Christmas come and gone..again

..Annalise & Austin looking for the elves


I am always sad to take down our tree. Our tree did fabulously this year not dropping needles and sparkling for weeks. This is still one of my favorite ornaments,,it came from my parents' tree way back in the 60's...

Bryce made this one last year..

Had a Wonderful Christmas...fun with friends, family and family to be...cannot believe it's 360 days until the next one. Need to reorganize to fit everything.
Many sweet babies were born this holiday season..little miracles

love this photo of my family & I for my mom's birthday...we set the timer.
My friends & I used to set the timer and our group would be waiting outside, then we all would run inside for the click! ...Not that we weren't bored or anything!

holidaze

almost here...
off work and looking forward to some rest where I forget about daily woes.... and time with family eating and laughing. Still have shopping left..but I love shopping. Just hope the perfect presents are still out there. ...no idea about what to get my huzbin though.

Merry Merry!

whistle while you work

I do not like not having extra free time to blog hop and search the web for Christmas ideas...but if good things {& some not so fun} are keeping me super busy that I guess that is fine with me. Spending time with the family on a drive to the North Georgia mountains counts too....

I have had the wonderful opportunity lately to take photographs and I have started a photography blog...with the hopes of one day having my own site. There are still things to learn, but that only comes with practice right, which I do each time I pick up my camera. I just read in an article yesterday~do what you love doing and would do for free and then get good at it so you could get paid for doing it. {something along those lines} I just totally enjoy shooting with my camera and editing photos...I aspire to get good at it.

....Thanksgiving this week?!?! Ready or not the holidays are here.

It's looking like Bryce won't need to ask for his two front teeth for Christmas. But he has plenty more ideas. ..oh I have been slacking on my holiday shopping.

Haven't been blogging much lately...busy with home/work/play. Looking forward to Halloween at my parents. It should always fall on the weekend I say!

fallin'

Ok not ready for this ....it's like in the 30's in the morning today. At least the rain has gone away. Winter is trying to push fall out of the way. I am hoping to keep my sandals out for a few more weeks!

We haven't picked our pumpkin from the farm yet, but we went to play at this patch the other weekend. Bryce & Avery were real sweet...here I have proof
poor Bryce needed a haircut badly, luckily after Friday he now does!

speaking of haircuts, Avie has never had one {aside from bang trims} I think she is due for a little cut..it's so long. I love it though. I can't wait til she lets me play with it and try more than ponytails.

Cannot wait until we go to North Georgia soon to visit the colorful leaves and get some yummy apples...prob after Halloween. Need to get some candy for our few trick-or-treaters.

augh! i have not felt "good" in over two weeks. Looking forward to this 4 day weekend to rest.

Here are some photos of Avery for her 3 year old shoot. She is such a big girl...

...glad pumpkin festivities abound- we need to go pumpkining soon & need to get on Halloween costumes too for the kids. I am looking forward to taking some fall photos for friends this month!

lost

you know when you forget how to get to a place that you want to find. You want to go back because there was something that sparked your interest & fancy...but now you cannot recall how to get there. What was the name? What lend you to it in the first place?

That happens to me often, well not often..but too many times more than I like. Often on the internet or at work.

this place is not one of those {because my huzbin knows where it is and eats there more than I get too}, but it's simple name makes me think it could get lost....Garden Produce & Country Store

yummy fried okra and mac & cheese...squash cassarole I've only heard about.
We sat on the porch area and enjoyed the milder summer weather. Before the massive rain deluge. We did not have any flooding by my home thank goodness, but we did have two days off of school. The power of water. Funny it's our science unit next week.

speaking of Lost I miss it...but loving the new fall season. Now if Thursday could share some of the wealth with the rest of the week.

butterflies & flowers

Still cannot comprehend my baby girl is now three!

Love when family & friends get together...it's just never enough. My Auntie & Uncle Bill from AZ came~ and my Uncle Jim & Aunt from MI surprised my mom with a visit!

We had a good time last month celebrating Avery with a butterfly flower garden-ish party.

{love you Duncan Hines!}

Gaddie and Tood made the fabulous personalized birthday tags and round flags...even a butterfly magic wand

The favors were candy flower pots {the boys received sizzler magnets..saved an extra for my class} and make your own goodie bag from the candy jars..

All the kiddos wanted to help unwrap~ it was a blur of princess dress-up gowns, clothing, and tissue paper...
The weather cooperated, unlike last year, so we were able to go outside and splash around. It was a little to hot, but I'll take it.

fun, fun day!

good things...

two front teeth...lost

{hopefully his new teeth do not fully come in until after Christmas =) }


a sister...my brother got engaged last weekend! It was cute, on the beach.. with the ring in a shell.

wonderful weather...perfect temps for me to be outside

Ben & Jerry's half baked FroYo... shared & eaten in one sitting

III

make a wish!

hope yours comes true...mine did!

well, now that August is over & all the fun busy/crazyness that it was,, maybe I'll have time to post about it!

School started off totally great..I am loving my school. my team is awesome & students are wonderful to boot! Avery turned three {really that day she started talking even more and saying such big girl things} Oh she'll always be my baby girl.

My mom, Auntie, and Avery went to see Dora at the Fox theatre. Avery's first! It was a good show and Avery was into it the whole time. I thought she'd sing more, but she was totally entralled at the stage.

Auntie Connie {Avery's Godmother} with Avery and my mom

athens

..if only it was in Greece.

No, our Athens here...University of Georgia was my adopted school since mine was small {i.e nothing to do} ..so we would go there for concerts, eventful shopping, etc. My brother graduated from there and my huzbin has grown up a UGA fan. Anyways my point is that now Bryce is a fan and wants to go to UGA. Although he has declared he is never moving away {oh help me} ever. We took Bryce & Avery to the countdown to kickoff day last month and Bryce got his {play} helmet autographed by some of the current & past football players.

We checked in on the Georgia Theater that suffered a fire in June. I wasn't sure what had burnt down, so I was happy to see this still standing...

I have seen some awesome shows there... I hope they are able to rebuild the theater {I believe it's over 100 years old} We ate at one of my fave restaurants there and roamed around a little..

it's the end of the summer as I know it

card from here.
I am back to work Monday, tho we are furloughed until Wednesday. So much to do with opening a new school. It never all gets done, but the important things {like putting up Cat in the Hat magnets from Target's $1 bin} get accomplished.

....love lavender. I don't know why I hadn't thought of this before..Paul had dried some lavender and then boiled it in a kettle. The smell was wonderful throughout our abode,,ahhh we can let summertime linger

{the lanterns were only out for Paul's birthday movie night... & again forgot to turn them on}

easy as pie...or cake

Try this real simple & yummy ice cream sandwich cake that looks cool when served. The original recipe can be found here... I just tweaked it a little. It also can feed many people, which is not good when you just make it for a family of 4. =) I used Blue Bunny sandwiches.

Ice Cream Sandwich Layer Cake

Take
1 tub (8 oz.) Cool Whip Whipped Topping, thawed
1 tub Cool Whip chocolate topping, thawed
8 Mint Oreo Cookies, chopped (about 1 cup)
12 vanilla ice cream sandwiches

Stir in chopped Oreos into the chocolate Cool Whip.

Place 4 ice cream sandwiches, side-by-side, on 24-inch-long piece of foil. Top with lots of the the Oreo/Cool whip mixture. Repeat with the sandwiches and Oreo/Cool whip mixture. Top with remaining 4 sandwiches. Press down on the cake just a little bit. Frost top and sides with Cool Whip. Bring up foil sides; double fold top and ends to loosely seal. Crumple an Oreo on top {you will not use all the cool whip, save for garnishing later}

Freeze for 4 hours.

Slice and enjoy!

this is great.. by Edina Tokodi

reminds me I would love another skip day with Paul... just not the so chilly outside part..but everything else

zoo

so like her mommy...

ROAR!!!!!

our second playdate at the zoo was fun with Addi, Ethan, Leah {& their mommies} & the MITs....6 hours flew by quickly. Our lil animals had a good time laughing at the animals, feeding birds, eating icees, riding the train, petting the goats, and being tour guides! To the children's museum next week.

the end