Get Your Kicks' On Highway 6

I love days like today!

S-p-o-n-t-a-n-e-o-u-s

This morning I was up by 7:30 feeding Gracyn, showering, and getting ready! I headed out the door at 9:00 a.m. to prepare for a baby shower at church that I was hostessing with a group of girls for a friend who is having twins! The shower was a wonderful success and I returned home around 12:15 pm. to once again....feed Gracyn.

Steve and I have been talking about taking a road trip to College Station for awhile now, as we have not been since last fall before we became a family of 4!!! So I just up and said, "hey, let's go today" and Steve's response was, "that sounds awesome, I'll get Cade ready to go!" The boys had stayed in their jammies all morning while I was at the baby shower, playing Wii together! So an hour later we headed out the door and hit the road with our newest gadget purchase, a Garmin GPS navigation system. Now granted this was a STEVE purchase because he's definitely the "techie" in this marriage, but I am now as excited about it as him. It showed us a different way to go to College Station, shaving about 40 minutes off our previous time...less time in the car with the DVD player cycling CARS movie over and over...ALWAYS gets 2 thumbs up from me! What a beautiful drive it was! Ranches, land...just so much open land filled with crops, cattle, horses, barns, old country homes and tractors. Just the scenic drive was worth the entire trip in and of itself.

And before we knew it, this was upon us... Aggieland, WHOOP!!!!!!!!

This little college town holds so many memories for both Steve and I. The four years I spent there were some of the best years of my life! It's so neat when you can share things like this with your kids, it's your life coming full circle!

As soon as we pulled into town we headed straight for Hullabaloo's Diner.

That's right people, as seen on Food Network's own Diners, Drive-ins, & Dives hosted by Guy Fieri. It's an old diner car that's been moved from Chicago and renovated into a restaurant! It was 3 o'clock by this time and we were all starving....Luckily their burgers, hamburger steaks (seriously grubbin'), onion rings, and HOMEMADE pies hit the spot! Actually they hit several spots, but the chocolate pecan pie was to die for, I can't even tell you! Flaky crust, dense chocolaty center with a toasted pecan top and a generous dollop of whipped cream! Luscious, let me tell you. Steve, Cade and I had that entire slice devoured and plate licked clean in exactly 3.5 seconds!

Chocolate Pecan Pie not your cup of tea?

Check out the other dessert options:
Another satisfied customer

We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening walking around on campus, going through the MSC (Memorial Student Center for all ya'll non-ags), visiting shops, and going t-shirt hunting! Gracyn got her first aggie outfit on this trip...we like to start'em early :)

Look even Cade knows how to Gig'em!!!

Cade Matthew class of 2027/Gracyn Avery class of 2030

We ended our day with a drive-thru visit to Sweet Eugene's to pick up a Java Shake for the road! I am already looking forward to our next trip to Aggieland. It's just a special place that's hard to explain. A quote on one of the t-shirts we saw today sums it up best...

"From the outside looking in, you can't understand it. And from the inside looking out, you can't explain it."

Ballard Design Sweepstakes

Anyone want to win $25,000 in awesome home furnishings? Then go to Ballard Designs and register today!!! You can register to win once per day for the remainder of the contest! We take their catalog and they really have some neat decorative things and home furnishings! Just thought I'd share the wealth...I've been signing in EVERYDAY hoping to win.

My Best Friend's Wedding

For 29 years Amanda Gail Necessary has been my best friend,

but on Saturday July the 5th...

Amanda Gail McCain

became my best friend.

It was truly a beautiful wedding in every detail.

It was so Cody & Amanda

from the robin's egg blue bridesmaid's dresses

to Cody's surprise serenade to my sweet sister, to

the bride's cake with I Corinthians 13 written

out on the layers & the groom's cake

having a message specially written in HTML.

Everything was just THEM.

Seven years ago I was so honored to have Amanda stand next to me at my wedding

and I felt completely honored to stand next to her

when her big day came!

Most importantly it was a day of joyful celebration

for the way God brought Cody and Amanda together.

She's officially yours now Cody

and she couldn't have found a better match in you.

I know you already know how lucky you are to have her for your wife and best friend.

I couldn't be happier for you both,

congratulations to my favorite newlyweds.

Cardboard Testimonies

I saw this clip on a friend's blog and couldn't resist posting it on mine as well. What a powerful message these little cardboard signs hold...I was very teary by the end of it!

What would your card say? What would mine? (now that I think about it...mine would say plenty...trust me) Have we brought these things before God and asked for his loving forgiveness or tried to sweep them under a rug and pretend like they never happened or don't continue to go on?

A christian author I read said that "as with anything human, church always mingles the glorious with the flawed." Not one single person is perfect, not one single person has it all together or knows all the answers and that's where my sweet, sweet Jesus comes in!!! We are all flawed in some way, shape, or form, we live in a fallen world...but through the glory of Christ we can live abundantly, serve faithfully, and trust immeasureably more through the blood of our risen Lord. Thank you Lord, oh how I love you so. Take me, mold me, USE me...let me never forget where I've been or where I'm headed Lord.

What I've been reminded to do today?

Take it to the cross, don't wait one second more. I believe that God's wounded often make His strongest soldiers. Thanks Rebekah for originally posting this clip, I needed the reminder.

Menu Mondays

You scream, I scream, we all scream for...

BREAKFAST!?!??

Oh how I love a good southern breakfast in the mornings! Eggs, sausage, bacon, biscuits, gravy, fruit, hotcakes (as we like to call 'em in the south), BRING IT ALL ON...I LOVE IT!!!! To me there's nothing unhealthy about any of these options. The more articles I read, the more I am convinced that people need to actually EAT breakfast in the mornings...for energy, to jump start our metabolisms, to make sure we don't eat SO much at lunch because we're starving by that point in the day...etc..etc..etc...what's that old saying? Eat like a king at breakfast, a prince at lunch and a pauper at dinner, now I surely didn't come up with that nifty saying but I couldn't agree more :)

As much as I love all of these things, I have an extra soft spot for pancakes, specifically buttermilk pancakes! Buttermilk pancakes are the KING of light, fluffy, rich and SA-VOR-Y!

So, put your carb counter on the back burner and hold on to your socks for my favorite version of Buttermilk Hotcakes.

Buttermilk Hotcakes

1 Egg
1 C. Buttermilk
2 T. Vegetable Oil
1 C. Flour

1 T. Sugar

1 t. Baking Powder
1/2 t. Baking Soda
1/2 t. Salt

Beat your egg, than add remaining ingredients in order listed above and stir. Heat your griddle to medium, then spread a few tabs of butter onto the top. Pour on your batter and flip when bubbly. Serve immediately with syrup... and eggs, bacon, sausage, gravy, biscuits, oh and fruit...let's not forget the fruit!

The kingdom belongs to such as these...

Little man has a new favorite song! He's been singing it around the house and when we let him chose his nightly song to sing after books and prayers...this is his new "go-to" tune!

Red and Yellow, Black and White....YOU are precious in His sight!!!

Fun Fridays...My Favorite Things

What do you like to do when you have down time? As a Mom of 2 it seems like most of my quote-un-quote DOWN TIME is spent doing laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, mending, or DVRing for another day! And that's O.K. with me, because that's just the season of life I am in at the moment. However, whenever I do find a few minutes to myself I love a good book!

For as long as I can remember, I have had a love affair with books. As a toddler it was Cinderella. My Mom loves to tell the story of skipping a page one evening during story time and of course I noticed right away and stated,

" No Mommy, that's not what it says...it says"....and then I proceeded to recite the entire page of text at the ripe old age of two.

In elementary school it was Beverly Cleary books. In junior high school I was delving into Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and the entire Laura Ingalls Wilder series. In high school I did mostly assigned reading (as I remember there being plenty in that department) but I loved almost everything we read...To Kill A Mockingbird, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In the summers I was reading the John Grisham series for fun. As an adult I have enjoyed reading many authors: Vince Flynn, Mary Higgins Clark, Dan Brown, Patricia Cornwell and several others. Bible studies authored by Beth Moore, Gary Chapman, Max Lucado, and Emilie Barnes provided me with stability, understanding and kept my candle burning at various times throughout my life.

My Summer Reading

My love of books is something I hope to pass down to my kids as well and by the looks of things, its working. Cade moved from a budding bookie to a full bloom book worm!!! He also loves to look at books and to be read to. Both his nap time and bedtime routines include reading 2 stories! He's heard several of his books so much that HE reads them to US. His new love is reading to his sister. How my heart swells with happiness!

And Gracyn, well she likes to EAT books.
It's a start, right?!??