Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Busy Days

October is such a busy, busy month. It's almost as busy as November and December. I guess it gets us ready for all the craziness of the holidays.

This past weekend Jeff and I took a little road trip to Dublin, Georgia to spend the night and go watch my mom's old high school football team play. They're number 2 in the state in their classification, so we knew it'd be a good game.

It was such a good time. We bumped into two of my uncles that live in Twin City, and one of them I haven't seen in quite a while. I was so happy to see him. He has battled leukemia and is in remission. He looked great! Looking forward to seeing him again very soon.


The game was at the home field of legendary Georgia bulldog, Herschel Walker.


We stayed at the LaQuinta Inn in Dublin. What a great experience it was. When I stay in strange places, I'm very picky. I'm inspecting for things like hair that doesn't belong there, bugs, etc. This hotel was IMMACULATE! Funny thing, though, Dublin is out in the country. This was the view from our room. I actually loved it! I love South Georgia!



I made 40 trick or treat bags for tonight. We will probably have more like four trick or treaters. I overly prepare sometimes. It's a Howell thing.



I made some pumpkin pudding chocolate chip cookies Sunday night to take to my mom and dad's for after the Haunted House. They were very good. I got the recipe off Pinterest. Next time I'm using white chocolate chips.



Pumpkin cream cheese spread with Ginger Snaps. The kids used the other cookies to dip/shovel in the spread instead of the Ginger Snaps. I made the eyes, nose, mouth and stem from chocolate Laffy Taffy. I thought it was pretty cute.



Sunday night we all went to the pumpkin patch and haunted house about five miles from here. It was extremely windy and cold, which was perfect.

Suz and I posed with This tall, dark and handsome character.


The crazy kids in line for the haunted house.


Me, Crystal and Suz getting photo bombed by Joseph.


The grownups.


The kids.


It was a wonderful, busy weekend! Now I'm headed to Buford to spend Halloween with Suz and her family. Eli is our only little kid now, so I'm looking forward to trick or treating with him. Jeff is going to stay home and give out candy to the four trick or treaters we'll probably have.

Happy Halloween, peeps!

Till next time...

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Top Ten Thursday

So I want to share my Top Ten favorites this week.

Jeff got me this very special bracelet. It has the 23rd Psalm engraved on it.


It's got such a unique design. I absolutely love it! It's one of my favorite birthday gifts he's ever given me. Whenever I'm sad, I look at it and find comfort in the words on my bracelet.


Ross and Missye gave me this opal bracelet. The stones are so pretty.


Cam and Alicia gave me this cross necklace. The cross lies on the side of my neck. It's so dainty and pretty.


Can you believe Suz painted this canvas for me? I love it. I have it hanging in my bedroom and I can see it while I'm in my bed. I see it and am reminded that I am loved.



Loving pumpkin EVERYTHING! Suz found me a recipe that was a copycat Starbucks pumpkin bread recipe. It was good, but not quite Starbucks good. I think with some tweaking it could be, though. I doubled the recipe and made mini loaves to share.



I love that Saturday I got to watch Eli play football. I'm so proud to say that I was lucky enough to see all my nephews and my niece do their thing this fall! And I enjoyed every second. My family is the world to me.


Still loving my roses. They are open and HUGE!


I got two boxes of Milk Duds for my birthday. So yummy, but so hard for someone with teeth like mine to eat.



Every day the leaves are changing just a little more. I hope they change quickly because a lot of them are already falling off.


And the last thing I'm loving this week is my bed. Is it bad that my favorite time of the day is after I've had my bath and get in my bed? That time just relaxing watching mindless TV is something I look forward to every day.

What are y'all loving this week?

Till next time...

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

It Was My Birthday

Ross and Missye carved their pumpkins tonight. Theirs are the two on the left. Cam and Alicia's is the one on the right. All three are so cute. I must admit that I don't miss carving pumpkins. Jeff used to carve them with the boys when they were little. He would carve them elaborate designs. They were always so good. They're too messy for me. But I sure do love a carved pumpkin with a candle inside.



Sunday night I celebrated my birthday with my parents, in laws, my sisters and their families. We had the traditional weinee roast.

All of my family, including my dad and father-in-law, came. I was afraid that those two might not be able to come. They've had a rough time this year healthwise.

Love my monogrammed coozie from my sweet aunt Theresa.


And my BIG umbrella.


Aren't my birthday roses so pretty? Cam and Alicia brought them to the party to decorate the table. They were a gorgeous shade of orange. They've open up and are huge.


This was the card with my gift from Theresa.


The roaring fire. Jeff was an outstanding firemaster this year. It was a great fire with hardly any smoke.


But there was too smoke for Eli. I grabbed him some big sunglasses and a bandana. He was good to go after that. He's making popcorn here.


All my gifts. What you can't see in the white wrapping is a hand painted canvas Suz painted for me. I'll take a picture and post it, maybe tomorrow. I wanted to remember that and the pretty, meaningful gifts Jeff and the boys gave me, so I'll take a picture of those, too.




All the kids were in awe of Eli. Ross tied him up in many positions and Eli could escape from any one of them. Kids can be easily entertained.


This Friday is Alicia's birthday. We celebrated her birthday Sunday night, too. Cam brought her a tiramisu. Everyone loved it.


Suz made my birthday cake and my mom made my traditional sweet potato pie.


I think Crystal and Suz took many more pictures. I hope they got more variety than I did. I was busy being the hostess with the mostest and the birthday girl, so my variety stinks

I highly recommend celebrating your birthday for at least two weeks. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN and so far, 47 hasn't been too shabby.

Till next time...

Monday, October 22, 2012

My Girls

Oftentimes I've written about Ross and Cam. Since this is my diary, I wanted to write about their lovely girls.

Ross and Missye have been together for a little over a year. She's a sweet, kindhearted and beautiful girl. She brings out the soft side of Ross at times. I love her and I love that she loves my boy!



Cam has known Alicia for almost a year. They met at school, and she SWEPT him off of his feet. He proposed to her on July 4th. I joke that they look like Barbie and Ken, agree? She is a beautiful and thoughtful girl. She loves my youngest one, and I love her.


Most important of all, is that they are Godly young women I am so thankful for these two sweet two young ladies. And I'm thankful my boys have chosen them.


Till next time...

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Top Ten Thursday

I think that each Thursday I will do a Top Ten List of things I'm loving that week. If I can figure out how to do a Linky thing, I will start doing that. I'm curious what everyone else is loving on.

As always, in no particular order.

Our scarecrow couple. I LOVE how they turned out this year. Jeff helped me and I couldn't have done nearly as good a job without him. They've already withstood two rain storms and weren't even phased!



Loved this picture Suz sent me of Eli, the wolf. She got out her Halloween stuff and she said he had so much fun. This picture made me happy! Reminded me of the days my boys still got excited over Halloween decorations and costumes.



Got a mani/pedi yesterday. I loved the polish I bought. It's Essie. The shade is Bordeaux. My new fall favorite color.


I've been in love with Bath & Body Works Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin. It smells of fall, and just brings back lots of fall memories since its an old favorite. As you can see, I'm almost out.



I finally decided to get a real pair of eyeglasses. My near vision has been bad for a while now, but recently my far vision seemed like it wasn't as good either. I went to the eye doctor and got a prescription for glasses with progressive lenses. I love my glasses. Now if I could just get used to them.



Rat poison. Not really. It's Butter Snap Pretzels with candy corn. OMGoodness. So tasty. Loving those. Maybe a little too much! Ha!



My goodie bags I made for my birthday wiener roast! They turned out cute and they're filled with lots of good candy.



Love my Halloween decorations on my foyer table. See Ross's plaster hand? He made that in about the 4th grade.


Love my mantle decorations, too. I made the banner. So easy!


And lastly, I love my mailbox magnet that I ordered and got this week.


So that's what I'm loving this Thursday. What are you loving this week?

Till next time...

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

My Latest Addiction

Jeff and I have been hiking up Stone Mountain at least once a week since Memorial Day. When we got there last night, there was a young couple with two little babies having a photo shoot in front of the antebellum mansion. The park has a pretty display of pumpkins there.


Here's an aerial picture of the mountain and the trails. Sometimes we take the nature trail, and it's gravel and super steep in places. It's the harder of the two ways up.


Can you see the spider web in this tree? The spider chose a very pretty tree to spin her web.


This is the ladies room at the bottom of the mountain. Keeping it real, that bathroom always smells terrible. I mean, really, really bad. And the strange thing is that it always smells the exact same bad! How can that be? Is the same lady coming in there every day smelling it up?!


It has been so fun watching all the trees and flowers change colors as we've been going each week. Every week it's a little more noticeable, and the shadows of the sun have been changing, too. Last night we noticed that the pretty yellow wildflowers are dying off. They've been so pretty and are everywhere.



We have to get there earlier now, because the sun is setting so much earlier than it was this summer. We hiked it on the hottest days of the summer. Now we have to wear long sleeves. Soon we'll need to wear pants, too

It's so reviving up there. I mean, I feel like it rejuvenates me so much. And I love being able to get some good exercise and be able to talk to Jeff at the same time. Most of the time, though, I feel like I'm yelling, because he walks faster than I do and is usually ahead of me.



We've found little landmarks along the way. There's this little tree that you just can't help but swing around. Jeff remembers where it is every time so I can take a swing around it.

Yep, you can't compare exercising in a smelly old gym to exercising outside. There's no comparison. I'm so thankful we live close enough to Stone Mountain that we can go as often as we want. I'm totally addicted!



Till next time...