The SOFLA Fair

This was the 100th year of the South Florida Fair so of course we had to go help celebrate. Twice!

 First up Glade and Mac had to try out the shooting range. They each one a wooden flower and my sweet McCoy said he won his just for me :). Love my little man.

And of course the Big Mac had to check out all the cool cars. He was sure wishing his Pops could be there to see those cars. He said, "Man I know Pops could appreciate these beautiful Cars." Man that kid cracks me up. Sure loves his Pops. <3

And here is Bentley standing in front of the giant Sand sculpture of a cake and and a few other things only I didn't get a picture of the actual sculpture. LOL. Just the cutie in front of it.

 And the kids thought it was  hilarious to play in the PBC Sheriffs booth. They said they were in grown up "Time Out."  And they thought they were so sneaky when they found out they could "break out" because thy both fit right through the bars.

 And the favorite part of the fair for them is the Animal feeding/petting zoo. Especially Bentley. She has a soft spot for animals.

And we even did a few rides this year. McCoy is usually scared so we don't even venture in the ride area but this year he had his game face on so we tested out a few and he had a ball. His favorite was the Gravitron and giant slides. Bentley got on as many as she could too but she needs a another year or two before she is tall enough for the kid rides. But she had a blast. We are looking forward to next year!

 Oh and can't forget about the corn box is always a big hit too.

We had a ball but still miss our good ol' Cassia County Fair and Rodeo. We are going to see what we can do to make it there this year! Watch out Burley!

So a month ago....this is what we were doing...

Chrismtas has come and gone and New Years too. But I don't want to forget some of the fun things we did.

Every year since we moved here we attend the annual Wellington Christmas parade with friends. And every year this is McCoy's favorite part of the Parade. The Star Wars float and movie characters.

 Our neighborhood had a really nice Christmas fair for the kids where they could meet Santa and also do a bunch of really fun things like ride a train, rock climb, bounce houses etc. Mac had blast getting free snow cones and cotton candy. Hence the red mouth.

 And every year we also try to go down to Hoffmans Chocolate and see their light display. It is really beautiful. If you have ever been to the Rock Creek light display in Idaho...this is about a 1/3 of that but it is our little subsitute for now.  McCoy's favorite part is the train set up they have.

 And this year our favorite part of Christmas was having Pops here to celebrate with us. McCoy was so glad to have his best bud here to play cars and even pack him around.

 Bentley took her sweet time warming up to Pops but of course no  baby can resist him for long. :)

 One of our favorite things we did with Pops with going to see the neighborhood of lights down of Florida Mango Street. The whole neighborhood decorates. Every house! It is so amazing. It really gets me in the Christmas spirit to see so many nativities and beautiful lights and to see all the other families out and about. So glad I could be there with mine :)

 And our trees! I LOVE Christmas Trees! Our tradition continues...we had five trees this year. This tradition started with this little tree here. It was my bedroom tree when I was younger. My mom gave me and my brothers our own trees for our bedrooms and I have passed on the tradition to my own kids. It is so fun for them to get out their own trees and decorate them.

 McCoy's Tree. They are not on the tree in the first picture, but every year he adds a few star wars characters to his tree. Last year it was the yoda lights. This year he made his own Star wars ornaments from Legos! He made the Death Star and melenium falcon. I helped a bit but the idea and design was all his.  Legos and Star wars...Christmas dreams come true :)

 And Bentley Boo Boo's tree. the Princess loves Pink!

 The Front Room Tree and my footie Pajama babies. Quick story, so McCoy has not had Feeties since he was 2. I bought him some on a whim this year thinking he would love or hate them. well he opened them up Christmas eve and at first it was HATE! I mean how NOT cool. But after he got over the not cool part, he tried them on and it was love at first zip up. Now he wants to wear them every night. I even bought myself a pair this year but thats a picture you probably wont see on here.

And here is the Family Tree. I forgot to take a picture of it so this was taken Christmas eve as I was wrapping up the last gifts and of course watching the Christmas Story :) Love that movie. We had a wonderful Christmas and I am sad it went so fast but happy that it was such a memoriable one for our First Christmas in our new house!  

The Move...The House...The Holidays!!!

Ok heres the quick run down. We spent Thanksgiving with some wonderful, we ate way to much, we laughed we played outside, we slept, we ate some more and then had dessert! It really was a great Turkey Day and we are blessed to have such great friends. 

Then five days later we moved! We filled up our giant Uhaul 2 times. Luckily we had lots of help from our wonderful ward. It didnt take long to pack it all up and unload it but it sure is taking a while to put it all away and organzie. But I am having doing it and also getting ready for CHRISTMAS! Can't believe it is just around the corner. Guess I better get back to work...More pics to come...

The family car finally kicked the bucket last week. On Monday night after we went Trick or Treating and got all our treats....we also got our trick! When we went to leave Glade started up the car and it made all these funny noises and then just wouldnt start anymore. :(  The next day Glade and I went van shopping. I always said I would never drive a van but WOW, its so comfy and roomy and it has MAGIC DOORS! I push a button and the doors open themselves and the kiddos climb in the car and into their car seats. I don't have to open anybodys door or lift them up, just walk around and buckle up the baby and push another button and doors close. We love our family ride but I gotta say I was a little sad to say goodbye to the Grand AM......

I am not a sentimental person but I am pretty sad to say goodbye to my Winkie Blinkie. Glade purchased Goldie the GrandAM AKA Winkie Blinkie a couple of months before we got engaged so she has been our Family car since the beginning. We brought both our babies home from the hospital in her and have driven to many family events in her.

Even though she only had one good eye (side mirror) and the blinker randomly turned on at any point during your drive, (thus the name Winkie Blinkie), those are just some of the qualities I will miss about her. I will also miss the radio blasting itself at different volumes and on random stations whenever you start her up. The button to shifter would fall off whenever you turned a corner or went over a bump so you had to keep one hand on it at all times. I will miss the passenger side window falling down every now and then and the black duct tape we finally had to use to keep it up, and the dome light that never worked right. I Love how she "purred" even after the ignition had been turned off and the key taken out. She had these and many more crazy quirks. Just like our quirky family… Gonna miss that stupid car...

Bum Pa Da Dummmm....The Costumes!

I heart Halloween and dressing up! McCoy usually don's 3-4 different costumes but this year he was dead set on only being one thing....MC Hammer! Yup that's right. Thanks to daddy and YouTube, McCoy has discovered the joys of Hammer Time and would watch the music video over and over and insisted that I make him some hammer pants.

This is seriously why I wanted to learn to sew. My mom always made our Halloween costumes growing up and I wasn't to imaginative but my younger brothers would have her come up some doosies and she always came through. I love being able to do that for my boy...because well really...where would I find an MC hammer costume now days?

So anywho, I youtubed how to make hammer pants, found some stretchy gold fabric and got to work. I should have checked the fabric out better because this one would split seams and got wore out fast but it worked for the few uses it got. Although now he wants to wear them around everyday LOL. And I just kind of winged the  jacket. It's a silk pajama top that I cropped down. I had to take the sleeves off and take in the sides, crop of the bottom and then put the sleeves back on and sew on the gold cuffs.  He wanted to comb his hair like hammer too but we had to sit him down and explain that his hair would NEVER look square LOL.

And Bentley was "Pretty as a Peacock"  I put her costume together with a dress I found on clearance that was suppose to be a Mermaid fairy, and then I bought wings and a tiara at the dollar store and glued on feathers added her leggings and she became a peacock. My little Peacock Princess walked around night with candy in her mouth. She hearts Halloween now too. :)

And Glade and I even got into the spirit. He dressed up as a Rockstar and I was his groupie. It's fun to be a kid. :) Can't wait to see what my kiddos come up with next year.

It's Fall Ya'll

McCoy and his buddy Layla dressed as Scarecrows for their Fall on the Farm play their class put on.

Here's my little Punkin's at the St. Peters Pumpkin Patch

And this is Bentley dressed up as a Skeleton with some of her friends from her little playgroup.

 This is the first year we have carved pumpkins....and it will probably be the last! What a stinky squishy mess and it didn't help that I picked some bad pumpkins and forgot that they don't really last long in this Florida heat. We carved them a five days before Halloween and by Sunday night they were mush! We had to scrap them off the steps! The kiddos loved them though....and for those cute faces I would do it again I suppose....maybe....

Another Pumpkin patch...we just can't get enough Halloween! And no that is not SNOW....just white tarp, but we pretended it was LOL.

My "Save Me" Dollar and other life lessons my grandpa taught me...

This is my emergency Dollar also known as my "Save Me" me dollar because I wrote save me all over it so I would remember to save and not spend it.  I came across it when I was packing things up and just thought I should jot down the reasoning behind its existence...

Back when I was in high school my Fafa (Grandpa) sat me down and told me that I should always carry an extra dollar in my wallet for an emergency. He then told me that ever since he was young he had always carried an extra dollar bill in his wallet in case he needed gas $ or needed to make a phone call. At the time I thought this was so silly because really what can you do with a dollar?  Everybody carried cell phones and gas was practically a dollar a gallon anyway!  (remember this was back when I was in high school).  I headed his advice anyway more because it made me laugh every time I looked at that single dollar bill, but as the years went on it seemed that the dollar would always somehow fall out of my wallet or make itself known at exactly the moments when I needed to be reminded about my savings.

I know I will never spend this particular dollar bill. I keep it hanging on bulletin board so I can see it often, especially when I am window shopping via the lovely Internet and want to buy something I glance up at my dollar and think twice about my wants and needs.

My grandpa taught me many life lessons and he had his own funny quirky way of teaching me. He had so many "Fafa-isms" he put his own spin on naming things and always made us grand kids laugh. I'm so thankful for the time he spent with me when I was younger and the things that he taught me.