friends and bean boozled

Our friends came in from Ohio to visit us in our new town!

  The kids played Bean Boozled.  Have you heard of Bean Boozled?  It is hilariously funny.  

It's also pretty gross too. 

Here's how it works:

 There is a box of jelly beans and a spinner.  There are tons of jelly beans and some are nasty flavors like barf, moldy cheese and skunk spray. Those can be confused with pleasant tasting jelly beans of the same colors.  Barf can be mistaken for Tutti Fruity and you don't know what you get until you taste it, because the color of the jelly bean is the same. So, you spin the spinner and hope your jellybean is licorice and not skunk spray.  In my opinion both of those are losers.  You may also get blueberry or toothpaste flavored jelly beans.  The spinner displays the color you must pick with two possible flavors.  One yucky and one yummy!

  Just be prepared for lots of laughs and have a napkin on hand if the bean is too nasty for you!

(ordered on Amazon)

The kiddos are having so much fun being together, and I'm having fun with my bestie too!!

playing with pancakes

As you all know, Gary is the pancake maker of our house.  He loves making them on the weekends when he's off work.  We all look forward to it.  Well, he saw a video on Facebook of someone creating fun shapes and images with batter, so he wanted to try it!  We loved the idea.

I think he did a great job!  He made pretty much anything the kids and I asked for.  I love my cute diamond ring.  He made a Christmas tree too.

Hayden asked for a football.  Go Bears!!

Here is a fun man before he got flipped over!  

We just love playing with and of course eating our food.

Christmas 2014

On Christmas Eve we had a crab leg boil here at home.  It was yummmyyyy!

Christmas Eve night we all put on our traditional Christmas Eve pj's and played in the basement.  As you can see we played with balls. In our pants.  Dear Lord these kids are hilarious and keep us laughing non-stop.  Good thing we like to laugh huh?!?

Here is a picture of my sweet munchkins before bedtime.  They were soooo excited about Santa coming!!

Bright and early Christmas morning the kiddos couldn't sleep another second.

Layla got her first doll, named Layla.  It is so cute!  Hayden is in the background playing with his new Legos.  He's a creator, that boy!

Layla put together a fun Lego snowman.

Look how cute her new doll is!  She has pink highlights.

She even came with stylish clothes.  Layla loves her way more than any 'baby' doll she had when she was younger.  I think she'll actually play with this Layla doll.  We are on the look out for a pair of pajamas for mini Layla.  hahah! 

Here are my guys playing Legos in their pj's.  We all laid around in comfy clothes all day long.

The picture above is an awesome StarWars Lego space ship.  I would have gotten frustrated within the first 5 minutes trying to build this creation.

Look at our yummy Christmas breakfast.  It was so good and filling.  We had bacon and eggs and biscuits and gravy.  Oh and hashbrowns too.  My favorite.

We got fueled up for a long day of playing with all our new toys.  We had a wonderful and relaxing Christmas!

Our Christmas PJ Pic for 2014

Here she is.  Sigh.  The best picture we could get of our family pj's pic on Christmas Eve.

Lily oh Lily!  

We are thankful our camera has an auto-timer. ;)

Merry Christmas!

The Christmas Pj Parties (title by: Layla)

My all time favorite Christmas tradition for my family of 4 is getting new pajamas!

Last year we were in Ohio in our Devola farm house.

The year before we were in Ohio, but in our house downtown Marietta.

In 2011 we were in Texas at our home on Leather Strap Dr.  

There are many more pictures in this house!

Same house, smaller kiddos! 

In 2009 we were in the same house, but I just had surgery.  We all got new pj's and I only remember this Christmas because of pictures.  I was all drugged up!  Creepy kitty.  Yuck!

Still on Leather Strap and it was Hayden's first Christmas, but he got new pj's!

We were at Auntie and Donny Ray's on Christmas Eve 2007.  Layla and I got new pj's and I'm not sure why Gary isn't wearing his yet.  PS...I was pregnant with Hayden in this photo!

In 2006 we were snow skiing in Breckenridge Colorado.  

It was by far one of my favorite Christmas Eve's and we all got new pj's!

This was Layla's first Christmas and I'm pretty sure she got new pj's but we hadn't started our pajama tradition yet.  This picture was taken at my Aunt and Uncles house in Georgetown, Texas.

I just had to include this 2004 Christmas Eve picture.  My sweet first babies.  I miss those little furry creatures, but we have wonderful memories of spoiling them all the years of their lives.

Merry Christmas friends!

What is your favorite Christmas tradition?

banana pudding and Chex mix X2

We've been having fun in the kitchen today.

Banana pudding is so fun and easy for kids to make.  They cut the bananas, lined the dish with cookies, stirred the pudding and kept layering until the dish was full!

We also made our traditional Charlie Brown Chex mix aka *trash*!!

The kiddos measured all the ingredients and helped me stir each time the 15 minute timer rang.

  Layla loved reading the back of the cereal box.  Don't we all love reading the back of cereal boxes?  

Well, she read the Muddy Buddy recipe and we had all the ingredients for it.  Holy Moly.  I've never made this recipe before, but it is amazing.  Mmmmmm!  I'm so glad we tried it, but now I have to try to practice a bit of self control.  I could eat it all and all of the trash too!  Tis the season right?!? 

Christmas break is in full swing!!

Today was the last day of school until 2015!  The kiddos were so excited this morning when I dropped them off.  I'm pretty sure their days were full of playing and watching movies.

This evening they were jumping for JOY!  Wooo hooo!  Christmas time is always fun.  I love how you can't even see Layla....she's an excited blurr!  

a girl brunch and elf painting

Layla's new friend Aislin and her mom invited us to a girls day out!

We had brunch at a fun breakfast restaurant downtown and the girls had a gift exchange.  I was happy to meet a few more moms and talk about the school and our neighborhoods.

After brunch we went to a fun painting studio and the girls got a step by step tutorial on how to paint an elf.  It was so fun and right up Layla's alley.  She's a lover of arts and crafts, so painting was a perfect artsy activity for her.

She had to dry the paint so she could add to the elf!  I loved this place so much and I want to go paint something someday soon!

The finished product.  She looks so proud!!!  She did an amazing job.

I love seeing all the painters in the studio and how their elves turned out.  Each and every elf was different and showed the kiddos personalities.  Oh what fun!!!!

cozy lights, Lily, itchy legs and festive drinks

I love this time of year.  

I love how cozy the house feels all lit up. 

 Lily seems to like Christmas time too. I love that my sweet little pup decided to smile at me for a picture in front of the tree.  She is wrecking my tree without even knowing it.  Our windows are basically from floor to ceiling and she is always looking out the window snooping on people.  Deer have been known to wander the streets and yards of our neighborhood and Lily loves to watch them all at the expense of our blinds and the Christmas tree.  There are pine needles ever.y.where. 

 And as I type this now I think I understand why Hayden's eczema is out of control....pine needles.

After a quick trip to the doc he seems to be better.  His allergies are ok, but his rash is awful. The worst it has ever been.  There is no doubt he is adjusting to this Georgia climate.

Along with the twinkling lights in my home I love the drinks of the season.

I am near a Starbucks again, so I have enjoyed drinking fru-fru coffee again.  Two years without Starbucks was a long time.  I didn't treat myself that often, but knowing I couldn't have it made me want it even more.

I drank the Chestnut Praline Latte and it was good.  It wasn't sweet at all and that to me was refreshing.  I can't do super sweet drinks in my old age. ;)

Champagne is an exception to the sweet drink rule. hahaha!   I tried an Apple Cider mimosa last night and it was so good.  Just pour some champs into a glass and add a splash or two of cider.  I loved it and drinking from a champagne glass is always fun!