Hasta la Vista, Baby!

Well, we're off. Driving to the beach today, we plan to leave in about an hour and a half. Of course, I'm the only one up at this Godforsaken hour of 6:30 AM. We are NOT early risers these days in the castle. My girls are notoriously anti-road trip. They love the destination, but most assuredly do NOT love the drive. And have no qualms making that known loudly every five to ten minutes. Anyone in southeast Texas, southern Louisiana, and the tips of Mississippi and Alabama? You might just hear us screaming through if you listen closely. I have lots of tricks up my sleeve today, though. I have three movies they've been BEGGING to watch, and Prince Charming is hitting Blockbuster for another one on the way out of town, I have little notebooks and pens (pens are usually not encouraged here, as my girls think EVERYTHING looks better with their handiwork on it :X), fruit roll ups, and a cool little plug-in game that they can play on the dvd player in the car. That ought to last us until we hit..... Louisiana. @@. SO, I also have the Queen Mother who will be waiting in Alabama with wine :)

Not sure if we'll have net access there or not, we're really hoping we do, but if we don't have a great week everyone!

Recent projects :)

I've been a busy bee lately! I found this awesome tutorial on how to make hooded towels and decided to make some for my girls and four of my nephews.

Also, I managed two nightgowns for each lovebug, these DARLING 4th of July dresses:

post-embroidery (it was really hard to find an fireworks design I was happy with. Who'da thunk?!)

Made matching dresses for a friend's daughters (pre-embroidery):

Made special pillowcases for the girls for our beach trip:

One more dress for previously mentioned friend's younger daughter:

and a boatload of embroidery. Whew!!!!! I have two more swimsuits to monogram for the girls and I THINK I'm done...... ::::::Crossing fingers::::::

We hit Target and WalMart (our two favorite non-fabric stores, lol) this week to buy essentials for our 10+ hour drive to Gulf Shores this week. I let the girls pick out some new movies for the car. The hurricane picked an Eloise cartoon movie, it looks darling. I LOVE Eloise! Lara, stop reading here. HRH picked a (gasp!) Barbie movie. :X Now, the girls in my family are notoriously anti-Barbie. I even am, to an extent. But, to be honest, if it keeps my two little lovebugs happily ensconced in their carseats for an hour or so, I'd let them watch just about anything! HRH, of course, is over the moon. She cannot WAIT to watch this movie, LOL!!! I don't even care if Barbie is a good role model for girls nowadays. Who cares if she wouldn't be able to stand up b/c of her proportions if she was a real person. Who cares if her hair could never be achieved naturally. Aren't there all sorts of Barbies, like lawyer Barbie and teacher Barbie and Doctor Barbie? Something like that, anyway. So I'll stand right up and say it now. If my little princess wants a Barbie movie, I'm going to buy her a freaking Barbie movie. Keep all pissy comments to yourself, please. ;) On second thought, no....don't. I need comments. I LOVE comments. Not enough people leave me comments. I want to see comments NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wordless Wednesday?

I see a lot of blogs out there who do "Wordless Wednesday". I thought I might try it out myself, but let's be real.... I'm not very good at being silent :X Just ask anyone who ever taught me or grew up with me (no comments from the peanut gallery, Angela, LOL!!). I HAVE gotten better about it, though. I DID decide, however, to use today as a picture post. :) I just adore my girls. I think there is something so special about sisters, I have three myself, you know. We may not always agree on everything, and we may drive each other crazy sometimes (except for me, of course, I AM practically perfect in every way, you know. Hush, Lara), but don't mess with one of us unless you want to tackle ALL four of us, LOL!!! Anyway, I thought this pic was just precious :)

I'll be back on later with pics what's been keeping me so busy this week :)

::::polishing knuckles::::

Woo hoo! Get a load of me! I got an award!!!!!

My friend Angela gave me a "you make my day award"! How sweet is she? Her blog is SO cool and fun and I'm so not worthy of this, but I'll shamelessly take it and pretend to be worthy!! Random thoughts before I award ;)

~We spent the day out on the lake yesterday. Lake Conroe, to be precise. It's so pretty. Crowded, but pretty. Some of our friends are always out the same time as us, so the kids just love playing together and we get to have grown up conversation! Win win! As we were hanging out, I saw something weird looking floating in the water. I floated over to it in my AWESOME float (I can't find it online or I'd link you. It was $5.88 at WalMart, though) and it was a coconut! No kidding! How random is that? It was really heavy for its size, but it was floating. Very cool. I'm sure there's some super technical explanation, but my friend's 9 yr old and I decided that just thinking it was neat-o was good enough for us ;) Anyway, then you KNOW we had to try to crack it open. After 30 minutes, we did it. The coconut milk was a disappointment. Very watery looking. And yucky tasting, LOL! And OMG the little outer shell smelled SOOOOOOOOOOO bad. Ew. I think I'll be passing on the pina coladas for the near future.

~I got Prince Charming a Palm Centro. He had a Treo and wanted a smaller phone. This Centro is SO cool. I highly recommend it!

~I am sunburned, yet again. But I actually look tan underneath it! I can't believe it. I think this is the first tan I've had in probably ten years!! I am expecting some After Sun Spray in the mail today or tomorrow. I promise that you have NEVER felt anything this good after a day in the sun, lol. Added bonus? It works as a detangler for hair, too!

~My mission before we leave for the beach on Friday is to get a good picture of each of my girls from above. I saw this on Mommy's Martini and love the idea! If y'all get pics, be sure to post them!

OK, my "you make my day award" goes to my sister Lara. I SHOULDN'T give it to her, b/c she doesn't post often enough for my happiness, but I'll forgive her because I love her and she's such an amazing aunt to HRH and the Hurricane! Love you, LaLa! :::::::::smooches::::::::

Thirty THREE?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday dear MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy birthday to me!

:-)

Dating AGAIN?!?!??!

No, not really dating, but do you ever feel like when you're getting to know new friends that you're pretty much "dating" them, just without the kissing? You hang out, talk on the phone, spend time together and getting to know each other. Add kids and husbands into the mix and it's a whole 'nuther ballgame, too! LOL! I've been doing some friend dating lately. I was, once upon a time, before Prince Charming came into my life, quite a dater. I loved it, and I was darn good at it, if I do say so myself ;)

I've never really talked about it on here, but those of you close to me know that it took a while to have HRH. I'm talking years and years and years and tears and tears and tears. Like decades! (well, okay, not DECADES! Almost half a decade, but it sure did feel a heckuva lot longer than that. The tears were there, though.) All I ever wanted was a baby, to be a mommy. I honestly feel like that's what I was put here to do in life. And I LOVE it. I am definitely doing what I was put here for. Well, when her Madgesty finally deigned to come along and grace us with her presence, I was on cloud nine. She and I and Prince Charming lived in our own little world for a couple of years. I didn't need anyone outside of my family, my baby, my husband, my parents and sisters and inlaws. What more could I want? Then a Hurricane came and life got even more crazily wonderful!!! A little whirlwind of giggles, hugs, and broken household lamps.

Well. NOW these darling little lovebugs are growing up and going to preschool and leaving me all by my lonesome self. Hmph. The nerve! Ungrateful little ingrates! I COULD have another baby, but Prince Charming has vetoed that until we get into our bigger house, in the next 18-24 months, hopefully. So, I've become friends with a few people. And it's so funny to me that the people you were friends with before you have children might be SO not the people you would be friends with AFTER you have children. Or is this just the case in my world? I mean certainly not everyone we knew falls into this category, but some do and then some REALLLLLLLLY do, if you know what I mean.

My whole point to this strange blog is that it feels weird to be testing relationship waters at my age, even if it is just a friend relationship. I don't tend to have lots of super close friends. I have TONS of people I'm friendly with, but people that I honestly consider a true friend come few and far between to me. I know you're never too old to make new friends, but golly gee, it seems like it's kind of hard work! You have those little mis-steps, where you misjudge someone's character and find out later that they really aren't the kind of friend you thought they were going to be, then you get disappointed (or I do, b/c I get my feelings hurt easily about some things). But then again, you meet a couple that you like, your husband likes, and your kids all play well together and it's like oh my gosh! How FUN is this?!?!?!

Happy Father's Day :)

I'm fairly sure I won't be online tomorrow, we're spending the day on the lake and the night at the lakehouse. So, let me say Happy FATHER'S Day!!!! To my dad, who I didn't have NEARLY long enough. To my step-dad, who, bless his heart, had to live with ALL of that estrogen (me, my mom, and three sisters and occasionally even my step-sister!). To Prince Charming, who I love more than chili cheese covered fries from Sonic and who is an awesome dad. And to my father-in-law, I guess we'll call him King Charming, who wished for grandbabies and got 4 in less than 4 years, lol. I am blessed to have you all in my life. Happy Father's Day out there to all of you dads, dads-to-be, and anything of the sort! Have a wonderful day!