CrazyTown, USA

My sister works for a church in Dothan, AL where I grew up, and they remodeled their offices recently. This past week my sister asked me to send some pictures of the kids to her so she could put them up in her office for an open house on Sunday, today.

Here are the photos I took and sent to my sister.

Last week at Wal-Mart I found these pretty lilies, well I think their lilies, on sale for $2.50 and there didn't seem to be anything wrong with them. I love fresh flowers so I jumped on 'em. I got them home, cut 'em up and put them in a vase.



Well since then our cat, Mittens has knocked the thing over several times trying to drink the water out of it. She is the craziest thing. She loves to drink water out of the sink, cups, vases and even the toilet. She always has fresh water but I guess she finds these other souces to be flavorful.

Then last night we were sitting around watching Cake Boss and our puggle, Cia, was sitting on Philip's legs (on the floor) and she started growling. We determined that she was looking at her reflection in the back patio doors. She did this several times. Then Philip took her over to the glass door and she peed all over. Now we weren't happy to clean up the pee but it was kind of funny that she was so scared of her reflection she peed.

What are your funniest animal antics? Leave a comment about it.

Now I guess there could be another one to come this year but I'm going to take a chance and say there isn't going to be as much as this one.

Several weeks ago we had a forecast of snow and ice and they closed schools for 2 days, yes 2 DAYS and we had practically nothing.

I know, it's pitiful, right?

So this past week when it was forecasted, even though you could see the huge storm on the radar I wasn't too excited. Of course they closed schools on Friday due to the prediction on up to 10 inches of snow thru Friday night. Friday morning nothing had happened yet so I set out to the store to finish my grocery shopping from Thursday. I was gone from the house about an hour and 15 minutes and when we came out of the store there was already at least an inch on the ground and rising fast. It took us 30 minutes to get home, whereas it usually takes 10 minutes. We made it home and the kids were thrilled to run around and play in the soft fluffy snow while I unloaded the car. Isabel thought it was fun to throw snowballs at me while I took video and pictures. I was no happy!


Saturday came and boy was there a lot more on the ground. I'm not totally sure but we had at least 7 or more inches. As far as the eye could see was white. You can't even tell where our roof ends and the sky begins.
I made a brief appearance outside. I just do not like the cold and have no desire to get wet and cold.
But Philip grew up like this and loves it. He had fun playing with the kids in it and watching people try to drive around in it, especially our neighborhood.

The kids were elated to have lots of snow to play in and make numerous snow angels which is Carley's activity of choice.

We still have lots of snow and ice on the ground. They will probably cancel school tomorrow. I guess I need to find some fun stuff to do indoors for tomorrow since Philip will be back at work and I'm not prone to take them outside. Maybe we'll make a flat family inspired by my friend Hillary at The Other Mama.

What do you do when you can't or won't get outside? Leave a comment about it.

I am Isabel's Girl Scout troop leader and January 22nd and 23rd we had a lock-in at our local mall. That's right and all-nighter. After the mall closed we stormed in and took over the joint, literally. A few stores stayed open late for us, Claire's being the main one open until 3am. And the cookie store stayed open all night. Just what you need 250+ girls all hyped up on sugar all night. Thankfully there was lots to keep them busy. We had Glow Golf, Claire's shopping, 2 bounce houses, karaoke, face painting, nail art, tattoo'ing (the temporary kind), and all kinds of older girl booths set up to educate on various projects they were working on.

When we got into the mall we decided to set up camp in front of this women's store. They had already closed but a guy and a women were still inside cleaning up. They guy thought it would be fun to pretend to be a live mannequin. It was funny and we all had a good laugh.

Here's our troop with the silly guy from the women's shop!! My Isabel has the red hat on that the guy let her wear.

Here's Isabel singing The Climb by Miley Cyrus with several older girls at the beginning of the night. I can't tell you how many times I hear The Climb that night, at least 100, no joke.

Playing some Glow Golf

Another troop put on a fashion show about 1am. Prior to the girls put down their names and information about themselves. Then the troop announcers called out the information as the girls strutted their stuff on the stage. It was super cute. Here's Isabel and her friend Morgan before their turn in the show and Isabel during.


All in all the girls had a fun night. They started falling asleep about 6am. And then it was breakfast time and time to pack up and none of them wanted to wake up. It was a little funny trying to wake this dead tired girls but there was no way I was carrying them to the car. I did stay up all night and managed to be rather lively. I don't have a great pic of me but I'm hoping one of the other mom's did and I'll post that later but I had put my hair up in pigtails and curled them up. All the girls thought it was funny and even made me go up on stage during our portion of the fashion show. I think the pigtails helped me stay away as I felt bouncy the whole time, well at least until we were packing up to leave then I got real tired.

Me and Isabel slept until about 3pm on Saturday, got up for a few hours and turned in early again. I think it took me 3-4 days to recover. I don't think I'm old but I'm definitely not young enough for all-nighters anymore.

Any of you stayed up all night of your own free will lately? Leave a comment and tell me about it.

Wednesday, January 20th I took Carley to the Fun & Party Zone in Spring Hill. It's kind of like Jump Zone only a little smaller. They have open bounce everyday unlike Jump Zone. We had lots of fun for almost 2 hours, she had the major sillies. Carley took a great nap that day!!

New Year's Eve has become one of my favorites with the kids. I try to go all out and do it all for them, and me a little too but I just want them to enjoy it and look back one day and remember this stuff with wonderful memories.

This year was extra special, Isabel's friend and girl scout Morgan came over and spent the night with us. She was the perfect guest. I would take her as my own in an instant!!


For some reason I have chosen to decorate on NYE with pink and green (shocker, right?) and I always put up and New Year's "ball" for us. Well this year I could not find box of NYE decorations so we had to get some new stuff and I found the coolest metallic pink and green table skirts that I hung over our archway. Oddly enough I do not have a picture of it. But it was super cool, kind of looked like hair. And I also found a great silver garden lantern to hang from the light in the dining room. I made it look all fancy!!

For food I jazz it up a little and serve them an appetizer, entree and dessert. This year it was Mac n cheese bites, pizza and chocolate fondue. They really enjoyed the fondue.


We also got the fun little confetti poppers which Morgan had a hard time with, Philip had to help her but I love her facial expressions.


We sang karaoke and watched some of the Dick Clark special and then at midnight watched the ball drop in NYC.

They were all about blowing those horns but it's only once a year, right? I had such a headache. After I took this picture I got out my new ipod and took a little video clip. Beware, it's loud!!



Then the kids toasted in the new year with a glass of sparkling apple cider.

They really had a wonderful time and finally all got to sleep about 1am. Yeesh!!

I have been behind since Christmas and have avoiding posting until I could get "caught up" which never seems to happen lately so I'm going to quickly do a Christmas recap in one post and then just move on. Kind of like when you eat something you shouldn't, just move on sista.

December 6th - Cookie Exchange Party (no photos but lots of yummy cookies & drinks)
December 12th - 2 parties: Surprise 30th Birthday party for Ashlee (day) and Annual Christmas Party (night) That was a long day.
December 17th - Girl Scout Christmas Party


December 18th - School Parties & Last day of school until January
December 18th - 20th - Visiting family in Alabama


December 23rd - Got Cia!! See Surprise Inside
December 24th - Christmas Eve - Our tradition is to make cookies and hot cocoa for Santa


December 25th - CHRISTMAS!!! Just postng a few photos but they got lots of fun stuff to destroy their rooms with.



December 31st - New Year's Eve (post to follow)

So that was our December. Always busy and lots of fun. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!!