Painting Pumpkins & Mentorship

Whew! It has been a whirlwind of events around here since last Thursday! We've taken part in LOTS of fun activities, but this momma is exhausted! I'll start with last Thursday! Megon is one of my best friends and she turned "30" on Saturday! Since she was turning the big 3-0, I decided to throw a special little party for her...a Pumpkin Painting Party! The party was at my house during MDO so it was just us mommas. We ate finger foods and painted pumpkins and had a great time!
Megon & her cute pumpkin!
All the girls who came.
Kristen & Beth
Melissa
Katie

Lydia

Thursday night, we had a ladies night called "Connections." Terri (she is the 2nd lady from the left) started a monthly mentorship gathering. We met for the first time this month. We will meet each month in a host home where we will enjoy dinner, a devotional, and discuss a certain topic. A mentor was seated at each table during dinner and conversational questions were drawn from a bowl about our particular "topic" for the night. We all really enjoyed this night. It was so neat and we have really never done anything like this before. We are all looking forward to our next gathering!

This past weekend was filled with activity after activity and I have many cute pics to share. I ran my first half-marathon (13.1 miles) on Saturday and look forward to sharing more details in the days to come...

Class Reunion & Pumpkin Patch

Saturday night was my 10 year class reunion. It was...okay. Don't really care to go back to a 20 year reunion. Since I live in Russellville, I pretty much already keep up with a lot of people that I graduated with. And with facebook, I keep up with those who moved away. The reunion was slightly awkward and I'm just not one to mingle all night with a huge crowd. Soo...I participated and went, but it was just okay!

I ordered the kids these super cute pumkin outfits to get some pictures in. I decided that it was just not worth it this year to drive to Greenbriar to a real pumpkin patch. The kids are too little, too close together, and too hard to manage on my own. I can only imagine what it would have been like.

Soo...we took advantage of the First United Methodist Church's Pumpkin Patch right here is Russellville. We were only there about 15 minutes, but it was long enough for the kids to roam and pick up baby pumpkins and take them to places that they didn't belong and long enough for me to get stressed out about getting some "great" pics!

I did think we got some good pics, but boy is it hard to get the two of them to cooperate at the same time!

Daddy's lil' punkin!

true personality.

Momma's lil' punkin!

Happy Patchin'!

It's Great. To Be. A Russellville CYCLONE!

WHAT??? RHS Class of 2001 Reunion

WHEN??? This Weekend

WHERE??? Front Street Grill

WHY??? Who really knows the answer to that question?

It's kind of hard to believe, but my 10 year high school reunion is here! Kind of makes a person feel old. I have mixed emotions about my reunion like I'm sure most all people do. Questions like...Who am I going to talk to? Will it be awkward? Yeah, all of those questions!
But, with the technology that is available to us these days, I think we pretty much know where most people are and what they are doing. Along with how many kids they have, etc. Facebook pretty much keeps you clued in!

I decided to go to the reunion and just enjoy catching up with some people I haven't seen in a long time. In fact, there are so many that I have not seen since we graduated. Should be very interesting! I included a few pics of my "outfit" that I plan to wear, just for fun! I got all of these goods for my birthday.

Here's to a fun and drama-free reunion! Ha!

Roaring Twenties

This is officially my last year in the "roaring" twenties! Yesterday, I turned 29 years old. It's actually kind of hard to believe. I'm just glad I didn't turn 30. Is it bad that I really don't want to turn 30? I mean, 30 is just...soo old! Ha! I know, I know, you're all shaking your heads!

Gabe gave me this adorable Razorback burlap door hanger for my birthday (pic above), and then took me shopping for clothes in Conway yesterday afternoon. I had told him that I just wanted birthday money to buy some new fall/winter clothes, but didn't really want to shop with him. I mean, who wants a tag along, right? ;) I actually just love to shop by myself. Well, it just so worked out that Gabe wanted the afternoon to "play" with his new iphone. (I gave him the original iphone as a wedding gift...4 years ago and he has kept that phone ever since. He's been waiting for the new iphone to come out for...well, for FOREVER! His previous phone was seriously on its last leg. I really don't know that it would have made it much longer. Plus, Gabe hasn't gotten a gift for any holiday for almost the past year. So, I think he deserved it!) He sat in Chick-fil-a's parking lot and used their free wifi, while I shopped to my heart's content. It was actually a sweet deal!

I.love.this.sweater! This is my favorite piece of clothing that I got. I tried this under shirt on with it, but it was too big on me so I am still on the lookout for another under shirt. I'm thinking of maybe wearing this to my 10 year class reunion, which is next weekend.

For dinner, we headed to our favorite...Mike's Place. Such a great place! I get the same thing to eat everytime and I'm never disappointed!

It was a great birthday! Thanks to everyone who made it such a special day!

MOMs Kick-Off

Tonight we had our MOMs kick-off at my house. It's been about a year since we've met. Childcare was always an issue, so we are now going to meet the 2nd Thursday night of each month in host homes. I've always thought it would be fun to meet in different homes.

I asked our new pastor's wife, Jamie Sykes, to be our guest speaker tonight. She shared her family's journey and then compared and contrasted her and the previous pastor's wife, Jonya Davis. She shared how it's so easy to compare others and how we often compare ourselves to others. We often wish we could sing as good as so and so, or speak as good as so and so, or look as good as so and so. She shared that God has a place for each of us and we need to find out what that place is. Even if we think we have nothing to offer, He still has a purpose and plan for each and every one of us.

Bethany Walker shared a cute fall craft demo with us. You can check it out here.
A yellow mum was give away as a door prize. (Not this actual mum. The one given away was a bit smaller, but I forgot to take a pic!) Leslie Johnson was the lucky winner!

And last, but certainly not least, we enjoyed a homemade soup potluck, complete with cornbread muffins and sweet tea! We had 16 come tonight and plan to have many more join us next month!

Labor Day Weekend Recap

We had a pretty eventful Labor Day Weekend, and yes I realize I'm over a week late posting about it. Football season has started and I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love it because it means going to all of the hog games with Gabe, but I hate it because Gabe covers ballgames for Pottsville every Friday night. That means no daddy/husband time. Friday are really long!

So, Friday night Gabe covered a ballgame and I...stayed at home with the kids. Saturday Gabe's parents kept the kids and we headed up to Fayetteville for some good grub and a little football.
Sunday morning we headed to Lake Ouachita to spend the day with my family. It's tradition now for them to camp Labor Day Weekend, along with about 150 others from our church. It's quite the shindig! Gabe was in the washer tournament and made it through a couple of rounds. Madison looked oh so cute in her sweet little swimsuit and Logan had a blast walking the dog.

These cute little girls were camping nearby and came to see us. My cousin, Donald, has 3 beautiful little girls and they were camping just down the road with their grandma. Madison climbed in the truck with them and acted like she was their long lost friend.

It was quite odd watching Logan "walk the dog."

He even carried the empty leash around later that day. I guess he thought he was still walking the dog.

Someone had a GREAT time eating on the boat. Talk about getting "cheek deep!

The weather was absolutely gorgeous. It was cool, which was a relief from all the hot and so humid weather we had been having. It was even a bit cold out on the water!Daddy gave a few driving lessons...

We ended the day with a yummy meal and some homemade vanilla ice cream!

Monday we took some friends out on the boat on Lake Dardanelle. Just couples...no kiddos! We had a great time, but it was a bit cold that day too. Sure beats the heat though. We finished up the day with a meal at Colton's. Just like old times.

This past weekend was quite a weekend for us as well. Gabe's sister, Holley, got married. I'll post soon about her wedding weekend.

BUNCO

A group of girls from Sunday School recently started up a BUNCO group that meets once a month. There are 16 girls in our group plus several others who takes turns and sub for others. We each signed up to host bunco in our home one month this year. I signed up for September because I knew I wanted to go with a razorback them and football kicks off in September. I went with the theme, "Roll 'em Dice, Call 'em Hogs!" It turned out pretty cute.

Everyone dressed in Razorback Red. Here's Katy, Lindsey, Jennifer, & Amy.

Breanne, Stephanie, Bethany, & Megon

Megon helped me out and made a mean dish of "fancy" baked beans!

Priscilla, Kristen, Lydia, Lindsey, Lisa, & Shannon

Bunco will be at Lisa's house next month. She is going with a Halloween theme and we are all supposed to wear Halloween costumes. Not sure what I should be!

Breanne, Stephanie, Bethany, and I

We give out 6 prizes. Prizes were Razorback tervis tumblers with lids...

and Igloo insulated coolers.

I didn't get a picture of the food, but we had sliced brisket, potato salad, baked beans, and cole slaw salad. But, the highlight of the party was definitely these oh so cute Razorback sugar cookies!

I ordered these from Harps and thought they did just an outstanding job! You really never know what you are going to get with any bakery in town. I've tried many and have been disappointed every time. I will definitely be ordering these again!

On another note, we had a great and busy Labor Day weekend. I have several events to post about in the days to come!