Weekend Wrap-up

We had a beautiful weekend here in SE Oklahoma this past weekend.  This was just to make us happy before the big blizzard of 2011 hits overnight tonight.  I seriously hope this forecast is totally off base! BRRRRR!!

Allan had worked 12+ hours the last week or so while the plant was on shutdown, so we were very glad it was over before the weekend started.  Friday evening we went out to my parents' house for supper.  I had made several casserole dishes of Pioneer Woman's Chicken Spaghetti several weeks ago and had stored two dishes in my mom's freezer, since ours was full.  I had mom thaw one out for our supper that night.  She also made a salad and some of her homemade bread, all buttery and garlicy!  It was a great meal.  She also made a delicious apple pie! Yummers!

After cleaning up the kitchen I gave mom a lesson on how to navigate Facebook.  I had set up an account for her earlier in the day.  She had been wanting to get on Facebook for a while now, because I'm constantly telling her all the info I learn about people on there.  I think she will really enjoy it once she kind of gets the hang of it.  She's already got quite a few friends!

Mom's Facebook profile pic-so pretty!

Saturday was kind of a lazzzzyyyy day.  I slept in a bit and then Allan cooked sausage and cheese omelets for breakfast.  Mmmmmmm they were wonderful.  He makes a really great omelet!

After a little snack/lunch we each went our separate ways.  I went to clean our church for Sunday morning worship and he went out to work on our land.  We are in the beginning process of building our dream home-a log home!  After I finished at the church, I went out to the land also.  We walked around a bit and saw a bunch of deer tracks and other critters tracks too.  I hope these are ALL friendly critters!

This is what our home will hopefully look like!

We then came back in to town and decided to eat at this new little cafe in town.

I mainly went for their bread pudding which I've had once before and Allan has had several times.  It is absolutely to die for!!!  I've never had anything quite like it...but it is delish!!

After supper, we came back home and just chilled...watched tv and I prepared my Sunday School lesson for the next day.
Sunday we went to church and then to lunch at Molina's...great food and great service!  We then came home and I took a lonnnnng nap...as usual for me on Sunday afternoons.  Then, it was back to church again for the evening worship.  After church, we went to Braums' with a big group from church.  

I hope everyone had a nice relaxing weekend also!

Show Us Your Life-Singles

I'm linking up with Kelly of Kelly's Korner for her Friday Show Us Your Life-Singles and feature my wonderful daughter, Ashley.

Ashley is 24 years old, almost 25, and lives in the Oklahoma City metro area.  She graduated from college with a degree in Child Development/Family Life Education.  She currently works as a family support specialist with a Christian adoption and foster care agency.  Ashley is very passionate about her job.  She is very caring, and this shows in how she interacts with pregnant girls considering adoption for their unborn babies and the foster parents and children.

Ashley is a very active member of the Church of Christ.  She teaches pre-school Bible classes and also helps with LTC for the older kids, along with participating in adult small groups. 

Ashley with her best friend Jessica

Ash is a great girl!  She is shy at first until you get to know her.  She is probably one of the most loyal people I know.  Once she is your friend, you can always count on her to be there through the good times and more importantly, through the tougher times.

Ashley loves her music!  LOVES LOVES LOVES her music!  I keep telling her to get on the tv show "Don't Forget The Lyrics" because I think she must know the lyrics to any song ever written!   She loves going to concerts even if she's not particularly crazy about the artist performing.  She just loves music!

Ashley is a big fan of college football and of course her favorite team is BOOMER SOONER!

Ashley is also a huge blogger!  If interested, you may visit her blog Ashley's Carnival Ride or leave a comment here if you know of any good Christian guys!

New Year's Resolution

Ok, so it's been quite a while since I posted but here I go again!  My New Year's resolution this year, as usual, is to get in better shape, lose weight, and eat healthier.  Here it is day 20 of the new year and I'm just now beginning to consider the "better shape" part of that list.  This morning, I decided to get back into exercising.  I got my tennis shoes on and popped in my Sweatin' To The Oldies tape. 

Before I go any farther, I must say that I've been having some weird pain with my foot.  It seems to come on suddenly and leave just as suddenly.  Some days, I can only walk with a bad limp.  Anyway, today it felt fine...for about 15 min.  I was in the middle of "It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To" when the pain hit and I nearly collapsed in a sweaty puddle in the living room floor.  I was nearly in tears and believe me, there was no party going on!  Needless to say, this was the end of my exercise time with Richard for the day.  Instead I camped out on the couch with an ice pack on my foot and watched the ladies of The View. 

Oh well, maybe another day.

Halloween

I absolutely LOVE Halloween!  Ashley came home early on Saturday so we had to get busy fixing our costumes.  My costume idea didn't work out so I had to dress up as the easy-to-do scarecrow.  Ashley found all this neat stuff on the Progressive Insurance website so she decided to be "Flo" and she made a great one!  We got all dressed up and headed to the church Halloween party! 

Here we are in front of the cute display in front of the hosts house.

 Me and Allan-he wouldn't dress up this year so our couple's picture looks like he's married to a country bumpkin!

I LOVED my sweet friend, Debbie's costume!  She had lost her dog!!!  What a hoot that was!

Ashley with some of our church teens-Corey-the nerd, Kelsey-the nurse, and Kameron-the pirate.

The church witches-Pat & Mickie were such funny witches.  Both their husbands came as vampires-pretty funny.

Simone is from Germany and she came as this famous German cartoon character, Pumuckl.  Brandon was a very impressive Captain Jack Sparrow.

Clark, our host, kept busy cooking the hotdogs all evening.   Allan was his assistant.

The girls-Rock Star Erin, Samantha the M&M and also our hostess, Jaclyn as Miss Hickville and Lori as Mr. Hickville.

 We had some pretty impressive pumpkin carvers.

More pumpkins! 

 After it got good and dark, we went on a hayride.  So much fun but of course there were people hiding along the way that jumped out and scared us!  

 Roger as one of the local men in our community!  He REALLY looks like him! hahaha  So, so funny!  Fieriel was a princess and Kameron was a pirate.

 Group shot of all the ones in costume-we all had a great time!

Sunday we went to church and out to eat at our usual place-Molina's.  Before Ashley left we had to take our traditional pics in front of the tree!

 Me and my girl!  I love her so much and always enjoy the fun times we have together. 

Daddy and daughter

 Ashley is such a beautiful girl!  I thank God for her!!

Another GREAT Weekend!

 

 Wednesday evening as we were getting ready to leave for supper before going to church, this guy shows up and surprises us!  We did not know he was coming home for fall break.  I was so excited and really struggling to hold back my happy tears!  We hadn't seen Colby in several months so we were SUPER happy he was home. 

 Colby was bonding with Oreo...finally.  It takes Oreo a little while to be friendly with the kids when they first come home each time.

Friday night, we went to Game Night at church.  This was to celebrate the October birthdays and anniversaries.

 I made stromboli and it was GREAT!  I actually made two big loaves of it and only came home with a couple of small slices.  There is always such great food at our church fellowships.  Church ladies just know how to cook!

 I also made a pan of brownies!  I've discovered Betty Crocker ( I think it's Betty's mix) Dark Chocolate brownie mix!  You MUST try it!  I usually add a cup of chopped pecans, but since Colby doesn't like nuts, I decided to put peanut butter chips in instead.  WONDERFUL!! 

 After the food, comes the games!  There were two groups playing dominoes.  We had a large group playing Phase 10 and it got ugly!  I thought we were going to have to stop the game and pray for a couple of people! They get ruthless with those 'skip' cards.

 We got home in time to see the TEXAS RANGERS big win over the New York Yankees!  So proud of this team and excited about their first trip to the World Series. 

 All weekend we had been battling stopped up drains.  We were having to limit how much water we ran in order to keep it from backing up in the toilets and bathtubs.  Saturday morning though, it all came to a halt.  Water was NOT going anywhere but back up in the drains.  Allan began to try to unstop it by 'snaking' out the drain.  No. Such. Luck  He dug this deep hole right by the front door and tried going at it that way.  Again...it's not working.  Then the rain and storms started so he had to take a break.  Later, he tried again and still nothing was moving so he gave up for the night.  It is so hard to keep a house going with no water! 

 After church Sunday morning, we ate at our usual place-Molina's.  We had a great lunch with church friends and family.  My parents got away before I could get their pics.

                     This is Stevie, who takes GREAT care of us at Molina's!  We love her!

                     We came home and took our usual 'tree' pictures before changing out of our church clothes. 

Me and Oreo!

I am so grateful for another great weekend with one of my kids.  I just need them both here at the same time!

I hope everyone had a great weekend also.

I need to get moving!

Once again I 'think' I'm going to start exercising.  Right now, I'm just 'thinking' about it.  I have several great workout videos to choose from.  Well, I imagine they're all great ones but only if you do actually use them.  I'm trying to decide just which one I should start with.

 I really love Juilanne's video. It looks fairly easy for a beginner like me.  So far, all I've done is just watch it while I'm eating a bag of kettle corn.  I guess I'll never look like her unless I put down the popcorn and actually participate in the video.  If I'm being honest, even if I do put down the kettle corn, I will NEVER look like her!

 I also have this video, which features my FAVORITE on Dancing with the Stars-Maksim Chmerkovskiy or Maks for short.  I have actually done part of this one before.  Maks makes it really hard to stay focused on the dancing and you girls all know why!

 I don't actually own this video and I'm definitely smart enough to know that I should never, ever try this one at all.  Jillian's goal is to KILL YOU or make you wish you were dead.  I'm pretty sure that is what would happen to me if I should ever lose my mind and even think I might can get through the first five minutes of her workout.  Not. Happenin.

 

I think this one is my best bet for any kind of success.  By success, I mean, still alive at the end of the workout.  I do love Richard's quirkiness and his great way of motivating people. Yes, he is a bit weird but I still like him. The music is great on this one too!  Also, I'm not intimidated by the typical skinny models that most other exercise videos tend to have as participants.   

I'll let you know later (after I finish  off this Snickers bar) which video I ended up using.  If you don't hear from me again, you will know that it was Jillian and her 30 Day Shred, which actually finished me off in the first five minutes. Wish me luck!

Great Weekend!

We had a great weekend this past weekend!  Ashley came home for our hometown football homecoming.  Two of our girls from church were queen candidates so we HAD to go support them.  Neither of them won, but they looked absolutely beautiful! 

This is all the candidates after the crowning.  There were so many pretty dresses and purple seemed to be the color of choice for quite a few girls.   

 Ashley with Jacey & Kelsey.  So prettayyyy!  These girls have accomplished so much during their high school years. I am very proud of both of them!

 Saturday morning, after breakfast, we headed out to do some shopping.  I have never been to Goodwill Store to do actual shopping, but I do make several donations a year when I clean out closets.  Anyway, we did drop off a donation of old clothing and then went in to 'shop'.  We were mainly looking for ideas for Halloween costumes for the church party in a couple of weeks.

 After not having any luck at all, we were at the back of the store where the 'high end' attire is kept and we came across this little jewel of a jumpsuit.  I could totally be CHER for Halloween!  After much thought, well not really much thought at all, I decided this was not proper to wear to a church function.  Well, it really isn't proper to wear ANYWHERE! haha  We had fun wondering WHO had actually wore this; WHERE they had worn it; and WHY they had worn it!  Too funny!!

 Ashley found this little number which screams 80's BRIDESMAID DRESS!  Those were the biggest sleeves I've ever seen!  We didn't find anything suitable for either of us so we were on to do more shopping.  We later did decide on costumes for both of us but we're not telling yet what they will be. You'll have to keep checking back to see what we came up with.

 Me and Ashley

Sunday was our normal routine.  Ashley helped me teach my 2 & 3 year old Bible Class and they were so precious!  After church, we went to our usual Sunday dinner place-Molina's!  Food was great, as usual! 

I always love my weekends with my girl and can't wait until she comes home the next time.  I'm WAY past due a visit with my favorite boy though.  Hopefully in the next week or so we will get a visit from him also!

Me and my GREAT kids!

I hope you all had a great weekend too!