Waco Weekends

We spent the last two weekends (yes two in a row!) soaking up some quality time with family and friends in sweet home Waco Texas! Our original trip was for A Taste of Honey, the annual fundraiser for First Woodway Christian School. My mom is the principal and Angie coordinated the event so we had to bee (sorry) there to support all her hard work!

My camera was giving me some trouble (time for an upgrade??) so I didn't get to capture much of the event but it was a huge success!

Katy, AnnMarie (performing student!) Wyatt, Stacey & Me.

On Sat. we played at the Richland Fashion Mall (sorry not sure why the full name makes me laugh, but it does). This was basically a hurricane vending machine and the boys loved it!

While they were getting blown away I let Mom and Kacey What Not To Wear me at Forever 21.

Then, that night Honey and G.P. babysat for all five grandkids while the big kids went out on an early Valentine's date! Sweet.
Because I just hadn't had quite enough fun yet, and because Stacey was going to be at D-town (Watermark's Disciple Now) all weekend, and mostly because my high school girls turned Baylor sophomores (where does the time go!) were performing at Sing - the boys and I decided to have a repeat road trip and headed back to the land of...hum, not sure what Waco is the land of...other than the Richland Fashion Mall of course, for an encore weekend.

Luci, Meredith and Claire were stars at Sing and Mom and I had a great time critiquing and complimenting the acts. I was reminded that I'm old and my back hurts when I sit for 18 acts. Also a strong reminder of my age the fact that I could have gone to college twice since I was the age of the performers in those 18 acts!

On Sat. we took a perfect trip to the zoo with these two cuties,

and these two tough guys

Honey an GP with the boys.
That afternoon I got to have a rare play date with some of my high school girlfriends and our kids. Between four of us we had 10 kids there! Ann's sweeties, Caleb and Mabry were home sick and missed.

Payton was loving this ;).
A little better with the mommies.
Sat., night Kacey hosted us at her house for an early birthday dinner for Angie and I. Our birthdays are just two days apart so the joint celebration has become a bit of a tradition. Not sure how I missed getting a picture of the hostess with the mostess (sorry Kac!).

My personal shoppers took good notes and hooked me up with a slew of forever 21 (cough 31, cough almost 32) treasures.
Apparently the Bumbo is an ageless toy.

We finished the night with a long time personal favorite, Black Tie Mouse Cake from The Olive Garden. Yummy!
The big city doesn't have anything on this tasty treat. It's missing a few of my favorite people too. Which is why I'm always up for a Waco weekend.

Mommy Party

While I was catching up on my google-reader today I got invited to a fabulous party!

Stacey: Mom, can you please come to our party?

Me: Oh, what kind of party are you having?

Stacey: Um, it's a Mommy party.

Me: Well then I guess I better be there. What are we going to do at the Mommy party?

Stacey: It's just a snuggle party and we're going to snuggle.

Me: Sounds like my kind of party.

Stacey lead me into my room.

Stacey: OK, let me introduce you to your friends at the party, there is goofy, William, blankie, Douglas, Batman puppy and Wyatt's blankie. OK?

What a guest list all the VIPs were in attendance - party on.

Valentine's Day!!

Hope yours was happy! Just a few lovely Valentine images from around our house this week. :)

Snow Quotes

This morning in a VERY rare departure from my norm, which usually involves the boys dragging me out of bed with some dramatic story of pending starvation, I was out of bed enjoying breakfast and the beautiful white scenery before they were up. So, as soon as I heard them start to stir I couldn't wait to show them what had happened while they were sleeping!!

Stacey was full of excitement and ideas.

"I would like a white breakfast since it is snowing and then maybe we could watch a Christmas movie!?" I'm creating a monster.

"Mom, a long time ago you said it didn't snow very much in Texas, but, it did snow - A LOT in Texas today!" Bu-ya - in my face.

"I wish I was bigger so that I could ski. I would put on my skis and then go to the park and ski down the slide on my skis. That would be awesome." I foresee a lot of trips to the ER in our teen years.

"Mom, I think this morning you woke us up because you just couldn't wait to show us the snow." Busted.

We piled on some layers (Stacey left his coat at school Tuesday so don't worry that the one he is wearing is about two sizes to small) and headed out to enjoy the snow!!

Thank you God for these two precious boys and for snow...in Texas...in February ;)

Superstar

Last week we made a quick day trip to Waco and got to watch Ryan's skills on the basketball court!!

Trying to get these three monkey's to pose for a picture is quite a task these days!

He shoots he scores!!

Stacey and Wyatt LOVED getting to do a little warm up with the team. They were short a few players so they thought for a minute they might be needed, but the teams ended up scrimmaging.
Thankfully Grandma (Mark's Mom) was there to soften the blow.
Ryan is SO good and he did not stop smiling the entire game. You could tell he really loves it!
I mean look at that happy face!
Even while being fouled he is all smiles.

Thanks for the great show Ryan we loved watching you play.

Pajama Day!

P is for: Pajamas, Pizza, Pop and according to Stacey a Perfect day at Preschool!

Special Visitor

Guess what little precious came to see us this weekend!!

Miss Lila. We LOVED having this perfect pretty little princess at our house! Come back soon, pretty please!!

Big Green Birthday

My sweet husband turned 34 on Thursday and we had a very fun weekend celebrating his 34th year!! I got a little inspiration from this post that I saw on this blog so he woke up to this birthday greeting.

as well as a handful of these happy faces around the house :)

and a birthday breakfast of a fruit smoothie and a jalapeno bagel adorned with the birthday honoree himself.

He was so pleased he was even willing to pose for this photo!!

He opened a few little gifts: the book Peace Love & BBQ and his original creation of a quarterbacks wristband play list thingy turned handy recipe reference wristband.

No doubt it will soon be all the rage on the championship BBQ circuit!

We went out to dinner Thursday night just our little family to celebrate at Celebration (Stacey wasn't feeling as photo friendly, so we gave the camera a rest). On Sat. night Big and Nannie kept the boys and I showed my devotion to my man by accompanying him to watch the pay-per-view UFC event (Ultimate Fighting for you novice readers). Then Sunday we enjoyed a lunch date just the two of us! What a treat!

But the real par-tay was scheduled for Super bowl Sunday. We met up at Shelley & Geoff's house with the Smith fam and finally it was time for the big green reveal. Nannie had cleverly wrapped up all sorts of sweet meats for Stacey to unwrap. The last gift was an apron and...a Big Green Egg!!! According to the box it is the world's best smoker and grill.

We went out to the garage to check it out as well as the nest and and eggccessories (seriously that is what they are called!).
You can't read the card, but both sides of the family had gone in together for the eggstra (sorry I can't help myself) special gift.
Then it was time for the big game and tons of great party food! Debbie brought a plethora of new magazines, one of the many little treats she provides making her the best Mother-In-Law ever! And Shelley made Strawberry Whoopie Pies that were AMAZING and so cute - wish I had a picture. We also had a few more floating Stacey heads to round out the big green birthday.

Happy Birthday Stacey. We love you so much and are so glad that you are ours! Hope you had a super 34th Birthday