Jerseylicious and sales........

My daughter Foo is off for a fun filled day at the Gatsby salon. If you're not familiar with the name Gatsby, it is the salon that is featured on Jerseylicious. Foo's best friend is taking her and another girl there for her 16th birthday. I was trying to figure out a way to hide in the car myself. Ha! These girls are so excited! I think they are secretly hoping to be filmed. They can't wait to see who is working in the salon today. I can't wait to hear about the day either. My good friend took her daughter last month and said they were the nicest people. I will be keeping everyone posted.

The last few days of talking about Black Friday shopping has inspired me to look for bargains. If you know me, you know I have a love obsession of handbags. You can only imagine my joy when I logged on this morning and saw this one.

Vera Bradley is having a 50% off certain fabrics today and tomorrow. The four fabric choices are Twirly Bird Navy(my favorite),Hello Dahlia,Barcelona,and Slate Blooms. We are huge Vera fan's here so I'm sure we will be taking advantage of this sale. As I find more on line sales I will be passing them along. Please feel free to pass along any you find.

Enjoy your Saturday!

Aloha Friday

It's Friday so it can only mean one thing. It's time for an Island life Aloha Friday. My question to you is this:

Do you go out on Black Friday to shop?

When my girls were younger I tried it a couple of times. I hated it. The people. The pushing. The crowds. Once the Internet shopping took off I started doing that. You can't beat some of the Cyber Monday deals. Plus you can sit in your pj's with a cup of coffee and no Make up. Now that's the perfect day.

Please visit An Island Life and answer her question of the day. BTW how cool would it be to live in Hawaii? 

Invest in the Vest.......

My four year old has decided that everyday must start wearing his fishing vest. One of the first things he does in the morning is look for that vest. It doesn't matter what he is wearing either. Everyday. Sometimes it's under a sweatshirt too. It drives us nuts. My good friend and neighbor gets the biggest kick out of it. We decided a couple of weeks ago to post everyday on facebook when he wears the darn thing. Three days ago he decided he needed something else to go with the vest. An orange hat. In addition to the vest,it's now an orange hat. Case in point.......

Notice how his marker matches too?

We've had had two days were he didn't wear the vest. I thought great this phase is over. Nope. Yesterday while we were out shopping he found a vest we just had to buy. I thought this vest would push Hubby over the edge. It's a little different.

We asked him why that vest. The penguin has a rocking guitar. How do you argue that?

He looks very umm.....festive, right? No matter what he wears he's still a cutie to me. I would like to point out, I do make him take the vests off before we go out in public. I don't want all the other mom's to make fun of me. HA!

Has anyone else child went through a phase of wanting to wear the same thing over and over again? Advise?

Wordless Wednesday~Cutest Chicken Coop

Election Day

We actually have a day off from school today. One of our elementary school is a voting place so it shuts down the whole school district. Day off from school can only mean one thing. Sleepover for someone. Last night Mady had two of her really good friends spend the night. The family jokes that they are our other two daughters. I guess at this point what's two more teenage girls. HAHA! The girls decided to make a cake and some cookies last night. So sweet they cooked me desert. HA! They got their little bodies up at 10:30 and ate breakfast and left by 12. To be a teen again. I'm up at 6. Every morning.

Hubby and Tornado went hunting. It's the last week of hunting and hubby wants to go every chance he gets. Ugh. It makes my day so long with the 4 year old and getting everyone where they need to be. Hubby had to work a little later tonight which meant less hunting time due to the time change. I have to admit this time change really stinks. I hate driving anywhere in the dark. As they were changing out of their hunting clothes Hubby says to me "do I have a tick on me?" Yep. A deer tick from the looks of it. It took forever to get the darn thing off. I'm not sure if we got the head out or not. The doctor said they don't give out antibiotics without symtoms first. We have to wait 2-3 weeks. Ugh.

Hubby picked up Foo from work and now we are watching Home Alone 2. We usually don't watch it until after Thanksgiving. The snow we had the other day made us all want to watch Christmas movies. I really wanted to watch Glee tonight but once I heard the theme I changed my mind. I've been a little annoyed with Glee lately. The adoption storyline really got me mad and now this first time episode. I mean really??! Do we have to keep promoting teenage sex.

Hope everyone got out and voted today.

mixed bag of emotions

This past Friday my bil's widow got remarried. We knew she was going to get married, we just didn't know when. She has been engaged for almost two years and kept changing her mind. She would say she's moving from Alaska to Minnesota and change her mind a week before she was suppose to move. We kind of stopped paying attention after a while. According to my Mil she was suppose to get married last weekend but backed out of it. I knew some day we would get to this point. She would remarry and my nieces Firefly and Ladybug would have a new dad. I guess I just wasn't ready for it yet. Now don't get me wrong, I am so happy that they have someone else to call Dad. It just means (to me)that my bil is really gone. He is not coming back. Ever. It hurts. I know, I know, he's been gone for almost 4 years and Yes I know he's not coming back. The marriage just makes it more final. It hurts to know that the next family portrait will be with the new husband. It hurts to know the girls will be calling the new husband,Dad. I'm afraid my sister in law will no longer view us as family. I'm afraid if any of us speak against her she will cut off contact. I mean what if the new husband doesn't want our family in his life. I'm afraid my nieces will no longer need us. I am angry that my bil died. Angry that the family structure changed. Most of all I feel so guilty for having all of these emotions at the same time. See, I told you it was a mixed bag of emotions.........

Thoughts?

Last camping trip of the season

Every Janurary we sit down with our camping club(5 families that share our love of camping) and we plan out all of our camping trips for the year. We try to plan around Proms,homecoming dances,soccer games, and cheerleading. Trust me when I say it's tough sometimes. Did I mention we have a total of 11 kids not including two girls who are over18? Case in point was our last trip of the season. One by one our friends couldn't make it. It was down to my family and our really good friends. I have to admit both of us were considering canceling the trip too. They were calling for rain for the weekend and we were so tired of camping in the rain. Once my daughters heard their daughter wasn't going my girls really didn't want to go. Foo spent the weekend with Hubby's parents. Our friends had no kids for the weekend and we only had two. It felt so weird to be without all the kids on a Halloween weekend.

I finally got around to taking the pictures from our camping trip off my memory card and thought I would share them. As I'm sorting thru them I realize I took very few pictures of us actually camping. Ugh. It had rained on Friday before we got to the campground so we decided to eat out once we got there. Saturday we decided to go hiking on the  Appalachian Trail. Yep you read that right. and no we weren't planning to hike across several states. The other hikers who were actually prepared to hike on a trail kept telling us that the look out point was ONLY a mile up the trail. They lied! After walking a mile and a half   100 miles another group of hikers informed us the look out point was at least another mile. Did I mention my 4 year old was hiking too? We turned around and called it a day. 

Tornado at the top of a stream. I had no desire to hike to the top of that.

Another photo of the stream

Loved this little pond

That bench kept calling my name

The View looking down the trail                                                                      

We left the trail and headed back to the campground. They had a Halloween parade and campsite trick or treating for the kids. My son was so excited for the candy begging giving that he wanted to stop after 5 campsites. Most kids want to go to every site. Not mine. HAHA! All the poor boy wanted to do was eat his candy. I can't say I blame him. I was pretty much thinking the same thing. HA! I love Halloween theme weekends. They usually have so much for the kids to do.  After Trick or treat they had a costume contest/dance. Crafts for the little kids. Bonfire and hot cider. Does it get any better? How many more days until our next camping trip?

Birthday Princess......

When my oldest daughter was 6 we celebrated her birthday with a friends and family party. As I was serving her a piece of cake I called her by name. She looked over at me with her one tooth grin and in her lisp voice says "call me the birthday princess". My aunt who was standing next to her, burst out laughing. We called her the birthday princess for the rest of the day.

2009

Well,Birthday Princess today you turn 20 years old. How that is even possible is beyond me. It seems like it was only yesterday that I was bringing a 8lb 13 oz wrapped in a blanket baby girl home. I remember thinking that day she has an old soul. Very mellow and wise behind her years. The changes in the last 20 years have been amazing. I watched a blond hair blue/gray eyed girl go from being quiet to being a shelf assured confident adult. I watched as she did plays and talent shows in front of hundreds of people to cheering in front of thousands of people. I've watched her fall in love and I've watched as her heart was broken. I cried just as hard on her first day of college as I did on her first day of kindergarten. Did I mention she is working her way through college while maintaining an A average? *Proud Mommy moment* I can't wait to see what the next 20 years hold for her as she continues to grow and become a wife and Mother. I know whatever she does it will continue to make her Mama proud.

2010

Happy Birthday Princess!