Things that make me smile

Every Sunday night, I review my past week by scrolling through my cell phone pictures.  Some weeks, there's not much to look at, but other weeks I have tons of pictures that just make me smile. Thankfully, this was one of those weeks!  These are what made me smile this week:

This is one of our oldest and dearest friends in the world, Al. We used to be inseparable, but when the triplets came, our world was turned upside-down, and we weren't able to spend time with our friends like before. It doesn't matter, we still love this guy like our own brother. I am SO HAPPY I got to see him for a few minutes (along with his awesome wife) on Sunday.

This chick was busting at the seams to go see The Wolverine on opening day.  The movie was awesome and she was on cloud nine.  But just when we didn't think she could be any happier, she saw the newest Hunger Games poster.  Now that she's seen Wolverine, the countdown to Catching Fire in November is ON!

I just realized she has on her Hunger Games shirt, too! LOL)

My nephew, Adam, and his family came over from Georgia on Thursday night so we could celebrate his oldest son, Patrick's birthday.  Getting to see my sister and her whole family all together in the middle of the week was awesome!  I just love this picture of Jameson and my great niece, Jessie.  They are like two peas in a pod!

I am so happy to know that potato chips share the same love for me, that I have for them!

This is Marty's super-duper homemade hamburger, on a Mrs. Evelyn's/Renee's jalapeño cheese roll.  Oh my goodness, it was AWESOME!

Not only did we get to spend time with my sister and her family this week, we got to see a ton of Marty's family at our great-nephew's 2nd birthday party.  They live on a farm and all the "city folk" got to take a tour of their crops, garden, and chicken houses.  Of course, the kids (and some of the adults) loved the tractor the most!

This was in my fortune cookie on Friday after the movies.  How appropriate is this at this time in my life?  I sure hope it comes true!!

These cupcakes come from Wal-Mart, of all places, and have to be some of the best cupcakes I've ever had in my life.  They are vanilla cupcakes, with vanilla bean icing, with vanilla cream in the center.  I could eat a dozen at a time! Thank goodness they only come 4 to a package!  (they aren't made by Wal-Mart, but you get them in the same place as all the other bakery items)

And seriously, how cute is little Easton in his overalls?  I dare you to look at this picture and not smile!

I hope all of you have a week FULL of smiles, too!

Sadness (First World Problems)

Hey friends!  Long time no talk to.  Sorry I've been absent this week!  I wish I could say I had a fabulous reason for my blog slacking, but I've just been extremely busy with "the business" and really haven't had anything fun or exciting happening in my life.

I realized yesterday that I've had a few things/realizations happen lately that have really made me sad.  I know, I know, in the grand scheme of things, my life is fantastic! I have a nice home, a job, a wonderful husband, two awesome children, and family that I adore.  So let's just pretend this is a silly little list of stupid little things that have made me sad over the past few weeks.

My car officially has over 10,000 miles on it.

At this rate, I will be at 200,000 miles in a couple of years!

Jameson (who is 10) is officially taller than Chelsea (who is 21).

And Chelsea doesn't like it one little bit!

Speaking of Jameson....

• He is officially wearing "grown-up" clothes.  No more boys clothes for him!  The shorts he has on in the above photos are 16's and are TOO SMALL!  In a year-and-a-half, he's gone from 12 slims to 29 x 30 in men's!  It's off to the men's section from now on. 

• He is about to start the FIFTH GRADE!  Next year he will be at the middle school.  My heart just can't take it!

• Jameson had a spacer put in his mouth several years ago when he had a tooth pulled in the back. They said he would have to leave it in until the new tooth came in, which would be when he was around 10 or 11 years old.  At the time, we thought that would take FOREVER.  Well, the new tooth is trying to come in now!

Chelsea, you know, my precious miracle baby girl is TWENTY- ONE years old.  She's a legal adult!  How is that even possible??

And finally, (I know you are so glad, right?) school starts back in FOUR WEEKS!  I'm not even a student but I so dread getting back into that routine again.  Jameson and I really enjoy our late nights!

So my friends, what silly little things are making you sad right now?  I hope not many!!!

I hope you all have a fantastic week!

It always happens...

After Church yesterday morning, I got into a creative groove and managed to complete/partially complete several vinyl orders.  I love it when I manage to get a ton of things completed, but something always happens to put a screeching halt to my progress.  Yesterday was no different.

Cowboy Cross

Chevron Lion (our local school's mascot is the lions)

I stopped what I was doing to help Marty make some things for supper. While I was cooking, I heard the familiar "ding" of a text message come through.  I ignored it until I could finish supper, but within a couple of minutes, a second "ding" comes through.  I put the food in the oven and walked over to the phone to see what was going on.  

Well, not one, but two different people were texting about wanting to order something.  As I am talking to both of them back-and-forth, I decide to pull up Facebook. When that came up, I see that two other people had sent me messages, so I decide to answer them, too.  So now I am texting with two people, and Facebook messaging two other people.  THEN, a third person starts to Facebook message me.  At this point, I am getting seriously confused and stressed.  HAHA  I make a comment on Twitter about my predicament, where my buddy Dennis decides to "help" me by sending me a text message.  So the count now is texting - 3, Facebook messaging - 3.  I am attempting to effectively communicate with SIX different people at the same time.

Then to add even more to the juggling act, my boss picks this exact time to call me on my home telephone!  I mean REALLY?  I decided to ignore her call (for the moment) and try to wrap up as many other conversations as possible.  

After about 30 minutes of constant back-and-forth texting/Facebook communication, I finally talk to my boss on the phone for at least another 45 minutes.

Needless to say, by the time I hung up the phone, my creative mojo was long gone.

**sigh**

I hope it decides to come back again soon!

Family fun time!

Happy Saturday friends!  It's hard to believe that it's already the middle of July and summer is already HALF over! I am not ready for the new school year to get here yet! (And neither is Jameson!)

For the most part, this summer has been very calm and lazy.  Most of our days have been spent at home, watching movies (ahem...Pitch Perfect) and staying up late.  I've spent a ton of time working on Blueberry Hill Handmade, but have enjoyed being able to do it with the kids at my side.

Marty actually had a day off yesterday, so we decided to make the most of it! (sorry no pictures!)  The day started off with delicious home made cheese and cinnamon rolls from Mrs. Evelyn's bakery. These have been a favorite in our house for the past 25 years!

Then, after stuffing our faces, we headed out to a movie double feature!  First, we saw Monster's University.

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Oh my goodness! This movie was SO CUTE!  We have always been huge fans of the original, and this movie was the absolute perfect prequel to that!  This was one of those movies I went in to not expecting too much, but came out LOVING IT!  This is definitely a "BUY IT" when it comes out on DVD!

Next, we saw Despicable Me 2.

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Again, really cute movie!  We are HUGE fans of the original, and watch it every time it comes on TV! This one had more minions, which are hysterical! However, I went into this movie with HIGH expectations, and I think I was a teeny-tiny bit disappointed.  It was GREAT, but just not as great as I hoped it would be, I guess!  Still, it is definitely a "BUY IT" when it comes out on DVD!

Chelsea and I loved Monster's University the most and Marty and Jameson loved Despicable Me 2 the most.  It must be a girl/boy thing.  HAHA!

After the movies, we were STARVING! I think we were all suffering from grumpy-low-blood-sugar-itis as everyone's tolerance and happiness levels were LOW and grumpiness/whiny-ness levels were HIGH!  We went to a local steak place and stuffed our faces with delicious food. Thankfully, attitudes greatly improved during the meal!

After the food, we headed to get ice cream at our local 32 Degrees. I think everyone's eyes were much larger than our stomachs, as we all came out of the store with our ice-cream bowls overflowing! We did our best to clean our plates, but none of us were able to!  HAHA!

Chelsea and I then headed off to Hobby Lobby, where she found some clothes and accessories for baby Prissy (who has turned into a little fashion diva, by the way).  Marty and Jameson headed to GameStop for some video game therapy.

It was so nice for all of us to get to spend the whole day together without having to worry about phones and schedules!  I hope we get to do it again soon!

Mama's Mumblings

Hey friends!  I hope you all survived the holiday weekend.

Ours was RAINY and BORING!  Marty either had to work or was on primary call from Tuesday through Sunday, so we spent a ton of time at home. The ONE time I decided to go out and about, I got SOAKED!

Since we didn't go anywhere on the 4th, I thought I would cook a big meal that we could eat on all day.   Wednesday, I cooked a huge pork roast, with the plans of shredding it up on Thursday and making BBQ sandwiches with it.  WELL, that didn't quite work out like I planned.  I left the tenderloin in the oven just a little too long and I may have burned all the "drippings"...maybe:

The meat itself wasn't that bad, but it definitely wasn't the juicy succulent pork roast I had imagined:

Fortunately, most of the sides (baked beans, corn, potato casserole, Texas toast) tasted OK.


Blueberry Hill Handmade has been doing well since I "officially" opened the Facebook store last week! The response has been fantastic! I've really been shocked (and excited) at the positive response to the page! Thanks to all of you who have helped me by "liking" my page! It REALLY means a lot to me!

Not only did I decide to officially open my store, I had another huge change at the very same time.  Remember a couple of months ago when I told y'all that my computer was on it's last leg? It actually completely died on me, I bought another computer, and that second computer died on my the first day I had it. CRAZINESS I tell you. I managed to get my old computer back up and running, but every day it would let me know that it was on it's last leg.  I've had it for over three years and I've REALLY put it through the ringer, so I guess I can't complain too much.  BUT, I have to have a reliable, working computer to do all of my Blueberry Hill designs. So, after MUCH thought and research, I took the plunge:

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the computer and I know that in the long run, it will be the best investment, but BOY have I had a huge learning curve! After using PC's for the past 20 years, learning an entirely new operating system has had it's challenges! I mean, for the first day, I couldn't even figure out how to get online. Talk about feeling DUMB! But now on week 2, I can at least pull up my design software and create again.  **baby steps** LOL

Speaking of Blueberry Hill designs, this is my newest creation:

This monogram is on burlap. I love the way it turned out!  I made this for my friend Julie's birthday. The split letter monogram I made for her on her birthday last year went on to be my most ordered item! I figured I've made over 100 split-letter monograms since I first made Julie's!


I went to Hobby Lobby on Saturday, and this is what I saw:

It IS JULY, right?

I may have watched this movie AT LEAST 10 times over the past two weeks (probably more like 20 15 times).

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It's to the point that I can pretty much recite the movie word-for-word. Rebel Wilson (Fat Amy) KILLS me! She is so hysterical! I love the music, too.

For all you gardening/landscape people out there, any clues to what type of mushroom this is?

Not my photo...my friend Cassa took this.

My co-worker, Cassa, noticed this in her yard a couple of weeks ago, and nobody seems to know what kind of mushroom it is. She said it was HUGE. She saw it when she was backing out of her driveway and thought it was a CAT because of all the "fur".  It's really nasty looking, that's for sure!

Well, I guess that's enough for now! I hope you all have a wonderful, calm, beautiful week!

Happy Independence Day!

From our house to yours!

We hope you all have a wonderful day full of food, family, and fun!