A Few Of My Favortie Things Swap

A few weeks ago I signed up to participate in a blog swap hosted by Kodi. I was paired up with Jess from First Comes Love. Jess is from a teacher from Ohio.

I was so happy to see she was a teacher, I figured my love for "school supplies" would come in handy for her! haha!! Head over to her blog to see what I got her!

Jess was so sweet and sent me lots of goodies!

I love the candle pumpkin and grapevine pumpkin! It made one of my cabinets look so cute! The to-do note pad is coming in very handy right now and earrings are to die for!(Did you make them??) Jess also got me a reusable coffee cup. I don't drink coffee, but it will defiantly get used for hot chocolate this winter, as will the Starbucks gift card! I had put the cup in the dishwasher to be washed when I took the photo!

Thank you so much Jess, I love it all!!

Scarf Swap

I am late getting my post up because we have been out of town, but about a month ago I decided to sign up for a Scarf Swap that Meredith at The Tichenor Family Blog was hosting.

I have never done a swap before so I was really excited. I was paired up with Kendall from Pearls to Pampers. She is a mom to a sweet girl named Charlotte and from Pittsburgh. I looked and looked for a scarf that was different and unique, I never really found what I wanted but was happy with the 2 scarfs I did choose.

Kendall ordered me a pink Christian Livingston scarf on Zulily and I absolutely LOVE it!! It has the cutest rhinestone detailing at the bottom. Its so light and perfect for Texas weather. Thank you so so much Kendall!

The night before Kindergarten

As I sit here tonight I am still in shock that Rilan is starting school tomorrow! Almost 6 years have flown by, and I'm just not ready to let my baby go. But I know that he will love school!


Tonight he went to bed so happy and excited about the future. We read Twas the Night  Before Kindergarten. Such a cute book! We also read a little poem his teacher sent home with us on meet the teacher night. It had "magic confetti" in it to put under his pillow to help him sleep tonight. I hope it works!

Mommy loves you so much Rilan! I hope you have an AWESOME first day of kindergarten!

My baby is growing up...

 I am still having trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that Rilan is starting school in just 4 day! It seems like yesterday we were bringing him home, hoping we could figure out this whole parenting thing.

He is such a sweet, kind, and helpful little boy. Who really isn't so little anymore. I know that he is going to have a blast learning and meeting lots of new friends at school.

If you have any words of advice for us I'd love to hear from you.

Camping

I'll be the first to admit I am NOT a camper. I don't like getting sweaty and the thought of sleeping in a tent on the ground doesn't sound even close to fun. But that has all changed now that my parents bought a new RV. We went and tried it out for the first time this past weekend and we all had a blast. I wish I would have gotten some photos of the trailer, it is really neat. It even has a fenced in porch on the back of it!

The 2.5 hour drive down was AWFUL, we had to stop more times than we did going to Colorado, and that took 9 hours! At one point Zoey was yelling Dadda, Dadda, Dadda! Dax just rested his head on his steering wheel because he was going crazy with her screaming at him and she just died laughing. She is a MESS!!!! Rilan was good and so patient with her but he had to ask 2 times I think to stop and go to the potty. One time after we had just stopped to get them some food! 

Zoey hanging with Pops eating some ice.

Her smile seriously melts my heart!

Dax and my Dad hanging out.

We didn't do much on Friday night since we got there MUCH later than we had planned on. Once we got the kids to calmed down some we got all the beds ready and hit the hay. I can't say I was sweaty camping, I literally FROZE all night! I had no idea that there was an actual thermostat in the trailer, I though it was just either the air is on or off! The second night was MUCH better! :)

Saturday morning we took it easy and set up the porch on the back for the kids to play on while we all were getting ready for the day. After we got dressed Rilan wanted to play baseball and he ended up meeting a sweet family that was parked next to us. They had 3 kids and the youngest was Rilan's age. Their middle child was a little girl and she was soo sweet with both Rilan and Zoey. I think she was around 9 or 10. I wanted to bring her home with me! :) She wanted to hold Zoey so badly and Zoey just wouldn't let her. But if we had been there one more day I bet anything Zoey and her would have been best buds. 

 Rilan calls this his "baby bike" he loves it. I hate it. Its been great for him to learn how to balance, it doesn't have any petals, but he refuses to ride a regular bike. I know he can ride without training wheels and he did this weekend on Cason's bike. He didn't realize he was doing it until I yelled. I was so excited and then he stopped and asked for his bike back! BOO!

Zo riding Rilan's old 4-wheeler. Bailey was helping her not run into anything.

Dax hanging out, you can kinda see the bottom of the porch in this photo.

Dare devil Zoey!

And that is all the photos I took, I wasn't a very good photographer this weekend because we were having way to much fun!

We can't wait for the next time we get to go camping with Pops and Granda!

Getting Organized

 I blogged a few weeks ago about the Erin Condren Life Planner I had purchased and it finally came in yesterday! I'm pretty sure I've never been this excited over a planner! Ok, I know I haven't! But I've never really had the need for one.

With Rilan starting school next week and Zoey possibly starting in a few weeks, I knew I would need something to keep up with everything. I had chosen a different pattern and then their computer system got hacked and my order, one of thousands, got lost. When I had to reorder I chose something a little different to match the address book I decided to get too. 

Even the box and packaging was so nice. You can really tell that they will go above and beyond to please their customers.

And here she is...I LOVE IT!

 This is my address book.

One of my favorite things is the tabs! It makes it so easy to get to where you need to be!

The inside...

 Stickers for different events, and even pages of blank stickers to write your own stuff on.

 A pocket to keep important papers in.

They even sent some sample labels...

 and a zippered pouch to keep them in!

I could no say enough good things about this planner. I seriously LOVE it!! Now I just need to go find some cute colored pens to go with it!

If you want to see other planners head over to Meredith's blog for other links!

Before & After

I am in the process of getting ready to go camping this weekend with my family and got to thinking I hadn't done a weight update in a while. I have officially lost about 24 pounds and I am still working everyday on it. My plan is to do another round of hcg drops once Rilan starts to school. I will update more later, but for now I will just leave you with a before and after photo.

The quality of the after photo stinks, but that's what happens when you forget to have someone else take it!

Glass Kitchen Canisters

I bought some glass jars months ago planning to put some vinyl on them and kept putting it off, but today I finally finished and I LOVE the way they turned out. 

Who knew vinyl could make something so simple so cute! I wish I could take credit for the cuteness but I actually got the idea from this blog. I loved the style of the jars but didn't like how big they were, I was so happy to find a smaller version at Wal-Mart.

Anyway, I used my cricut along with SCAL to design and cut the labels. They aren't exactly straight but I really don't think anyone will notice. 

While I had my cricut out I decided to go ahead and label Rilan's pencil box for school. He was so excited about it, I was too until I realized I put it on backwards! Guess I'll get to redo that one! ha!! 

(Font for jars is Vanilla Twilight and Rilan is Mandingo)

Q&A with Rilan

I have seen this on a few blogs so I though it would be fun to let Rilan answer these questions and ask him every few months to see how he changes. 

What is your name? Rilan

How old are you? 5 1/2

What is your favorite color? red and green

Who is your best friend? Everyone!

What is your favorite animal? none

What do you want to be when you grow up? Zoo Keeper

What is your favorite movie? Cars

What is your favorite cartoon? Dino Dan and Dinosaur Train

What is your favorite book? I like all of them.

What makes you happy? Being silly and loud and not having to take naps.

What makes you sad? Having to lay down for a nap.

What is your favorite food to eat? Cheese sandwiches and vegetables, not all vegetables, just corn and potatoes. (ya know the healthy ones! ha!!)

What is your favorite song to sing? Neverland Pirates

What is your favorite game to play? Mario Kart

What is your favorite sport? baseball and soccer

Are you excited to start school? YES!