Ashley's birthday weekend celebration

Saturday I spent the day with Ashley and a group of fun ladies to celebrate her 30th birthday.

We started the day with Amy, Amanda, Jenn, Ashley and I getting pedicures in Burleson before we headed to Dallas for the afternoon/night.

Ashley, Jenn and me after our relaxing pedi's!

Before we headed to Hotel ZaZa for the night we had lunch at North Park mall.  I had a turkey, bacon and avocado sandwich and it was delicious!   After a little shopping we got cupcakes at Sprinkles. 

Jenn got a banana chocolate cupcake, I got salted caramel flavor and Ashley got a blueberry lemon cupcake.  The cupcakes were delicious!  Mmmmm!  I was one happy girl after that delicious sweet treat.

Once we made it to the hotel we got all settled into our hotel rooms and I met Miranda for the first time ever.  I am so excited to call her a friend.  She is really funny, really witty and super smart!  I didn't get a picture with just her.  Sad face. :(  But you'll see her pretty face in the group pictures.

We enjoyed chocolate covered strawberries and a champagne toast and then headed down to the pool.

  

The pool area was a bit smaller than I thought it would be, but we still had fun.  Most of the other guests left the pool area when it stated sprinkling rain.   It never rained super hard, but we ended up having the place to ourselves!

Sarah {and sweet Maeva} Amy, Ashley, Jenn, Me, Miranda and Amanda.  I will add ... this picture was taken by our waitress.  There was a creepy photographer dude that had us all on edge.  I'm not sure what his story was, but he had a big camera and offered to take a few pictures of us.  Um no thank you!  He just sat off in the distance and every once in awhile you could feel someone staring at you and yep...it was him.  Bizarre! 

After some much needed relaxation and girl talk at the pool we headed upstairs to freshen up for a fun dinner at Dragonfly.

Here we all are at dinner!

Jenn, Jessica, Miranda, Sarah, Amanda, Amy, Ashley and Angie {me}

  I love all these ladies so much.  

I met Amanda and Amy at Judd's baby shower, so it was wonderful to see their pretty faces again.

We had the best time at dinner and the food was delicious.  The service sadly was not stellar, but these amazing ladies all at one table made up for the snobby-ness of our server.  

The poor guy started out on the wrong food by insisting that we all start our meal with a skinny watermelon margarita.  Was he dropping a hint?  haha!  As you can see I decided to take him up on his offer and the margarita was delicious!

  I am so excited to say I finally got to meet Jessica.  I've followed her blog since I first started blogging almost 6 years ago.  I feel like I've known her for years!  She is so fun and nice.  She is just as I imagined her to be and I'm thankful she is an in-real-life friend now!  And sad face once again, I didn't get a picture with just she and I.  I should have been more on top of my picture game, but we were having too much fun!

I love me some Jenn.  She is a super fun gal!

After dinner we moved from our private dining room to the pool area!  The manager escorted us to an area by the pool and brought over sparklers to celebrate Ashley!

I'm so thankful I got to spend time with all these girls.  It truly was a weekend to remember and I'm glad we were all able to meet up for a fun girls night out!

Happy Birthday Ashley!!!!!!

right now

I know I say it all the time, but my kids just keep getting more fun.  Each stage of life gets better.  I know we will have good times and bad times.  Some days Hayden wakes up grouchy and other days Layla is super duper sassy, but all in all life is fun.

I remember bringing Hayden home from the hospital wondering how I'd ever manage with two kids.  Hayden was a complete mess for the first six months of his life.  He was the grouchiest kid and I was constantly wondering what we had gotten ourselves into.  I just kept saying to myself, "This too shall pass."  And it did.

Now we are all potty trained.  We can get through the days without naps and we can even stay up later now and then.  We are at a fun stage.  We can go out to eat and not have temper fits.  We go to the grocery store without melt downs.

The big thing for me that is so awesome is seeing my kids play together.  They love each other and play really well together.  Sometimes they fight and argue and I have to play referee, but all in all they are buddies.  Since school is out for summer both kids are home and they are forced to play together.  I'm loving it because I get time to myself here and there.

I am not saying my life is perfect because it is far from that.  I'm just documenting the 'right now' for us.  I'm hoping that people reading this may have hope.  When you are in the here and now (for me the newborn stage) you forget things can get easier.  Heck, I may read this post in the future and remember  that my babes used to get along.  The teenage years are approaching and I've heard that might be a wild and crazy ride.

I just want to remember my kids in this phase of life.  I don't want to take a second for granted.  Even though Hayden was a high maintenance baby I loved every moment.  I cringe each time Layla talks back lately, but I remember back in my mind how fast they grow and how quickly this phase will transform into new phase.

All that being said.  I'm good with time slowly creeping by.  I want to enjoy every moment good and bad.  My hope is that my kids will have tons of fun together this summer and have a brother/sister friendship that will last forever.

Happy Friday!

family, food and fun on the fourth!

We started our July 4th last night in the front yard watching our HOA's annual fireworks show!

After a late night outside and a good nights sleep;

we started the day with a yummy brunch.

After we ate the kids were ready to swim for a bit.

Don't you get hungry for ice cream when you swim?

We took off on a trip to Kroger for a few last minute items for our dinner.

Low and behold Blue Bell was on sale!

Layla picked out this flavor and it is amazing.  It is the best ice-cream I have had in YEARS!

In case you can't tell it is called Christmas Cookies in July.  It has pieces of cookies, sprinkles and green icing and of course vanilla ice-cream.  Oh my!

It was the highlight of our day!

The kids loved it so much they were licking their bowls.

We played outside all afternoon in the pool.  Gary and I even got in and splashed around to cool off.  It was a great way to spend our 4th of July.  I just love my little family!

Happy Fourth of July 2012!

festive jigglers

We made patriotic jello jigglers this afternoon.  It was a fun craft as well as a delicious snack!

We always have fun when we get to play with our food!

pool turned slip 'n slide

Sunday afternoon after naps the kids hadn't had enough of swimming.  They played in the pool at the campground and we even went to the beach while camping, but they wanted more!  

So we blew up the pool again!

The kids {including dad} had fun splashing and jumping in the water.

When swim time was over Gary drained the pool and then the real playtime began.

The shrinking pool became a slip 'n slide of fun!

It was a silly and fun way to drain the water out of the pool quickly!

Silent Sunday ~ Scenes from our camping weekend