Design Dreams

If you are like me, you have a whole folder dedicated to your design ideas and how you'd like your dream house to look. I love to decorate and then re-decorate and then decorate some more. But that has all come to a screeching halt for now due to lack of money and over-supply of kids that wreck nice things.

I can't tell you what my style is, a little French, a little Tuscan maybe. A mish-mash of everything I guess. Dale says my style is Pottery Barn on a Target budget.

One day I will own my dream home (yes, I already have it picked out) and I'm going to go gangbusters and model my entire house after this picture I found about a year ago and fell in love with.
I LOVE the striped walls! I've even thought of doing that myself somewhere in my house but I can't even imagine how bad I would mess that up! No worries, save it for the dream house...

Flashback Tuesday!?!

Okay, I'm so embarrassed that I'm just now getting to a posting about Tabby's birthday which was June 7th that I'm covering my tail by calling it a Flashback Post. Not quite the same ring to it as Flashback Friday though, huh?

Here are some pics of my little girl from the first years of her life:

Just a few days old
When she was about one and a half, she had heart surgery for PDA. The surgery went great and now it was as if nothing was ever wrong.
I think she's only gotten cuter over the yearsSomehow the years have gotten away from me and my tiny baby is now 5 . I decided a while ago that we would only have "friend" parties on the even numbered birthdays -it has saved me a lot of trouble and money! So this year, we had a small family party for her at my parent's house. Below is a slide show of our princess party:

Tabby is our vibrant little girl who seems to have love for everyone she meets. She is always wanting to learn how things work and she has the best memory of anyone I know. She loves to make friends and her favorite thing to play is dress-up. Everything must be pink and she will eat candy like it's going out of style. We love you little Tabby Lu!

Work It!

My 5 year old thinks she is a modelRex had to get in on the action too:

You HAVE to make this!

You probably fell over backwards in your chair because I'm posting a recipe. I don't mind baking but cooking is for the birds in my book.

BUT, I found this recipe for a slow cooker roast and it was amazing! So easy and so good. I made it with Dr. Pepper. And if you have leftovers, it makes the most kick-butt sandwich with cheddar cheese.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 to 4 lb. beef roast (any cut will do--I like rump roast)
• 2 cups ketchup
• 1 pkg. Lipton onion soup mix
• 1 can cola (regular, not diet) (Dr. Pepper will give it a more tangy taste)

PREPARATION: Place roast in crock pot. Mix ketchup, soup mix, and cola. Pour over roast in crock. Cook on low 8 to 10 hours. Meat will pull apart easily when done. Serve over buns with sauce on top.

Here is the link: Eugene's Beef BBQ

Cupcake Flops

Aren't these the cutest little treats you have ever seen? I thought so too. I'm helping with my friend Heather's upcoming bridal shower and I thought these Cupcake Pops from Bakerella would be the perfect treat at the shower. The looked kinda tricky to make so I decided it would be a good idea to practice before I made them for other people. Thank goodness I did! Just check out these disasters:
Not quite the same, is it? Instead of cute mini cupcakes, I got what resembled lumpy blobs on a stick. To my credit, they were pretty complicated and super messy (see the mess in the background.) I guess I just don't have the gift. BUT they did taste delicious!!! So I will be making them again, I will just form them in to cupcake balls so they look like lollipops instead of trying to make them look like cupcakes. That was where everything went wrong for me.

I'm breaking up with you.

After a really long relationship, I've decided to call it quits with Diet Dew. The relationship was getting unhealthy. I'm really gonna miss Dew. We hung out all the time. Sometimes it was 4 times a day! I hope Dew isn't to upset about it. I have a feeling Dew was seeing other people anyway. I hope it's not awkward when I pass by Dew at the store and I act like I don't know him. It's not me, it's you.

Cheap Pool=Save On Gas

We don't need to drive anywhere this summer to have fun. All we need is our backyard and our el cheapo Wal Mart pool. I got this thing 2 summers ago and it's still going strong.

My kids have made it even funner by inventing new ways to get in to the pool:
Rex was doing this sweet kick out move when he jumped but he did it so quick, I was having a hard time capturing it.

Card Club

I remembered I was going to try and post all the cards I get every month from my card club but I slacked. I will try and do better because I want everyone to see the adorable cards that my friends make every month. Anyway, here are the cards I got when we met yesterday. The theme was "New Baby" and we could pick weather we wanted to do a boy or girl card.
Do you see the little hand at the top of the picture? That is Ella's hand. I had to hurry and take the picture and stop her before she started grabbing things.

Here is the card I made. I thought I was being tricky by using transparency as the card part, but it ended up being kinda floppy.

Day At The Zoo

We braved the heat yesterday and went to the Phoenix Zoo. I can't remember the last time I went there. I think it was when Tabby was a baby. So it was just as fun for me as it was for my kiddos. We went with my mom who was so kind to get a year membership with room for me and the kids on it. I'm sure I will be filling my blog with zoo trip pics. I'm know you all are holding your breath in excitement for that.

And this time, I only took about a bazillion photographs because my VERY generous parents bought me a totally awesome new camera!

So here are some fun pics from our day out:

When we came up to the otters, I told Rex that otters love to play. So he started yelling at the otters "OTTERS PLAY!"
They did. And they were the cutest darn things! Ella LOVED the otters. She probably wanted to get in there and wrestle with them.
Tabby was dying to see the flamingos. For some reason, she talks about them all the time. My guess is because they are pink and any animal that is pink is tops in her book.

Here she is showing them that she does in fact know how to stand like a flamingo.
Here are the kids watching the bear. Only Ella would give a friendly wave to a ferocious bear.
They have this old Jeep for decoration in one part of the zoo. Rex is giving me his best pouty face because I wouldn't let him sit in it. I would have except that it was covered in webs and dead bugs!
I don't know what it would take for all three of my kids to look at the camera at the same time. Maybe if it set on fire or something. Who knows.
One out of three is usually the best I can do.

Somebody needs to make a gigantic park with just trees and rocks for the kids to climb on. That seemed to be the best part for my kids.
Random animal pics:
Tabby likes to name things and she lovingly named this anteater "Mallory." I think it fits.
This baboon totally was posing for my camera! He looks like is about to bite in the last one but really he was just yawning.They have this gorgeous Lilly pond at the front.
The best part was when we were done, we headed over to their splash pad to cool down.
Here is Rex doing the "pee-pee dance." I only had to take him to the restroom about 50 times.Even though it was pretty toasty, we all had a blast and can't wait to go again!