Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

A Day Out

Some days you just  need to get out of the house, out of the city you live in and just go. So this past Saturday we did just that, left town for the day. We started talking Friday night about where we wanted to go, Tyler really wanted to head to Orlando to the Bass Pro Shop. For a few minutes we actually considered it, but then thought no way do we want to be there while people are trying to finish up their Christmas shopping. After some more talking we decided to go to St. Augustine.

 Our first stop was at the Fort. We took the kids several years ago to St. Augustine, but never got a chance to tour the Fort. We timed it just right, they were going to fire the cannons about forty five minutes after we got there. That gave us plenty of time to walk around the fort and look at everything and also do a little people watching.

Getting ready to fire the cannons.

After the firing of the cannons we left the fort and headed to St. George Street for a late lunch and do a little bit of looking around. We ate lunch at the Florida Cracker Cafe. The food was excellent the service a little slow, but they were packed in there and we didn't mind waiting.

When we finished eating lunch we walked around and looked in some of the shops. Didn't buy anything, just did some "window shopping". We did walk down to the Plaza where we saw a man sleeping on the ground. Don't know if he was homeless, drunk, or both. Kaelyn decided that we needed a picture of him.

Down on the plaza was also this huge Christmas tree, and lots of decorations.

Loved seeing the different boats out on the Intercoastal Waterway. I told Chuck that I would have loved to have been out on the water on a boat. Maybe do a little fishing, and a lot of relaxing.

I had a great day spending time with my little family. Loved just relaxing and not having any kind of schedule for the day. Realizing just how much we need days like that.

And the Award goes to . . . .

Tonight we went to Tyler's Football Awards/Banquet at his school. This was his first year playing football and while he may have not been the "best" player on the team, he never gave up. Tyler was always willing to do his best out there, and kept on going even when the going got tough. He learned a lot this season and is ready to play again.

Tyler just after accepting his awards.

We are so proud of Tyler, I think that he did really well this season and could see so much improvement in him from the first game he played in to the last game that I saw him play.

Obviously his dad and I were not the only ones that are proud of Tyler, his sister was very happy for him. Of course they both had to do the whole "goofy pose" for a picture.

He also got a letter in Football along with a football pin for his first year playing. Way to go Tyler!

Down on the Farm

On Monday I went with my nephew Wyatt and his mom on a field trip to Roger's Farm. I love it when they ask me to "tag" along on their field trips. I really enjoyed this one, it was so much fun to watch Wyatt trying all the different things out. One of the first things he did was go to the "horse race" but sadly their wasn't anyone else interested in racing on one of these horses with him.

He was then off and over to this very large homemade slide. That slide looked like so much fun, I passed on trying it out, seeing as how when you came down it was very slick and I didn't want to go flying off the end for every one's entertainment. Now my sister was the brave one, and went sliding down that slide with Wyatt.

There was this cute little "cow train" that the kids could ride in. At first Wyatt told us he didn't want to ride on it, which really surprised us. What little boy wouldn't want to ride on a cow train? I think he just wanted to keep going right on down that slide. Finally he decided that he would go for a ride on the cow train, it was funny to watch him because at times he looked so bored and had a look on his face like he couldn't wait to get off.

I think one of Wyatt's favorite things of the day was shooting half an ear of corn out of the corn cannon. The object was to shoot the corn and try to hit a big bale of hay or get the corn through the scarecrows arms. It was funny to watch him shoot the corn, he would not even aim the cannon he just pushed the button and the corn would go flying up in the air and out way past the hay and scarecrow. I think he was going for distance not hitting the target.

Next it was on over to the pony ride. I think this came in close to the corn cannon as being a favorite for the day. He rode the ponies about six times and was so proud when he was able to ride without any one walking next to him. You would have thought he had been riding ponies/horses his whole life.

We slowed down for a little while, just to get a quick bite of lunch. After eating lunch it was time to go feed the goats and ponies. Those animals sure did like eating the corn out of Wyatt's hand, and I think he enjoyed feeding them.

He had lots of fun roping a steer. Take a look at his face, he was working hard getting that steer roped just right.

We finished out our day at Roger's Farm with a hayride and all the kids getting to pick out a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch. He didn't want an orange pumpkin, so he picked up a really cute striped on with "just a little bit of orange" as he said on it.

 

I had a great day with this handsome little guy and his momma. Thanks Wyatt for asking Aunt Tania to go with you.

Happy Birthday Kaelyn

Twelve years ago today we were welcoming our precious little girl into this world. She is growing up fast, something this Momma is having a hard time with. There are many days that I wish I could go back to the days of when Kaelyn was a baby and just breathe in that sweet baby smell. To rock her and hold her close while kissing that sweet little face. I do miss those days so very much, (for those of you who still have little ones cherish those days, as they seem to fly by). I decided to look at some pictures from when Kaelyn was younger and found some of my favorites to share.

This was taken the day she was born. My mom was holding Kaelyn while Tyler was getting a good look at his baby sister. I wanted to post the one of my husband showing Tyler his new sister, but you couldn't see Kaelyn. It looked like he was holding a bundle of blankets. 

This daddy sure does love his girl.

Love those fat cheeks and the rolls on her sweet legs.

One of my all time favorite pictures of her.

She loved these kitties. "Archie" and "Hot Dog"

She loves to have her picture taken.

Kaelyn seems to always have a smile on her face. 

To my sweet baby girl, Happy Birthday, I love you!

Fall finds. . . .

A few weeks ago I was at my sweet sisters house for dinner. She, like the rest of us is ready for fall to be here. So much so that she had already brought out some of her fall decor. Before I left her house, she gave me some of the fall foliage and ribbon that she was not going to use, see I told you she was sweet.

 About a week ago I found these cute guys at Walgreens for just $1 each. As I was paying for them, the cashier says to me, "this guy is kinda of ugly" talking about the scarecrow. My response to her was, "Well I think he is cute."  to which she just made a gruff sound and continued to frown. She is an older lady and kind of grumpy ): maybe it was just to early for her, after all I was there just before 8 a.m. after taking my kids to school.

Then last week while I was out doing a little shopping, I got these cute pumpkins from Belk's.

 When I saw them, I knew that they would be perfect on my mantle. Then I looked at the price, they were $20 each. So as I started to walk away, I saw the sign. 50% off, then along with that I also had a coupon for 10% off my purchase. So I ended up paying less than $20 for both of them.

Speaking of coupons, I also had a coupon for Yankee Candle where I could buy any regularly priced large jar candle and get another one FREE! I got the Pumpkin Buttercream and it smells so good. I also got the Home For The Holidays candle.

I am so ready for fall to be here. I just love the cooler weather and really just everything that fall brings with it.

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A little bit of this and a little bit of that

Like the title says, this is a post with a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  Today marked the beginning of the third week of school for my kids. Tyler started high school and Kaelyn is in middle school. This momma is getting old. ( ;  Their first two weeks of school went really well. They both like their teachers and seem to have settled into a routine once again. Tyler had his first football game last Friday night. He didn't get much playing time on the field but he did get out there for a few plays. While they did not win their game, He had a great time playing. He has another game this week and hopefully it will turn out better than their last game.

During Tyler and Kaelyn's first week of school I went over to my friend Robbin's house and  made jelly (scuppernog, concord and mixed) and pear butter with her and our friend Carol. I had some really neat pictures that I wanted to share on here, but I deleted them off my camera after loading them on to my computer (which I normally never do) and then I ended up losing everything that was on my computer. Anyway back to my day of making jelly. When I got to Robbin's house her husband had already been out to the grape vines and picked a bunch of grapes for us to use in our jelly making process. We soon realized that we were going to need some more grapes, so I set out for the vines along with my camera and a bowl to put the grapes in. While I was picking grapes Robbin was getting a five gallon bucket to take up to the house that was full and I mean full of pears. Once back in the house, we got the grapes on to cook and then started peeling pears and slicing them up for easier cooking. When Carol got there she had her concord grape juice (she had them from last summer and cooked them and took the juice to make jelly with and froze it) ready to put on the stove top to start the jelly making process. She also brought us some fried chicken for lunch. Here is a look at the jellies and pear butter after getting them in their jars.

Concord Grape, Scuppernog, Mixed and the Pear Butter.

And finally, my husband and I had the opportunity to go to the Gator game this past Saturday. A guy he works with has season tickets and wasn't going to be in town to go to the game, so he asked Chuck if we wanted them. So we went to the game. Had a great time watching the game there with my husband.

Our tickets.

GO GATORS!!

My lack of posting

I have to say that I lost all my pictures that I had taken from April until August 25th. I had just put all my pictures from my camera (from that last couple of weeks) on to my laptop on Thursday night (8/25) and was going to catch up posting with  the pictures for the last several weeks. Well I was tired and decided that I would post them on Friday while the kids were at school. After I loaded the pictures on to the computer, I deleted them off my memory card, which is something I rarely do. I knew when I did it, that I should not have done it.  For whatever reason, my computer decided that it needed to do a recovery and I hit the wrong key and it basically cleared everything off my computer (pictures, documents, spreadsheets, EVERYTHING). Apparently I clicked restore back to initial, which made it go back to what it was when I got my laptop back in April.  Talk about being upset, but I was. I think I cried just about all day on Friday.

I had so many different things that I wanted to share here on my blog, having my nephews stay with us for a couple of days,  the kids first day of school, jelly making with some friends. I had pictures to go with each one of these posts, but unfortunately I no longer have them.  I will still share about some of these things in the next day or two. Right now it is late and to be quite honest I am tired and ready to go to bed.

Baker's Twine from The Twinery

Could you imagine having The Ultimate Bundle of Baker's Twine for crafting, packaging and more! Oh the possibilities are endless to what you could use all that for. 

The Twinery

The Twinery

Here is your chance to get this Ultimate Bundle of Twine from The Twinery. They are giving away two full sets of their ULTIMATE TWINE BUNDLE. That means you could get a spool of each color. I would love to have this full set. I have seen so many cute projects this week of people using Baker's Twine. Here are a few of my favorites.

From Katrina Hunt at paperscissorsandglue.blogspot.com

From Stephanie Johnson at parkersprints.blogspot.com

From Emily Leiphart at leiphartonart.blogspot.com

From Wendy Sue Anderson at wendysueanderson.blogspot.com

From Jenny Suchin at suchins.blogspot.com

So if you want to join me in entering to win this Ultimate Bundle of Twine then hurry over to The Twinery for your chance to win. This giveaway ends tonight at midnight.