Wordless Wednesday. (What a difference a year makes . . .)

Daddy's birthday celebration.

During our Thanksgiving break, we celebrated David's birthday. Twice.  Thanksgiving Day, we gave thanks with our sweet friends, the McDonalds.  

After our delicious meal, we sang and ate cake with the birthday boy.  Meredith made the cake all by herself!  It was delicious!

Getting ready to sing to Daddy.  

Meredith taking pictures with the camera.  Cheese!

Then, on Friday morning, David's actual birthday, I took the three girls to the grocery store and bought ingredients to make a birthday cake.  Carter and David were in the deer woods, so it was just us girls.  We painted fingers and toes, watched Strawberry Shortcake, and made Daddy's cake.  

The best part was licking the batter of the mixers.  I had to bust out a third mixer so everyone could have their own!  

Sweet Story peeking around the corner to see if I have any more cake batter to offer!  My Story girl loves sweets!  

Here's the cake cooked and iced just waiting on some little hands to decorate it.  

Summer putting some red polka dots.  It was her idea to do a red and black cake for Daddy, since we love the dawgs!  I tell you what, we're raising them right here in South Mississippi.  

Tilly and Carter looking on to make sure she gets it just right.  Do you notice her pretty finger nails?  

Tilly and Carter were in charge of the sprinkles.  They may have gotten a little out of control as you will see in the next picture!  

Happy birthday, Daddy!  It's written under there somewhere.  What a fun time we had celebrating Daddy's birthday.  We ate supper together at a yummy place, Newks, and then came home and put a hurting on the cake!  What a fun memory!

Thanksgiving 2011 fun!

This year for Thanksgiving, we did something we have never done before at the holidays.  We stayed at home.  We didn't travel anywhere, and no one traveled to see us.  Just our party of six in our new town for Thanksgiving!  Overall, it was just great!  We went to the gym, watched lots of college football (Go Dawgs!), and just enjoyed being together.  

We took a family field trip on Wednesday to Ard's Dairy in Ruth, Mississippi.  It is owned by the parents of a young lady we met recently.  The name tells all.  It is a dairy farm with real, live milking cows and even some baby calves.  

Before we left for our field trip, we made a yummy snack.  

Homemade trail mix!  It was a big hit!

Here we are at the farm playing on the slides.  

The children had so much fun.  Story wasn't sure about the big slide at first, so I took her down with me, and before we knew it, she was riding the slides like a pro.  

Summer and Tilly rolling in one of the pipes.  

Mommy and Summer at the top of the slides.  

How perfect!  Four pictures for our four littles!  We had a hard time getting everyone to look at the camera at the same time.  Imagine that.  

Then, by far our favorite part of the day.  The Moo Choo Train!

I think the Pink Pig has been replaced this year!  The children loved the Moo Choo Train.  They got to take turns being the conductor.  

We drove all over the farm checking out all the animals.  They had lots of cows for milking, a goat, and some calves that were just precious.  As you can see from the dirt on our bottoms, we played hard and had a great day!  

On the way back home, we were famished.  There is not a lot between Hattiesburg and Ruth, but we found this cute little restaurant, and their fried chicken would put Popeyes out of business!  It was so good!  We even met a cute waitress inside who spent several years in Athens, Georgia, and is an avid dawg fan.  I knew there was a reason we were drawn to the place!  Thank you, David, for planning a super fun day for our family!

Thank you, Pinterest.

I don't remember exactly when I succumbed to the temptation that is Pinterest, sometime after seeing fun things my friends were posting on facebook and sometime before we moved to Mississippi.  Are you pinning?  If not, you need to be!  You can check out my boards here, and if you like I can send you an invitation to pin, just let me know!  If you are already on this great site, let me know so I can follow you.  It's something else.  I have seen so many things I love, so many things I want to do, so many things I think I can do.  After months of pinning, but not trying anything, I got to thinking that I should probably try out some of these pins.  I have not captured on film all of my attempts, but here are some recent big hits at our house.  

I love green beans, love them.  They get kind of boring though, and the ones in the can just aren't as good as the real thing.  The same goes for the ones in the freezer.  So, at a recommendation on Pinterest, I tried roasted green beans, and they were heavenly.  I think they could have cooked a while longer, but we were hungry and ready to eat, ha!  

Next, I tried a recipe with only two ingredients, that's right, two!  Cake mix and a can of pumpkin.  

I recently bought a mini muffin tin at a Pampered Chef party, so I used it for my pumpkin muffins.  They were so great!  Even my somewhat picky husband liked them.  The children loved them!

Another recent favorite, cake mix cookies.  I used a chocolate cake mix first and later a yellow cake mix.  Both turned out great!  

Here's the finished product on the chocolate ones.  They look so pretty on this platter, don't you think?  My grandmother gave it to me, so it's extra special!

The last dish I have pictures of is a cranberry dip I made for Thanksgiving.  It's a cranberry relish over cream cheese served with crackers.  Spicy and yummy!  

Lastly, the Pinterest find that has changed my world.  The south Mississippi climate does not entirely agree with my hair, that and the fact that I'm badly in need of a cut, ha!  So, I have been wearing my hair up.  A lot.  While I am bumming around the house, it's no big deal, but for church I like for it to look nice.  I am loving the sock bun!  It's so easy and looks so nice, classy, I think.  In the next few weeks leading up to Christmas, I am excited about making some gifts for friends and family based on ideas found on Pinterest.  I will be sure to update!  So, if you haven't checked out this amazing site, you are certainly missing out.  Give it a try.  You are sure to love it!

Happy birthday, Daddy!

Happy birthday, Daddy! It's sure been a fun year, and we've been up to a whole bunch since we celebrated your birthday last year.  We hope your day is extra special, just as you are to us.  We want to start your day by saying thank you. . .

Thank you for helping us to pick out the biggest, prettiest Christmas tree around.  Thank you for being strong enough to put in on our car.  

Thank you for sitting out of rides with us when we are too little to go.  

Thank you for sitting on Santa's lap with us when we are too scared to do it alone.  

Thank you for working super hard and for teaching us the value and importance of an education.  

Thank you for loving Mommy so good and for teaching us what a godly husband looks like.  

Thank you for exercising and working to be healthy, so you can have more energy to play with us.  

Thank you for getting us Hundley.  We love him, too.  

Thank you for taking us on fun family dates on Fridays.  

Thank you for taking pretty pictures with us on special days.  

Thank you for letting us take ballet and for being our biggest cheerleader.  

Thank you for holding us tight and for letting us sit in your lap and cuddle.  

Thank you for running and playing with us.  

Thank you for taking us out to get ice cream.  

Thank you for taking us on special dates for our birthdays.  

Thank you for being a shoulder we can cry on and lean on.  

Thank you for taking us to see new places, especially the beach!

Thank you for dressing up as Bible characters during vacation Bible school to teach us more about God's Word.  

Thank you for teaching us the importance of loving the color red and how to call the dawgs!

Thank you for showing us the importance of telling others about Jesus and for taking us with you on mission trips.  

Thank you for taking Mommy on special dates and for being a daddy full of courage.  

Thank you for coming to our special programs at school and supporting us in all that we do.  

Happy birthday, Daddy!  Thank you for all the things you do for us, even the things we don't know about, but you do anyway because you love us so much.  There are so many more ways we can say thank you and so many more things that we can thank you for.  Mostly, we are thankful God gave you to us to be our daddy!  You are our favorite!  We love you to the moon and back!