In This Crazy Life...

Monday afternoon I took Lilly to the vet. She's always so shaky and tries to sit in my lap. Dr. Barron loves her and tells her every year how lucky she is to have found us. She is the oldest living dog he knows of with her sphincter condition. I can't believe she will be four in November! Everything check out great and the little pig even lost five pounds since last year. The garden is producing. I picked all of this Monday night. I'm going to have to make stuffed bell peppers. Next year I want more jalapeno and banana pepper plants so I can pickle my own. Kev goes through so many jars of them. Tuesday I drove to Hot Springs to visit with mom and help clean out some of my grandmothers things. They are having a huge yard sale this Saturday. I also went by to visit my grandpa. He has Chemo this week and I wanted to check on him. Wednesday I had to work until 3:30 and after that I ran to the store to get supplies for canning dill pickles. I have never done it before, b...

My mom decided she wanted to get away for Christmas this year. It's the first Christmas without my grandmother and it has been hard on everyone. My brother, his finance, and her son went with us to Branson. Mom wanted to go see the lights at Silver Dollar City and shop the outlet malls. We left out early Tuesday morning and arrived around 1:00. We changed into very warm clothes and headed to Silver Dollar City. We had just enough time to ride a few roller coasters before the Christmas Tree lighting and parade. I've not rider a roller coaster in years. I look terrified, but it was a blast! Our Silver Dollar City Selfie. Everything was lit up. It was beautiful! Drinking hot chocolate and watching the tree lighting. They told the Christmas story right before lighting the tree. These were my favorite trees. They had these really neat icicles that lit up hanging all over them. The Rudolf Parade was pretty short, but the floats we amazing! I lov...

This is my grandfather's favorite cake and I make it for him whenever we have family get togethers in the summer. We didn't make it to the family reunion in June, so I made it for our July Family Fish Fry. The fish fry moved to Hot Springs whenever papaw bought the lake houses. Everyone hangs out and takes boat rides. I don't have any picture of that day. We ate with everyone and then went out on the boat with my brother and his fiancé. I wanted to document this recipe here because it's just in the notes on my phone. this way I will have it somewhere else.

Saturday we all met over at my grandmother's house to look through her things and decide what each of us wanted. There were a few things that I knew I wanted. Things that she would always tell me would one day be mine. These wooden purses were one of those things. Several years ago she gave me  one on the middle shelf with mushrooms on it. I went through and picked which others were favorites and added them to my collection. I now have nine of them. I displayed them in this cabinet Kev's great-great-grandmother owned.  I also knew I wonted some of the dolls she used to decorate her Christmas Tree with. she had already given me a handmade vintage tree skirt.  I found this china in the very back of a kitchen cabinet. We also found twos different sets of china in the attic. After looking at all of them I decided this one was my favorite. I pulled one out and asked my aunt if she minded if I took it. Huge tears filled her eyes. i was worried at first, but she said ...

I took off Thursday and Friday of last week to do wedding stuff. Thursday I picked up our rings, the guy's ties, and ran a few other errands before I headed to Hot Springs. I drove straight to the lake house and unloaded the massive amounts of stuff in my car and went out to the barn. My aunt took off a few days to work on the wedding.  We hung tons of glass jar lanterns in the big tree we were getting married under. One of the seating areas. I bough the cutest pillows that are deep purple and ruffled for the benches. Dad and Spencer built a dance floor. And we they hung crystal chandeliers in the barn and the tent. I drove back home Thursday night because I still had to pack my things. Friday morning consisted of setting up tables and chairs and getting my nails done. I called one of the best day spas in hot springs and made an appointment. She did an AWFUL job!! I cried when I got in the car. I admit, they were in terrible shape. Peeling. Some short, some ...

It's been a crazy two weeks! I finished up the school year last week and started summer school today. To finish out the year I had to move my classroom. I'll be teaching 2nd grade next year. I've experienced many feelings about this change, but I'm okay with it now. I moved into the room of a teacher that was retiring. Well. She wasn't in any hurry to get out and  I was in a big hurry to get my things situated in cabinets and on shelves so that I wouldn't have so much to do in August. Let's face it, between moving my house, bridals showers, and the already heticness of school starting, August is going to be super busy. Anyways. Back to moving my classroom. I got all my stuff (and it's a whole lot) packed into boxes and baskets ready to go Wednesday morning. However the other teacher had not gotten anything out of her cabinets yet. So I asked the literacy coach to help her clean them out. They only part way cleaned them out. My kids helped me tote every...

Today is my grandfather's 83rd birthday and he is still rockin! I'm so fortunate to have had all of my grandparents in my life for many years. My dad's mom past away in 2005 and my mom's step-dad in 2006, but the other two are still with me. My papaw is living a long and happy life. He has 5 children, 10 grandchildren, and 8 great-grandchildren and 3 on the way! Anyways, we had his party yesterday at the lake house. It was good to see everybody and wish him a happy birthday!  Notice in the picture that the candles show 38. My papaw has claimed he is ONLY 39 years old for as loooooonnnnng as I can remember. I'm glad to see he still has his sense of humor.