time favorite polish color - OPIs I'm Not Really A Waitress.  This color is perfect for fall and really any time of the year.  It's a nice change from the Wild Strawberry I've been wearing all summer and has me in the mood for cooler weather.

2. These Lauren Conrad flip flops from Kohl's have been my favorite pair of shoes this summer.  The silver color is perfect.  It goes with every thing and is so much cuter than a plain black pair of flops. (Although I do have a pair of those as well.)  I love them so much in fact, that I just ordered another pair from Kohl's because they are currently on sale for only $12.99!  I'll have a brand new pair ready and waiting in my closet for next spring!

3. Last year, Sarah had to memorize all of her multiplication tables.  And she did a great job - she got a 100 on every test!  However, she then proceed to "forget" them over the summer.  Now that school is back up, she is being tested weekly on her math facts so we are having to review them.  Her test consists of completing 100 or more problems in 5 minutes.  So I've been using this website:


MrKent


to generate math problems for her. It's quick, it's easy and that's all I can ask for during homework time!

4. As an early birthday present, Jennifer got me a Ninja blender.  I have used this blender every day since she got it for me a couple of month ago.   I use it every morning to make my Purple Monkey smoothie.  This blender chops through frozen bananas and frozen blueberries like butter.  And the best part?  It comes with a single serving size blender cup so I can make just enough for me without having to dirty up the larger blender cup!  Best. Present. Ever.

5. My husband!  Okay, I'm sure everyone would include their husband in a list of favorite things but y'all, isn't he just the cutest thing?  I snapped this picture of him last night.  The kids had just gone to bed and he got on his phone to FaceTime with Sarah.  I just thought that was the cutest thing.  (They both think they're pretty special with their iPhone and iPod.  Peter and I think we're pretty special with our Android devices.  Whatevs...) He misses the kids when they aren't with us...even if they are just upstairs in bed.  I on the other hand... ;)

To see what everyone else is favoring this week, head over to Camp Patton.

Please don't be jealous of my mothering skills.

Scouts started back last night.  Sarah is now a Junior Girl Scout and Peter is a Weblo 2.  He will officially move up to the Boy Scouts in February.

Sarah is way more excited about scouts than Peter.  She is such a social butterfly and she loves to be on the go.  Peter prefers to stay home so that he can play Minecraft and Pokemon until he decides it's time  to go outside and wander around with an unloaded AirSoft gun or occasionally a very large stick.

Peter does love to go camping though so he's excited about a trip they will be taking in October.  And Sarah is most excited that her troop is going to be on a float in the Midway Christmas Parade again this year.

Sarah got a new vest this year.  It's green and replaces the brown Brownie vest which replaced the blue Daisies vest.  I was excited that it was time for a new vest (every two years) because I totally ruined the last one.

None of her fun patches were  iron-on and I don't sew so I used liquid stitch to glue them on.  That didn't work as she would come home from every meeting with a glue mark on her vest where a badge used to be.  Sometimes she would come home with the badge but usually just the glue mark.

I asked one of the other mothers what they use and she said she told me she used Gorilla Glue.  And Dan happens to have a big bottle of it so I set to work gluing a few fallen patches back into place on her vest.

And guess what?

Gorilla Glue puffs up and expands when you use it.  I did not know this  and figured the more glue, the more stick so we ended up with a Brownie vest that looked like this:

Check out the nice creamy colored glue that puffed up, oozed out and hardened.  Nice, huh?

Check out what the glue looks like after it puffs up and hardens and then the badge STILL manages to fall off!  Really nice!

And then there were the badges that hung on for dear life.  And at that point, I gave up!

I spoke to another mother whose daughter always looks so neat and clean and lovely and I learned the trick for patches and badges - BADGE MAGIC!  I ordered some from Amazon.com and it truly is magic.  It's basically a thin, sticky film that you cut out in the shape of the badge and press on to the back of the badge and then press the badge onto the vest.  It is super easy and it's super sticky so it works like a charm. 

Sarah was thrilled with her new clean looking vest.  Let's see if we can keep it that way!

Peter's got a different problem.  All of his badges were iron-on so he doesn't have the embarrasment of a crusty looking uniform. (Not that he would care anyway. Unlike Sarah, he is extremely unconcerned with his appearance.)

When he started Cub Scouts in first grade, I bought his shirt a little large to get extra wear out of it because the Cub Scouts stay in a blue shirt until they become Boy Scouts.  He is now on his 5th year of this blue shirt. And at this point I figure  he might as well stay squeezed  into  it until February when he becomes an official Boy Scout and has to switch to a tan shirt.

So I guess I have until February to figure out what size shirt I could get him that would last him for the next 6 years?!

Nothing screams Eagle Scout like a man-boy stuffed into a tiny shirt walking around outside with a large stick.

Right?

Happy Anniversary to me (and Dan)!

Happy 13th Anniversary to me (and Dan)!

We celebrated by going out to dinner at Mozelle's on Saturday night.  It was deeeeeeee-licious.

We've been there a couple of times before and it was just as wonderful as I remembered.  We started with an order of fried pickles.  I love fried pickles.  But I prefer them to be pickle chips instead of pickle spears.  I will never order fried pickles if they are going to be spears because the pickle to batter ratio isn't correct and the taste is sub-par.

Mozelle's does something different with their fried pickles.  They take the pickles and slice them longways on a mandolin so the pickles are very fine.  The pickle to batter ratio was perfect and the batter was a little spicy and the dipping sauce had a little kick as well.

I really wish I had a big dish of them right now.  Pickles for breakfast isn't weird is it?

For my entree, I chose the bacon wrapped meatloaf. It was topped with melted Havarti cheese and tomato marmalade.  It came with grits and collards and y'all,  I could not have been more pleased.  

I wasn't able to eat everything so I will be having leftovers for lunch. (That pleases me too!)

Dan got the fried chicken and macaroni and cheese.  He said his was delicious too.

After dinner we walked around downtown Winston-Salem for a bit and then we headed to Midtown Cafe and Dessertery.  I got a slice of carrot cake and Dan got a slice of iced 5 flavor pound cake.  We brought them home and ate them in front of the TV.

Yes, we're still wild and crazy after all these years!

After Mass on Sunday, we headed to Salem Tavern for lunch.  We met my parents and my brother there.  It was delicious as well.  After that meal we headed home for anniversary cake at my parent's house.

I don't have a picture of Dan and myself from our weekend activities but here's a picture of the kids:

After lunch we went to the pool for a little while and that sums up our anniversary weekend.

I posted the following on Facebook this morning:
  
Happy 13th Anniversary to my sweet husband Dan! It took me a long time to find him but he was totally worth the wait. I couldn't imagine going through this life without his love, support, and friendship. I am truly blessed.

Happy Anniversary Baby!

Is it too soon to start looking forward to summer vacation?

Sarah's teacher gives a lot of homework.  A lot.

And I know this to be true because last year, Peter had a lot of homework.  A lot.

And that's fine.  I can understand homework up to a point but there are days it seems to be a bit much.

And typically that's every Wednesday. On Wednesday, Sarah gets to do all of her written homework PLUS  she has 4 - 5 tests to study for because her teacher gives all of their weekly tests on Thursday.

But the worst part of all of this, other than the fact that Sarah spends a ton of time after school on her homework (especially on Wednesdays), is her backpack.

It is so extrememly heavy.

We had the same problem last year because most days Peter practically had to drag his backpack on the ground to get it out to the car in the mornings. And in the afternoons heading to the car rider line, he was usually able to hoist it onto his back but he always had the appearance of a tired, old camel as he approached the end of a long and hot and dusty journey.

I didn't want Sarah to have to suffer so I got her one of those roller back packs.  The problem?  The backpack is very large even when it's empty.  And I guess it has to be in order to accommodate the wheels and the retractable handle.  Once this large backpack is loaded down with practically every textbook and workbook and copybook she has, it is gigantic. 

She has a hard time even lifting it up into the car and when we get home every afternoon it is always wedged in between the front seat and the backseat and can only be extracted by me pulling on it with all my body weight, a lot of grunting and few not so pretty words.

I am seriously considering a bigger car just for the backpack.

Now that he's in 5th grade, Peter has second lunch.  It's only 30 minutes later than first lunch.  That doesn't seem like such a big deal but every day in the car on the way home from school, he complains that the days seems so long this year.  And every time I ask him why, his answer is always, "It takes so long to get to lunch."

So we're only 3 weeks into the new school year and I think we are all already looking forward to summer!

I really should have just gone to see a professional.

This morning I decided it was time to switch out my summery Revlon Wild Strawberry pedicure for a more fall-like Revlon Rich Raspberry.

I soaked my feet, scrubbed the dead skin away, removed the old polish, buffed the nails, put lotion on my feet and covered them in socks and was headed downstairs to enjoy a cup of Chai tea before I began the arduous task of painting my toe nails.

I grabbed a towel without realizing the nail polish was sitting near it and caused a bottle of clear polish to come crashing to the ground.

It didn't break!  But right as I was thinking to myself how lucky I was that it didn't break, the Rich Raspberry came crashing to the ground as well.

Nice, huh?

So after I said a few choice words and snapped a picture for blog posterity, I immediately grabbed my bottle of acetone (because why use nail polish remover when acetone works so much better?) and got to scrubbing.

The acetone worked quickly and efficiently.  The only problem?  In my haste to get all the polish up as quickly as possible, I got a lot of it in the grout.  So now my grout has a nice pinkish, purplish hue to it.

I vacuumed up all the glass shards and sprayed the grout with a bathroom scrubbing spray with bleach and I'm hoping that does the trick.

Because remember this spill from 6 years ago?  I was on my hands and knees just two weeks ago scrubbing what I think to be a tiny remnant of it off the floor. 

I can only imagine how many miniscule drops of this Rich Raspberry I'm going to be finding and for how long!

From the mouths of babes...

At Mass on Sunday, the priest started off his homily with a little story as he usually does and this one began with him saying, "Imagine if Jesus walked in today and asked if he could come to your house for dinner..."

Sarah looked up at me and whispered, "That would be so cool!"

And then she whispered, "But you would be freaking out!"

Guess I have a hard time hiding my inner Martha!