Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Currently: Last Week of School!

Current Book

Reading a lot right now!

Current Song

Mercy by Jonas Brothers - shocker, a new Jazzercise song!

Current TV Show

Up next! {after we finish Ted Lasso}

Current Podcast/Audiobook

Finally listening to this after 2 years on my TBR

Current Drink

I really like these little drinks from Young Living.

Current Food

I made the Jennifer Aniston salad with faro, and I'm obsessed.

Current Shame-Inducing Pleasure

All the willpower in the world only goes so far with this in your house, ha!

Current Outfit

My current favorite workout outfit!
Taught in this last week and was working on my selfie skills {grin}

Current Celebrity Crush

Brooks Koepka for the win!

Current Mood

So excited!
School is ending, and our summer is shaping up to be a FUN ONE!
Really looking forward to all the fun things we've planned this year.

Current Anticipation

I can't believe this picture was taken a year ago!
Tomorrow is the last day of school, yay!!!

Current Wishlist

We're making progress on our summer trip plans.
I WISH we had everything booked though - ready to have it all set!

Current Movie

We will 100% go see this over the weekend, I can't wait!

Current Picture

My little Kindergarten graduate!


Monday, May 22, 2023

Celebrating Brent

Brent turned 43 on Thursday! We had fun celebrating him - and survived the weekend to tell the tales. {grin}

We can't celebrate Brent's birthday without a fully iced cookie cake!

I think the kids are just as excited as he is for this cake. SO GOOD.

Brent and I went out to eat at our favorite steakhouse, City Post. It is in the old post office building, and they left a lot of the interior as it was {all the P.O. boxes are by the hostess stand}, so it's a very neat space! After a delicious dinner, we went to the local wine bar and had a few glasses of wine.

Happy birthday! No kids! Wine time!

Brent told me he knew I loved him when I commented 'This is the only time I've ever blown my calorie budget since using Noom'. HA!

Saturday we had plans to go out with friends around the square in our town, but first we had to celebrate our favorite 3 year-old, Emmett! His party started with a police drive by which was so neat! 6 cop cars drove by with sirens blaring and lights flashing. Then 3 cars stopped and visited with the birthday boy and the other kids.

This better be the only time these girls are in the back of a police car!
[Zara has come to all of Emmett's parties with us and is now a 'forever' invitee ha]

Much better, girls - you can DRIVE the police car!

Painting fun!!


I had to drive Trent to a birthday party for a school friend {a birthday trifecta}, so Brent took the girls to Brent's parents' house and we got ready for our night out on the town.

A fashion blogger I am not, but I had to show off my new flare jeans!

We spent the evening bar-hopping and appetizer eating and didn't go to bed until 1:30 in the morning, whew. I'm glad birthdays come once a year - I need some time to recover.

Brent with his ladies!

Until next year!!


Monday, May 15, 2023

Movie Review: Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

I took a little bit of PTO on Friday and went to another movie - this time with a co-worker who also lives in Austin. We sent to see Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.


Plot: When her family moves from the city to the suburbs, 11-year-old Margaret navigates new friends, feelings, and the beginning of adolescence.

Review: Hannah and I both loved the movie! Neither of us could remember much about the book, so it felt fresh and new to both of us. The acting was great {Rachel McAdams and Kathy Bates - chef's kiss!}, I loved the actress who played Margaret, and I was entertained the whole time!

I remembered I have a small pile of books I saved for daughters from my childhood and found them! I'm hoping Drew will want to read these!

The one missing a cover is The Pistachio Prescription.
And I think I have a few more in the garage!

I also think this would be a great one to see with a pre-teen daughter, lots of opportunity for talking. Highly, highly recommend!


Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Girl Scouts Take Great Wolf Lodge

I'm still recovering from chaperoning Drew's Girl Scout Juniors trip on their trip to Great Wolf Lodge last weekend, but we had a blast! We packed so much stuff into just about 24 hours!

We left Saturday morning about 10:00 AM and got there at 1:00 PM with a quick lunch stop. We got checked in and immediately started doing activities. There was so much for the kids to do, and we got them a Wolf Pass and used our time wisely to do all the activities!

Saturday afternoon/evening the girls: went mining, swam at the indoor water park, went to Build-a-Bear, had pizza for dinner, had ice cream AND candy, and had a dance party!

A view of the girls mining for gems {wearing their wolf ears of course}!



Chaperones can have fun too!

The water park was really neat! It had a lot to do - numerous rides for a variety of scary levels, a lazy river, and a wave pool. The outside area was closed, but it was chilly this weekend, so I'm not sure we would have gone out there either way.

Ice cream after dinner - Drew doesn't know how to be serious. {grin}

I wonder where she ge...oh.


Filling her Build-a-BearWolf with stuffing

Kylee, Drew, and their fearless leader, Brianna!

More sillies

Being Juniors, the girls were old enough to not have chaperones in their room, so they got a suite with 2 bedrooms/2 bathrooms and a living room. We sent them off to bed with strict instructions to not be too loud. None of the girls had any electronics, so their options were limited for how to spend their time. The moms were across the hall {4 moms, 2 beds...yippee}, and we didn't hear a peep out of them until breakfast the next morning!

Sunday activities: MagiQuest game, Ropes Course, more time at the water park! We got changed and left about 2:30 and were back in Georgetown by 5:30.

Just 2 wizards dueling


All the girls getting ready for the Ropes Course!


Drew was so scared - at one point she started crying.
I was so proud of her for conquering her fear and trying something she was afraid of.

The world's slowest zipline {grin}

More pool time was a big hit with everyone!

We came home exhausted but had an amazing time. Girl Scouts is such an awesome organization, and I'm glad both girls are involved. I hope they will stay in for years to come - there are so many neat things you can do with your troop.


Monday, May 8, 2023

Movie Review: Love Again

There are a lot of movies I'm excited to see in the coming weeks! To start off what I hope is a big month of movies, Allison and I went to see Love Again on Sunday.


Plot: A young woman tries to ease the pain of her fiancé's death by sending romantic texts to his old cell phone number, and forms a connection with the man the number has been reassigned to.

Review: This was equal parts adorable, romantic, sweet, and cringe-worthy. It was cheesy but also very sentimental. I went from moments of smiling and laughing to crying {the parts about the dead fiancé were very touching} to then wanting to hide my face from the cheesiness. About right for a rom-com, huh? {grin} Allison and I both rated it about a B and all-in-all enjoyed ourselves!


Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Monthly Musings: All About Spring

I love these seasonal surveys, so let's jump into one all about spring! I need to get better about these, so I can actually do the link-up. Maybe next time. {grin}


1) Favorite Spring Fashion Pieces?

Living in Texas, there aren't THAT many differences in what I wear day-to-day - workout clothes ha. It is nice to be able to wear flip flops all the time. But I would say what I have gotten more into in recent years is rompers! I have quite a few and love wearing them. They are comfy and cute at the same time.

2) Favorite Spring Scent?

I love the smell of fresh wildflowers blooming. They go crazy in the spring and no one mows them! Of course, my beloved bluebonnet smells the best!

3) Go to Spring Meals?

If you know me at all, you know cooking is not my forte. I am seriously drawing a major blank for anything specific I cook in the spring since I cook so infrequently all the time. I need to look at the link-up for some ideas here haha!

4) Share a Spring Dessert Recipe

One thing we love is my mother-in-law's chocolate krispies, and while I think they are great year-round, we just had them at Easter so they are shouting spring to me right now!


- 6 oz butter
- 16 oz. mini marshmallows, divided
- 1/3 cup Cocoa powder
- 1 1/4 cup chocolate chips
- 8 cups rice krispies

- Melt butter, add marshmallows, after melted, add Cocoa and chocolate chips
- One all melted, add the rice krispies and the rest of the marshmallows
- Once all mixed together, pour into a greased 13x9 pan
- Let cool and enjoy! 

5) Share a Few Spring Traditions

I struggled with thinking of something here! But I came up with a few.

1) Easter celebrations - Easter egg hunt at my parents on Saturday, church and pictures on Sunday, Easter lunch with Brent's parents


2) Bluebonnet pictures - you can see this year's HERE and all the ones we've taken since Trent was born HERE.

3) Wearing green on St. Patty's Day - this is pretty lame for a 'tradition' but we do it!


6) Best Spring Cleaning Hack?

We have no special cleaning routines based around the time of year. Our cleaning lady comes every 3 weeks and does the same thing every time. Rinse and repeat! I will say Brent is VERY busy getting the yard cleaned up for the spring. Raking leaves, cutting back all the dead plants, spreading fertilizer and mulch. Occasionally I help. {grin}

7) Will You Plant a Garden This Year?

Nope! I am definitely not a gardener and don't even really like vegetables all that much. Now my dad has an excellent garden, and the kids like to help him out in it. Interesting for this year, Drew is earning her gardening badge with Girl Scouts and they planted some seeds at a meeting a few weeks ago, so we do have an egg carton garden in our kitchen. Does that count? {grin}

We will be moving this to my dad's garden this week!

8) Spring Rain...Love or Hate?

I love what it brings - beautiful flowers, trees with new leaves, and green grass. But it can be a bit crazy in Texas - hail, crazy wind, infrequent tornadoes. So that part isn't fun, but I love the end result.

Hail from a storm last week

9) Favorite Spring Flower


10) Any Spring Travel This Year?

I just got back from a weekend at Great Wolf Lodge with Drew's Girl Scout troop {post forthcoming} and have 2 trips to Houston upcoming in early June, but that's it. Nothing too wild.