Happy Thoughts

Please think happy thoughts for this precious gal, Maggie. She had to have emergency exploratory surgery last night to try and find out why she was vomiting all day Wednesday.

Good news is that she is feeling a little better. Bad news is that they didn't find a foreign object, which we were kinda hoping was the problem.

She is still in the hospital on IV fluids and pain killers trying to get better so she can get back to what she does best..... play BALL!

Get Well Miss Maggie! You scared us!
We love you!
Mom, Dad, Garrett, Ryan, PeeWee, Ruthie, and Rascal

Hanging of The Greens---Video Edition

FEAST your eyes on the opening band for the Chris Tomlin WORLD tour 2010.

Ladies and Gentlemen..........I give you.........

BEST KOLACHES!

Hanging Of The Greens---Picture Edition

Tonight was the "Hanging Of The Greens" at our church. It is an annual event where everyone comes out for food, fun/crafts, music and chit chatting.

In "theory" it's SUPPOSED to work like this: everyone chips in decorating the church WHILE they are eating, having fun and chit chatting. What REALLY happens, unfortuantely, is that about 10 hard working souls do everything while the rest of us try and look busy.

Here's the food part:

Our Family church strategy lesson #1: Hang out in or around the kitchen at all times.....except for when they start washing dishes.....EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY....FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO DO.

Here's the fun/craft part:

R and S had fun making crafts at the craft table.

Here's the chit chatting part:

Chit Chatting about who has the biggest muscles is still chit chatting.

This year was an extra special one for us because it was the big church 'debut' of the CUMC Youth Band.

**Applause**Applause**Applause**Applause**Massive Amounts of Applause**

(This week their name is "Best Kolaches", last week it was "Irregardless Gnomes", next week...............got any ideas? I'm sure they are open for suggestions.)

T is their FEARLESS sponsor and G jams the heck out of plays guitar.

(I'll do a video post of the band in action once I figure out how to do it....baby steps, people, baby steps)

"Alright.......is everyone plugged in? Check one, Check one, Check, Check"

Here's the band getting ready to ROCK THE HOUSE.

G's two good friends, D and J visited our church this evening to watch their friend play! Wasn't that sweet?

Once again, a great evening with my church family. (See more here.)

I feel truly blessed!

(One last pic of the evening with R and S putting their tackling football moves on S's mom, Mrs. W.)

Selling A House

One of my favorite "Avoid-Housework-Surf-The-Internet" activities is to go online to the listings of homes for sale and look at all the pictures. I started doing this as a way to see exactly "WHAT" to do with a room, however, sometimes I run across rooms that are examples of what "NOT" to do .

Example Numero Uno:
The "Sometimes It's Better Just To Leave A Room Empty" Room


I feel so sorry for this sad, lonely, tiny table.

Example Numero Dos:
The "What In The World Is That Painting" Room
Check out the painting. Look at it for a while and see if you see what I see.


Is it just me or does it look like the older kid is peeing on the younger one?


And finally......my personal favorite:

Example Numero Tres:
"Barbie Dreamhouse Meets Marilyn Manson Goth"


How many coats of paint will it take the new owners to fix that ceiling? This room makes my eyeballs sting.
I bet this chick will grow up to live in a house that looks like THIS:


Doesn't it make you crave THIS?:

It also makes me crave those "Snowball" Hostess Snack cakes that I would con my mother into buying for me by SWEARING I would eat them but then I would bite into them and wig out because they felt all spongy and ooey and weird in my mouth.

Remember those "Snowballs"? Like shown here in this lovely, classy wedding cake?



(I bet that was one interesting wedding.)

Swine Time

It's time for some new pigs! R will be showing in San Antonio again this year and one other major show (we haven't quite settled on which one). We decided to go with these fabulous breeders that we know pretty well ........MommyCee and DaddyBill......ever heard of them? They picked out two beauties for R (and me..haha) to raise. Wanna meet them?


This is "Eight-Ball".

And this is "Bucky".



They are R's Durocs for the Spring shows.


"What are you doing? What's that? Can we play with that shovel? What are you doing with that shovel? Why are you doing that with that shovel?"

Pigs are much like three year olds. It's best to do cleaning jobs when they are busy doing something else or it will never get done.

Uncle M and Aunt L came out to meet our newest family members this weekend and teach R some "barn tricks".


Like the "How to make your wife taller" trick.
Do you see a hidden sparkle in Uncle M's eye?



And the "Squeeze your nephew's head off" trick.

Weekend Recap

This weekend the Snow White gang hosted my sister, Aunt L, her hubby, Uncle M, and my canine-niece, Lily all the way from Cow-Town. (That's Ft. Worth for those of you that don't know, but don't feel bad, I didn't know it either until she moved there!)


The girls went shopping at The Nutcraker Market and the boys went golfing.

Before we headed out to the Nutcracker, we made a short stop at Famous Footwear to get some shoes because being the fashionably-challenged individual that I am, I always need Aunt L's opinion before buying footwear. They felt comfy enough, so I decided to prance around in them amongst all those high society shoppers.

Here I am after my favorite purchase of the day. It is this PRECIOUS little oilcloth "To-Do" list that is going to change the way this family operates.
My first entry on the "To-Do"list? .........."GET BANDAIDS".
Yeah, by this point, the "let's wear a new pair of shoes" to shop a 70 gazillion square foot building was turning out to be a horrible, crippling idea.

We shopped until they kicked us out and we still didn't have time to really look at everything.
Since we had to park in another county, and my feet felt like hamburger meat, we got one of those bicycle taxi's to take us to our car.

Thank you Mr. Bicycle-Taxi driver man. My feet want to marry you.


On the way back home, we stopped at this AWESOME little "place" I know that has the best foot healing remedies.............in a glass............with a straw.........and fancy fruit for decoration.


Aunt L and I both ordered the same thing.....I know, boring.....but we had had enough excitement for the day with the whole "Life Changing To-Do-List" purchase.



YUM! During dinner, we both realized we needed to hurry and get back and show the boys all the one-of-a-kind finds we discovered on our excursion. We were SURE they would be so excited to see the goodie$$$$$$.


SEE? I told you the boys were going to be excited about all our purchases. Just LOOK at them! They can barely STAND themselves. (Looks like golfing might have hurt their feet, they seem to be indulging in some foot healing potions)

Here are some of our favorite finds of the day:


I love this little gem. It is a magnetic chalkboard thingy.
Item #2 on the "To-Do" list: GET CHALK FOR THE MAGNETIC CHALKBOARD THINGY



I think this was Aunt L's favorite purchase. There was this cutesy cartoonish tea-pot that went with this mug and I really wanted to somehow sneak-buy it without her looking and give it to her for her birthday, but couldn't figure out how to sneak off.



All our purchases!
Aunt L, let's go again next year........but not in new shoes.

FFA Bake Sale

Why do I always to this to myself? When I get the call on October 10th asking me to bake/make goodies for the FFA Craft Show/Bake Sale on November 8, I think it is the most fabulous idea!

"November 8th? SURE! I'd love to!"

(Because in Andrea-land, November 8th is LIGHT YEARS away from October 10......sure! Why not? November 8 will never come! That's like a whole MONTH away! Surely in one month's time, I will have found the secret to organization, all those hours of watching HGTV will have worked their way into my psyche, and I'll be a new woman by then! November 8th? BRING IT!)

I immediately start planning the Martha Stewart Moments that await me: "Oh! I'll make a dozen of these, put me down for a couple of cakes, some homeade peanut brittle, some individual bundt cakes that I'll do up in fall colors with cutesy little leaves made of icing, how about some banana bread, a couple of pies, some snickerdoodles..........................."

Then the night before the event comes.

Let this be a warning to anyone reading this that might need me to volunteer for something:

Sadly, there is a HUGE difference between the "Month-Before-The-Event-Andrea" that you might speak to on the phone and the "Night-Before-The-Event-Andrea" that will actually perform the duty. (Goldilocks can attest to this phenomenon----she has preformed many a "You can do this" pep rallies during her tenure as my BFF, God bless her soul.)

Yes, I will come through with something..............it just might not be "exactly" what I described when eagerly accepting the challenge.

I suddenly realize all my sad, empty promises are now due and all I really want to do is curl up with my blanket, watch all the Oprah's I've got stacked up on my DVR and twirl my hair.

So on Friday night, I thought to myself, "I'll do 4 dozen cupcakes and just melt some chocolate, dip some pretzels in it, throw on some sprinkles and call it a day....how hard can it be?"

BAD IDEA-----Chocolate dipping pretzels is the messiest, most time consuming thing I have ever done in my kitchen. (Except for that one time I swept the WHOLE floor when we moved in) Melting the 87 pounds of chocolate that I bought to cover the 300 pretzels took FOREVER.

I had chocolate splattered on the counters, the sink, the cabinets, my clothes, the microwave, my eyeballs....not to mention the floor (thank GOD I have dogs......"Mopping is for people with no dogs").

Finally, almost four hours later, my creations were complete.

2 dozen strawberry cupcakes

2 dozen chocolate cupcakes

2 dozen chocolate dipped sprinkle covered regular pretzels (individally wrapped, by the way, with a cute fall bow adorning each and every one:-)

4 dozen chocolate dipped pretzel rods (cleverly packaged in sets of two so they wouldn't get lonely)

I also did some chocolate dipped ones with white drizzles, and some white chocolate dipped ones with chocolate drizzles........I think this is what created the slinging chocolate problem that adorned the walls.

After spending 6 hours cleaning up the kitchen and chiseling off the chocolate splatters from every vertical surface in the kitchen, the adjoining rooms, and three dogs, I decided to total up what my contribution actually meant to the success of the bake sale.

Melting Chocolate..................................$15.00

3 bags Pretzel Rods...............................$ 7.50

2 bags round Pretzels............................$5.00

Sprinkles/glittery toppings...................$10.00

2 cake mixes/2 icings.............................$8.00

CutesyPie bags........................................$7.00

CutesyPie ribbon.....................................$5.00

Baskets for CutesyPie Pretzels..............$5.00

Grand Total.............................................$62.50

Total amount all that stuff probably brought the bake sale.............$40.00

However.....the evening wasn't a total wash, I guess....(say this next part in your head in that MasterCard commercial voice)

"A clean kitchen...................Priceless"

12 Years Ago Today........

THIS precious young man was born!

Happy Birthday R!!!!!!!!

We started out the day with R's favorite breakfast, Cinnamon Pinch Me Cake. (It's basically a DESSERT, but I'll call it "breakfast" because this is my blog and I'll live in denial if I want to)

Here's a little re-cap of the Birthday day:

Wake up Birthday boy! Make a wish and blow out the candle!

When R got home from school, he wanted to spend his birthday$$$$$ so we went to Academy to get the Ripstick"G"----

Try it out.....yep it works

Practicing some mad Ripstick G skilz while drinking his Jamba Juice. (He needed a little boost of energy from that exhausting Academy trip so we had to stop by and get some Jamba)

TeenBear came down with birthday wi$he$ from the Goldilocks bunch:-)

Then it was off to the football game. Two undefeated teams played hard tonight, but only one walked away still being able to say "We're Undefeated"..........and it was US!

Yeah Chargers!

R is #66 getting ready to pounce on that Jets guy!

Coach N delivers a birthday KISS!

Chargers 27 Jets 6

I think R's favorite gift was the win! (And it was FREE!)