Reece’s Party Pictures!

Reece really enjoyed her party but she didn’t want to participate in ANYTHING. I was a little surprised because I figured she would want to show off all her gymnastics moves! She just doesn’t like to be the center of attention AT ALL. Josh is that way and I was when I was her age so she gets it honestly. Once we started opening presents I realized that she had a fever:( So, she probably just wasn’t feeling like partying!

Griffin and Peyton had a blast! In fact, Peyton wants to have his birthday party there next month! :) Everyone loves the pit!She LOVES me! My sweet little nephew! Happy Birthday to you! xoxo,

Merry Christmas to ME!

Officer Hubby must REAAAALLLLLY love me! A whole lot. I got my Christmas present extra early this year. It’s extra pretty. I must have been extra good! :)

I. love. it.

Who wouldn’t?!?!?!

I’m spoiled. But y’all already knew that. I DO deserve it. I promise! :)

xoxo,

Happy Birthday Reece!

Our sweet baby girl turns three today! THREE! We had her party this past Saturday at the place where she takes gymnastics! These were taken before the party..I’ll post the rest later!

We’re off to eat rice and beans(mexican)! It’s the birthday girl’s choice!

xoxo,

2010 Christmas Card

The free Shutterfly card thing didn’t work out for me. I emailed them the first of December and never got a response so I designed our cards myself! I love how they turned out!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Reece’s birthday party is tomorrow! :)

xoxo,

Niko

We’re in the process of adopting this little guy…Ok, Ok 90-something pounds is not technically little.

And I say process because it’s been a huge process! HUGE. If you have adopted a human I have a LOT of respect for you right now. Not that I didn’t before, it’s just grown because the process of adopting a dog is tedious and time consuming and nerve wracking. But worth it! We’ve been run through the ringer and apparently we’ve passed ALLLL the tests.

So, his name is Niko. He lives in Georgia…Griffin, Georgia! (that was our first “sign” that he would be ours!) He is going through heart worm treatments right now. :( But, he will be fine.

On Sunday we loaded up the kids and Chippie and made the four hour drive to Griffin to meet Niko. (Griffin loved seeing all the signs in the town with his name on them!) We needed to make sure that he fit in with us. He did and my husband is so happy! He’s wanted another red dobie since Mako passed away and now it’s time. The kids did great on the long drive. I was worried about being stuck in the car for a total of 8 hours in one day but it worked out fine! We watched Toy Story 3 about 57 times, but hey, whatever works! I was honestly amazed at how well my children handled the whole day! :)

Niko is very well behaved and trained! He laid down just like the picture above and had his nails trimmed..didn’t move a muscle! He was super sweet with the kids and kissed me right in the mouth! ha! I’m sure Josh will be his favorite!

Chippie got along fine with Niko, after she made sure he knew she’s the boss! He was actually scared of her and ran and put his head in Josh’s lap! ha! 100 pound dog scared of a less than 10 pound dog!

The week after Christmas the lady from the humane society will meet Josh half way with Niko! We’re SUPER excited!

xoxo,

Bama Belles

OH MY WORD.

Have you seen the new show on TLC?

I’m so embarrassed right now. REALLY!

I missed the first half of the show but I did set my DVR to record the next episode. But I’m pretty sure that I’ll still be hiding under the couch pillows watching it.

TLC picked the most back woods, redneck people they could find I do believe. If you don’t live in Alabama, please know that we are NOT all like that! Most of us don’t wear that much makeup, don’t perm our hair and we wash our hair daily.

Gross!

Happy Monday!

xoxo,

Sparkle the Elf

First of all, how cute are my babies in their Christmas PJ’s?!?!A couple of Friday’s ago…before Thanksgiving…Peyton had a field trip to the zoo. Of course I had to tag along! I love the zoo…feel right at home! haha!

Kangaroo asleep on his back! Both of these sweet boys are lucky enough to have cops as daddies! :)

Ok. On to the elf!

Most of you have probably heard of Elf on a Shelf. If not, click here. We’ve named our elf Sparkle.A day or so ago sparkle left this note: And yesterday I found a note from Griffin back to the Elf!

(you can click the picture to make it bigger to see!)

How funny is he?!?!?!

xoxo,

Happy Birthday Josh!

Happy Happy Birthday to my sweetie pie husband! He’s 29 today! We’re getting old! haha! xoxo,

DUDE! I’m behind!

Gosh. I don’t even know where to start! I’m very well aware that I’ve only blogged like 2.2 times the entire month of November. Officer Hubby was on evening shift for two weeks and it really got me out of whack. Not to mention I about went whack. For real. I don’t know how single mom’s do it. Taking care of all the kiddos by myself was not really hard…it was just that there’s only one me and there needed to be 57! Plus I was lonely without my other half!

Close to the end of the two weeks Reece got REALLY sick. Started with a low grade fever. No biggie. Then on last Thursday night we fell asleep on the couch together. I woke up with her trembling in my arms…I knew her temp had to be sky high. I was still half asleep and couldn’t think straight. I called Hubby who told me to get her in the bath tub. I did, but she was shaking so bad I couldn’t even hold on to her. OH I forgot to mention that we fell asleep two hours after I had given her Motrin. I didn’t keep her in the bath long because I couldn’t hold on to her. Once she was out I just kept her naked hoping that would help. I gave her Tylenol. After about 20 minutes she was still shaking. I called hubby again and we decided that we should get her to the emergency room. I really freaked my freak on the phone with him…I’ve dealt with high fevers before but I’ve always been able to manage them better than this. It was really scary. I called Allison to get her to stay with the boys…

Which is a whole other story! She jumped out of bed and headed to our house…about 5 miles or so away from hers. State Troopers have bean rampant in our area lately and of course she was speeding. And she got pulled over. She explained what was going on and he told her she was going really fast. He asked for her license and insurance card…she could not find the insurance card and freaked! If you know her in real life you have got to get her to tell you this story! I about peed on myself! Anyway, the trooper ever so nicely got her to calm down and only wrote her a ticket for the insurance…which will be thrown out! Whew!

Once Allison got to our house we headed to the ER. Reece had finally stopped shaking but we decided that unless we wanted to do this again at 3am we better go ahead and go. Also on this night was a ballgame. Stupidest thing ever to have a game on a weeknight. HATED it! The game was over around the time we were heading to the hospital, which is super close to campus and the stadium. Josh was driving like a bat outta hell…and I fussed but he ever so politely told me and I quote,” I drive like this for a living!” Whatever.

We thankfully made it in one piece to the ER and got Reecey Bug checked in. And then we got to sit in the ever so lovely waiting room where we saw all kinds of things…drunk boy that was half dressed in his bama gear that had been stabbed or something…that was the most interesting. So we sat there for TWO hours and nobody was even being called back! We got one of the nurses to take Reece’s temp. It was down to 100.2 and we left! I planned on having her at the pediatrician first thing the next morning…or the same morning because by this time it was after 12:00!

So, what caused the high fever?

Urinary Tract Infection.

We think. The urine specimen that the doctor’s office sent off came back inconclusive. So, we’ve been on antibiotics for a week plus a few days now. No more fever! yay! And we go back Tuesday to recheck and make sure the urine is all clear!

I still need to catch up on Peyton’s zoo field trip! Hopefully tomorrow! I’m being optimistic!

xoxo,

By His hands we all are fed!

Last Thursday was Reece's Thanksgiving feast at school! The boys were out of school for Veteran's Day so they got to come as well! All of their old teachers LOVE seeing them so they had fun!
Reece's class did a little Thanksgiving program at the beginning of lunch. They were the cutest little Indians ever! She doesn't like being the center of attention...gets that from Josh FOR SURE! HA! She just sat there like a knot on a log..but she wasn't the only one...

..well, until they all got up to dance like Indians…then she was pretty much the only one not participating. She was looking at her friends like they were NUTS! ha! Here she is in her sweet little turkey dress! And a close up of her headband or headdress(?) will reveal to you her Indian name…

Do y’all know HOW appropriate that is?!?!?

Griff and Pey pretty much did this the entire time… Fun times my friends!

xoxo,

The Holidays Are Coming!

I LOVE this time of year! I don’t like cold weather AT ALL…but everything else I love, love, love!

We took our Christmas card pictures over the weekend…there are about 200. Here’s a sneak peek!I’ll share more when I get through rummaging through all of them and making sure my butt doesn’t look big. Hahahaha!

Josh is loving his new job :) I knew he would! He starts a short rotation on evening shift soon. Boo. The kiddos and I will just have to find someplace to eat dinner on his beat so we can see him! OR maybe I’ll just speed and get pulled over! :)

xoxo,

Toy Books

You know those toy books that the big toy retailers put out this time of year? The ones that are jammed from sea to shining sea with the latest, greatest toys of the season…

Well, last year the boys went through and circled and put a “G” or a “P” on almost every single toy in every single book…and “someone” marked out some of the “P’s” and made them “G’s”…so this year we have rules!

They only get to pick out 5 toys per book, the top 5 that they want! And you can’t mark out anyone else’s name! Geeze!

So right now we’re sitting at my office waiting for Josh to pick them up and they are quietly marking through the books! And that is HUGE because they are NEVER quiet at the office!

I’m interested to see how this turns out!

xoxo,

Monster Munch

If you are on a diet, you may not like me after this post! I found this recipe over at Plain Chicken. She has lots of yummy recipes, but beware she is an Auburn fan! haha! I’m just kidding! Sorta.

This is definitely a fun and easy recipe for any Halloween bash..or you can hog it for yourself. Whichever strikes your fancy!

You’ll need:

1 package Almond Bark(white)

2 bags of microwave popcorn, popped

1 cup of Candy Corn(and I don’t even like Candy Corn!)

1 1/2 cups of dry roasted, salted peanuts

1 cup Reese’s Pieces

Place your popcorn in a large bowl….like super big. I ended up having to split mine up because my bowl was not big enough! Pour the peanuts, candy corn and Reese’s Pieces on top.  Get some help from Reece Piece! Yes, that’s ketchup on the end of her nose. Yes, she was dipping her popcorn in ketchup. Yuck!

Melt the Almond Bark according to the directions on the package and pour over the popcorn mixture. Mix it all up really well and spread it out on wax paper. Give it a little time to harden and then break it up and EAT!!! xoxo,

Pumpkin Carving Fun!

Sometime last week we carved our pumpkins that we got at the pumpkin patch! So fun and SO MESSY! Yuck.

I think Reece may have stuck her hand in her pumpkin one time…and I don’t blame her! That’s definitely a boys job!

Pumpkin carving King!! He carved all the pumpkins while I baked seeds. That was my first time to cook the seeds…not so sure about that. Griffin ate most of them.

And the final product! I have a whole lotta recipes I need to quit withholding from y’all! As soon as I have a half a second I promise to post them!

xoxo,

Car Show

On Sunday Josh and the boys headed up to Nashville for a car show. Other than having to get up super early to drive up there I think they had a fun time!

 

 

They took TONS of pictures of cars but I’ll just post the favorite!

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend! I hope to get our Christmas card pictures taken! :)

Roll Tide!

xoxo,

Critter Creek Pumpkin Patch!

I heart weekends! Especially now that Josh is off on the weekend! I’m trying not to get too attached to it because I know it’s short lived and will be gone soon. :(

On Saturday we went with my sister, Brad and Noah to the Critter Creek Farm. We had so much fun! We fed and got to pet the mini horses, alpaca, goats, sheep, reindeer, chickens, a turkey, a fawn and we even got to feed a couple calves bottles! They also have a few no pet animals…bears, a cougar, an arctic fox(stunk SO bad, worse than a skunk!), lynx, raccoons..I think that’s all.

After playing with all the animals we took a hayride down to the pumpkin patch where we all picked out our perfect pumpkins! Then we got temporary tattoos, played on the playground, played with the animals one more time and headed back home! Josh and I had just as much fun as the kids! I love places like that where the kids just run free! OH oh oh…Reece had to potty while we were there, so on the way to take her to the bathroom I asked the boys if they needed to go. Griffin said, “Oh, well I had to go a few minutes ago so I just went behind that tree over there!” bhahahahaha! “What?!?! Really?!?!” The owner was standing right beside us and just laughed hysterically! I wanted to crawl under a rock! Oh well, boys will be boys!

I can’t wait to move to the country so that we can have goats! That’s a random fact you didn’t know about me! I was actually feeding the one eared sheep here though… You see that pipe? You could send cheerios down to the bears in it. Now, look at the end of the pipe…he’s blocking the hole so the other bear can’t get any! The other bear was sad. Guess she wanted cheerios! Favorite recent pic of these two little birds!!!! Caught him sucking his thumb!!! Noah loves his Uncle Josh! Sweet boys! Reece said, “Mommy, you to big fo dis!” This lynx….he had a MAJOR attitude! The owner told Josh that his name is BK…last part stands for Kitty, you figure out the rest! Freakity. I heart them! Do you think it’s evident enough that if you don’t wear your pumpkin garb to the pumpkin patch you MUST wear your gameday attire? Just wondering.

Roll Tide!

xoxo,