Where did September go???

It seems like I blinked and the month of September came and went. It's hard to believe we are headed into October already, even harder to believe we have waited for our little ones for another month! I always find myself to be very discouraged at the end of every month and hopeful at the beginning of each new month. I'm trying to remind myself daily that God is never late!!! He is always faithful and always on time!!

My newest obsession is spray painting pumpkins!! All these little orange guys that used to sit around my house have turned into...
these... just give them a coat of white paint, add a sticker, and a ribbon and they turn out perfect!

The big "daddy" orange pumpkins on the porch needed some little friends to go with him too!

A Birthday Party for Princess!!

Because I know you want to see pictures of a doggie birthday luau, right???

She got to open some presents!!

And eat her first piece of cake!!!

Candy Corn Cookies

Aren't they cute?? I saw these online a few weeks ago and Em I just decided to try and make a batch (they do not taste like candy corns, in case you are wondering)!

We used a simple sugar cookie dough and tinted it orange.

Then we cut the dough into triangle shapes.

After the cookie were cool we just dipped the top of each one in melted white chocolate and the bottom in melted milk chocolate. A fun fall treat!

Fun at Myrtle Beach!

Mom and Dad used their timeshare points to rent a condo at Myrtle Beach this week and invited us to come along for a few days. So we packed up a cooler full of meals and had 2 fun and free days at the beach!

The kids buried their daddy in the sand!

They were determined to get their Paw Paw to try out the boogie board!

He did it and loved it!!

We had a great time! Thanks for having us!!

Happy Birthday Nathan!!!

We had a full day of birthday celebrating here today! It started with the birthday boys' breakfast of choice...french toast! Opening his presents from Mom, Dad & Emily...

Then it was off to a soccer game (which Mom forgot to take any pictures of)... then home for a Star Wars party!

When I asked him what kind of cake he would like this year, he replied with "the really awesome chocolate cake you make with Star Wars guys on top". This was definitely the easiest cake ever!

The boys made lightsabers out of pool noodles...

Which resulted in lots of light saber battles!

After the battles, the boys hunted asteroids (foil balls with candy & prizes inside) in the backyard.

Daddy made some snow cones!

Time for cake! I know I don't have many more years left of planning fun kid parties for this guy so I am enjoying it while it lasts...before we start all over with little parties again!

Carolina Railhawks Game

We always let the kids choose one special thing to do for their birthday, usually it's bowling, mini-golf, etc...but this year Nathan chose to go to a Carolina Railhawks soccer game. The tickets are fairly inexpensive and we had some coupons from our library summer reading program. Before the game all the kids get to run on the field and make a "human tunnel" for the players to run through.

Railhawks won 2-0!

After the game the kids can get autographs from the players. Nathan got a bunch of them to sign his ball!

Party Preperations!

We're busy getting ready for some birthday parties around here...Nathan turns 11 this Saturday and will be having an awesome Star Wars party with his buddies from church and neighbors. We made these cool light saber invitations...we're planning an asteroid hunt, making light sabers out of pool noodles, using our snow-cone maker and lots of other fun stuff! Our puppy Princess is turning 2 sometime around the end of September (we're not exactly sure when since we adopted her as a stray). The kids have been begging to have a birthday party for her so I have gone completely insane and am letting the plan a little party her! They even took pictures of her to make invitations on the computer...

They decided a luau party would be fun and pulled out the leis!!!

Here are the invitations they made on the computer...so crazy!!

another yard sale shelf makeover...

My latest yard sale makeover... I picked this up last week for $2 (she wanted $ 4 for it but I talked her down to $2, all good "yard-salers" must know how to haggle down)! It's cute, but I don't know many people that hang shelves up just for Christmas and I had a spot in the kitchen that needed something new... I took the hooks off and gave it a coat of black spray paint.

Then I gave the inside part (where the "believe" picture was) a few coats of chalkboard paint...

It ended up like this...I had been wanting something I could change out each month with different stuff and scriptures pertaining to the season. Everybody likes it!

Monogrammed Pumpkins!!

Happy Labor Day!! Isn't it wonderful to have a day off? I just made these for the for the front porch and thought they turned out so cute! You can put monograms and polka dots on anything and it looks cute!!

End of Summer Gardening

Our garden has been producing lots of these... and these lately... They have been such a blessing, every day I go out there and come in with handfuls of cucumbers and tomatoes!

After eating tossed salads nearly every day for weeks, I was tickled to find this cucumber, tomato, & onion salad recipe. It's really light and everyone seems to like it..so now we're eating this nearly every day!

I planted my fall seeds last week and they are already sprouting up...spinach, romaine, mesclun

and brussel sprouts! I've never tried to grow them before, I'm excited to see if they will actually be a success!