A surprise birthday gathering for Anthony

Have you ever tried to surprise your hubby with a small gathering of friends for his birthday?

I hadn't. 
Until a couple weeks ago. 

Anthony's birthday was November 24th, which is always around Thanksgiving. Translation: everybody's reeeeal busy

About a week before his birthday I decided to try to throw together a low key gathering (not a party) at our house. I knew if we went to a restaurant we wouldn't get to have enough convo and we couldn't take our time visiting. So our house became the logical gathering place. 

But that meant I had a lot of stuff to do. And I had to keep on the DL down low because if I did too much, he'd get suspicious. 

Oh boy.

So I sent the email to some folks we used to church with. Some of the musicians and singers from our old church. We hadn't seen em all together at all since we left that church. It was a stretch, but amazingly they were all available to come celebrate with us. 

My next obstacle was the house. I had to get my Christmas stuff up AND clean AND get food stuffs for the folks.

Got the decorating and some of the cleaning done without making Anthony suspicious. But I gave up on the food piece - there was just no way to pull that off, so the night before the party I had to tell him. He was cool with it thankfully.

We had chili, buffalo chicken dip, bbq bacon wrapped smokies, and some other snackie snacks. And his cake was a lemon cake with lemon icing. Birthday boy's request. Easy enough! 

Even though I said no gifts, Danny gave Anthony a funny shirt

Yeah, that's a kangaroo bustin a sag sayin Whas sup?

There was some serious lookin convo goin on here. . . heavy stuff looks like 

Brandon is a little drummer boy... BW is what Anthony always calls him... 

these two clowns can't even take a pic together without being goofy

These two lovely ladies are two of the greatest gals! And I miss singing with them. But we still talk and email and text and hang out, so it's all good. Love them! 

Riley and Drew played really well together even though they're about 4 years apart and didn't really know each other

This was the first time in the 5 years we've lived in our house that a kid used the stairs as a slide

You know I had to have some one on one time with this little dude...        
               \\  oh.my.goodness.he.is.a.sweetie.pie.  //

So that's pretty much it. 

At the end of the night when the house was quiet cuz all our friends had gone home Anthony said he was exhausted. He said he was tired from hosting. LOL But he said he enjoyed it. So that's all that matters. 

Thankful Thanksgiving Blessings - post 3 of 3 (yes this is the final post on Thanksgiving 2012)

This is my crew... 
   the mamas and the papas, the babies and the big uns. . . and a couple twins in the oven of my niece's womb

My dad only has one brother. For Thanksgiving this year he and his wife joined us and they brought Ma Ma (my 90 year old grandmother). She's one of a kind fo sho!

We had a bit of a singalong and sang a bunch of church songs.

It was awesome sauce. 
My family is pretty stinkin cool when it comes to this kind of thing. Even if I say so myself.

This picture of my parents - it's SO going in the photo calendar for next year. Mm hmm
Love it!

Trevor, he doesn't sing much. 

He made friends with Kerlandy's doll and just listened to our beautiful harmony.

Sasha has an itty bitty baby bump from those twin babies she's insulating. I can't wait!

Trevor and Leslie wanted me to take their family picture. 
In MY family, that's never an easy task... never ever
   see for yourself - 

Whew...  

Scrapbook perusing... 

The kiddos played several games 

Kerlandy LOVESSSS Aunt Leslie

Kerby pluckin on the good ole guitar... 

The almost 15 year old grandson is growin like a weed but of course Nanny is a shorty ha

I asked Ma Ma if I could get a pic with her and Dad. You know, the kind that's good and everybody's smiling. 

Remember, I said pictures are never an easy task in my family... 

 All's well that ends well ... 

So you see my family is cool and I love em a bunch.

Thanksgiving was really nice and I guess now we have to put it in high gear to a few more birthdays in the fam and Christmas and wrappin up 2012. 

Whew.

I have so many blessings I couldn't list em all if I tried. God is so good to us and I'm so very thankful.  

Thankful Thanksgiving Blessings - post 2 of 3

My hubby's family usually gets together a few days before Thanksgiving because everybody has so many places to go and people to see. So we celebrated early. 

We did some eating . . . of course

Little Sawyer is tryin his best to walk... he's skippin the crawling stuff pretty much

There was also some wrestling. . . 

this little guy is too young for wrestling

and also too young for the tanning bed... ahem...  
   but not too young for good smilin ! 

The kids all get measured from time to time and they get to mark their height and age on the wall... Bryson did his while we looked on

I snuck the kiddos outside for a picture that just might appear in Anthony's mom's photo calendar... 

Don't look MeMa!
       Keep on scrollin! 

 Joey & Jen added one this year... and he's a sweet little squirt!

My man and his older sis - - 
   she's five years older than Anthony

I must admit... my favorite part of this side of the family's Thanksgiving festivities is the COUNTRY HAM. 

Just had to throw that in. And reminisce about its deliciousness. 

Thankful Thanksgiving Blessings - post 1 of 3

Today is Thanksgiving. And I'm so thankful. For tons of people/things. Too much to list here.

I think I'm thankful but are we ever thankful enough? Probably not.

We celebrate Thanksgiving in our families on odd days. And by odd days I mean we don't get together on Thanksgiving day.

My sweet friend Brandi (whom I've worked with for the past 8 years) is a superb cook. And she's crafty, too. Yeah, one of those. ;-) I say she's like Martha Stewart and Betty Crocker rolled into one. Anyway her and her husband welcomed us for Thanksgiving last year and we ate ourselves silly.

So this year it was only fitting to do it again.

Not one but TWO fried turkeys (one was Cajun) and ham... I can't even list everything we devoured. But it was all super ultra ridiculously delish.  

And their sweet little 4 year old daughter asked me to color with her. Showed me her room. And her Christmas tree. Wanted to play with me. I was of course more than willing. I always end up playing with the little ones wherever we go. 

Isn't she a doll? 

Pretty sure she and Anthony hit it off...  

So thankful for great friends

And it was a BEAUTIFUL picture perfect day today too by the way - 64 and sunny. 

I should also mention that this morning we started our day off at Cracker Barrel having breakfast with my inlaws. Yum yum for some eggs, biscuits and gravy, bacon, hashbrown casserole, etc. etc. And my inlaws are great, too.

No pictures here folks - just my usual randomness

~ It's dark when I get up in the mornings and dark by the time I get home from work at night. That makes it hard for me to get motivated to go running. And I hate treadmills. This season kinda makes you wanna just come home, eat dinner and go to bed. (sigh)

~ Speaking of running - today I went to the gym and was in the locker room half undressed before I realized I didn't have my sports bra. Grrr!  So I just left work early today to run when I got home. Barely beat the dark, but at least I got out there. I've been lazy the past 3 weeks and haven't run at all.

~ Pretty much all food lately is just eh.. nothing sounds that good to me lately. I've been saying we're in a food funk. Anthony is with me in this rut-o-rama. I've even tried a couple new recipes of late. Eh.. . they say your taste buds change every 7 years, so.... maybe it's time to start eating WAAAAY different, I don't know.

~ I hate remembering passwords. And I hate coming up with passwords. What happens to em if you die anyway? Do all your accounts just keep piling up with junk til some corporate IS nerd at Google, Yahoo, or whatever figures it out?

~ Why is there never any bread at the grocery store when you go on Sunday night? I mean the people who stock these places have to know that most folks go shopping on the weekend. 

~ I hate when I find someone on a social media site that I knew a while back, start following them, and then get disappointed when they post stuff with ugly words. We all have clay feet, but I guess I just don't expect that with a "church kid" ya know? 

~ I love chocolate milk. It's a treat. It's filling enough for me that I sorta consider it like a snack. But I do NOT like the kind that's already made up in the jug. I prefer Nesquik powder. No Hershey syrup for this girl. Nope. Gimme the powder and let me put 4 spoons full in my juice glass. Thank you! 

~ At church we've started working on the Christmas music in choir practice. Christmas music is awesome but sometimes kinda hard to sing. I'm just sayin.

~ We have started watching that new show on ABC called Nashville. And we kinda love it. I've never watched soap operas, but I get the sense it's a lot like one. 

~ I love fall but I kinda hate winter. I hate wearing a coat. So this week with temps in the 60s makes me a happy girl.

Have a lovely week and try not to eat too much grub over Thanksgiving!

It's time for the ROUND BALL folks

Yep, you heard right - it's time for HOOPS!!!

Camden my nephew is in 6th grade and plays on a travel basketball team. They played last weekend in a nearby town so we went to watch him play. 

It was a tournament and they won the first game easy peasy, but the second one was a loss. :-(

Not to downplay "Camden's blog post" here but his big brother... Um he's growin like a weed. A weed that's been drenched with like a hundred gallons of Miracle Gro. 

Since Cullen was sitting by Nanny, I made em smile for a pic.

And yes, that's the early stages of a 'stache on the boy. (sigh) You're killin me CuCu. Why are you so big now?!   

Guy talk... I'm sure the subject was SPORTS as usual...

And Cullen is almost as tall as his dad these days... sheesh... eats 'round the clock yet you can count his ribs and huggin him kinda hurts.

I can remember both these boys running around my house in diapers and needing me to help em do stuff... and playing... and sleeping on pallets in the floor... 

UGH where does the time go? 

13th anniversary: part 2

I promised you more pics. 
   So here you go. 

Us gettin in touch with nature... we had never walked a trail on any of our many trips to the Smokies

Hikin' and stuff... Anthony found a stick that made a good makeshift hiking stick thing... can you tell I don't hike? lol 

Anthony loved this little bridge we had to walk over on the trail -  

happy little trees & big mossy rocks, oh yes

This weird looking tree had a little spot stickin out that served as a perfect tripod for the pic of us in the woods in my last post. Thank you little tree! Even though you're kinda creepy lookin.

tree huggin 

We stopped off a few spots driving up the mountain to take some pics and take in the beautiful canvas God painted... 
    notice the snow on the farthest mountains

We kept driving 
up 
    up 
        up.... 
   and found this!!! 

We decided to walk around Gatlinburg a bit and rode the Sky Lift for the first time. 

   Niiiice!

up we go! 

This is such a cute pic of Anthony in my opinion you have my permission to ignore the terribleness and non-flattering part of the pic known as me

the view from the top of the Sky Lift

and meanwhile on the Gatlinburg strip...

If you've never had caramel corn while it's still warm out of this little machine, you ain't livin! 

Sunday we met up with Clint, Kyla and Avery and did some shopping. That night we went to dinner at Park Grill on the strip in Gatlinburg. The place was nice, the food was delish and the fellowship with friends was great.

But the little one - he's at that age ya know - he wasn't a fan of dinner out. Cuz see, he hadn't had a nap that day with all our shopping. So he kinda cried and was a typical 18 month old. 
After we finished our meal, he took up with these folks at the next table who loved on him and apparently cast a spell on him. An angel he was. It was like he turned into a different kid. 

We walked the strip and took in the scenery after dinner.

and shared a funnel cake YUM! 

just love his nutty side

And remember little Avery? 

 yeah, he slept

The 411 on the restaurants we checked out ~~~ 

 ~ We tried out Bullfish Grill our first night. I had grilled pork chops and Anthony did the grilled chicken sandwich. I loved mine; Anthony didn't enjoy his too much. We both loved the corn chowder and their bread was to die for though.

 ~ Night two was pizza night at Mellow Mushroom. DELISH! Go. NOW! There's one in Murfreesboro and Nashville.

  ~ Apparently if you wanna eat at the Apple Barn you gotta pitch a tent in the parking lot overnight. I'm just sayin. Bump that. We went to the Barrel. They serve breakfast all day. And it's yummy. 

 ~ We indulged in junk food, too. I won't list it all here. But there was probably a fried Twinkie in there somewhere. And ice cream. And warm, fresh baked cookies.

Before we headed home Monday, we did a little more shopping. Anthony always needs a new hat or two from Lids ya know. And really...how many jeans is enough? American Eagle was havin a sale and I had a coupon. C'mon!

And of course my man can't be near a beef jerky outlet without getting some... 

Can't leave without a visit to the Scrapbook Clearance Store

ahhh retail therapy

I'm so thankful 

 for my husband, 

 for beautiful mountains so nearby that we get to enjoy, 

 for good food 

AND 

 for friends that are super cool to hang out with.