Finally Fall

YEA!! It is finally somewhat fall here in the Lone Star State of Texas!!! No 100 degree plus temperatures. Although the weather has been kind of nasty with some rain, it is still better than it being hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. I am hoping to go buy some pretty fall plants to put out on my porch when I get back from Oklahoma. The girls and I are going to be going to my sisters house with my parents and grandparents next weekend for my nieces birthday. Well, this is going to be a short post because tonight is my scrap nite and I am about to leave to go get the girls from school and then come home and pick up the house, but, take a look at my new purse I bought....I am a purse fanatic!!! I love, love, love cute, big purses. I just love it!!!
Disregard the white walls. I hate the walls being white and am hoping to get them painted soon, just can't decide on a color.....

First Photo Shoot

Remember a few posts back when I mentioned that I LOVE photography??? Well, today I had my first "photo shoot". I took my best friends daughters Sr pics for her. I think they turned out pretty good and they were really happy with them. We went to 4 different locations and I ended up taking over 100 pics of Rissa (Marissa is her acutal name). Here are some of them

Blog Hopping

Do you do this or do you just continue to read the same ones? The last few days I have been visiting alot of new blogs and must say that I love to do this. I love to get other peoples takes on different things. There are days when I feel like I have nothing blog about and I SO want to be a good blogger and have all kinds of neat things to say, but the truth be told, my life is just not that interesting. Sure, I love my life and would not trade it or the people in it for the world, but to others, it's a different story. I am a wife and mother first and everything else, well, it is just second. The things that I do for me are simple. I love photography and scrapbooking...WOW!! I have often wondered, "what can I blog about today??" and after blog hopping, I noticed that alot of people get their inspiration for a post from someone elses blog. Hopefully that will help me in the future with ideas for posts.

Where do you get your post ideas from????? Any suggestions???

One Year Ago

I was standing in my driveway wondering where in the world do I begin. My husband was out of state working and Ike had hit the day before. Doodle had left the week before the storm hit when we thought it was going to hit closer to Corpus Christi, the girls and I were safe, we had gone up to his dads to wait out the storm and came home after it had passed and Doodle came home the first chance he got.

We had a yard full of water, limbs, fallen trees and ant beds. Time for the clean up to begin, that afternoon, I loaded up my girls into my truck and headed to Lowes to buy a big garden wagon. I figured that would be the easiest way to start picking up all the limbs and trying to get back to some sense of normal, if not for me and my sanity, I had to do it for my kids. I also had to get a new meter pole and meter box and have someone put them up before I could even think about getting the electricity hooked back up. You see, the top of a pine tree had broken off and fallen into an oak tree which then uprooted and took out the power line that ran to my pole. When the tree landed on the line, it snapped the pole at the ground, and that was just behind my house. On the side of my house and yard, a pine tree fell and landed on the main line that runs the length of the road. We live on 5 acres and in order for the linemen and others to get to us, and the others that live out here by me, the roads had to be cleared. All in all, it was two weeks before we got power, but we were lucky...we have a travel trailer and a generator. I had filled up 5, 5 gallon gas cans the day before Ike hit, so we had an air conditioned place to stay. I had a bed to sleep in and propane to cook with, so I hated complaining. Especially when others had lost absolutely everything. Needless to say, living in South Texas, you know of the possibilities of these types of things happening. Kind of like snowstorms in the North and earthquakes and wildfires in the East. Thankfully, this year has been a quiet hurricane season for everyone in the United States. As I sit here comfortably in the recliner and type this post on my laptop watching the Today show, I can't help but think of all of the people who lost their lives because they chose not to leave or were simply unable to leave. I just hear dlast week where they have found the remains of a victim of Ike who was washed away when the storm hit. God Bless their family and those who are still dealing with their losses.

Photography & Scrapbooking

OK....these are two of my favorite things. I have decided to try to make a little money at doing two of the things that I love. I am signing up this month to become a consultant for Close to my Heart, which is a company that sells scrapbooking products. I have been going to two scrap nights held by ladies in my area and really like their products. I have already talked to a few friends and they have agreed to host a party to get me started. I am also going to try to make a little money at photography. My best friends daughter is a senior this year and I am going to take her senior pictures. Now we just have to coordinate a time. Marissa participates in High School rodeo and has rodeos on the weekend and my Ryleigh has softball tournaments, so we are going to have to find a time when we are both free. I thought about trying to make it to one of her rodeos and get pictures of her in action. That would be pretty neat. I need to get some type of photoshop program and have been looking at the Adobe Photoshop 7. The reviews for it are pretty good. I need somethings to try to keep me busy. I have signed up to substitute teach as well as signed up to be the secretary for the PTO at our primary school. So hopefully, between all of this, I will stay busy and maybe make a little extra money....we will see!!

Labor Day Weekend

This past weekend we went up to our friends (Randy & Linda Bird) house and visited with them and their son Brett and his family. They live on 50+ acres and have a beautiful place. I love going up there and wish we lived closer. I must say it was the most relaxing weekend I have had in a long time. We went to church, ate and just hung around outside. Doodle had brought some of the fish that he had caught and cooked them Sunday evening. They were really good. The girls enjoyed playing with Jackson and Kelton and riding around on Uncle Randy and Aunt Linda's golf cart. Ryleigh rode Jackson's little tractor until I thought the wheels were going to fall off. We hated to leave, but all good things must come to and end. It takes us 5 hours pulling the trailer and my allergies had started bothering me yesterday morning and only got worse as we drove home. Needless to say I was glad to get home and looking forward to going inside, watching some wrestling and laying around. Yes, I watch wrestling...it is just a given that on Monday night at 8:00, Doodle and I watch wrestling together. I know, how romantic. However, when we got inside it was 99 degrees in the house. Sometime over the weekend, the outside unit decided to quit working!!! UUUGGGHHH! Thank goodness we have the trailer, we just all loaded back into it and slept another night. I am waiting for the AC guy to get here now to see what the deal is. I am PRAYING that we do not have to buy another unit....On that note, I will leave you with some pics that I took of the girls while I was sitting on Randy and Linda's porch enjoying the day and the view....

Ryleigh riding the tractor...


Kristyn just sitting in the front yard....

One of their many horses...I think between Rand, Linda, Brett & Rachel, they have around 15.

The church that Randy and Linda started, Higher Trails Cowboy Church. It is right across the street from their place.
I will leave you with one more pic. Yesterday before we left to come home, we all went to Chic-fil-a to eat lunch. Ryleigh had gotten a kids meal and inside the kids meal was some kind of secret decoder and a book. Now, tell me, how many GROWN MEN does it take to figure out a toy from a kids chic-fil-a meal??? Apparently, it takes 3.