Iowa..........HERE WE COME!!!

I just finished packing, and we are leaving in five hours!!!!! OH MY!!! What am I thinking???

We HAD to get beautified for the trip, thus cutting my packing time a bit short! OOPS! I hope my mom plans on doing a lot of driving tomorrow (actually today...ugh!)!..........I'm not sure when my next post will be, my grandparents farm is well, on a farm, and I don't know what kind of Internet service they get if any...........so, please pray for our SAFETY and our SANITY over the next two weeks as my mom and I take the kids back home to IOWA!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!

No more classes, no more books, no more teachers dirty looks!!!!

The bestest teacher EVER......Mrs. Harris and Carter on the last day of school!
It TOTALLY was NOT a sunny day today............outside or in..........

I can't believe that my baby is out of first grade and can read!!! And read really well at that! It's amazing to see how far Carter has come from the beginning of the year. Three weeks into the year, his teacher called a conference with us. She was extremely concerned that Carter was not ready for first grade. She told us that his attention was nearly NONEXISTENT, and his scores so far had not been good. We decided right then and there that we were going to take him completely off sugar, and we did! Cold turkey! We scheduled a meeting for six weeks later to assess the situation. When we walked into the door for that second meeting, we were greeted with hugs!! I'm not kidding! She showed us on paper how Carter had COMPLETELY turned around for the good, and he was now right on track!!! Needless to say, we were thrilled, and thus the no sugar thing has become just the way we live now. We can totally tell when he has had too many "treats".......he acts like a psycho!! ha!ha!

Anyways, after the GPS tests, Carter is above average in reading and language, and met the standards on everything else!! WE are sooooooooo proud of you Carter! Way to go!!!!

I've been tagged!

I've been tagged by fellow bloggers in Colorado and Indiana to share a favorite room.....so here is my favorite room in our house. My daughter Ava's room. I think I love her room so much because it is the only room in the house that has ALMOST all the finishing touches done to it. I also just love hanging out in there with Ava doing make up, nails, watching her dance, and playing with her dollhouse.
Most little girls have pink or purple rooms, but when I was a little girl, I had a light blue room complete with all the light blue trimmings, and a checkered blue bedspread with ruffles ...........still today thinking about that room and the cute pictures we have of it, I love it! So, I wanted Ava's room to definitely be girlie, but "different girlie".......I opted for the aqua blue walls and the black bed. I love it, but more importantly Ava loves it!! She even told me a while back that she lived in a princess room. Well then, mission accomplished.

I just need a window treatment.......I was thinking of a french awning in black and white over the window and dollhouse...? any other suggestions?

Betcha didn't know...........

My husband has a second job............at night...............that involves poles and tips.

OR AT LEAST THAT'S WHAT YOU WOULD THINK BY THE "UNDER GARMENTS" HE CHOOSES TO PUT ON!!!!

These boxers were given to him as a PRANK several years ago, and leave it to my husband to make them his favorite pair!! And he's totally not embarrassed by them! He just walked in while I was putting this post up, looked at the picture, and his comment was....."man my butt is big" not.."don't show that".....or "those boxers ARE embarrassing"...........just that his butt is big!! ha! ha! ha!

MY HUSBAND ROCKS!!!!!!!!!

Sale Alert!!

Bear Feet shoes are 50% off at Marshmallows in the Closet in Woodstock. I admit that paying full price for this shoe is a "little much"......but HALF PRICE is totally doable!! These are WONDERFUL shoes......and in case you haven't noticed so so CUTE!! They come in the color above, solid black, solid brown, solid pink, and I think a few more mixed colors. They just went on sale, so there are plenty of choices still available. But, there won't be for long! So hurry all you Woodstockers over to Marshmallows and snatch them up!
(oh, and FYI......they do not have size 9 in ANY color............)

Terrible tragedy

This morning my best friend from Iowa sent me this email. Yesterday she had told me about a tornado that had gone through Waterloo Iowa over the weekend, destroying EVERYTHING in sight. Here was the email this morning...............

It was so bad that they said over 350 homes were completely destroyed and the only things standing in those areas are about 6 foot high or less. Even though people went to the basement, they said those that died were just sucked right out of the house. There was an interview with 2 women who were at one of the ladies' homes. The one woman had three little girls 6, 5 and 3. They were huddled in the basement and could feel themselves getting sucked out of the house and all of a sudden they dropped to the floor and everything was still. They thought the tornado was over. However, when they looked upwards, they saw that the top of the house was gone and they were in the eye of the storm. They could see things whirling around and everything in the eye was green...probably from all of the trees and grass that were sucked into the tornado. All of a sudden the eye was passing and the back side of the tornado was passing them and they began to get sucked up again. The mom put the 3 year old under her shirt and laid on top of her. The other woman had the older girl and was holding on to her. The mom had the 5 year old by the arms, but her legs were going up in the air. Just as the 5 year old was being sucked up into the sky, a piece of PVC pipe fell out of the sky onto the mom's back. She reached around, grabbed the pipe and used it to pull the girl's legs down to the ground. She was able to hold onto her until the tornado passed. What a nightmare, but by the grace of God, that girl is safe today.

Once again I am heavy hearted for the broken this morning. Please pray for the people of Waterloo, and especially for those that lost family members. Between this tragedy this week and SCC's daughter last week, I feel heavily burdened to be on my knees in prayer over my family and our country.

Chocolate shoes!! Uh Huh, that's what I said........CHOCOLATE SHOES!!

Calling ALL women everywhere!!!!!!!!
Chocolate AND shoes ......... combined ............as one ............ together .......... not to be parted ............. Does it get any better than this??
You can find this DIVINE creation at Gayle's Chocolates !!!!!

A tale of flip flops

Ok, on Mother's Day my entire family came over to my house to grill and hang out. Well, of course that includes my brother Pete ......................and his flip flops. Intrigued yet??
Fast forward to the Tuesday after Mother's Day. Hollie leaves a message on my cell phone that they are looking for Pete's flip flops and wanted to know if he had left them at our house. I called her back on my way home and told her that I didn't think that I had seen them, but would check when I got home. I got home and they were NOWHERE to be seen. I actually didn't think that he could have possibly left them at my house and driven ALL the way home......without shoes?
(in his defense though, he had been on a boat the entire day before WITHOUT sunscreen, and was VERY sunburned........I think he was starting to hallucinate as the day wore on, and I guess wearing shoes was the LAST thing on his mind!!ha!ha!)
Back to the story. Hollie proceeds to tell me on SEVERAL different occasions during the week that the disappearing flip flops had become a huge Hixson mystery, and EVERYONE in their household had been searching for them. High and low. Low and high.Sideways and backwards.......and well, you get the jist. How weird?? Where were they?
Alas, after much deliberation, Hollie had resigned to buy him a new pair, thus leaving the mystery unsolved. So off to the store she went to get a brand new pair of rainbows (the brand).
Story over right?.............WRONG! Fast forward again to this past Saturday night. I am showing our friends Chuck and Stephanie our house since they had never been in it before, and I casually walk into my front room. As I turn to leave, my eye catches something sitting on the shelf..............UH HUH........You guessed it! Look below!


Immediatly I was like CRAIG, are these PETE'S shoes??????????? (anyone who knows and LOVES my SWEET, WONDERFUL, TOTALLY OBNOXIOUS husband, knows that his signature move is to hide things from people......causing people to practically go mad when they get ready to leave and can't find their shoes.......keys.......phones.......purse(sorry Melissa)......all the while Craig doesn't skip a beat with whatever he is doing, and acts like he has NO IDEA what's going on) Craig came into the room and was like "oh, those are still here?" WHAT???? DO YOU KNOW THAT PETE AND HOLLIE HAVE TURNED THEIR HOUSE UPSIDE DOWN LOOKING FOR THESE?? HOLLIE HAD TO BUY HIM A NEW PAIR!! His reply?......."hmmm, I didn't put them there........Josh did..................but I knew about it."
Sorry Pete! Just send the bill to Craig........and feel free to add as many punative damages as you feel needed. (pain and suffering, anguish, loss of sleep, anxiety attacks,extreme fear, uncontrollable crying,.....etc....etc.....) Whatever you need, CRAIG will take care of !! SOMEBODY needs to hold him accountable for his "pranks"! Oh, and about Josh putting them there? Well, WHERE DO YOU THINK HE LEARNED IT FROM?.......

Memorial day fun

Well, we ended our long weekend with what else? More pool time of course! After my sister and Josh took the kids home with them last night, Craig and I joined them today at their pool for a little fun in the sun! Craig and Josh were of course being their normal obnoxious selves......so it's a really good thing we didn't get kicked, out bringing our fun to an abrupt end.......

Upon hearing that Josh and Hannah let the kids stay up until after 1 am last night, Craig and I decided we would let them see first hand what happens during a meltdown........so we left the kids with them again, and went on a date!! WAHOO! We had a great meal at Mimi's cafe in Dunwoody, and then saw the movie "What happens in Vegas".......it was very cute and funny!

I'm sad that our fun long weekend has come to an end, but I am looking forward to getting thru this week and leaving Saturday for my two week trip to..................IOWA!!!..........(much more on that later!)

I hope everyone is safe and sound tonight, and has had as much fun as we did this weekend!

Lata!

OH BABY! ....sexiness at its FINEST!!

Wow! How lucky am I to have such a HOT brother in law?...........Now calm down and try to contain your jealousy.........
Hunka hunka burnin' love.............
Hey Josh, did you get the toe jam out?
What in the world is my husband doing?? We WERE in public! Geez!

All I can say is these two are DORKS!.....Enough said.

Have a great day!!!!

Here are just a few pics from our bbq with our neighbors today.......

I hope everyone has a fun and happy Memorial Day tomorrow! Don't forget the sunscreen!!!!

And we had fun fun fun.........

What a fun fun day we had yesterday with the Newtons! Chuck, Stephanie, Charlie, and Caroline made the trek ALL THE WAY from Smyrna to spend the day with us. We started the day at the pool, stayed for about 3 1/2 hours...(ALL the adults got sunburned....go figure), went home and officially opened "the waterslide" for the summer......(Chuck and Craig about busted the thing trying to go down at the same time......but OH SO FUNNY!), grilled steaks, and headed down to the lake for a huge lawn party and concert!! I LOVE concerts at our neighborhood lake! They are sooo much fun! The kids had a total blast running, dancing, wrestling, and oh yes how can I forget "skiing" down the hill on used, GREASY pizza boxes!!!!! (which Caroline was NOT too happy about not being able to take home with her!! ha!ha!)

What a GREAT start to our long Memorial Day weekend!! Thanks Newtons for the fabuloustic funtastik day!..................(oh, and sorry Chuck if I got Stephanie in trouble by taking her off on a little shopping excursion!! OOPS!!!)

FUN FUN FUN!!!!!!!