Chicken Scratch

Happy Valentine's Day!

After a blah last few days today was a great day. I just wanted to take a moment to count my blessings from today...

♥ snuggle time with my sweet Boo before school
♥ lunch and shopping with my mom, sister, and sweet little nephew (Happy Birthday, Momma!!!)
♥ a dozen roses delivered to my front door
♥ exchanging Valentines with Kaleigh and hubby
♥ yummy dinner and family time
♥ reading my new Country Living magazine
♥ enjoying a dark chocolate Sprinkles cupcake and coffee
♥ quiet evening after hubby and Kaleigh go to bed
♥ watching Breaking Dawn: Part 1
♥ digi scrappin'

Life isn't too shabby.

{♥}

I took this photo of our dog, Belle, yesterday. I looked out our patio door and she was just sitting out in the middle of the yard in the sunshine. It just made me smile. :)

Goodbye, Jack

 

I can't believe 24 is over. Forever. Hubby and I have watched this show from day one. We hadn't even been newlyweds for 3 weeks when the show first aired. And we were hooked. Fast forward into season two and I remember watching the latest episode the night before I went into the hospital to give birth to my daughter. It sounds silly but this show has been a constant in our lives for the past 8.5 years. It's the ONLY show we religiously watch. And now it's over. There's a void. No more Jack. What will we watch? Can I cry now?

The last half hour was total anxiety for me. I almost needed to bust out the Xanax to get me through the show. LOL But I was so relieved they didn't kill him off. I would have been beyond devastated. I did bawl at the end... *Thank you, Chloe.*And then I watched after it ended waiting for the next week's preview or something like they normally do. Some little tidbit letting me know it really wasn't over but it went right into the nightly news. I couldn't even delete the finale tonight on the DVR. It felt too final. I just turned it off.

 

For now all I can do is hold onto the tiny sliver of hope that Jack and 24 will go to the big screen.

Goodbye, Jack! Thanks for the ride!

 

Awesome Weekend

I had an awesome weekend this past weekend. :) It started with Kaleigh having her last day of school on Friday. She got out at noon and to celebrate we went to the movies to see Shrek 4 and then had ice cream afterwards. We ended the day with hanging out that evening across the street with our neighbors/new friends.

Kaleigh on the morning of her last day being a 1st grader *sniff sniff*

For Kaleigh's end-of-year teacher gift we gave her teacher the new ABCs Scentsy warmer. Normally I do a handmade gift but this was too cute so I had to splurge on it. Kaleigh and I each made her teacher a card.

My card (not digging how I did the *heart* part but oh well)

Kaleigh's card
 

And I had to share her super sweet note she wrote on the inside

Saturday afternoon was Kaleigh's dance portraits. She was adorable in her costume but she always looks so grown up all dressed up. *sniff sniff*
 

Saturday evening we went with friends to Southern Junction (a local country bar) to see Robert Earl Keen. We absolutely love him and seeing him live. Hubby and I haven't been dancing in forever (for sure not since I was pregnant with Kaleigh - which is sad because that's how we met and it's all we did dating; it's a love we both share). We were a little rusty getting started but we had it back down in no time. And a few pounds heavier but man if we went dancing more often we could lose some serious weight! LOL We can't believe it's taken us so long to get back to dancing and plan on doing it more often.

Hubby and I before we left for the evening

My new outfit and boots

At the bar with one of my bestest and dearest friends, Kandi
 

Hubby giving me a kiss on the dance floor *swoon*

It was an awesome evening! And then Sunday was a nice LAZY day and a great way to end our weekend. Thanks for letting me share. :)

 

Happy Earth Day!

Okay, so I was a day off and thought Earth Day was yesterday. Kaleigh and I went to Home Depot and bought potting soil and flowers and planted them in a pot for our front porch. I realized yesterday evening that Earth Day wasn't til the following day. Oh well. We still celebrated even if we were off a day! ;)

A couple weeks ago I got an old enamelware pot at a local thrift shop for $2.50. I knew I wanted to plant flowers in it for our front porch. I got to thinking earlier this week that I wanted to add our house number to the pot. I originally wanted to stencil the numbers on but couldn't find a font I liked. So I bought wooden numbers at Michaels, painted and distressed them, and glued them to the front of the pot. I like how it turned out. :)

Our front porch is total shade, no sun at all, so our choices were limited on flowers. Most of the ones at Home Depot were full sun. I wanted a low mounded flower and this is all they had. I'm not familiar with them but they're pretty.
  

Picking out rocks from the flower beds to create drainage in the bottom of the pot
 
(On a side note: I can't wait til next week... we're getting gutters put on the house! I can't wait to dig up all the crap out of the flower beds and start over with new shrubs and flowers. :) Yay!)

Adding the soil
 

Watering the flowers
 

All done!
 

 

   

Awesome morning.

Face time with a rockin' girl.

Cool weather.

Beautiful red bird.

Serene green trail.

Sunshine.

Laughter.

Teeth whitening (like the kick-ass multi-taskin' women we are).

Cute baby ducks.

Forgo the fattening Starbucks for healthy fresh fruit smoothies.

Walked 90 minutes and burned some calories.

Awesome morning.

 

My Weekend

Friday was a great day! I started off the morning hitting a few garage sales with a Dark Cherry Mocha (my latest addiction) and Lady Antebellum in the CD player. Unfortunately, there weren't too many garage sales going on but I did manage to get this old frame and enamelware cup for $2. Can't beat that! I love old frames and I collect red and white enamelware so I definitely scored. :)

 

After the garage sales I hit Sam Moon and got a new purse for spring with matching wallet and makeup bag. I love it!

I also hit one of my favorite antique stores afterwards. I found some old red feedsack material that I'm going to use to recover the chairs of our dining room table (2 yards for $7). I got this 9x12 vintage fabric remnant for $0.99. Not sure yet what I'm going to do with it but I loved the print and colors.

I love old buttons and got all of these for $4.

And finally I got this doily for $3 and an old wooden hanger for $4. I haven't decided what I'm doing with the hanger yet. Maybe I'll hang it in the laundry room with a vintage linen of some sort. Or I'll make some piece of altered art to hang from it.

The best part of the day though was just alone time to myself, gorgeous weather, and driving my hubby's Jeep with the windows down and the radio blaring. It was an awesome day!

Saturday the three of us went wheelin'. I haven't been in forever with my hubby and it was a nice family outing.

And this evening we went to my sister's for our monthly family dinners. My sister (with a little help from her future mother-in-law) made homemade gumbo and bread pudding for dessert and it was so yummy! My birthday is coming up next week so we celebrated that, too, with cake.

So that was my fun (and busy) weekend! This week I'll be getting ready for Kaleigh's birthdays... her friends party is Friday evening and her family party is Sunday. I hope you have a great week!

 

Fun Day at the Circus

Today we went to the Shrine Circus. This circus is special to me because my Popaw was a Shriner and he and my Mimi took my sisters and I and our cousin to this circus when we were little. We had so much fun today and actually preferred this circus to the big Barnum and Bailey one. Not to mention it was held at the Dr Pepper Arena in Frisco, which is a small and intimate venue. Pretty much any seat in there is a good seat. It was a great afternoon together as a family. :)

 

I've always loved the elephants. Kaleigh does, too. :)
 

There was the CUTEST act! A clown had 3 stuffed animals. He tried winding the first two up with a giant fake key but they didn't do anything so he kicked them off to the side. The third one, an elephant, he wound up and it did come to life. It would walk around, then wind down, fall over, and he'd have to wind it back up. This went on for a little bit and made us laugh. The clown wound up the elephant one last time but he did it too tight and it *broke*. The clown was sad and tried to fix it, turning the elephant over this way and that. Then he unzipped it and out jumped a real dog. It was so cute and that dog was adorable (and super smart, too, the way he performed!) My brief summary here doesn't do it justice. You'd have to see it to appreciate it. :) But here's a picture of the dog in the elephant costume following the clown.
 

A family snapshot after the show. <3
 

I'm so thankful for fun little family afternoons like this.

  

Snow on the First Day of Spring... in Texas

 

So yesterday was the first day of Spring. And like the 100th time it's snowed in Texas this season. Okay, so maybe not the 100th time but it has snowed half a dozen times this winter and that's ALOT for us. Usually we get a good ice storm once or twice a season and hardly any snow. But this year it's been all snow and several days of it! Friday was 70 degrees. I worked in the yard in shorts and a tshirt. And then the next day we welcomed the first day of spring with snow. Tuesday we're supposed to be back to 70 again. Gotta love crazy Texas weather. ;)

My new rocking chairs covered in snow.

So Spring Break is officially over. :( Kaleigh and I had such a great time this week. We spent the first part at my parents' hanging out and playing. Then we came home and had my friend and her two kiddos over to watch New Moon last night. I was all excited to watch it in our new media room but the projector didn't work. So we watched it downstairs in the living room. It was still a fun evening though. Lots of junk food, wine (for the mommas), and cookie dough. It even turned into an impromptu sleepover. Love me some good girl time! :)

Tonight hubby and Kaleigh are in bed and I'm watching New Moon... alone... and sans kiddo commentary like last night. You girls can have Edward, I'm Team Jacob all the way. ;)

Meet Wilbur

Last weekend my parents' former neighbor found a piglet on a deer lease. He discovered it alone and watched it for a few hours but never saw its mom or litter mates. After a while he went up to the piglet and it came right to him. It even still had its umbilical cord. He decided to bring it home. His wife called my mom since my parents live out in the country and raise animals. Kaleigh and I were staying with my parents this week for Spring Break so we rode with my mom Monday to pick up the piglet.

We named him Wilbur, since we pray he will be *Some Pig* and *Terrific* and become a pet and not food. ;) He is so tiny and absolutely precious! He's not afraid of people, will crawl right up in your lap, and loves to push his nose against your skin. He has to be bottlefed every few hours and this week we worked on teaching him to use the litter box and today we even tried him on a leash. He's such a sweet little thing and I'm so smitten with him! My mom brought Kaleigh and me home tonight and I miss him already!

Anyways, here are some photos of him I took this week. Isn't he precious? :)

Warning: Photo Heavy! ;)

Monday

 

My size 7 flip flop so you can see his size
 

 

Sleeping in the crook of my mom's arm
 

Sleeping on my leg (I'm sitting Indian style)

Tuesday

Feeding time!

Play time! He loves to push his nose against your skin. His favorite is pushing against your hand, almost like he's wrestling. And he pushes this mini tennis ball around with his nose, too. :)
 

Sleepy time! He sleeps in a box on a towel with a heating pad underneath. We throw in a tshirt or a stuffed bear for him to snuggle.
 

 

 

And these photos from Tuesday pretty much show what he does all day... eat, play, sleep, repeat - just like a newborn baby. :)

Wednesday

Just a couple sleeping pics today. <3
 

 

Thursday

It was a pretty day today so we took him outside to play. We tried working with him on a leash.
 

 

 

Following my mom around.

Wilbur and my mom.

And now you have met sweet little Wilbur. :)