Grins, Giggles & Chaos!

Here is our Christmas card this year. I LOVE it. :)  *The Back is red chevron. :) {please excuse the quality. I had to scan the card in} 

Today is the second grade Hoedown, and Rylee was super excited this morning! They are doing cowboy type things, and ending the day with a chuck wagon. How fun is that?  I can't wait to hear all about it. :)

Hey y'all!  It's that time of year....time to think about Christmas Cards. Tiffany over at Lexi Jayne's Designs did ours this year, and I LOVE them. This was my first time working with her, and it was so easy. I told her the colors I wanted, and she came up with something fabulous, and the card totally matches our personality.  I am so pleased with the outcome, and she's so fast! I've already received our cards. She has two ordering options - the jpeg file or she can print them for you. I had her print ours on the shimmer card stock.  LOVE. If you are looking for Christmas cards, check her out. Here is her  Etsy page  , and her  FaceBook page .  Once I mail our cards, I will post it for y'all to see how cute it is. 

Thanksgiving is next week. Where did November go? Before you know it, it will be Christmas. We usually spend Thanksgiving in Texas, but this year we are staying home, and going to Silver Dollar City. My kids are super excited!  I've seen lots of FB posts about people already decorating for Christmas. Tons of people have their tree's up already. I usually put my Christmas stuff up the day after Thanksgiving. Anyone else have their Christmas stuff up this early?  Here is a Thanksgiving funny! 

Don't forget to VOTE if you haven't already.  It's your civic duty! 

Friday night, we headed to the TOY EXTRAVAGANZA on Bentonville's town square. They do it every year, and the vendors set up the most wanted toys of the season. Of course, Landry wanted ALL of the toys on display. ha! It's always a lot of fun. . . . . and SO crowded. It's usually freezing cold, but the weather was super nice. Thank goodness! This year, CoCo Jones put on a little concert, and then had a meet  and great at the end. Rylee was in heaven. She LOVES CoCo Jones.  Here are a few photos from our night. Rylee & CoCo Jones

Love, Rylee & Landry

Saturday morning, Rylee and I got up and headed to her eye appt. What started out as her routine eye exam turned into, "she needs glasses". WHAAAAAAT? She's never complained about her eyes hurting, or not being able to see, but I have caught her squinting while she's reading or looking at the computer. BUT I didn't think anything about it, until Saturday. Thank goodness this momma schedules yearly eye exams! ;) So, Miss Priss now has to wear glasses while doing homework, or reading, or while she's on the computer. Hopefully, if she wears them like she's supposed to, her eyes will correct themselves, and she won't need glasses long term. Here she is in the frames she picked out by herself. I think she did a great job, and she looks pretty cute in them. :) {sorry for the blurry photo. I took it with my iPhone.}

Friday afternoon/evening, Kasey took Rylee to her annual Fall Carnival at school. Landry and I stayed home  went shopping because it was way to cold/windy for us to be outside. ha! I think they had a great time, and I enjoy my one on one time with my sweet little priss. After the carnival, Kasey & Rylee met us at Five Guys for dinner. It was a great Friday night. :)

I REALLY need to get better about blogging. Until then, here  is a little throwback Thursday photo for you!  Hope y'all are having a great day! The day we brought Landry home from the hospital!  {BIG sister doesn't look to happy here. ha!}

Another reason I was sad to miss the State Fair of Texas last weekend. . . . . . my Nan's quilt. My Nan entered three of her fabulous, hand quilted {which is rare these days. Most people machine quilt}, quilts in the the fair this year. Two of her quilts won 10th place {which is good, considering there were hundreds & hundreds of entries}  BUT this awesome quilt won 2nd place ! For those of you who do not quilt, it's a postage stamp quilt. It took many hours cutting these tiny little "postage stamp" squares.  She was so excited & proud.  My brother, sister in law, and my Nan went to the fair this afternoon, and sent me these photos.  Nan, we are SO proud of you! Way to go!!

This weekend, we were supposed to be in Dallas. We had planned to go to our favorite tradition, The Great State Fair of Texas. I've been going to the fair ever since I was little. Our school had a "fair day." Every student/teacher got a free ticket, and we were out of school the entire day. SO awesome. {Dallas and surrounding cities still have "fair days"} Type A me, I checked the weather all week leading up to our trip. RAIN. 70% chance rain all day Saturday. UGH. So, we didn't make it to Dallas. Boo. The girls were sad.  BUT We did go to Tulsa for the day, and took the girls to the State Fair of Tulsa. Now, I wasn't expecting it to be anywhere near as cool as the State Fair of Texas, but it was worse than I thought. First of all, there was no security check. I walked right in with Landry's backpack. No metal detectors, no police search of our bags, NADA. Now, that made this momma a little scared. I don't know if y'all h...

I recently came across this site for CA-UTE girl clothing called  Kate Elizabeth . Adorable! If you've never heard of it, go on over and take a look. She has some really cute stuff. Can't wait to order some stuff for Rylee & Landry. :) Kate Elizabeth Designs

or just plain crazy? All this baby talk between friends who are pregnant, or just had babies, has hit this momma with baby fever. Yes, you heard that right. Some serious baby fever . I know I've posted before about having a third baby, and my fears, but for some reason, I feel ready. I don't have as much fear as I did. . . . . I feel at peace. I know my husband would love another baby. I know he secretly would love a boy. Hopefully, I will have some good news for ya'll soon. :) I hope these precious girls are ready for a sibling. ;)

Some of you know already know about Sam Moon. If you don't, check them out here . I've been going to Sam Moon since middle school, if not before. Back in the day, you could only go if you had a tax i.d number. It was in a scary part of Dallas, in a huge musty warehouse. NOT cool. Now, they  have several locations, and they are in MUCH nicer buildings. If you like jewelry, I think you'll like Sam Moon. Here are a few things I found on their website today. . . . GREAT prices. These are $12.50 - other colors available.   These are $15.99 - other colors available.

I can't believe today marks 11 years since the terrorist attacks on America. It seems like yesterday I was waking up to the breaking news alerts, and not being able to comprehend what I was hearing. I was watching GMA that morning, and actually saw the second plane hit. COULD.NOT.BELIEVE what I was seeing.  I can remember being glued to the television ALL day, ALL night. Not just on Sept 11, but the days,and weeks to follow. 

Today was the first day of preschool for miss priss. She's been going to MDO for the last two years, and totally loved it. I was worried how she'd do today because this was a new school, and a longer day. She did great! She even took a nap. {which totally shocked me} As soon as I picked her up, she ran to me, and said, "I missed you love muffin." Awe, My cup runneth over! I think this is going to be a great year for her. So sassy this morning before school!

SECOND GRADER! My babies are growing up to fast! Today was the first day of school for Rylee. She was so ready to go back. I am thrilled that she likes school, and is always ready to go back after a fun summer off. She has a really great teacher this year, which I am so thankful for. Hoping my girl has a great year this year! :) Miss Priss before school this morning.

 I didn't mention in my last post, but one of Rylee's dance teachers, Ms. Jordan is leaving. We've known about her leaving for a few weeks now, but it still doesn't seem real.  She's moving to LR in September, and  Rylee is  we are going to miss her  so much.  Having to say good-bye to her on the last day of camp was hard. VERY hard for Rylee. She actually cried on the way home.  Thank you Jordan for the last 3 years. It's been really great getting to know you. Rylee has really enjoyed having you as a dance teacher, and I think she's learned so much from you. I hope you enjoy your new adventures in Little Rock, and wish you nothing but the best. xoxo

Rylee has been at dance camp all weekend, and I am so happy to have her home. Camp is intense for the girls. It's where they learn all their dances for the upcoming dance season. They worked non-stop! I am super excited about the songs chosen this year. They are fun. The choreography is awesome as well! It's a bit harder than they are use to, so this is going to challenge them for sure. Can't wait to see costumes!  Rylee took a camera to camp, and I just went through the pictures. HI-LARIOUS! 7 year olds love taking the most random pictures. Here are a few that were funny! GIRLS! {sorry Ms Britney!}

I don't know about y'all, but I love Dairy Queen. Growing up in Small Town USA, Tx, the only fast food was Dairy Queen. For years, that's all we had. I love their chicken strips, and of course you can't leave DQ without a Blizzard. Oreo to be exact. Yumm-o! Last week, hubby was out of town, so the girls and I went there for dinner. With the purchase of a kids meal, you get a free ice cream. The kids love it. This particular time, they both chose a Dilly Bar. Let me tell you, Landry loved it. She is a tiny Dilly Bar fan, that's for sure. ;)

Most of you know about Michael {my brother} & Sarah's story {my SIL}. They have been trying to adopt for a while now. Last Oct, I wrote this post about their foster daughter. You can read about it  here. Well -  Today, with EXTREME JOY & HAPPINESS I can tell you that Sweet miss priss is HOME. And she is HOME FOR GOOD! Long story short - The cousin who had taken her in, and hoped to adopt he r could no longer take care of her.  So she contacted CPS, told them what was going on, and made it clear that the only way she was going to part with her, was that Michael & Sarah get her back. How crazy is that? They were SUPER excited to get her back, and this AUNT was over the moon. This all happened a few months ago. I was reluctant to blog about it, because I just felt like only close friends & family should know what was going on. Well, I am here to tell you, the bio dad signed over his rights, and sweet little priss is adoptable. YES, that means Micha...

The first week of July, we headed out to Orange Beach, AL with my brother and his family. We had so much fun. The girls had a blast playing on the beach together. The weather was perfect, and even though the waves were larger than normal, the water felt amazing. Landry was more into the pool than the beach, but she was a good sport. A few nights we hunted crabs. The girls loved it! The last night we caught 8 crabs, and of course Rylee had to name all of them. Ha! The two little girls were scared to catch the crabs, so Rylee was the best crab hunter ever. {her words!} All in all, we had a great time, and look forward to going back next year.

First of all, let me start off by saying how grateful I am that I get to stay home with my girls. I feel extremely blessed that I am afforded that luxury. With that being said, I feel lost. For the last 7+ years I have been a stay at home mom. While it's been fun and rewarding, it's also been lonely. Since my kids have been born, it's all about them. ALL.OF.THE.TIME . I have definitely let myself go, and my needs/wants have been put on the back burner. I am in a rut, and I don't know how to get out of it.  SO, I am giving myself a make-over. I need to bring the old, fun, and sassy Amy back. Starting NOW, I am going to dig my way out of this rut. It may take a while, but I am determined to do it.  Wish me luck! PS. any mommies out there feel like this? If so, join me. Get out of your rut. Bring the old you back! :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my little firecracker!  Landry Cate, I can't believe you are 3 yrs old today. THREE. You are such a funny little girl, and definitely mommy's mini-me. I can't wait to see what your personality is going to be like in years to come.  We love you so much sweet girl.