Life with my sister

I left this by Randall's coffee pot this morning. He cracked up at the serving size - "U Decide 'Cause U Da Man!" I covered a $1 box of SweetTarts with it instead of chocolate because he is my sweet and my tart! I found this wrapper online and printed it off. A $1 love gift. Can't beat it! Now, I have to come up with something for tomorrow.... hmmm ?! Abby

I have so many fun ideas in my head but very few make it to fruition these days with being a working mother of a toddler and wife to a husband who travels. I love my many blessings, so don't think I am complaining...just being for reals here...a girl can't do it all, all the time! So, this past weekend I decided we were going to create and that we did! It was a crazy, fun time. It felt so good to get it out of my head and see the ideas come to life. I am loving Pinterest. I am getting all sorts of handprint/footprint ideas for H. I decided to do a handprint or footprint each month this year and make a calendar of them next year. So, we made this footprint into a snowman and we went ahead and did a Valentine hand craft. It is suppose to make a heart in between, but with a squirmy 2 year old, we are just happy to get the idea of a heart. We also made some fun thumbprint cards for some special Valentine's. Henry loves to do crafts. They do them at school all the time so he is ...

Melissa, What a blessing to receive a sweet note and gift from you. I do not know who you are, but God does. I wanted to send you a formal thank you note but by the time Abby got the envelope to me it has ripped in the corner right where you address was. Shoot! I blame it on Henry :) This public "thank you" will have to do. Your kindness was so uplifting and appreciated more than you will ever know. You have a super sweet heart. God bless you, Melissa! Julie

S Family Christmas comes every year and every year it is great fun. We head to Daddy's house in Mississippi for a fun-filled day of family, gifts and food. And almost every year Daddy is supporting and sporting a new team's pullover....just kidding. He went from Arkansas to Ole Miss and now back to Memphis. I love it. He looks good in Tiger blue. S Family matriarchs , Babs and Bob. Meemaw and Peepaw did well. From Babs and Bob you have the beautiful brunette S girls. We are quite the trio. Jules and I love our cousin Hollye to pieces. She is like a sister to us. Coming from a small family, we bonded well growing up even though we lived a state away from one another. From the 3 of us you have this handsome group! Thanks to Jules for doing most of the work :) The S family produces such pretty girls. Meemaw would love pampering these two just like she did us. Claire and Anna are " our pretty girls". Meemaw used to say "my pretty girl" all the time. I love...

Santa came and came big. Before he came we had to soak up the real meaning of Christmas. We went to church on Christmas Eve and Nana and Papa came in time to go with us. We got to sing and light glow sticks...Henry loved it! He got to go in the service with us and he did great. Christmas at our new church was such a treat this year. I reflected on things I had never really thought of. I love taking away new little nuggets of truth. I always enjoy a Christmas Eve service. It puts the rest of the night and the next day into perspective. Keeping with our Christmas tradition, we wore matching pajamas for the third year in a row. We wore Sesame Street themed pajamas this year. It was fun times. We love doing Christmas at home now that we have Henry. It is so peaceful and fun. We stayed in our pajamas all of Christmas Day. Nothing like a day in the pajamas. Those are rare for us these days. It was bliss. Christmas with a 2 year old is fun and exhausting. Capturing him on camera is difficul...

Christmas with Mama and Julie is always a huge highlight at Christmas. We do it a little early now that we have Henry and choose to be home on Christmas. Mama and Julie's family still do their exchange to each other on Christmas Day, but the ones to us and from us are ripped opened and enjoyed while we are in town. As you can see in the background of this photo...Randall is almost elbow deep in his Jelly Belly's. He was making all sorts of "recipes" with them and refused to share the good ones with us. My pretty girl with her new red sweater dress. She loved it and wore it to church on Christmas Day with her knee boots. Mama said that Anna is me made over but looks just like her mother. Nothing brings me more pleasure than to know my sister is raising me! Hee Hee . She is a leader and not a follower. She is a wealth of knowledge and shares every bit of it with you! She also has great common sense and sense of style for a 7 year old. She is a lot like me and that is n...

This Christmas cutie has lots of fun teachers and friends that needed some Christmas goodies from our kitchen. So, Mama got to work and we made some fun things to take to church and school. We made these for his friends at church and his former teachers at daycare. You take a Nutter Butter and dip it in chocolate bark and sit it on wax paper with a Popsicle stick on the back. Place mini chocolate chips for the eyes and a red hot for the nose. Break a round pretzel in half for the antlers. I put them in small clear bags and closed them with ribbon. They were so cute and so much fun! We made smores kits for his friends at school and to add to our neighbors goodie tins. The card attached said, "Have SMORE fun this Christmas! Love, Henry". We put a snowman Peep in the clear bag with 2 graham cracker squares and a small Hershey bar. I tied them off with ribbon and attached the little card by punching a hole in it and running it through the ribbon. Henry will miss his party at ...

This little cutie has 3 teachers at school and 2 at church. So, we got out the Cricut and made them some fun gifts. Actually, he was snoozing away in his bed and I was upstairs in the office making the gifts watching In The Kitchen with David on QVC ...because I just love that flamboyant man! Here are the finished products. It was so much fun and super easy. I see all these girls going into the business of creating products for people with their Cricut and making a killing. He is a little word of wisdom...just go buy a machine and do it yourself. It is SUPER easy and very cost effective. The machine I have is the smallest one and it does all I would ever need it to do. It is so much fun and easy clean up. That is the best kind of craft if you ask me! Have you made anything fun this season? It is such a fun time to craft. Abby P.S. Thank you for my Cricut , Jules! There is a gift for you in this photo so don't look at it too hard.

Last night I hosted my annual Christmas Exchange. We exchange cookies and an ornament. It is always a fun, festive time with my girls. I started doing this when we lived in Mississippi and enjoyed it so much I have held the event each year since (except in 2009 when Henry arrived at Christmas). Every year I have new faces to add to the group and I always count that as a blessing. As you well know, there is never a good date in December where all invited can attend. I am always pleased with the turn out though. Small or large, sweet times at Christmas with friends is always precious. The cookies are always fun and the dirty Santa with the ornaments is always a hit. This is my signature cookie for this event. The white ones are 2 Ritz crackers with peanut butter in the middle. They are dipped in almond bark and sprinkled with peppermint The red ones are Oreos dipped in red Wilton melting chocolate and sprinkled with peppermint. Red Neck Caviar is always a crowd pleaser. The bowl is alway...