Thankful Thursday - FALL!!!

Today marks the beginning of my favorite all time season, FALL!!! I am so thankful every year when the weather starts to get cooler and the leaves start to change color.  It's just so beautiful and I seriously get giddy.  Like a child opening presents on Christmas morning giddy.

Reasons I love fall:

• The temperatures (especially after this brutal summer)
• The leaves turn red, yellow, and orange
• Pumpkins! The actual pumpkin as well as the smells of spices and fall
• It means Christmas is right around the corner
• Football season!
• Getting to wear sweaters and jackets
• Drinking a cup of hot coffee on a cold morning
• Carving pumpkins
• OSU Homecoming :) 
• Thanksgiving

Lord, thank you for fall.  I believe we have to endure the hot summer to truly love and enjoy the fall.  And I am thankful for it every year it comes around :) 

Ricky's Birthday Care Package

I can now officially show you all what I put into Ricky's Birthday Care Package since he finally got it.  He actually got it about a week ago, I'm just a little slow on the blog update.  Well I knew from the beginning that I wanted him to have a fun care package, especially sine he wouldn't be able to be home to celebrate.  And where is my new favorite store to buy care package items?? DOLLAR TREE!!! They have large quantity packs of candy, gum, toys, snacks, etc each for $1! I can fill up a whole box for like $15-$20 instead of the $100 I put into the first box.  Anyways, on to the box :)

Here is my decorated box. Birthday candles, cupcake scrapbook paper, and fun pictures :)

These are the fun items I put into the box.  I told him he had to send me a picture wearing the glasses and he already had palns for the silly string haha

Here is all the candy!  A lot of fun stuff that I don't typically send but hopefully he likes :)

Megan wanted to contribute to the box so she brought over this stuff to put in it. 

I really wanted to make cookies and test them out.  So I made them flat in a pan and cut them up into squares and placed them in a ziplock with a piece of bread (to help them from drying out).  He said they were pretty good.  So I call it a success for my first time sending cookies overseas.

Final boxes about to be sent out! 

I was bummed we couldn't celebrate his birthday together.  But I know we'll have LOTS of them to celebrate in the years to come!  

Lovely Little Giveaway: Personalized Hanger from Lila Frances

Check out this amazing giveaway!!! I really want one!

Lovely Little Giveaway: Personalized Hanger from Lila Frances

Labor Day 2011

Holidays are a little rough for me since Ricky can't be here to celebrate, regardless of the holiday.  For Labor Day Cindi (Ricky's mother) invited me over for some pool time and relaxation.  It's so nice to be able to spend time with his family and his little sister :)  It's so exciting that in less than 9 months I'll have a precious 4 year old sister-in-law.

This precious puppy that I really wanted to take home with me!

Ellie playing with the puppies

Margarita, pool, sunshine.....ahhhhh

You know if Cindi makes it, it's going to be all fixed up :)

Here comes Bullet!!!

Saturday marked the season opener for Cowboy football!!! It was one hot day but totally worth it.  We started tailgating by 11 AM with the temp of 96 degrees....and hardly no breeze.....But it was fun anyway.

We made the typical burgers and hotdogs for dinner and had all the fixins and of course had Eileens cookies!

We played some Phase 10

 I went over to another tailgate to see the newest addition to the family! This is little Macy Franks, a Poke fan from the very beginning :)

Trevor's awesome Hawaiian shirt

We had to take a cute picture

And then of course a picture of how we felt about all the heat and sweat.

Go Cowboys!!!

First Down and Ten!

Haha like my football reference? No, this post isn't really about football (even thought the first game of the season is tomorrow!) This post is to honor the fact that I have lost my first 10 pounds! It was quite a struggle getting started and I was getting very frustrated, but I stuck with it and kept going, reminding myself that I was making my body healthier even though the scale wasn't showing it.

I'm sticking with Weight Watchers, because that really works for me.  A couple days a week I also input my food to see how many calories I am consuming to compare them.  Eating out is still a struggle for me, but I'm working on it.  I've also been doing a wide range of workouts.  In the past couple months I've gone from DVD's at home, to kickboxing, to strength training with a group at a gym, to now bootcamp.  I think I have benefited from them all but I've seen the most results on the scale in the strength training group and bootcamp.

So here's to those 10 lbs, may I never see you again! And here's to the next 10!

Thankful Thursday - Army Wives

This week (and the past couple of months) I have been very thankful I have had the opportunity to get to know some other army wives.  Several of these women's husbands are in the same area/company as Ricky so it's beneficial.  If I haven't heard from him in awhile I'll ask one of them to see if they have heard anything.  (So yes honey, if you are reading this, I do keep tabs on you in other ways haha)

These girls are seriously so amazing.  I've mentioned before that it's a huge struggle to not have anyone around you realize what all you are going though and just how undescribable and difficult it can be at times.  Well these ladies sure get it.  Most of them have been through this 2, 3, even 4 times! Man, I simply can't imagine going through a deployment 3 more times! These ladies get it when you tell them you had a breakdown in the bathroom at work or in the middle of the grocery store, how anything and everything can set off your emotions, and how grateful you are when you get that phone call or email.  I am so so so thankful to have them in my life!

A great thing to help us all through this deployment is we have been trying to get together once or twice a month, just to chat, do something fun, and eat some food of course ha.  We've been to Discoveryland, Los Cabos (restaurant not destination), swimming, BBQ's, and the most recent was Purple Glaze followed by Shoguns.

If you have never been to Purple Glaze, you should check it out.  It's basically a place where you get to paint your own pottery.  You pick out whatever it is you would like to paint and then come back in a couple days and pick it up after it has been glazed.

I picked a large star platter that I can use in the future 

After I finished painting it.

The girls and our creations

After I got it back and it had been glazed!