Pour some sugar on me ...

It was a really cold and snuggly weekend. Andy and I had a pantry challenge this week (we attempted to only eat what was in the house and try to stay out of the grocery store). Andy did so good until today when he snuck out while I was still asleep to get bacon. Don't come between the best weekend breakfast cook and his bacon I guess :). Andy and I also watched a crap load of Cake Boss last week and decided this weekend that we were going to make a practice cake using fondant for Lennon's upcoming birthday. It came out a little bumpy but not too shabby. Here's our weekend wrap up:

My mom got these pj's for the girls for Christmas. They are so soft and snuggly. Lucie cracks me up with her footy pajama love. If you look back over this blog you will find that she's usually wearing either this outfit or another one with gingerbread man on them. Don't quite get what the deal is ... but I don't care, she can wear them until she's 18 if she wants!

Poor Lu. Every time I say put your arm around your sister Lennon puts her in a choke hold.

Lucie ate about a pound of fondant. She totally didn't care that it tastes like nothing. That was the second thing about the cake that made it taste weird. First was the questionable shortening I used to grease the pans. It was in my cabinet for sometime and was obviously bad. It seeped through the cake and that's all you could taste.

Third was the kind of cake we used - spice cake. It was all I had and since we were banned from the store this weekend we thought it may work okay. Not so much. It was really crumbly, which made it hard to cut and frost. Fourth was the butter cream frosting that Andy mixed up. He added more milk than he should have and it was too watery. This would have been fine, but the texture of the spice cake was one that just soaked up the frosting.

Rolling and coloring the fondant was surprisingly the easiest part.

We didn't have a rolling pin large enough so we improvised with a wine bottle. Worked just fine. No innocent wine bottles were hurt in the making of this cake.

Voila! A bumpy, crappy tasting, but pretty dang cute three tiered Princess and the Frog practice cake. Andy's laughing at me right now because I just asked him how to spell ... Wala. I think all my life I thought the big reveal of a culinary treat was Wala not Voila. Nice.

Lennon went to her best friend Isha's birthday party at a bounce house place on Saturday. Lennon, Isha and Erin are inseparable at school. They are also all in the same ballet class. It was so cute watching them play and giggle and run together. Nothing like the sweet giggle of little girls.

Ahhh...pure cuteness. I switched Lennon to Isha's class at the beginning of the school year. They spent the summer in the same class and when school started and Lennon was moved she wigged out on us for a while. When I saw Isha in a different class one afternoon I asked the director if Lennon could move. She said yes, and Lennon and Isha were reunited and Lennon's been MUCH better.

I love Isha's tiny little face. The other little girl is Amy. Every time I pick Lennon up from school she runs up to me to tell me "Hi Amy, I'm Amy". Every time :)

Andy caught us snuggling before the girls went to bed. I had no idea they had their arms back like that. Too funny.

Cheetah girls before church.

Super DAD!!!

Jerimiah was a bullfrog ... he was a good friend of mine.

And so is this chick.

I can not believe this tiny little baby who was so bald and calm and snuggly is about to be four years old. We are about to have a four year old. One with long real kid legs, longish semi-curly hair, one who likes to sing Kings of Leon and Dixie Chicks and Taylor Swift at the very top of her lungs, loves to be the mama, one who always wants to play with her sister, one who would eat biscuits at every meal if I'd let her, one who would wear tights everyday if I'd let her (I usually do), one who is so smart she scares us sometimes, one with a memory like an elephant, one who loves to read and read and read, one who moves me to tears with her prayers, one who gets her feelings hurt like her mama, one who loves her daddy so much I get jealous, one who likes pink, one who can sing whole songs in Spanish, one who loves to get her finger nails painted, one who loves ketchup on her eggs, one who will still snuggle with me when she's tired, one who can do a great Grover impression, one who loves boots, one who loves to dance, one who wants to be a mommy or Michael Jackson when she gets big, one who can drive me up the wall like no one ever has ever in my life, one that can say things that melt me in an instant.

She is more to me than I can ever ever put into words. She's the realest, purest most beautiful thing I know. She's Boogy.

We had a really lazy fun weekend. Friday night was pizza and fun with the neighbor girls and extra curricular activities with Megan and Shawn. Man I really love Scene It. Even though I really really suck at it. Saturday was a LAZY day full of Teen Mom and Real House Wives of Orange County AND The Pregnancy Pact. I'm done with TV for real. For real. No really my brain is fried. Sunday was Church and Andy cooking an AWESOME brisket... for like 7 hours on the smoker. It was sooo good. Val and Lucy and Blair came over. I love love love Sunday with Jesus, friends and food :). I think it's so cute that the girls get so excited when their grown up friends come over. They look forward to it all day. Andy and I are so lucky to have such good friends who dig our kids as much as we do!

I love Lu's face in this picture. Whattayagonnado about it ... I'm eating pizza...

Ahhh.. Meggers your so talented. Andy doesn't seem to think so.

Whistle while you work....

It's been a pretty crazy week for us. Work has gotten really busy and now more than ever we have to get creative on how we are presenting proposals. I made this house painted Gaylord blue and gold to put a proposal in for Sallie Mae. Thanks to my dear friend Debra Davis who added the sunny G and a picutre inside I think it turned out pretty dang cute. Getting to think outside the box and get creative is one of the things I love the best about my job.

This is what happened to me earlier in the evening. I completely slammed my thumb in my car trunk as in the trunk totally shut and I couldn't get it out. Lennon was beside me and Lucie was still in the car and I had to scream at the top of my lungs for 10 minutes until my neighbor finally came over and was able to get into my car and pop the trunk. It was HORRIBLE. I went the next morning to get an x ray after I didn't sleep at all the night before. I have a tiny little hairline fracture. Fun times :).

I was SO freaking proud of my office this week. In just one week we collected over 500 lbs of food/clothing/other household items for our co-workers in Florida. I really hope everything we collected will get to the people that need it most.

So ... this weekend thank you cake pops are in order :)

Heal the World ....

So proud of these girlies! They helped me pack up about 15 bags of clothes and food for our coworkers at the Palms in Orlando who's staff is 30% Haitian. We were able to sneak up on Monday when everyone was out. Lennon totally gets it and was such a hard worker! Hopefully we will collect a ton more over the next week.

Da da da da Hey Hey ... Good Bye!!!

Well...the Boy's lost. We were so sad. I had such a good time this year in my office with the Cowboys - we seemed to live, eat and breathe them everyday. I was able to book a ton of business because of them and the new stadium. Oh Boys, you were amazing and I am forever grateful. Funny how a bunch of big athletic boys and their success can somehow cross over to a 30 year old mom of three who sells hotel rooms and her success. Here's to an amazing season - thanks for the GREAT time!

It's a New Dawn, It's a New Day, It's a New Life ...

New Years 2010 promises to bring continued fun and love and happiness!!! I have made a resolution to post at least one picture a day. These babies of mine are growing so fast and it's killing me. Andy and I were talking last night and we both realize that we don't remember Lucie crawling. Sure we have pictures, but I have no honest to goodness memory of it. KILLS me! I want to be able to look back and really see what we were up to everyday, not just the special times.

The holiday's were a so much fun this year with the girls (check out my pics on Facebook). All three girls were spoiled rotten and it was so fun doing Santa with them. The girls and I have been going to a new church that we ALL love and this season's Christmas was made even more special by the fact that we could talk about the fact that Christmas means so much more than presents. We did things a little different this year and stayed home on Christmas Eve night. It was heartbreaking spending my first Christmas morning without my parents, but SO nice starting our own new traditions.

Rylie arrived a few days after Christmas - man she's getting so big. I still can not believe she's 7 years old. The girls all played really great together for the most part. Lennon still has a hard time not being the boss, but she's able to communicate a little better now and she and Rylie tended to shut Lucie out. Which was A-Okay with me. Lucie was so sick the week after Christmas and after she got pick eye she and I quarantined ourselves in my room. I LOVED it! Then she kept getting worse and I ended up taking her to the ER on New Years day. Pneumonia and a double ear infection later and she still only wanted me to hold her. So Andy had to keep the other girls entertained. He did pretty dang good if I say so my self :).

This year Andy and I are on a money saving mission. We want to buy a house in Highland Village in the Summer of 2011 when Lennon goes to kindergarten. We want to put a big fat down payment down so time to tighten up the purse strings.

So here's to a another New Year! I am looking forward to growing in my faith, my marriage, my motherhood, my everything this year.

These pics are backwards ... but the first is where I'm starting with my pic a day :)

The girls on our typical Saturday mornings. Eating eggs and ketchup (gag) and biscuits. Don't you wear ballet dresses and mermaid dresses to breakfast?

Our neighbors came over last night. For the first time ever Lennon didn't act like a freakazoid, hanging on my leg or grunting instead of talking. She actually bossed everyone around. They played dress up and fashion show and house for a few hours. SO FREAKING CUTE!!!

Last week Andy and I hung out at the Texan and watched the Cowboy's game with some of my clients that were in town. They had a "Butt Sketch Artist" and I got - ah hem ... my butt sketched. I kept thinking that someday my grandchildren are going to see this and think "oh Lord that's Grandma Candy's butt"!

We had SOO much fun!

This is my friend/client Katie...needless to say we had a good time :).

What's this you might ask? A Christmas tree outside? Yes, yes it is!

Lucie was bored.

Lennon was being really whiney

MOOMMMM...I'm bored!
So I came up with a plan. Let's string some popcorn ...

Cut out some old bread and tortillas with cookie cutters...

Fix them up with ornament hangers ...

String some marshmallows on yarn...

Concentrate....

Get some really sticky hands...

And you get this! A tree PERFECT for the birds in cold weather!! And three girls who loved every minute of it.

Over the River and Through the Woods ...

I know. I know. I'm sorry.

Here's some more things we did in November:


I loved on my Grandma Candy



Lennon loved on her Queenie


Shawn loved on his Meggie

These two loved the site of their legacy all together




These three realized were all very thankful for one another




These two were just super cute

These two freaked out about this:

Ahhh...there is nothing like going on a walk in the woods with a nice red wine roadie. That is until your really expensive annoying dog...

Runs off the side of the trail and gets tangled in the brush...

Then gets off her leash and finds a mysterious mass of hair and starts running...

And running ...

And running...
Until Aunt Laura, who is much more accustom to country life, stops her and discovers her big catch. A dead rat. Nice Freida.

What table manners Lucie has. I knew something was off when I signed her up for etiquette classes and the teacher wanted to be paid in milk bones.

This is why I love the farm so much.

Oh and I ran the Turkey Trot again this year. I did MUCH better this time and actually sprinted the last mile!

Then Valerie came over ....

And got a makeover.

This plus...
This plus...
This plus...

Equals ...
Two SUPER cute gingerbread houses

And four sugared up cousins.