Cut Backs.

I honestly don't know how long these candy bars have been around, but as a kid, it was a favorite of mine.  Maybe because I was a kid, it seemed like it was a fatter candy bar??? I really thought there was more of the crispy crunch to it than there is today.  Have they slimmed down the bar to save money???  I wonder???

I'm finding a lot more cut backs on things,... went to Starbucks inside Barnes & Noble with hubby, and we get cold coffee's,... I always get one of their little sleeves,... (which were also scaled down in size btw!) and the sleeve helps it to fit perfectly inside the trucks cup holders PLUS absorbs the moisture.  We get into the truck, I set my drink down,... and well,.... it doesn't fit as snug as it used to.  Yup, they've slimmed up the cups!  What I wonder is, are they taller now???  Are we still getting what we used to or is it actually less and we're paying the same???  

Just food for thought.

Cleats.

So, hubby returned to work last night.  It always feels so weird when he's been home for so many days, and then the house is empty again.  Yes, I say empty, because while the kids are here,.... his spot on the couch is empty and sure I get to hog the remote for the tv and all, it's still much more fun when he's home :o)

Yesterday was grocery day,... so while hubby slept (sorta) that's what I was off doing.  Gina and I got goodies to color my hair,... going a bit lighter, BUT we got stuff to do highlights!! She's going to do multi color highlights,... I can't wait to see how it turns out!! Hopefully do that tomorrow.  Between my running around and hers, we'll have to see how it goes LOL

I picked up Geoffery some cleats for soccer.  He has his first game Monday evening.  He's pretty excited about it too.  This morning as I was taking Chris some breakfast, Geoff came down the hall, fully dressed and holding his soccer socks in his hands..... ???? "whatcha need Geoff?"   "I wanna wear my cleats today"  "Uhhh..... nooo"  LOL  I took Chris his food and relayed this bit of info LOL Goofy kid. 

I went down to his room to explain that cleats aren't meant to be worn in school, or on the hard concrete/classroom floors.  They're made so you don't slip around when you're running on the soccer field *sigh* Goofy boy.  Glad that he's looking forward to playing.  I just wonder how much playing he will do,... he is more of a visitor.  Sits around, chats with his friends,.... game? what game???

Tonight, was the school's Fall Festival.  Due to the construction this year, it wasn't as great as it's been.  No bingo.  The one year I decide I'm gonna play and what happens? No bingo.  Oh well.  The kids had a good time though running around goofing off.  Doing the slide and bounce house.  I got to talk with some friends,... was a quick 2hrs for the kids to run around and play.

Tomorrow, Sydney has piano at 11am, so will be up and gone by 10 for that.  Will pick Jessica up on the way back home, as she's at her friends house tonight.  Tomorrow evening, Sydney is going to a party for a friend, and has the option to stay the night,..... but I need to call and double check on that.  Yup yup, busy kids.  Sunday should be nice and quiet at least!  Minus all the laundry I'll get to do.

Anyhow.... I think I'll go scrub down the kitchen and bathe the dogs.

Have a nice weekend!

What A Weekend!!

My honey took some vacation time this month.  Just in time for our 13th Anniversary ♥  TWELVE WHOLE DAYS!!!  Vacation started on the 11th.  We enjoyed a few quiet days together as a family.  The kids were out of school for a long weekend from the 9th - 12th.  That was pretty nice :o) All of us home and relaxing.  I think? I honestly can't recall exactly what we did that weekend.  *mental note: need to blog more*

Anyhow, kids went back to school on the 13th.  We had been trying to decide what we were going to do for our anniversary??? We had thought going to Hot Springs for the weekend.  Supposed to be really nice up there, lots to see/do.  Not to mention lots of great food to eat!!  But the more we thought about it, the more it seemed not so practical.  We knew we could have a kid free weekend at home and enjoy the time together just as much as we would there.

Boy have we!!!  Cousin Gina said she would take the kids Friday night, so after I dropped the kids off at school, came home, and we were ready, we took off for Jonesboro and went to eat lunch at The Brickhouse Grill.  We'd never eaten there before and have been wanting to for awhile.  We each got a big burger.  Mine was the California,... (of course? lol) It was loaded down with lots of veggies, incl. avacado! YUM!! It was VERY filling.  I couldn't even eat the whole thing.  The steak fries were awesome too!! Was a wonderful lunch.  Chris enjoyed a couple of darker beers too.

Not dark enough for his liking, but still good enough that he had two!

We left there and went to wander around the mall awhile.  We got the kids each a little something.  Sydney a Paramore Tshirt from Hot Topic, and Jessica the book she's been wanting,.... Richelle Mead's "Spirit Bound"

I had already gotten Geoffery's surprise and stuck it in his backpack Friday morning.  One of his Pokemon Adventure Series comic books :o) He liked that!  Anyhow,.... we got coffee from Starbucks and headed home,.... picking up ribs from Couch's BBQ on the way for dinner later :o)

Got home, and flopped down,.... still full from lunch, and watched some Smallville,.... we had picked up season 9 a few days ago.  We finally ate dinner around 7:30 and later fixed some Espresso Martini's that we had seen Giada fix on FoodTV.  While ours came out rather strong, they were still really good.  We decided that rather than the 10oz of vodka, maybe make it 6-8oz instead.  Look at how pretty they are! And hubby got to use the shaker mom got him too!!

Tastes as pretty as they look!

We finished drinking our martini's and watched one last episode of Smallville and crawled into bed.  *Yawn* Was a really nice day together!  Eating, talking, laughing.... *sigh* I love my honey!! ♥

Now, Saturday,.... we got up, showered and stuff.  I decided to just pull my hair back and throw clothes on and we took off for Jonesboro and went to eat at Cracker Barrel for breakfast! By the time we got there, it was lunch time, but we still got breakfast food!! YUMMY blue berry pancakes :o) He got an asst of food.  Grits, eggs, meats, biscuits, gravy... the works let me tell ya!  Was very good, and filling.  

From there, yes,... back to the mall.  We had been looking for Lord of the Rings video game, it's supposed to be co-op play, but we haven't yet found it for the PS3.  So, thought we would look again for that.  We ended up in Dillards, and found Chris some new shirts.  They were having their end of season sale, so we really racked up :o) Got like 5 shirts for about $13/ea.  I love a good sale :o) LOL He was pleased too!!  We looked around at the "ladies" section,.... but bleh,... just not much I could find on sale that interested me.  I also learned that Reba McIntire has a clothing line.  Some neat stuff too.  

Wandered around some more,... ended up back in Barnes & Noble and got coffee's again for the ride home :o) YUMMY!!! By this time, Gina had already dropped Sydney and Geoffery off with my MIL Linda.  All was moving along well.  We headed for home so that we could get ready for our evening out with Gina and Glenn.  We had reservations for 7pm at Omar's Steakhouse.

Thanks to my mom, she put the taste of salmon in my mouth/head, so yeah, we HAD to go there for sure.  I needed their parmesan  encrusted salmon!! Mmmm.  We were all looking forward to a nice dinner out.

Got to Gina's around 6, she wasn't quite ready so we visited with the kids and Glenn while she finished up.  Then we were on our way!! Thanks to our chauffeur Glenn, we knew we could enjoy the night and not worry about getting home in one piece.  So, once there, I ordered myself a White Russian! YUMMY!!!

Cheers!

Was rather surprised at how quickly that went to my head.  I mean, really I ate nearly ALL my pancakes when we had breakfast (that is a LOT for me) so didn't think my stomach was that empty!?!  Well, it was alright, I was in a GREAT mood and enjoying the evening.  By the time dinner arrived, I was on my 2nd drink and pretty darned giggly.  Gina had ordered the lobster tails, and I actually go to sample!! I've never had lobster like that before.  It was very good, but I love my salmon!!! *drool*

While we were sitting there waiting on our creme bruele for dessert, Gina got this idea to go and get tattoo's!?! I don't know where it came from, but hey, sounded cool.... she suggested just a simple star,... matching,... on the tops of our hands.  Well, hubby says "whatever you girls wanna do..."  Cool!!! So, we ate dessert, surfed the web on my phone to find something that was like what we wanted.  Chris had already called the place we would use,.... The Zen Factory.  They would be open until Midnight.  We ate and headed that way!!

Gina wanted to look around a bit,... but we still decided upon the stars that we'd found online.  Then we had to wait as they were rather busy,.... but the artist took the time and drew up a nice design for the both of us.  We had decided on a large star, with stars to represent our kids.  So, 2 little ones for her, 4 little ones for me.

Here we are waiting our turn,.... it's WAY past Gina's bedtime!

Is it our turn yet??

 Hubby thought we should have a picture of our virginal hands.... 

Virginal hands?? ahahaha!!!

Gina said left hands,... which was fine with me,.... might seem lame, but since it's the hand I wear my wedding ring on,... well, your wedding ring hand,... just kinda seemed to tie it all up ya know? Hubby says "yeah, and the ring you can take off when you do the dishes" Bah.  It seems right in my head LOL

Finally when it was time to go back, Gina wanted to go first.  This is her first tattoo ever!

Who's idea was this???

Right here, he's just getting everything prepped up.  She looks pretty nervous to me!!  

Why did I suggest this idea?????

Here she is,..... she doesn't look very happy does she??? She really said it hurt LOL  I don't know that she will want another one or not now???  She had thought about getting this awesome sun/moon deal.  Hmm... guess you'll have to stay tuned to see how that turns out ROFL

Then it was my turn,.... I was a tad bit nervous thinking that maybe this area of the hand was more tender than my shoulder tat??? Maybe it WAS going to be terrible????

Piece of Cake!

Or maybe my poor cousin has a REALLY low pain thresh hold??? LOL  Poor girl.  Yeah, of course it's not pleasant,... and there was one part that hurt, but it never lasts so long that ya can't stand it.

The final products!

Turned out great!!!!

So, I think it was a wonderful idea,.... and well worth the touch of pain,.... not sure if Gina feels the same LOL

We got home after midnight, took the dogs out and all that,.... by 1:30 or so I was dead and went to sleep.  

All in all, it's been a WONDERFUL weekend.  Dinner was superb!! The time we've had together has been so great.  I so enjoy vegging and watching tv together, the trips to Jonesboro,... laughing, talking.  

Almost hard to believe it's been 13yrs!!  I am truly blessed with a husband, that is my best friend.  I am grateful for how well he takes care of me, and our family.  It's been an incredible 13 years and I look forward to so many more!!!

I love you honey!

♥♥♥

9/11

REMEMBER

Damned if you do,.... damned if you do.

So, yesterday, had a major dental day.  Dentist SCRUBBED my bottom teeth.  We're doing this in sections.  Bottom, then left top, then right top along with tooth repair.  Fun stuff.

Because of this, I was sure to fix hubby something simple for dinner as he was working last night.  Frozen pizza.  Piece of cake, preheat, throw it in,... no fuss no mess right????  WRONG.

As I went to put the pizza into the oven, a waft of smoke came pouring out.  CRAP.  I had forgotten that we had dripped juice into the bottom of the oven from when we were doing our ribs last weekend.  Huge stinky mess.  Lovely.  Hubby ran to Sonic and got some burgers instead.  I made a mental note to put the self clean on on the oven before bed.

About 9:30 I was wrappin up to head to bed,.... turned the oven on, said good night to the kids etc etc.  Crawled into bed.  Right about 10 the house alarm went off.  I figure one of the cats did something to set it off, knocked something over etc.  When I flew outta bed to shut it off,.... the house was full of smoke and cats were freaking out.  2 were tryin to rush into my room!  I was like screw this, shut the alarm off, and then the oven.  Turned the stove vent on HIGH to see if it would help clear the air some.

Then I crawled BACK into bed, my eyes were tearing up from the smoke.  Took a good while to doze back off again.  Then about 11:30ish I wake to an alarm.  I fly out of bed again, turn off the house alarm and I'm thinking something is wrong with it, because it's just making a single beep sound,.... loud but beep, beep, .... I wasn't all the way awake, so I had no idea what was going on.  Then realized,.... it was the carbon monoxide detector.  GAH! I pulled it down,.... tried to muffle the sound under a blanket, then tossed it into my room,.... still wouldn't shut up.  Pulled a battery out and ran into the living room to open doors.  The air was still very warm, we had no breeze of any sort.  For a good 15 mins I had front and back doors open in hopes of airing things out.  I popped online to see about self cleaning modes producing carbon monoxide.  Surely this was some weird fluke????  Well, little did I know, when burning food bits in the oven like that, it can turn into carbon monoxide.  GAH!! I swear.  Try and do something good and this is what happens???? *sigh*

Closed up the doors,.... opened up the two windows hoping that it would help.  Crawled back into bed and text hubby about the whole ordeal.  My eyes burned from smoke still,.... and then I had mosquitoes in the house.  Lovely.  I dozed off waiting for hubby to text me back.  It wasn't until 1am that he did.  Wasn't much else we could do, everyone and everything seemed fine after all that.  I went back to sleep.  I had cracked the bedroom door so the cats could come/go since the house was still smokey and smelly.  I woke at least 2 more times in the night, paranoid I guess. 

Hubby got home just before 6:30.  I had already gotten up around 4 and closed the windows up and turned the alarm back on, so the alarm being turned off woke me up.  Talk about a long rough night.  It's 12:30pm and the house still stinks.  Not a smoke smell, the smell of self cleaning oven smell.  Just yucky.  I've sworn off self cleaning, and am sticking with Easy Off from now on.