(SQUEAL!!!!!)

...with delight that is! I got home from church this afternoon to Mick making burritos (He got home before me because he had already played in the band for two services.) and a large houndstooth gift-wrapped package sat on the counter. It was for me!! And early birthday gift. (I'm not a girl who complains about having to open a gift early-to be sure!)
I was thinking it was a new pilates ball. (As the boys recently ruptured mine goofing around).

I was...


So...

...very....


WRONG.

HERE'S A CLUE:

And no, it was not a free Words With Friends app for my iPhone.

It was THIS:
(Scroll down).

I was totally surprised. Totally spoiled. Totally stoked!!!
Happy Birthday. INDEED. Tomorrow may be a bit of a downer...until I realize I get to tool around with this.

Happy Fall...

Night of the Notables

Grabbed a few pics of Boo at his gifted Night of the Notables event. Each kiddo picked their Notable Person, researched them, completed a power point presentation, costume and poster board. Family members were to go around the room and ask questions of each kiddo and then guess what famous/notable person they were. (When Ian did this for his class, he was Brett Favre. Pre-texting (sexting) allegations. Ahem.)
Ethan decided to be Rafael Nadal. (Can I just say how excited I was when he told me he chose him! I think the only other living athlete that would excite me more would be TIm Tebow). I realize there are/were many famous notable people who made fabulous, wonderful contributions to this world, but for this athletic momma, I was one happy chickita! Ok, so anyways, at the end of the night each kiddo took to the stage and declared what notable person they were.

 Notables ranged (for the girls) from Madame Curie, Ruby Bridges and Laura Ingalls Wilder-to Lucille Ball, Demi Lovato, Taylor Swift, Angelina Jolie, Jane Goodall and Selena Gomez. Two girls chose male notables: Charles Dickens and Elvis. Really.

 Boys ranged from Mohammed Ali, Dale Earnhart, Jr. Albert Einstein, (my favorite costume-sorry Boo!)

(Ethan is checking out Honest Abe's not so honest moustache! ;-) (Little of my corny wit inserted here).

 Abe Lincoln, Peyton and Eli Manning, Michael Jordan and more. Boys were definitely heavy on the athletes, girls a little on the pop stars. Nonetheless, always a fun and interesting evening when you fill a room with a bunch of enthusiastic, animated kiddos and their family members and teachers!

Anyhoo...here's the dude in all of his glory. (Envision  bigger biceps, darker complexion, dark brown eyes, dark brown hair). There ya go...here's to Rafael Nadal!

Current Favs

•  Snack Crack Mix
• Percy Jackson Series
• Parenthood (minus the swearing and some of the less than optimal family-value story lines)
• Glee (love the music and talent on the show-the content of the story lines-not so much)
• The Middle-love the humor and wit of the show; Patricia Heaton never fails to make me lol
• crafting for the holidays
• playing tennis outdoors without severe allergies kicking in
• buying Christmas and birthday gifts
• planning for a weekend getaway with my Ya-Yas
• snuggling up to read with the boys (ok-Boo more often than Ian but still sometimes Ian)
• listening to Ian play his electric guitar
• listening to Ethan practice his Whirlpools on the piano for his festival piece
• watching my animals curled up in balls on their cozy pet beds awhile snoring
• seeing Baby B. for the first time today

Halloween Happiness

 Perseus Jackson (sword hidden behind his back).

Not enough light to get great shots-but it is what it is. Happy to have the memories. Cousin H. and Mr. M. with the dinosaur and Percy.

 Combing the neighborhood for Sweet Treats with Cousin B. So adorable how Boo takes on the Big Brother role with him. Love that.

And look who else was taking to the streets!! None other than Indiana Jones himself. Oh wait...on closer inspection is was just my Uncle G.

A neighborly Raven's Nest. Very Edgar Allen Poe-esque. Next to him (temporarily holding Percy's shield) is one half of the group "Black Eyed-P's". The other half was behind the lens taking these pics! My Aunt R. is next to half of the Black-Eyed P's.

After much traipsing the 'hood, we called it a night and headed for home (only to load up on sugar before attempting to wind down for school the next day). I know, something in the equation didn't add up. The boys think it was the part having to do with having school the next day!

ELECTION DAY

Time to have "hope" for real "Change." Less government. More individual freedom. Change to save the future for our kiddos and to give them half a chance at prospering and being able to pursue life, liberty and happiness with out Big Brother intervening!

Making an MPACt

Last month Boo had his first performance as a B-Boy. I was sicker than sick with severe allergies but managed to dose up on some OTC allergy meds enough to tough out two hours in the pollen.
Here's a few pics from the event. Check out the "Performance Face".

And the few other people that were there to enjoy the performance...besides little ole Momma!

The Crafty Reveal

Ok..so I just finished a quicky little project for a certain special someone in my life, who just happens to love Halloween. (Those of you who think you know who this person is, please don't tell him or her yet...as it is to be a surprise!) I plan to drop it off at the unnamed person's place of work, and make him/her wonder who it is from!!! I love surprising people! As long as it's good surprises, right?

Well, if you recall my post from a few days ago, you saw that I mentioned making a quick and easy craft with some of these little numbers...

This is the packaging they came in. It was so adorable, I knew it had to be repurposed!

So, I filled a pretty/scary brocade/skeleton treat bag from Michael's with candy corn and peanuts. (Note: I did cut about 3 inches off of the top of the bag to insure it would fit in the box and that the lid would close snugly.Then I tied it up with a pretty little ribbon (from Michael's as well).

I adhered down with glue dots (some 3-D glue dots) some of the pretty embellies that were originally housed in the box. The only item on the lid that is not from K and Company's adorable Halloween embellishment kit is the little owl (from Maya Road).

The embellishments are two sided, one side is blinged up a bit with glitter. That's the side that I used. :-)

Note: After the picture below was taken, I decided to add a "googly eye" to the left eye of the Jack-O-Lantern. (Just for the fun of it!)

The container houses, I would estimate, about 2 ounces of Halloween mix.

I can't wait to hear the stories that get started about "Who gave you that?" The person who receives it will probably get ribbed for having a "Secret Admirer!"

Happy crafting and Happy Halloween season everybody. As you can see,  this project was super do-able, super simple and super fast to make. The hardest part?  Refraining from sampling the goodies!

At Our House Lately

...we have someone who chooses to look like this: 

Someone who is super excited to spend hours playing with this:

Someone having fond memories reminiscing on this special man and day:

 And someone getting in the crafty mood by starting a project that involves these little numbers:

What's been going on in your house lately?

Turning Over a New Leaf

...I mean...a new decade. Someone in our family just turned forty (and it wasn't me!)
Here's the birthday boy.

 He wears 40 well, doesn't he? I am especially fond of the Brett-Favre-esque locks he is sporting these days. And the pretty lady next to him? None other that our sweet friend, Cheryl. Tiny sweet little thing she is. Huge heart of gold.


And here we have Mick with his Momma, Big Bro Bill and Papa G (Mick's step dad, but I don't even like to refer to him as that because he is such a wonderful man and "Step" anybodies never sounds very nice!)

 And here's some of the spread we had out for guests. Tri-tips ( a big hit AND a BIG flame),*
 smoked salmon, cold cuts and cheese, dips, chips, my Snack Crack mix, veggie and fruit trays, beverages, desserts galore and sooo much more. Lots to choose from. No one went home hungry, that is for sure.

* Remember those tri-tips I mentioned before? Well, my FIL, being the kind, generous, helpful man that he is offered to grill up a few. Five to be exact. 

Suffice it to say, the bigger the amount of meat, the bigger the size of the flames!

Although he looks a it tentative in this picture here:

He had it all under control!

See, the look of confidence in this pic?

Needless to say, we moved the grill a bit out from the wooden deck railing and managed not to burn down the house!

These people? 

Our next-door-neighbors; Becky and Wally. Two really fun, hard-working, generous human beings. They offered to host Mick's party at their house. Seriously? How did we ever deserve such awesome neighbors. We are totally not worthy!

In honor of Mick's BIG 4-0 birthday, we decided to go big with the candles too. 40 tiki torches lined the driveway and made their path down to the bonfire below. 

Four-legged neighbors were invited too (for a token appearance). Meet Fletcher. He's super sweet and super cute.

My Here's my sweet friend Kel, always the first to pitch in and help!

Doesn't she have the most beautiful eyes? I'm sure hear dear hubby thinks so!

And then there was this little cute. Ms. N. She is the grand of Ms. Mea.

She attempted to make friends with this little guy by kissing on him. I, unfortunately, didn't have camera handy to catch that shot. However, I did catch this one:

Methinks this little dude wasn't a willing participant in the quick smooch. Awwww...look! She's trying to make it up to him by giving him a hug!

Here's Mick with a few of his team from work:And Jules joined the crew in time for this pic. Many more peeps joined the festivities after I finally set my camera down awhile to actually enjoy the party. Unfortunately this meant no pics of many other friends and family who attended!

After some bellies were full, the lot of us indulged in the musicality of the awesome band, Sequel Dose. They were funkifying the neighborhood with their groove...and evidently most of Nixa according to the amiable County Sheriffs who paid us a visit...twice. The band was finished by 11pm (we were trying to be considerate, finishing the band at an earlier hour-3 hours earlier to be exact).  Evidently some humbugs were upset with the noise. Seriously. Upset.

 When I saw this laying on the ground (pic below) I knew that meant some more fun was to be had.

 Mick had broken out his old trumpet and stoked up his chops for a quick improv with the band.

Towards the end of the night he played an encore rendition on the keyboard with Van Halen's JUMP. Yep, he rocked the "house" (I mean neighborhood" down on that one. My dear hubby, the Entertainer! Mr. Pacific! Mr. Social!

A few other items of randomness from the day that I don't want to forget:

•  Wally earning the nickname Mr. Potatohead
• Wally playing an "altered" trumpet
• My broken punch bowl/cake stand
• The fact that we never  did sing happy birthday to Mick and have him blow out his candles! OOps! Glad we over did it with the tiki torches-lol
• Everybody dancing up a storm
• the biggest hit of the night (outside of the band, the smoked salmon, Snack Crack, tri-tips and weather) was Mick's new star pointer. Mick, his brothers and others took turns making patterns on the makeshift "driveway dance floor" for all of us to dance to. Totally added to the funkiness of the evening. Let's just say that after that night, Mick and I feel we should buy stock in the company. So many people plan to order one! (Can we have a commission star pointer company?)

 Great memories of a beautiful day with my Mick. He was smiles all day and night. He's still smiling.
I love it when my man is happy. So nice to be able to give back to him for all he contributes to this little ole fam of mine/ours!