What I'm Loving Wednesday!

It's Wednesday and time to link up with Jamie for this week's "What I'm Loving Wednesday".

I'm LOVING that these guys got a gold medal in the Olympics!  I'm so proud of our Thunder and that three of them were chosen to represent our country.  So, so proud!

I'm LOVING these 100 calorie ice cream sandwiches!  I just ran across them one day earlier in the summer as I was drooling in the freezer section at Wal-Mart.  I was so tempted to get the snickers ice cream when I saw these.  They are really good!  Kinda small in size, but if you eat 2-3 of them then you feel like you've eaten a regular size one!  OK, so I've not eaten more than one at a time, but I was really considering it!

I'm LOVING that I found Hershey on two different days in this same funny pose.  He just cracks me up by the way he sits and lays around the house.  I think that he thinks he is part human.

I'm LOVING that Oreo and Abby are such good friends.  Hershey STILL hasn't totally accepted her in the family but Oreo loves her!  They call each other and play all the time.  Hershey would NEVER share his space with her like this.

I'm LOVING that our little church is such a giving church.  We recently collected all of these groceries for one of the children's homes that we support.  There was just about this same amount on the opposite wall too!

I"m LOVING this beautiful sky I happened to capture a few weeks ago!  It is gorgeous! 

I'm LOVING that Lee Ann is working hard on our new mural for the church baptistry!  It's really coming along quickly and is going to be pretty.

And finally, I'm still LOVING wildflowers!  I don't know what kind these are but I think they're so pretty and the pasture is just covered in them.

This is what I'm loving this Wednesday.  What are you loving?

Monday Ramblings...

I hope everyone has had a good Monday, as good as a Monday can be anyway.  Today I'm just going to ramble along.

A few Saturdays ago, Allan stained all of the outside window trim on the new house.  It looks really good!  He finally finished the wiring and got the OK from the electrician.  He is so glad to be done with that!  The septic tank people are there today putting in that system so maybe soon I'll have indoor potty privileges! 

We went to Jason & Lee Ann's house a while back for supper.  She made carnitas and sopaipilla cheesecake.   It was all so good and we had a great time just visiting.  I should have taken pictures before the guys went to check on a baby calf that wasn't doing too well.  I don't even want to know what all that is on Jason's shirt.

These strawberry sopaipillas are so yummy!  Our best waiter and friend, Manuel, treats us to these a lot of times when we eat at Los Compadres. 

A friend from high school, Terri and her husband, Lew, came to see the house several weeks ago.  It was great visiting with them and of course, I love for people to come see the dream home we're building.

We continued our birthday celebration with another meal out with the church group. It was mainly for Susie's birthday, but since it was still our birthday week too, we had to keep the celebrating going!  We love Roma's in Durant and now they have one in Paris, which is closer for us. 

We had some really bad storms last week!  There was a lot of damage all over town, with downed trees and roof damage, even two house fires caused by lightning strikes.  We lost several big trees on our property and a lot of limbs were blown down.  This one huge tree fell over on one of the trees in our front yard.  We're afraid we might not can save it, but we're not going to cut it down yet to give it time to hopefully recover.  Allan spent a good part of Saturday morning cutting this one down.

Here's mom working hard...again!  She brought out her big trimmer and really did a bunch of clean up around trees and up close in the yard.  Right as she was loading her stuff up to go home, she took a tumble and scared us all!  She said she wasn't hurt, so we began to laugh!  I'm terrible about laughing at falling people!!  Even when it's my own mother!!  BUT...she was laughing too so that made it OK!  I'm so glad she wasn't hurt though.

I tried a new recipe this weekend that my sister-in-law, Stacey, made several months back.  It's venison steaks stuffed with cream cheese and jalapenos,  folded over and wrapped with bacon and then grilled.  Oh my!!  They are so good.  I made Paula Deen's black-eyed pea cakes to go along with the venison.  It was a great meal and yes, we ate off of my snowman dishes...in August...in 100 degree weather.  Is there anything wrong with that??

My brother, Jimmy, and his family came down for a while on Saturday afternoon.  "C" had his 5th birthday the week before, so he came to collect presents!  He opened up our card, shook it upside down, and said, "No money"!  That cracked us all up!  We had a good visit with them and then we all went to eat Mexican food.

Jimmy brought us a thundershirt to try to ease Sandy's anxiety about rain, storms, and everything else that falls from the sky.  She was mortified when Allan put it on her.  She kept looking at my nephew with a 'can't you help me out of this' kind of look!  We got to put it to the test last night when a quick thunderstorm came up.  It didn't seem to calm her very much as she kept on with her panting and pacing until I finally put her in the crate for the rest of the storm.  The directions say it may take several uses for dogs to finally let it calm them.  We shall see!

I hope y'all have all had a great Monday and also have a wonderful week!

Happy Birthday to...US!

We have been doing a lot of birthday celebrating over the last few days!  My birthday was yesterday and the hubby's is today! He is having a milestone birthday, which I won't mention the exact one that it is.

Our kids came home last weekend to celebrate with us.  I was so happy!!  Colby has been home a few times lately but it has been months since Ashley had been here.
Saturday, I cooked all day to get ready for our birthday supper.  Do you see what is wrong with that picture?? I COOKED ALL DAY...for my own birthday!  I really was glad to do it though.  I made enchiladas, taco rice, and refried beans.

I took supper out to my mom and dad's house and we partied there.  Supper was so good!  Mom made a salad and we also had chips and salsa to go along with the meal.
Allan had requested a plain cheesecake with strawberry topping, so that's what I made!

I think the look on my face says, "He got the bigger piece!"  The cake was delish if I do say so myself!  I love to make cheesecakes and hardly ever make a 'plain' one but it was so good...one of the best Allan said.
We opened presents and cards and just visited with the family.  My Aunt Betty was here visiting for the weekend too.

I just love my family so much and wish we could all be together more often.  Weekends are never long enough for me when the kids are home!

After leaving mom and dad's house, Ashley and I went to visit her best friend from high school. Her baby, Sweet P, was in a pageant earlier in the day and won a ton of trophies and crowns-Ultimate Grand Supreme!

She is just the cutest thing!

Sunday was church and  lunch with church friends.  A couple of Colby's high school friends joined us.

We went home and took pictures by the picture tree before everyone changed out of church clothes.

The kids went back home Sunday afternoon, which never makes this momma happy.  I'm so thankful that they both were able to come home to celebrate with me and Allan.

Monday night there was more partying!  Susie, our preacher's wife was having a birthday this week too so we went out for supper to celebrate the three of us once again!  We ended up at TaMolly's since the  new place we were going to is closed on Mondays.  I guess they didn't realize it was birthday party time!  Anyway, TaMolly's is another favorite of ours so it worked out just fine.

I had this big ole fajita chicken chimichanga and WAY too many chips and salsa.  All of it was wonderful.

The two birthday girls!

After stuffing ourselves at TaMolly's, we decided to stop for Blizzards at Dairy Queen on the way home.  Yum!!  It was a good ending to a nice evening with friends.

Last night, after church, we went to Braum's for ice cream, since it was my ACTUAL birthday.  Tomorrow night we're going out with a bigger church group to keep the celebrating going.  I could get used to this rather quickly!  Why stop at just one day if you can drag it out all month long?

And finally, this is what happens when you eat too much cake-