Partyin', Partyin', Yeah!

We had a pretty busy weekend with several birthday parties to attend.

First, on Friday night after Allan got home from work, we went out to eat at Ash Creek here in town.

This little restaurant is locally owned by a girl that I've known for 30 years or so.  Allan and I split an order of grilled chicken tenders and they were delicious!

We came back home after supper.  I was really excited to watch "Girls Night Out"!

 

The entire show was GREAT...BUT the absolute highlight of the evening was Carrie Underwood and Vince Gill's "How Great Thou Art".  It was beautiful beyond words!  I was fighting back tears through just about the whole song.  I thought I was going to be OK....for a second.  I got up to get a kleenex to dab at the wet corners of my eyes and I just let the floodgates GO!  I came out of the bathroom and fell into Allan's arms.  He said, "What IS wrong?" I just blubbered, "That song....is so beautiful!"  He said, "That's nothing to cry about."  I said, "Yes, it is!"  haha Anyway, it was just about the prettiest thing I've ever heard.

Saturday afternoon we went to celebrate my niece's birthday!

Here she is blowing out the candles on her cake.

 

She liked her presents!  That Barbie is gorgeous!  She told us that after we had cake and she opened presents that we could all leave!  You never know what she is going to say!

 

Me and Allan with the birthday girl.  I can't believe she's 6 already!

We hurried home to get ready to go to ANOTHER birthday party for a friend from church.  A surprise party!

This party was held at Fish Tales.  They have really good food...especially the CHOCOLATE COBBLER!  That is my main reason for going.  When we got there, I checked out the desserts and there were just a few servings left of the cobbler.  I was VERY  tempted to go ahead and fix me a bowl of it then.  But, I thought it would be rude to get dessert before the birthday party even got under way.  The BG (birthday girl) and her family finally got there...and yes she was very surprised. We all went through the buffet line to get our food.  I got to the end where the desserts are and there was NONE of the chocolate cobbler left.  I was devastated!  I hunted up the owner and asked if she was going to put out another pan of it.  She said, "No, but I did scrape a small bowl full out of the other pan.  Do you want me to save it for you?"  Well...duh...of course I did!!  After I finished off my fish, shrimp and other fixins I tracked her down again and said I was READY!  She reheated it up and brought it out to me.  DELISH!!

Of course I had to have a piece of this cake and it was very good also.

BG and I having a war with our party blowers!

After the party, we went home to check out the weather.  There were tornadoes and severe storms heading our way.

When the storms finally hit, Sandy began to take tornado precautions!  Hershey was in the tub with her, wondering, what in the world are we doing in here?  The storms have really been brutal to SE Oklahoma over the last week or so.  We did survive the night but it was a bit scary for a while!

Neither of my kids were able to come home this Easter weekend and I really missed not having them here to dye eggs and get up early to see what the Easter Bunny left in their baskets!

 

Sandy standing in for the Easter Bunny!

I was excited for church and my little Bible Class.  I teach the 2&3 year old class and they are just precious to me!

Sweet little "B" and Cowboy Bunny "P"

How cute is this?  Pretty cute!

And he made a pretty cute bunny too!

I hope everyone had a great weekend too!

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

I'm really struggling to find something to love this week since I am on Day 3 of this horrible headache/migraine.

. This is pretty much how I feel but I'm hoping to feel better TODAY!  I am going to look far and wide to find something positive to focus on though!
I'm loving all the beautiful blooming flowers! 

These roses are in my yard and they are so pretty.

I took this pic in my brother's yard over the weekend when we were there for the birthday party.  These roses are such a gorgeous color!

I'm loving this new Special K cereal!  

I'm REALLY REALLY loving that Ashley went to meet THE PIONEER WOMAN yesterday.  Even though I am so jealous and green with envy, I am still loving that Ashley got to meet our hero!  

Check out Jamie's blog to see what everyone else is loving this Wednesday!

Fun Friday!

I was determined to be productive today!  Not everything that I wanted/needed to accomplish today got crossed off the list, but a few things did. 
I'm excited for this tonight:

This show has my favorite country artists and they just so happen to be fellow OKIES!   I especially love Carrie and Reba, but the other ladies are great also.

I went to my favorite store, JUST A DOLLAR, to shop for Easter treats for my little Sunday School class.  Such fun! This store always has the cutest holiday things. 

I got these adorable felt totes to put all their goodies in!  For only $1!  I love it!!

Tomorrow we are celebrating my niece's birthday!

 

She is one of the funniest, wittiest kids I know.  You NEVER know what she is going to say! 

Earlier in the week, after being out in the rain.  I left my umbrella open to dry.

 Next thing I knew, Hershey was camped out under it.  He has to check out anything new in the house!

Oreo has been especially snuggly with me this week. He is usually Allan's cat so I really enjoyed my snuggle time with him a few days ago.

I hope everyone has a FUN FRIDAY and a FUN WEEKEND! 

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

After reading others' "What I'm Loving Wednesday" posts, I thought I would do a post myself this week.

 I'm loving that we missed the severe weather last night!

 Image borrowed from kten.com

There were some nasty storms going on with this system! 

I'm loving that my pansy's are still blooming! I don't have much of a green thumb, so I'm extremely happy that I've kept these alive through our harsh winter this year. 

 

I'm LOVING my new snack item!

These are absolutely AMAZING!!  You must try them if you haven't already.  They also have a couple of other varieties-dry roasted and natural.  They're all good, but hey, when  chocolate is an option, there is NO other option!

I'm loving watching the eagles!  About two weeks ago, I heard about this eagle's nest in Iowa that had 3 eggs waiting to hatch.  When I finally started tuning in, one of the eggs had hatched already.  I kept checking off and on, hoping to see the other two eggs hatch.  Well, I missed the actual hatching.  Anyway, it has been such an amazing experience just watching the adult eagles taking care of the babies.  I can't get enough of them!  They are so adorable! Click the link below to take you there.  You won't be disappointed!

 http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles#utm_campaigne=synclickback&source=http://www.kwch.com/kwch-watch-iowa-eagles-about-to-hatch-20110331,0,439272.htmlstory&medium=3064708

I'm loving these sweet church ladies!

 My church is blessed by so many great ladies!  These are just a few that I ate lunch with today after Ladies Bible Class.  My favorite lady, my mom, is standing next to me.  We ate at the bakery today, which is always a great meal.

Today I had my usual-half of a chicken salad sandwich with a cup of potato soup. Mmm mmm good!

What are you loving this week?  Link up with Jamie today and share your loves!

Everybody's Working For The Weekend-weekend recap

This past weekend was a pretty laaaazzzzzzzyyyy weekend for us.  When Allan got home from work on Friday, we hem hawed around trying to decide whether to stay in town to go out to eat or to go on over to Paris.  I hadn't felt good and didn't really feel like going anywhere...but decided to go on to Paris anyway for supper.

This is our conversation as we are nearing Paris city limits:

Me: Where do you want to eat?

Al: I don't care.

Me: I don't care either.

Al: Well, you pick.

Me: No, you pick because you're pickier than me about where to eat.

Al: Anything but Mexican is fine with me.

Me: Well, I was wanting Mexican...just kidding.

Al: Well, I don't want Capizzie's since we ate there last weekend.

Me: How about Magel's or Applebee's?

Al: That's what I was thinking.
Me: Which one?

Al: Either is fine.  You pick.

Me: OK, Magel's because I need their bread.

Soooooooo...Magel's it was!  Magel's has these to die for rolls that come to the table piping hot with whipped butter ready to slather on them. They are simply delish!!  My main reason for going there!  Their other food items are great too and I decided on the chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and green beans.  Allan had filet mignon, loaded baked potato and a salad.  Great food! Instead of walking the shopping center, as we usually do, we came straight back home and watched a movie on netflix.

We had a similar conversation as to what to watch as we had about choosing a place to eat!  We have two distinctly different tastes in movies so it is hard to find something we both will like.  After scrolling through pages and pages of movies, we decided on "The Spy Next Door" with Jackie Chan.

We both think Jackie Chan is hysterical in everything he does. This was a cute little movie and we both enjoyed it.

Saturday morning, Allan made omelets, as he does most Saturdays.

He makes the best I think I've ever had.

Late in the afternoon we decided to go piddle around at our land in the country.  We are getting closer to building our house!

We took Sandy with us too for the first time.

Sandy is not a traveler at all, even though it is just a 10 minute ride out to the land.  So, she was sort of mad and was not going to enjoy being out in the country.  She would not take a drink of water or eat a treat!  She was just going to sit and pout.

Saturday evening I watched "The Shunning" on the Hallmark Channel.

It is based on the book by one of my favorite authors, Beverly Lewis.  It was a great movie!  I love the Amish stories!  This of course, was not Allan's type of movie, so he was watching something on the computer, which I'm sure would not have appealed to me...wrestling, UFC, or NCIS most likely.

Sunday was church.  I love my little Sunday School class!  Only one of my kids was there in time for class and she is adorable!  She is just soaking up everything she's being taught about Jesus and other Bible characters.

After church, we went to eat at the usual place-MOLINA'S!

We LOVE Molina's and the staff there. They take such good care of us!  The chicken quesadillas are one of my favorites!  Yummmm...

After lunch comes the Sunday afternoon nap.  I love my Sunday nap...or any nap for that matter!  Then it was time for church again and then to Braum's with the group.

We have a pretty big group that go after church on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights.  We had lots of laughs last night...along with some paper wad throwing from some of our oldest members! haha Fun times...just shows you DON'T have to grow up!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Bedside Book Shelf

Since I have this insatiable love of reading, I decided to link up with Kelly's Korner for her "Show Us Your Life"-books you're currently reading.

I read DAILY.  Reading is part of my nightly getting-to-sleep routine.  It is a MUST!  I currently have about 8-10 books just waiting to be read.  Our public library in my small town is AMAZING...especially for a town this size.  I visit it just about weekly and always pick up more books before I even bring back what I checked out the week before.  I also borrow books from Ashley, since she is an avid reader too and goes to buy books as they come off the press.

I just finished reading "Angel Sister" by Ann H. Gabhart.  I actually bought this one myself, based solely on the cover.  It just looked like a good book and I have to say that it was!

I checked this one out last week.  Again...the cover is what drew me to the book in the first place.  After reading the synopsis, I do think it will be a good one.  It is a true story about a "special child" and all the obstacles he overcame in his life.

I are really into "Amish" books.  I have read just about everything that Beverly Lewis has written, so now, I'm on to other authors that write about the Amish lifestyle.  Judith Miller is the author of this one.  I've read several of her other books and she is becoming a favorite!  "Somewhere to Belong" is the first in her "Daughters of Amana" series.  I've read so many "Amish" books that I'm beginning to pick up on the language a bit! I like to throw a word out here in there in conversation with Ashley or my mom...they also read these same books.

After I get through these few library books, this next one is at the top of my list!

I finally got my hand on this one last weekend when I went to visit my kids.  Ashley had bought it for me a while back and kept it with her because she was going to go to Pioneer Woman's book signing in Oklahoma City.  She didn't get to go because of the ice/snow storm at the time.  We both were REALLY looking forward to meeting PW!  I'm so excited now to get to read her story!

Ashley loaned me this one last weekend.  She highly recommended it so I'm eager to read it soon too!  A segment of the synopsis says:  A powerful retelling of the book of Hosea, Redeeming Love is a life-changing story of God's unconditional, redemptive, all-consuming love.  Sounds pretty good!

Karen Kingsbury is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE author!  I love, love, love her!  I thought I had read everything she's ever written but Ashley gave me a few more from her library that she says I haven't read yet.

Karen is going to be in OKC this weekend and Ashley is going to her book signing for her latest book Leaving! I'm soooo jealous!

If you're not familiar with these books or authors, I HIGHLY recommend you checking them out!

Sometimes You're The Pigeon...

...and sometimes you're the statue.

On this particular day, I was the statue.

I decided late last Wednesday night that I would go to see my kids.  I hadn't seen Colby since New Year's Eve and Ashley since February.  Way too long for this Momma to not be with her kids.  I headed out early Thursday morning and got on the turnpike.

I had gone about 19 miles when I came to the first toll gate.  I held my arm out the window to hand the clerk my money.  I suddenly felt something on my arm/sweater.  Just out of the corner of my eye, I thought it was a bug of some sort.  I do not like bugs!  I swiped at my arm and quickly realized this was no bug. I will spare you the details of this grossness.  I screamed out to the clerk, "A bird pooped on me!"  She immediately stuck her head out of the window of her little cubicle and looked up with her mouth wide open...not smart when there are birds overhead!  She immediately began apologizing and handing me paper towels to try to clean up a bit.  She was just mortified and I then began laughing at the whole scene!  She finally gave me my change and I went on my way.  I pulled in at the gas station there at the toll booth area and went in to clean up even more.  I hand washed the arm of the sweater in the sink and went on my way, laughing!  It reminded me of the time a bird pooped on Colby while we were watching the high school homecoming parade a few years ago!  Anyway, what a start to my trip!

 

I finally arrived at Ashley's office just in time to go to lunch with her. I then spent the afternoon with a friend, waiting on the kids to get off work.  When the kids got off work, we met at Johnnie's for burgers and fries, then went back to their apartment for the evening.

Ashley and I were messing around on her computer, taking pics and such.  The picture taking started out with nice, normal pics but as the silliness took over, the pics began to change.

We had such a good, fun, crazy time as usual.

Check out Ashley's Friday night photos here!

After staying up wayyyyyyyyy too late as we always do, we finally got up and around by the crack of noon on Friday.  Ashley and Colby both were off work on Friday so I was glad to spend time with the both of them! We headed out to the mall for a quick lunch and then to the movies-Soul Surfer.

Ashley and I couldn't wait to see this movie since Carrie Underwood, whom we practically shoved into stardom a few years back with our excessive voting on American Idol, is in the movie.  I'm still not sure why with 'surfer' in the movie title that I didn't associate it with water...moving water...and lots of it.  I get seasick/motion sick by just taking a bath so it didn't take but a second for me and the kids to realize that this might not end well.  I mainly watched the movie with my eyes closed for the most part.  It was a GREAT movie!  It was very inspirational and makes you really think about how you deal with the struggles and difficulties that we all face.  My favorite quote from the movie is: "I don't need easy.  I just need possible."-Bethany Hamilton.

After the movie, we just walked the mall a bit and shopped until time for supper.  Then we went to BJ's Restaurant for supper.  It was my first time to eat there and it was delish!  Ashley and I split a calzone and it was amazing.  After supper, Colby wanted to go to the man store, aka Best Buy.  We killed a little time there checking out all the electronics that I know nothing about.

We left there and headed to the Shannon Miller park which I also had never been to.  We always say we are going to go, but never do.  So...we went.

 Such a gorgeous statue!  I hope the pigeons don't find her!

Of course, Ashley and I had to showcase our inner gymnasts.

 We tried to get Colby to take a pic like this too, with the PROMISE (yeah right) that it would not end up on any blog or any form of social networking sites.  He didn't buy it, but did agree to this one pic.

I love, love, love my kids and had such a great visit with them!  Both kids had plans for Saturday afternoon, so I left to come home after having a late breakfast.  I was especially careful while going through the toll gates on my way home and I made it...with clean sleeves!