Random Thoughts on Leap Day

1. I don't understand why....why is there only 28 days in February. How did "they" pick that Feb. would be the month that gets short changed. And why did they pick every 4 years to have an "extra" day. Really I don't get it, but I don't care so don't try to explain it to me.

2. "Leap Day" why is it called that. Where are we leaping too?

3. People that are born on this day claim how "cool" it is. They were on tv and the radio saying "oh I'm only 11 today" when they're actually 44. I WOULD HATE IT. I love my birthday! I love having this special day just for me. So if your birthday is indeed on Feb. 29 do you celebrate on Feb. 28 or March 1? Do you get to pick? Do your parents pick when your a baby?

4. All leap day did for me was make me wait one more day for my paycheck.

5. I think leap day might be a great day to have pictures at CDC cause today went great. AND we'll only have to do them every 4 years.

6. Radio people LOVE to talk about leap day. Well I guess radio people like to talk about anything, what else are they supposed to do? play music? They are the ones that told me yesterday was national pancake day, which is what we had for dinner.

7. There are no good leap day craft ideas on pinterest but Sarah's brownie leader came up with a super cute "leap" frog to sew out of felt tonight.

8. The Frog should be the Leap Day mascot.

9. If you were lucky enough to go to Disney today you would be able to stay there from 6 am this morning until 6 am tomorrow. 24 hours!! How awesome would that be, riding Splash Mountain at 3 in the morning. Maybe in 4 more years they'll do it again and I'll be there, a wish for today.

That's all. I'm pleased to end my thoughts with a Disney wish.
Did you do anything fun on Leap Day??

My Boys

Here we are hanging out Menards on a Friday night!
Who do they make these chairs for?
Having one at NASCAR might be kinda fun!!

Thats Where They Went

This is what I found in my little darling Sarah's desk this morning. I had walked her in to help her deliver her science project and she wanted to show me a book she was reading. When she opened her desk there sitting on top were two of our spoons. We lose spoons like most people lose socks in the dryer. I was guessing that they were getting thrown away but now I know I'll have to do a desk shake down every once in awhile.

This Could Become a Habit...

I had to stop at the grocery store on my way home from work last night. Mya didn't have any dog food and I volunteered to be the one to get some for her. So I left work and went to Family Fare. I picked up a big ole bag of Kibbles and Bits.....and a bottle of moscato....
Hub called to let me know he was on his way home from work and did we need anything, hmmm why yes as a matter of fact I need 5 carnations (science fair mishap, stay tuned for next blog). So he gets home with 5 carnations AND a bottle of lambic. A special treat for me. Ahhhh how sweet. He knows I've been down in the dumps lately and he bought me some yumminess just to be a nice guy.
What's a girl to do with two bottles of wine...you guessed it, get busy drinking! This could become a problem, a very good problem!

these days

I'm in a funk these days.

I don't know whats wrong....well honestly I can't pinpoint whats wrong.

The kids are happy/healthy, the house is (fairly) clean, work is (crazy) normal, husband is same as always.

I feel anxious like I should be doing something but I can't find anything to do that makes that feeling go away.

The other night I drank quite a bit of a huge bottle of wine...that didn't help.

Today I am off of work. It's President's Day, a director holiday. I can't relax, I feel like I should be at work. The kids are busy and content. I've been researching a job change online and maybe thats where the anxiety comes from. Part of me thinks that people are going to think I'm crazy for even considering what I want to do. I have a great job, regular hours, steady paycheck..great paycheck. The alternative would be unsure, longer hours, more challenging, and probably a huge cut in pay. Maybe more fulfilling and fun but we couldn't make it work budget wise.

This is the part about being a responsible adult/parent that sucks.

The Sax

We have a new musician in the family. Jacob has been practicing his saxaphone at home. His first concert is already the beginning of March and he's only had the instrument since the beginning of February. I'm assuming we won't be hearing any Bach.
So far I think his favorite thing to do is cleaning it. haha
Everyday he plays for like 5 minutes then cleans it for 15 minutes and then puts it away.

I'll be really happy when they move on from "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"

crafts

I found this on pinterest awhile ago and I really wanted to make it. I thought it would be great in Sarah's room. I don't really know why I started with yellow since her room is purple and this did not match at all. So it ended up in our front hallway and turns out, I like it better there cause I can see it all the time. It was super simple to make. I tried to link back to where the idea came from but it wouldn't let me. The pin is from etsy so I am assuming someone out there sells them on their etsy site.

I have a pile of projects on my table that I haven't had the time or motivation to make so I was super happy this one got done.

Brownies Part 2

They turned out delicious. I must say though that you should definitely use the 9x9 pan. I only had a 9x13 and a 8x8 and I went with the smaller pan. They were nice and thick and gooey but I think the edges got a little too done. The bigger pan would've been much better.
The hardest part was melting those darn caramels. They brought me nothing but trouble and a bit of a belly ache from eating so many.

You can find the recipe on Ree Drummond's website, Pioneer Woman.!!

Better Late Then Never

Kelli's baby girl turned one in January and she's got to be the cutest one year old I know.
Happy Birthday Averie Lynne!

And by the way we are slowly becoming friends....stay tuned!

Knock You Naked Brownies, Part 1

Soooooo Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman has a cooking show on tv now.

Bout' time, I know right!~!

And I've been watching. I'm one of those people that love to watch the cooking shows, Rachael, Paula, the dude with the spiky blond hair, the hot dude with the accent...anyhow I love to watch but I NEVER make what they're cooking.

Well Ree had a football episode and made these brownies called, Knock you Naked Brownies, and well they looked AMAZING. While she was cooking I was thinking well that doesn't look so tough. It's usually the ingredients that get me. There's always some ridiculous ingredient that I've never heard of or that they only sell in the south of France. I wrote down the recipe, the ingredients weren't tough at all, and decided..I will make these.

They're actually cooling now. I'll take pics and let you know what we think in another post.

The whole reason I am blogging is because of these little gems.These delicious brownies call for caramels. 60 of them to be exact. You have to unwrap 60 of them. BOOOO

So I'm at the store looking for chocolate chips and I come across these caramels. They are little bits of caramel. 1 cup equals 24 caramels, how freaking awesome is that, no unwrapping......

And now the whole reason for this post.......

DO NOT OPEN THE BAG UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO ACTUALLY USE THE CARAMELS.

1. I opened the bag.

2. I thought to myself, mmm these look yummy.

3. I ran to the store to buy more cause I ate half the bag....

It's good!

Everywhere you go in Savannah, they have this book. It's in all the gift shops, restaurants, and even in some of the clothing stores. I guess this book was on the best sellers list for years awhile back. I made Jeremy take me to the Bonventure cemetary cause that is where the headstone that is on the cover of this book was. I say "was" because they had to move it. Because of the popularity of the book, people were going to the cemetary and disturbing the grave sites. Apparently this was a real headstone and the family of the person buried there wasn't too happy about all the tourists going there and disturbing their loved ones burial place. The statue has since been moved to a museum in Savannah.

So I started reading this book this morning. So far I am intrigued. It's very good. Even better cause I was just there and recognize everywhere they are talking about. While we were on our trolley tour the tour guide stopped in front of this house and said that this was the Mercer House from the book. So I took a picture and its cool to be able to picture a place while your reading about it.

I'll let you know what I think when I'm done. In the meantime if you've read it let me know what you thought about it.

our last day

We woke up to another beautiful day. Since it was the day I was leaving we didn't have a full day. I really wanted to have some oysters and we had been told of a good place to go so we planned on that for dinner. As far as the rest of the day went we didn't really have any plans. I was curious what was on the other side of this bridge. Locals told us that South Carolina was on the other side so we decided to go check it out.

At the top of the bridge looking back, you could see the river and Savannah from up high. The kids would've loved the "big bridge"

Jeremy was also told that there were gators on the other side of the bridge so off we drove to find them. The other side of the bridge there was a "welcome to South Carolina" sign but thats about it. Luckily I found "alligator alley" on my iphone and we went looking for those gators.

We found many of the road side parks that you can pull off and park, fish, turn around etc. One of them had a "do not disturb the gators" sign so we thought we would see if we could find any. I was afraid the whole time that a gator was gonna come running after us.
Jeremy went off down one of the trails like no big deal, not me...I stood back and waited. On one hand I was afraid but on the other hand I was thinking theres no way we'll see a gator. He did end up spotting a small alligator sunning himself on the side of the water. I couldn't believe it.

We got back in the car and drove down this road to see if we could see some more.

We ended up seeing at least a dozen if not more alligators. All sizes.

This guy was probably the biggest. None of them were moving, all of them were just hanging out sunning themselves. They were just along side the road. I couldn't believe it. All the years I lived in Fl and visited FL I never saw a single one and in one day we spotted all of these.

It was pretty cool.

After all that excitement we headed back over to Tybee Island and dinner.

We went to the Crab Shack. I don't think it was a chain, even though I've heard of alot of seafood restaurants called that.

Finally oysters!

And they were so good. Still attached to the shell just like Michelle told me I should make sure that they were. I think these were better then the ones I had in FL. I also had a crab stew that was really yummy.

After dinner we went back to the hotel to get my bags and Jeremy took me to the airport. I got patted down at the airport because I had on a big baggie sweatshirt. Chick felt up under my boobs and down around my butt and she was really rough. I was like so sorry that I didn't wear a tshirt under my sweatshirt, lesson learned.

The flight was uneventful, as was the drive home.

It was a wonderful trip,

Savannah is a beautiful town.

Day 3 in Savannah

We had beautiful weather every day that I was there.

On Day 3 we had two tours set up.

The first one was a trolley on/off tour. Its a 90 minute tour all around downtown Savannah. They make 15 stops and you can get off anywhere you want to and then hop back on and go to the next place. Super cool.
We did the tour all the way through the first time and then we stopped on River St.

We thought it was lunch time but didn't really see anywhere we wanted to eat. So we just had a drink did a little shopping and hopped back on the trolley.

The picture below is from the Pirates House, which is where we ate dinner.

There are so many homes that look like the one below. This is probably one of the prettiest towns I have ever been in. I would have loved to go in any of them. The architecture is amazing. The windows and doors and gardens are unbelievable.

Our tour guides shared all kinds of information about the homes, who lived there, what they were known for. I really enjoyed the information they shared.

I only have three photos of Jeremy and I from the whole trip.

Just goes to show that I usually take pictures of the kids while on vacation.

Saturday night we went on a haunted trolley tour.

It was pretty cheesy.

We went back to the Pirates House because of course all kinds of piratey things happened there and there were ghosts to prove it.

We didn't see any. The guide encouraged everyone to take photos because ghosts show up in photos more often than they show up to the naked eye. Again we didn't see any.

We did have some drinks and enjoy the guide telling us the ghost stories.

After our tour we went over to Abe's again and had some drinks. We were both exhausted from a long day of Savannah history.