Merry Merry!

We had a great day with my parents celebrating Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

why do I always forget about monkey bread?

3 cans of biscuits, I buy the small four pack

2/3 cup of sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 stick butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

Cut biscuits into 4 pieces.  Shake and toss pieces in sugar and cinnamon. Layer in pan. Put butter  a little sugar and splash of vanilla in a pan and bring to a slow bubbly stage.  Pour over biscuits.  

Bake for 35 minutes at 350.

I remember my mom making monkey bread when I was a little bitty girl.  It was one of my favorite things on earth.  I have to say I've been a pretty smart girl since I was that bitty.  Anything with a stick of butter equals smarts. Butter is my bestie.

I love that this recipe card was written by my mom.  I have some really good recipes still handwritten.  Even with all the Internet options I pull up old posts from here (click on the sidebar, RECIPE) or I grab my recipe book for old favorites.  Speaking of favorites, this cake might just be the best cake on the planet.  You can always find my jalapeno ranch dip on the blog too. 

Go Panthers!!

 

It was cold and misting, but we had fun anyway!  We love our Panthers and high school football.

 

 

We lost the game sadly, but we had the best time cheering on our team.

A shipwrecked Halloween party

 

 

 

 

We all had the best time dressing up as Gilligan's Island!

Happy Halloween!!

18 years today

Gary surprised me with lunch at work, flowers and a ring pop. 

He's a great husband and I love him so much!!

After work we got the kiddos settled and went out for dinner and a few cold beers.

It was a fun way to celebrate 18 years!

First day of 5th and 8th

 

Let's do this 2018-2019 school year!

Cheer camp is in full swing

Cheer camp started Monday and ended today.  It was so fun to see Layla come home each night more excited than the day before.  I feel confident she found her 'thing.'  She loves to tumble and she enjoys being loud and smiling.  She's doing what she loves!!  

My heart literally broke when she tried out for All American cheerleader, but didn't make it.  I feel like she had a questionable attitude about it from the beginning, but we pushed her to do her best.  Her 4 closest buddies on the cheer team all made it, but she didn't.  I hate she didn't make it, but I also know as parents we have to help our kids deal with dissapointment.  During camp they had a tryout the last day.  She felt like she bombed the tryout.  As her parents we were there to comfort her, but dang it it was so hard to see her sad.  

I think just to get nominated was a huge thing!  I'm super proud of my 8th grade cheerleader! I think her first cheer camp was a huge success.  She's sore and tired, but happy!!

He is 10!

I can't believe this little man is 10 today.  Y'all, he really is a little man.  He's kind and polite and constantly puts others before himself.

He's obsessed with golf and golf attire.  He even purchased his own set of Oakley sunglasses with his own money. 

He loves Shark week and so he requested his Netsie, make him a shark cake.

The shark cake is perfect and even included shark teeth.  Thank you Netsie for your hard work!

Happy Double Digits to my favorite little man!!!!

Layla is a teenager

We were at the Gaylord when Layla woke up on her birthday, so we did things alittle different this year!  She got a huge cookie and her favorite Vanilla Bean Frappuccino from Starbucks.  I think she was just as happy as every other birthday morning!

I still can't believe she is offically a teenager!

We got her the fun 13 balloons in gold.  I knew she'd have a fun time taking tons of pictures with them.

UNTIL the number 3 came off the string and floated AWAY!!  So sad y'all!

You can barely see it floating up high in the sky.

And then she was 1! heeheehee!

We went back to our neighborhood H_E_B and they gave her another free of charge.  How sweet are they?  That's wonderful customer service.  So the photo shoots continue.....

She tried so hard to get one with both puppies, but they are just too crazy!

Happy birthday to you Layla!  We love you!

Happy 4th of July

The 4th of July was a fun day.  We managed to get a picture of the 6 of us which is hard to do!

We celebrated with new friends at their house.  The kids swam, we ate yummy food and the girls tumbled.  The boys played laser gun wars and us adults had a fun time hanging out on the back porch.  At one point it rained and it felt so nice and cool outside.  The kiddos did sparklers without worry of it being to hot.

We had a wonderful day and we're thankful for our freedom and are proud  to celebrate our country!

his first golf tournament

HC played in the Starburst tornament for the first time.  Oh his face just says it all!

I'm so happy Gary was able to take 3 mornings off work to be Hayden's caddie.  They are so  handsome and both just love the game.

They even took a few selfies for even though I was there every step of the tournament.

We all walked well over 10,000 steps each day of the three day event.  Actuallyyyyy Layla and I got a cart the last day, but walked a million miles the two days before.  It was fun to walk, but also fun to ride on the last day of the tournament.  

Here we go on the last day.

I love being a golf mom!  I have to thank Layla too for getting up early to support her brother!  She was up early walking with me and sweating like crazy to watch him play.

I'm thinking the golfer is getting onto the caddie a bit in this picture.  It was pretty hot the last day and tensions were high!

Two of the three days Hayden played with these two guys.  It's so fun to meet new friends on the course.

They had a fun time and I'm so glad that even though Hayden didn't get the scored he'd hoped for it was an amazing experience.  He knows he must work on his putting game before the next tournament.  He was on the green on almost every hole with two shots.  His putting game slowed him down.  He shot 57/58/57.  It don't think that is bad for his first tournament at age 9.  He's consistent!

This is the last selfie the guys took.  They were laughing so hard because like myself, sometimes when we take selfies we press the wrong button on the phone and turn the phone off.  Gary had done this several times and it was just so funny.