Friday, I love you...

The first week of school is done.  The rest of my week was busy but nothing like the first day!  Thank goodness.... I can't say the same for a lot of the teachers at my school though... it will be a different year...
I ran all my weekend errands this afternoon so that I can have the weekend free of those...
The rest of the family headed out to the first Friday night football game tonight...

I decided I could wait till it was less than 100 degrees to enjoy football...

Katie had her first pep rally last night!  She thought they spent too much time introducing the football players...I reminded her it really is all about the football and there wouldn't be a pom squad without the football players...( and she's not performing tonight... I would go even in the heat if she was, didn't want you to think I was a bad mother, at least not for skipping a game)

After much fast food the last couple of weeks I finally made it grocery shopping tonight.  I even came home and put up some meals in the freezer...
I used my quiet time while the fam is gone to enjoy a margarita out of a box (that I discovered tonight), an episode of Dateline that has me a little scared to be home alone, and a couple hours of cooking...
a good night!

And for those couple of hours I have:

Golden Pork Chops with Cinn. Apples
Honey Sauced Chicken
Slow Cooker San Francisco chops
Spicy Egg Casserole
Brie and cranberry stuffed chicken breasts
Mini Meat loafs
2 Creamy Chicken Casserole

It all started with needing to make a dinner to take to a friend tomorrow when I go see her tiny new baby... I decided if I was cooking her a meal I might as well put a few up for us...
Seven meals in less than 2 hours isn't bad...  I'm excited to have crock pot meals ready in the freezer...

I'm taking my friend Creamy Chicken Casserole, my families favorite...

Creamy Chicken Casserole

4 chicken breasts cut into bite sized chunks
2 cans fat free Cream of Mushroom soup
1 pt. sour cream
Mix and place in 8x8 baking dish.  Crush 1 sleeve of Ritz crackers and sprinkle on top.  Melt 1/2 stick of butter and drizzle over top.  Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.  Serve over rice or noodles.

Happy weekend...

Day one... how many more?

The first day of school...
One 7th grader and one 10th grader... and the first thing I noticed is that they seem to get harder to wake up every year!
I left before everyone else and asked Mike to take a picture...

I meant with the camera but the picture off his phone is all I got...

I loved looking at facebook this afternoon at all the back to school pics of friends kids.

It seems that my school year may look a little a diffent this year... it started off crazy...
I won't go into details but by 9 I felt like I had done a weeks worth of nursing!
I'm praying it calms down for day #2...

How many school open houses should I have to go to?

I still am wondering where the summer went...

I am back at work and it seems that first week back is always crazy...

Three open houses, school clothes and supplies shopping, church meetings, a lot of fast food meals later....I'm ready for all of us to get back in the routine on Monday...

But today, I'm just glad it's Friday!  Katie is at her musical, Mike and I went to dinner and I'm spending some quality time with a magazine, the dog beside me and the t.v. for the first time in ages!

Here is the one creative change I've done at my school office...

The banner says 'blessed'... it didn't show up good in the picture.

As busy as we've been and as crazy as life has seemed the last few weeks, I am constantly reminded of how blessed I am...

tired... but very blessed!

Birthdays and musicals

Well, I'm a bit late getting to this post but life has been crazy busy.

 Katie is in a local production of The King and I...

She doesn't even look like my child when they put her hair up and spray it black!

Mike loves musicals, can you tell???

Jennifer came for a visit to see the play

and for Kellie's birthday

We spent an afternoon shopping for the nicest hamster in Lubbock for Jennifer to get her for her birthday..I didnt' realize it would take so long...
Kellie is in love with her new furry friend, Pepper... she lost some of the love today when there was some hamster bathroom accident issues on her hand...

and as usual, Kellie really likes to celebrate her birthday for a few days...

 so one dinner while Jennifer was here

and on the real birthday night I took the ninjas out for a birthday dinner...

there was some guitar shopping and I'm sad happy to say she is now playing a pink electric guitar

Katie inherited the other guitar...and I was relieved she has "no interest" in the elec. guitar!!!

We had cake...

 

Look at all those candles...

Look at that face... the day she turned 12 I get this face?  I was just trying to love on my baby...

Whatever...

That was one of the pictures I found that Katie had taken when I wasn't aware she had my camera...

this is my favorite though...

Happy 12th Birthday Kellie!  You are precious and I couldn't love you more!  Please don't loose the hamster or turn up that guitar too loud!!!

A little Vacation

We took a short vacation...
We took a dozen six kids...actually only 5 on the car trip and one met us there...
Jennifer met us there for a couple of days...

They were really good and the car ride was actually WAY better than I expected...
There was also less drama than I expected with 6 girls...

It seems we had 'Charlies Angels' with us...

And some girl ninjas

The ninjas did not have near as many pictures for some reason...

One of my BFF's joined us for a day...

we posed like the girls...

we showed them our crazy piano skills (which are none...)

We sent the husbands off with a fishing guide...

We read bridal magazines with my bff since she has a son getting married...

played some games...

found an empty restaurant while they were dragging us around to take pictures of them...

and we may or may not have let them dance in there...

and finally, the picture they had planned all day...

The best part of the vacation to the lake this year is that we didn't have the boat to worry about... The lake was much more enjoyable while I was spending time in the pool...

and I found this photo taken from the backseat on facebook that Katie's bff posted...

a good time was had by all...