To ALL my MAMMACITAS rollin' in a Swagger Wagon

To all my GiRLieS who drive minivans,

hopefully when we ROLL by each other

y'all won't be

TOO COOL TO WAVE BACK

TO ME...

in your swagger wagons!

{go down to my music section on the right side and

press the pause button,

before clicking play, you don't want to miss the action! }

Toyota Sienna - Swagger Wagon - Watch more Funny Videos

Menu Monday...a recipe for gettin' messy

3 Moms Chatting & Drinking Coffee

+

2 Spunky Little Girls on the Back Porch

=

D-O-U-B-L-E T-R-O-U-B-L-E

EVERYONE had a fun time at coffee

this morning, especially these

2 parteners in crime!

We love you Callie Girl :)

Little MISS's turn on the trampoline

Gracyn loves for you to hold her hands
and jump!

She said,

"Jump Momma, Jump 'wit me."

And that we did.

We also played chase on the tramp,

played like we were sleeping {another Gracie favorite}

complete with snoring and all,

bounced on our knees,

rolled over and over,

held hands,


happy danced,


I even held all 31 lbs. of her and jumped.

We laughed so much.

By the end, she had the hiccups!

Cade sprinted across the yard, carrying the phone yelling at me to answer it...
Gracyn and I were having so much fun that I didn't even hear it ringing
on the patio!

He held the camera for me while I answered the call

and turned the photo session around on me :)

Fun Fridays, my favorite things...

Spontaneous moments of doing things together.

Boy oh Boy,

have we been having some fantastic spring weather down south!

It has been in the 70's for the past 3 days!

The three of us have been taking advantage of all the sunshine

by playing outside in the yard as much as possible.

On Wednesday, Cade and I made a mad dash for the trampoline,

after Gracie went down for her nap.

We bounced,

laughed,

held hands,

flopped down,

made silly faces,

got up

and did it all over again!

We just had ourselves the best little time.

While we were doing a "half time" from jumping, I ran in to snatch up my camera and shoot some shots of my little buddy!

These were taken with my Canon 50 mm lens, which I really L-O-V-E.

Plus I mean, let's be honest...it does help when you've got

the cutest boy on the block to photograph :)

Menu Monday

What's in my cookie jar?

If you haven't noticed, my Menu Mondays kinda take on a cookie theme every so often.

What can I say...I'm a cookie monster,

I'm married to a cookie monster and

I birthed 2 cookie-a-holics.

Nay do I meet a cookie that I don't like, but rarely that I TrUlY LoVe.

Cade is our baker and Gracyn the taste tester.

She enjoyed her first WHOLE homemade cookie this afternoon and

was quite pleased with her brother's toils. "I'd like to order 4 more please, same size."

She was so happy, and so was I.

Tried and True Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 C. Shortening
1 C. Brown Sugar

1 C. White Sugar

1/2 t. Baking Powder

1 t. Soda

2 Eggs

1 T. Vanilla

1 t. Imitation Butter Flavoring

2 C. Flour

1/2 t. Salt

1 1/2 C. Oats

1 pkg. Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Cream shortening and white sugar together. Add the brown sugar and cream once again. Add eggs, vanilla, & butter extracts followed by all dry ingredients except the oats. Mix well. Add oats and chocolate chips last and mix by hand. We use the lg. Pampered Chef cookie scoop and bake at 350 degrees for 13 minutes for a perfect golden brown. Depending on the size of scoop you use, bake for 12-15 min. These turn out perfectly chewy on the inside and crisp on the outside every time!

Growing Pains

T-E-E-T-H-I-N-G

The fastest way to get my 15 month old to go from

this....

to this...

See those big honkin' molars on bottom? Well

we've got another set coming in on top!!!

Morning Make-Over

Do your kids have an opinion about what they wear in the mornings? My son certainly does! No matter what shirt I pick on school mornings, it's DEFINATELY not the one he wants to wear and offering choices takes even more time! Sure enough before I know it, we're heading out the door without a second to lose, peeling out of the driveway only to usher little man through the door at 8:00 on the dot!

Thankfully another Mom had this same issue and created a solution FOR me!

Check out these days of the week outfit organizer tags!

I printed them out on card stock, took them up to Office Max to have them laminated with their awesome super thick/indestructible laminate paper which I happened to have a 15% off coupon for, and then cut out their holes! Seriously...this was about a 5 DOLLAR project!

I already explained them to Cade and he's excited to go into his closet and find his clothes each day himself! We are going to check the weather on Sunday afternoons and pick out outfits for the week. Just stick on our little tags and SHA-ZAM.....no morning bickering because the TAG says that's what we're wearing and HE gets to go "pick it out" of his own closet! I love the gigantic daily letters on them too, so easy to intrepret for the pre-reader crowd. I think these little babies are going to save us TIME, ENERGY, and FRAYED NERVES in the mornings and THAT my friends is worth it's weight in gold :)


Want some super-duper outfit organizer tags for your sweet little selves? Just go HERE and they are all ready to print! Merry Closet Organizing!!!

Fun Fridays...my favorite things

Being a Mommy of 2, I have become quite the stain removal Queen! If I do say so myself :) Cade's shirts are still pretty messy at the end of the day and Gracyn, well let's just say feeding yourself EVEN WITH A BIB ON gets the necklines and sleeves of her shirts pretty dingy! I never worry one second though because when I have this in hand....
it's all good. I think I'm going to start throwing in a bottle of Zout in all of my new mommy gift bags. It has consistently taken out everything I have sprayed it on from dirt, grass, orange Cheetos mess, carrots, peas, blueberry juice, poop stains (just keepin' it real folks), and lipstick smears. The one laundry item I can't live without is my bottle of Zout!

Speaking of Laundry Room, check out the tweaks I've made in our laundry room! A curtain to hide my hideous black plugs and electrical outlets (thank you Mom for sewing my idea into life),
a new 'HOME' sign above our shabby chic memo board,
and a little shadow box, I put together.
The shadow box is to remind me WHY I do all oodles and oodles of laundry every week, day in day out. For the two little people who once fit into this teeny-tiny hospital brand t-shirt. I kept both of the kids first shirts that they wore right after they were born. Cade's is from the hospital in North Carolina and Gracyn's even has a stain left on the back from where she blew out her very first diaper !!!(I hadn't been introduced to Zout then)

Instead of dreading setting foot into this room now, I L-O-V-E going in to see this precious shadow box.

I am TRULY blessed...laundry and all.