A little bit of this and that :)

Hi blogger friends. Here are a few things we have been up to the past few weeks.

We celebrated my step dad Jerry retiring from the Odessa PD after 23 years of service. He was a fleet coordinator and was about to start back on the streets again. So luckily we don't have to stress about that anymore. He started a new job at Crossfire being a safety manager. So proud of his accomplishments.

We have celebrated lots and lots of birthdays the past 2 weeks. I turned the big 3-0! Yikes! We just had some family and friends join us in the suite at the Rockhounds game to celebrate. Next year I am demanding a getaway trip..lol ;)

Cousin Parker and Liam had a pool party. Parker turned 5 and Liam turned 2. The kids love swimming so we had lots of fun.

Cousin Aiden had a birthday. He turned 10 years old. He always picks Furrs to eat at... blah. Of all the places to pick.. haha. Then after dinner, we took all the kids to Toys R Us.. fun fun.. not.

Jerry also had a birthday and we celebrated at the new Grub Burger place here in town. He went and got a table at 4:45 and by the time we showed up at 5:15 the line was out the door. It was pretty pricey and in my opinion just another burger.

We have spent majority of our Sunday nights at the lawn concerts down town with family and friends.

She was pouting and mad about something.. but still just the prettiest lil thing ;)

And last but not least.. I am an offical Younique gal. Finally broke down and bought a Younique decal. If you see me around town make sure and honk :)

JW Marriott Weekend Getaway!

This family has been going non stop this summer! We were invited a month or so back to go to San Antonio for a weekend getaway for July 4th weekend with Landon's brother and sister in law and kiddos. We sadly declined because one... we are broke from Disney World and two.. we just got a new puppy and didn't think it was fair to have to ask someone to watch her so soon. The day his bro and sis were leaving they called us one last time and said you sure yall don't want to come?!? They offered to kindly pick up the room charges and my mom offered to watch Nala, our puppy. So we couldn't say no now :) I am so glad we went. The place was gorgeous and we of course had great company. It was awesome to spend time with them, since they are moving to Austin here in 3 short weeks.

Landon and I packed our bags in 30 minutes, grabbed a quick lunch, picked the kids up super early from daycare and Miller's gym (where Laney is hanging out this summer), and we hit the road.

 I didn't take many pictures of the actual place.. but it was super duper nice. Tons of room for the kids to run around and play!

Lots of time with their cousins :) They all play so well together and looooooove each other tons!

Waiting on our quick dinner the first night. The kids were dying to hop in the pool.. so we made it a quick meal!

Friday was Fourth of July. We hit the pools first thing that morning and swam majority of the day. They have an awesome kiddie pool with little slides for the kids. They also have a big pool, lazy river and some bigger slides that Laney rode on a few times. It was so relaxing and all the kids love the water so it was so much fun watching all their excitement.

We took a quick nap, then headed to dinner outside of the resort. We were hoping to catch fireworks but our resort wasn't shooting any, so we would have to go downtown or Sea World to see them and we weren't really up for that. We hung out on the lawn and the kids held one sparkler a piece that were given to us by a nice man, then we went to our hotel room and could see lots of fireworks from our window. Not the full effect since you couldn't hear them, but the kids were more interested in running around and jumping on the beds in the room..lol.

The best picture we got of all us :( The poor lady that took it for us was a little too shaky for my sensitive camera :(

Saturday, we had more fun swimming. The TPC golf course was apart of the resort and the tee box was right there on the lawn we saw and walked by every day. Landon talked about the golf course for 2 straight days.. so finally just called and asked for a reservation. Kipton and I tagged along, while Laney hung back and played and swam with Parker.

Daddy's golf buddy for sure!!!!!

Kipton didn't have his golf clubs so he made due and used Daddy's left handed ones..lol

Sunday, I came down with some yucky tummy problems, so we headed home early.

We had a great trip and are so thankful for Tanner and Jodi allowing us to join them and thankful for my momma watching the puppy :)

Hope you all had a fabulous 4th!!

Meet Nala!

Meet our newest little (well little for now) member of our family.. Nala! 

She is a great dane and let me just tell you that I have never had a big dog. Growing up all I have ever had was little dogs. We have had Miss Ellie, our tiny little chihuahua, since we got married. Ellie is so low maintenance. She requires little attention, she can be left alone when we go out of town and we trust her to use the doggy door. She pretty much eats, sleeps and poops. (She does shed bad and has really bad breath, but I guess that's what happens when you get old..lol). Anyways, we decided to get Laney a dog for Christmas year before last.. little Molly, a beagle. That didn't go so well. She dug and tore up everything and quite honestly we didn't have the time or want to train her properly. Molly went to another home that she is loving right now. So, needless to say when I showed Landon pictures of these precious little great dane puppies I saw on facebook that a friend was selling, he wanted one so bad. All I could think about was how hard puppies were and our bad experience with the last hyper puppy. After thinking it over, we decided to go for it. We have heard how awesome great danes are, how lazy they tend to be and how awesome they are with kids. Landon did all kinds of research and decided this was the dog we needed. My next main concern was the poop.. (gross I know).. but a HUGE dog makes HUGE poop. Ha. Landon said no need to worry, he would take care of that part (he was willing to do anything to have this dog I think..hehe). 

The kids and I picked up Nala last week and Landon was out of town for work.. boo. All I could think was a new puppy and two kids.. yikes. The puppy slept all night, no accidents in it's house.... what?!?! I have not ever had a puppy that didn't cry in it's kennel all night and especially the first night. I think she was wore out from her shots she had gotten earlier that day.

I think I am really going to like Nala. She loves to sleep, plays for 5 minutes, then is out again. Lazy.. my kind of dog. She has sharp little teeth for now and likes to bite at your ankles and chew on things but I think every puppy will go through that stage. I will just have to keep my shoes off the floor :)

This was a total surprise to the kids. We told the kids they had a surprise coming and it started with a "P". Laney said oh my gosh Kip.. we are getting phones!!! Ummmm, no... not quite. What is the world coming to? Phones at the age of 6...yikes! Once they saw their surprise they were estatic. Laney ocassionaly would cry because she missed her other dog Molly, so this was really special to her. 

 

Nala and Ellie.. bored during the kids bath time :)

Ellie isn't too fond of her yet. But she better get used to her, because Nala will be here for the long haul :)

Disney World (Part 5) :)

On to our next day at Disney World!

Day 6 - Hollywood Studios

Hollywood Studios had a Star Wars theme going on, so our travel agent made sure to put us here on Monday so that we wouldn't be there on the weekend with all the star war crazies..haha. I like the way she thinks ;)

Laney has the princess pose down :)

Oh.. and yes.. Laney's princess hair stayed perfectly put over night and she is one crazy sleeper! That must have been some magic stuff the fairy godmother put in her hair because Laney's hair is pretty short in the back since we cut it and really wasn't even long enough to reach the pony tail at the top. She did a great job of plastering it to her head.. haha.

First up, was our Disney Jr. character breakfast at Disney's play and dine. This was the best character dining experience in my opinion anyways. We got to meet and greet Sofia, Doc McStuffins, Jake and Handy Mandy. All the characters were dancing and invited the kids to come up and dance with them. It was so fun!

After we had our tummy's full it was time for some shows and rides. We saw a cool Beauty and the Beast show in this awesome stadium and watched a live Little Mermaid show.

After being in the heat and tired of walking it was time for lunch. Yayyy, a place to cool off. We searched for these kinds of places all week, ha. We had reservations at the 50's Prime time cafe and let me just say, this place was awesome. The waiters weren't afraid to tell you how it was. No phones at the table, no elbows on the table, eating all your food and not leaving any on your plate. It was hilarious. Uncle Gary (our waiter) came up and acted like he was my uncle. He talked the whole lunch to the kids about when your mom was little she used to throw her collard greens under the table. He told so many stories about me as a little girl that Laney was actually believing him. She said mom is he really your Uncle Gary? Ha, it was such a neat experience, I would recommend making reservations there for sure. We drank milkshakes, ate fried chicken and had a huge yummy brownie dessert!

Meet Unlce Gary. I didn't finish ALL my green beans on my plate, so he got the whole restaurant's attention and told them to make the sound of an airplane and he feed me a bite.. OMG, talk about embarassing. Don't worry.. Landon got a huge kick out of this..ha!!!

We had them sing Happy Birthday to Laney :) 

And my yummy dessert I had all to myself :)

Now that we were all stuffed, we really wanted a nap.. but no time for that. This family (well Landon and I) are both the kind of people that want to see and do it all. We paid the money, why not get the most out of it :) So on to more shows and rides. We found an awesome American Idol show. It was the real deal. You can actually go try out their at the park and they take the top 3 on stage at Disney World. They have actually  found several real American Idols from this stage at Disney World. So it was a cool experience. We listened to three guys sing there hearts out, then voted on which one we liked. The guy that won, was going to sing again that evening and battle another person that had won that morning. Hope I see the guy we watched on American Idol some day :)

We were strolling the park and came across Lightning McQueen and Mater. We had saw alot of princesses throughout the week, so this was definitely the day for Kipton to see some of his favorites!!

Our day was coming to end but we couldn't leave without Kipton seeing Woody and Buzz Light year. We waited a good 45 minutes in line to see them but it was well worth it. While standing in line there were spots to take pictures at so they kept the kids a little occupied.

Woody was huge. He was the biggest character we saw all week!! But that didn't scare Kipton one bit. He touched his boots and asked to touch Buzz Lightyears head.. haha.

That was a great end to our trip! I look forward to going again but next time we will pick October, November when it is cool!!

Headed to the airport!! 

Until next time.. farwell Disney World! We had a blast and made such awesome memories!