The Dance

Funny and super sweet moment happened in our house tonight while I was cooking dinner. Both the boys love to listen to music on the ipod through one of our blue tooth speakers. Tonight Luke asked if he could listen to music in his room and of course I said YES!

Music in his room meant he WOULD NOT be under my feet telling me he was bored or in his brothers face poking him in the eye. The music started out as it always does.......

REALLY LOUD Metallica.... Picture "Enter Sandman".

The loud music is usually followed by the sounds of things slamming the wall. Honestly, I have no idea what goes on because no mother in their right mind walks down the hall when the child is leaving you alone, entertained, while you are cooking dinner. If there is no crying I am NOT walking down the hall.....

A little while in..... Doug gets home from work and we are standing as we always do, debriefing in the kitchen....
When we hear a ballad come on the speaker..... The ballad begins to walk down the hall and as it get closer we realize it is one of our favorite songs....

Look At Me, Carrie Underwood.

We both look toward the hallway and there we see Luke.... well actually, Luke's arm....Holding the speaker up like a 1980's boom box pointed at us.

We both start to smile,
Doug: Do you want to dance with mom?
Luke: NO! You!

So Doug and I begin to dance in the kitchen as per Luke's request....

Luke: Jake! Look! Look they are dancing....
Jake: He actually looked up from Teen Titans and smiled...

Next thing I know Luke has my phone and snaps this picture....

Tonight Luke wanted to watch his mom and dad dance...

So dance we did.......
In the kitchen, in my PJ pants.

A little romance this mama needed on a Wednesday, Thanks to Luke!

He melts my heart...

There just are no words...

22 Oh Ya!

I don't know about your house but what we listen to in the car is a constant battle.
As you can imagine we all like different music so finding something we all want to sing to is just about impossible.

I am going to give you a little snippet of what I am up against.......

Mama:

Oh ya, enough said..... This country girl loves her some Tim McGraw.

Jake:

My 10 year old boy has hearts in his eyes for this girl... Ariana Grande.

Luke:

Yep! Heavy Metal all the way.... The more screaming the better.

Sooooo you can imagine my surprise this afternoon when Pandora decided that the car needed a little Taylor Swift 22 and all of us screamed YA! 

Can you believe it?
The country, pop, heavy metal car agreed on Taylor Swift! Thank you Taylor for a fun car ride home!

And... Lets be real... at 39 feeling 22 isn't so bad!

Happy Friday Y'all!

Shhhhh Luke Bryan!

TRUTH!

Where have I gone wrong on Pinterest?

This evening I logged on to my Pinterest and the first "Picked for Me" post was this....

Ummmmm.... What in the world have I pinned in the past that made Pinterest think I needed to see this Pin?
Dear Lord I used to get Pins about decorating, recipes, and gardening. Now I get DIY POO fragrance spray. What has happened? When did my life take this turn?

Pinterest is supposed to be a happy fake world I escape to when I want to see things that make my heart happy. POO fragrance spray does not make my heart happy.

FAIL Pinterest! FAIL!

Truths and Then a Big Fat Question....

OK...... So before we get to my question I thought I would start my post with a couple truths about running in my life. I haven't always been a runner but I would say that about  five or six years ago I resolved myself to the fact that the older I got the harder it was to eat anything fun. When I was in my twenties I could eat a cupcake or a bowl of ice cream almost every day and for the most part, with a little bit of exercise I could maintain my weight. Well after children AND getting older that became a total fallacy. I tried every kind of exercise under the sun but honestly I would get the best results if I ran. So basically due to the desire to eat ice cream and kettle chips I became a "Runner".

As I was prepping this post in my brain I decided to get on Pinterest to look up funny running images. I know people like pictures with blog posts and quite honestly I don't really have any pictures of me running because lets be honest it is not pretty. 

Anyways... I came across some TRUTHS that needed to be shared before I get to my question.

 First of all.....

 This happens to me more than I would like to admit. The difference is that this happens to me when I am running OUTSIDE. My jam comes on while running and OMG if you want to successfully roll your ankle try to dance and run at the same time!

 Another truth... I run not only to eat ice cream but I also run to get the angry out of me. Everyone in my life knows that I need to run or watch out. Forget side effects of hunger commercials they need side effects of a mom with no "healthy emotional outlet". I am sorry but I need to process out the crazy.

OK... I just needed to post this because what the HECK is this? NO ONE looks like this in real life when they are running. NO ONE!!! This is crap people post in magazine's to try and motivate us to run. The only motivation I get when I see this is to run so I don't punch these women in the throat.

Hey wait.... Maybe it does work then.. hmmm?
This honestly came to me as I was typing it. Well played marketing executives, well played...

Moving on... 

Now to my question????

You know when you are running at a park or on a track and you pass the same people more than once??

Do I need to say Hello to those people every time or just the first time? Are there levels to the Hello? Example, #1 pass- "Hello! Good Morning!" #2 pass- smile and wave, # 3 pass-awkward smile and wave.

I am seriously asking this question because honestly I do not know what proper etiquette is. 

Can someone please help me because it causes me unnecessary anxiety which then requires me to run another lap to work it out. 

If You Lose a Tooth You Get Smarter!

So last night we had a BIG thing go down in our house. Luke my 7 year old has been trying to lose his front tooth for MONTHS. Like 6 months. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle and nothing (You are singing that Big Fat Butt song right now aren't you? If you have no idea what I am talking about just carry on). So.....Last night Luke decided enough was enough and he ordered me to take his tooth out.

Luke: I don't care how you do it but it needs to come out! So for almost 30 minutes we wiggled, shook, twisted, and pulled. Luke kept saying PULL IT OUT! Jake, Doug, and the dogs retreated to another room because of the madness and we PULLED IT OUT!

Boy was this guy happy!!! We took the above picture, stuck it in a zip lock bag for the tooth fairy, and tucked that tooth away.

In the morning he got up as usual, was completely unaffected by the $1 under his pillow, and appeared to be very serious.
I asked him what was a matter and he said, " Nothing Mom but missing my tooth is a really big change" I agreed it was a big change and I ushered him to breakfast. Lets be real, there is no extra time to discuss the enormity of the world when you are trying to get a family out of the house for school and work.

When I got home after work, Luke met me at the door...

 Ok... so lets be real AGAIN when you have been at work all day why must the children meet you at the door?! You have your work bag, a purse, and a lunch box in your hands, and shoes and a bra that are killing you! There is not much quality parenting you can do at that moment.

Anyways, back to Luke...

Luke: Mom! Guess what! I KNEW it was a big change, I am SOOO much smarter since I lost my tooth. Today at school I did better at reading, better at spelling, and better at math. I was really something. I realized it was the tooth's fault the whole time!

I agreed with him, praised his new high level intelligence and investigated further. It would appear he was right, he had in fact "gotten smarter". When his dad got home he proceeded to tell him the same story. Doug did the appropriate parent validation and off Luke went.

After dinner I was in my room in what I affectionately call the "Toes Up" position while Doug and the boys cleaned up the dishes. (In our house I cook and the boys clean up)

A few minutes later Luke comes in with a stack of his brothers old work books....

Luke: Mom, now that the tooth is gone I need to get to work. I am going to do extra work every night from now on. I have catching up to do.

Me: Silent stare with my mouth open.....

There really were no words... I just grabbed my camera and snapped this picture as proof that this happened in real life.

Now I know this will probably be short lived and I am sure there is no scientific evidence that proves when one loses a tooth they become smarter (Quite the contrary I think) but in our house this happened.

Amazing Women Post!

I have the most amazingly talented women in my life!

My friend Danielle is definitely one of those women. Danielle and I met 18 years ago when I started dating Doug. Doug and Danielle have been friends since they were kids and she welcomed me into Doug's world from day one. Over the years we have shared good times, bad times, scary times, and blessed times but one thing has remained the same we are there for one another no matter what.

Danielle is a busy mom of two kiddos and one of the most talented photographers I have ever met. When Danielle looks through the lens she captures the true spirit of the individual she is photographing. There are many photographers out there but few have the pure gift she does. Over the years she has captured my world and given me a gift few can. Moments captured in forever of the most precious people in my life. What a wonderful gift God has given me in her.

If you are looking for a photographer to capture your precious loved ones, look no further www.daniellesimone.com

Stuff that makes my heart SO happy!

 As a mother I always hoped that God would give me really funny kids. Kids with the fantastic ability to look at life from the funny side. To me a great sense of humor and an ability to laugh at yourself is one of the coolest traits a person can have.

So the other night when this happened out of no where in my living room I realized WE ARE THERE!

These two boys make the world such a better place!

* I am sure some day these two will show me their angry side when they realize there are pictures of them doing this on the internet. OH WELL!

How We Do Easter Dessert

This is how we do Easter Dessert in our house...

Lemon Bunny Bottom Cupcakes!  

Because a little bottom for dessert is always a good idea. Hey, it's going there anyways!

And plain Lemon with sprinkles for those weird and I mean Weird people in my life that don't like coconut.