A Farewell to Fall

A few weeks ago while we were at my parents' house, we got some pictures of the girls jumping in leaf piles. They had such a great time! I keep forgetting to post them, and I figure I better go ahead and do it while it's still fall!

Wherefor Art Thou, Livermush?

Ever since I was little, I coveted your flavor.

You made my mornings extra special, a meal I always savored.

I looked upon your arrival, as an extra special day.
When you got here I came running, even as I played.

Oh how I wish you were closer, I would eat you all the time.
A pound of you to cook, every morning around nine.

Some people just don't get it, this relationship between us.
When they hear your name, they can't help but to say, "Yuck!"

I've thought about moving, to be closer to where you are.
But Uncle Tommy will have to bring you, because it is just too far.

I really miss you liver mush, I hope to see you soon.
Until we meet again, hopefully some time before June.

Thanksgiving, Part Deux

We had a great Thanksgiving at Joe's dad's on Friday.

The girls played with bubble wrap.

Summer attempted to sneak upstairs 10 times but never succeeded.

The dogs, Lakoda and Bruster, silently begged Joe's dad for macaroni and cheese.

We got to see our nephew, Xavier. (Who, I might add, is getting really big and so handsome!)

They got in some quality cousin time.

We had a pretty relaxing weekend. Saturday was spent lounging around and putting up some Christmas decorations, and today, Joe had to work on getting a transmission for the car we bought out of some guy's truck, and the girls and I went to my parents' house to eat yet another Thanksgiving meal before my brother and his girlfriend left to drive back to school. Everything was great. You would think I would be sick of turkey and casseroles by now, but somehow I'm not.

Tomorrow it's back to work for us and the rest of the country. Speaking of which, I decided to have a holiday sale over at Dirt and Lace Designs.

I know budgets are tight this time of year, so I knocked the prices down a bit for the month. Let me know if you would like to place an order!

I hope you all have had a relaxing and fun weekend!

Eating and Playing and Eating and Playing

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at my aunt Billie and uncle David's house. We spent the day eating, playing Wii, eating, listening to my cousin Andrea play guitar and sing, eating, playing Pinball, eating, and talking.

We are now relaxing at home and trying to prepare ourselves for a trip out to Joe's dad's this evening for another big meal. I'm looking forward to it, although I may need to wear my elastic-banded sweatpants.

I hope all of you are having a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

Wishing you all...

... a very Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you are going to be spending it with loved ones, throwing your diet out the window for a day, and stuffing yourself until you have to unbutton your pants and take a nap.

I'm sure that you all, like me, will be overwhelmed with all that there is to be thankful for in your life. No matter what a person is going through, if they are breathing and living one more day, then they can be thankful for something.

Personally, I am thankful for my wonderful husband and beautiful children. I am thankful for my loving parents and my brother. I am thankful to have a really great extended family and a handful of friends that I can always count on.

I am thankful for the good health of myself, my family, and my friends.

I am thankful that Joe and I are able to provide a safe and loving home for our daughters.

I am thankful that we have food in our cabinets and running water and electricity.

I am thankful that we have two reliable cars.

I am thankful for our cat and dog, Jack and Harley, who are both happy and healthy and love us unconditionally.

I am thankful that I was blessed enough to be born with common sense and an open mind.

I am thankful for the success of my little design business, and the extra income it provides my family.

I am thankful that both of my girls decided they wanted to start using the toilet.

I am thankful for blogging, and the friendships it has allowed me to make.

I am thankful for coffee, chocolate, ice cream, digital cameras, good books, on-demand children's shows, sunshine, sweatpants, Clorox wipes, TLC reality shows, fast food restaurants, public parks, music, and Target.

I could go on...

Have a safe, fun, and relaxing Thanksgiving!

A Touch of Christmas

We put up our first Christmas decorations of the year this evening.

We will be doing the rest after Thanksgiving. I can't wait! Is it just me, or does everyone seem more eager to decorate as early as possible more so this year than the last few years?

Ask Joe - The Answers!

I finally was able to grab Joe and get him to sit down and answer the questions that you all submitted for the husband Question and Answer session. Yes, he really did answer every one of these! Here is what he had to say...

From Emily:

When will you let the girls start dating?
Never.

Will you be that dad that sits in the living room cleaning his shotgun?
Yep.

What is your favorite feature of Stephanie's?
I would have to say her cute toe on her left foot that is shorter than the others. The little piggy that didn't get enough roast beef.


From Stephanie:

Do you hunt anything besides deer?
Currently I do not, but I plan on getting into smaller and larger game. Next year I will be entering the lottery for the elk hunt.

How about fishing? If your lakes froze over would you ice fish?
Sure. I'm always willing to try something new.


From Lindsay:
How did you and Stephanie meet?
"I was fixin to meet her, and I went out my front door to meet her, and I went there and I got there and there she waaassss!" (Watch Jeff Dunham and Bubba J)

Do you ever use a bow to hunt deer?
I just started using a bow this year, but no success yet.

How did you learn to do all that house renovating stuff?
Many years of watching my uncle and dad, and some things I learned through my profession.

What's your favorite thing to do with your daughters?
Pillow fights

From Holly:
What is one thing that drives you nuts about Stephanie? :)
Laying on the car horn at innapropriate times.

What is your favorite meal?
Banana Pepper Roast

From Bridgett:
How does it feel to be the only male in a household of females?
Scary. But Jack's got my back.

What are your thoughts on anal beads? (LOL...sorry, Steph! I couldn't resist! :D) (AUTHOR'S NOTE - Simply Femme inside joke... Don't ask.)
Eeewwwwww. (Ernest P. Worrell style)

What is the one TV show you cannot miss each week?
Tie between Dirty Jobs, Man Vs. Wild, Mythbusters, and The Colony

Please tell us a super duper secret about Steph that
will make us all giggle. :)
She likes to sit in front of the webcam and record herself making weird noises and faces.

If you could take the 'vacation of a lifetime,' where would you go and why?
It would probably be the Autralian Outback.

From Ali:
How do you feel about being the one questioned for a blog questionnaire?
I feel honored.

2009 Holiday Card Exchange

I would love to exchange holiday cards with my wonderful blog friends. I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to buy cards or do a photo card or hand-make them, but no matter what, I will have some!

It's nice to exchange cards with family and friends, but it's even better to have a big ol' collection from your other friends across the country!

If you would like to exchange cards, leave me a comment with your e-mail address and I will e-mail you my address and you can send me yours, or you can e-mail me directly.

Feel free to steal my image above for your own holiday card exchanges!

New Moon - No spoilers, I promise!

I'm sorry some of you got a ton of blog updates from me on your dashboards yesterday. But I am SO glad you did, because it means I was successful in fixing my blog address! I set up forwarding for my old URL to the new one, and it now works like a charm. So, welcome back, lost readers!

Thanks to all the lurkers who came out of hiding to say nice things to me. I loved hearing from you! I also have to thank my MOM... she left her very first comment on my blog, and it was a really sweet one, too. I am still inviting all the lurkers to go say hi on my last post. Or this one. It would mean oh-so-much to me.

Yesterday around 10:30pm, my friend Christine and I headed to our local movie theater for a 12:20am showing of New Moon. Yes, we were some of those crazy people. The theater filled up quickly, but we had managed to get PERFECT seats. You know, the ones right in the middle of the theater, behind the handicapped seats, where there is a rail going across in front of you that makes the perfect foot rest? We sat around playing Trivial Pursuit on her iPod Touch while we waited for the movie to start.

New Moon was great. It was far better than the first one. It's pretty obvious there was a bigger budget. And the acting was better in general.

In general meaning everyone but Kristen Stewart. I really could do without her awkward emotional spasms and eye twittering.

There were a lot of funny one-liners, and the fighting scenes were pretty neat. I'm already looking forward to the next one!

I got home around 2:20ish, and headed straight to bed. The girls woke up around 9 today, so I'm feeling fairly exhausted. We are heading out to Joe's dad's house soon for a housewarming party and bonfire. It should be fun, but I'm concerned that I may fall asleep into the fire.

Note to self - Drink. Lots. Of. Coffee.

I've got to go get the girls in the tub so we can start getting ready. Have a great weekend!

Time to come out of hiding!

This post is just for you, lurkers!

I'm borrowing this idea from several bloggers who have done this in the last few days.

I am always so amazed by the number of followers I have. It feels great to know that my boring life is somehow interesting enough to make you want to read about it. Thank you for being here :)

I have 122 followers and 146 subscribers. On a good day, I get around 10-15 comments. I definitely understand... I know it's hard to comment on every blog you read. I'm a lurker on quite a few blogs as well :)

Today is your day to come out of hiding, just this once - although I'd love it if you continued to operate out of the shadows of lurkdom in the future! I'd love to know how you found my blog, how often you read, and what specifically draws you here. Or, you can just say hello! Even those of you who don't have Blogger accounts can comment under Anonymous.

I really am looking forward to hearing from you all!

Cheap, Quick, and Easy!

I spent some time yesterday creating pre-made layouts for Dirt and Lace Designs. Some are Christmas-themed, because I am definitely ready for he holidays! I have decided to charge only $10 for them. Check them out at the link below, and e-mail me if you would like one! More coming soon :)

Dirt and Lace Pre-Made Layouts

Ask Joe!

Ever want to know what the lone male of Dirt and Lace Land thinks?

I have been trying to convince Joe that it would be fun for him to write a guest post on here. It hasn't happened yet, so when I saw that Emily was going to do a Q and A with her husband, I thought it would be a great compromise! I asked Joe, and he agreed to answer all of your burning questions. You can e-mail them to me or you can ask them in the comments section. Anything you can think of. Assuming I get a bunch of great questions, I will have him answer them and post his answers on Friday. Get to it!

Vacations, Venison, and Victory!

So, yesterday, I screwed up my month long posting every day thing. But it's okay. I still plan on trying to post every day. Forever. And we all know that is not happening, but if that is my goal, maybe I will at least post every other day, right?

Joe took a week vacation from work this week. He deserves it more than anyone I know... it is his first paid vacation since he started working as a 16 year old at KFC. He spent the weekend hunting, and now he is back at home. We don't have any concrete plans for the week, besides me going to see NEW MOON with my friend Christine at midnight on Thursday (Friday), and a housewarming party out at Joe's dad's house on Friday, but we definitely want to get out and have some fun as a family, and we also want to get some work done around the house.

Joe got a deer over the weekend. Well, make that three. He got two the morning after I left, and another yesterday morning. We should have plenty of venison to last us throughout the year, and we are hoping some people will chip in for the cost of processing and take the meat we can't fit in our freezer. Anyone have any good venison recipes? I found a couple steak marinades last year that we loved, but I'd love some more.

I finished up the layout for the giveaway winner from last week. Jessica was an absolute pleasure to work with and I think it turned out great. Click on this header to go see what I did.

I am having a holiday sale at Dirt and Lace Designs from now until Christmas, 10% off all Deluxe, Ultimate, and Professional makeovers! Order now to secure your spot on the waiting list. Come on, you know you want a pretty blog :)

In HUGE Dirt and Lace News, My kids are ALMOST POTTY-TRAINED. Both of them! I really thought this day would never come. They are in underwear about 90% of the time, and I think we have only had one accident in the last week. I can't tell you how great it is to be sitting in the living room with Joe, and hear a toilet flush.

One way we finally convinced Summer that she needed to start using the potty was by telling her that if she was potty-trained, she could go to preschool and play soccer and take dance classes. I guess I have some phone calls to make. And I may need some money as well. Blog layouts, anyone? ;)

Today has started off pretty slowly. I'm only on my first cup of coffee. The girls are watching Max and Ruby. Joe is sitting next to me playing some mystery game. Hopefully we can get going soon and make some progress on one of the million things that still needs to be done to this house.

Have a great Tuesday!

Because I Love Him.

I know a lot of people aren't big fans of hunting. Myself included. The thought of ending a life, be it a human or a deer, just breaks my heart. But... I chose to marry someone who hunts. And now, I must live with the consequences.

As we walked out of the woods, Joe turned to me and said,

"You have now secured your position as my wife for the following year."

Whew.

A List for the Holidays

Borrowed this idea from Little Bit Funky.

Here is my list...



What is on yours?

Walking Through the Woods

Image courtesy of Photobucket. But it looked exactly like that.

So this morning, it is pitch black as I'm walking closely behind Joe. We are walking along a wooded path that would lead us to the tree stand we would be sitting in.

All the sudden, we hear a very loud, "CRACK CRACK THUD..... CRRRRACK THUD THUD CRAACCCKK..." The noise stops about 15 feet away from us, to the left.

We freeze and listen.

Joe was thinking, "We heard our first deer of the day!"

I was thinking, "OH NOOOOO, IT'S THE VOLTURI!!!"

Seriously. I was paralyzed with fear of imaginary vampires.

Please tell me that would have been your first reaction, too.

Hunting Season

Tomorrow morning, at 7:00 AM, I will be in the woods.

I will be sitting on a bench, attached to a tree, 15 feet off the ground.

Joe will be sitting next to me, holding a gun, and his goal will be to kill deer.

I will probably close my eyes, cry, and I might even scream a bit.

I must like him a lot to go along with this.

Thought of the Day

Y'all have been some haters lately. No comment love for Stephanie.

Don't you see that little image over there <---? The one that says, "Your comments make me really happy!" It's true. Really. I smile reading every single one of them.

I kid. I don't blog for comments. But I really do love them. Really. A lot.

I don't always comment every time I read a blog. Especially when the person who's blog I'm reading never comments on my blog.

Maybe we're all in a vicious cycle of not commenting because we're not being commented at. I'm going to work on ending the cycle.

I'm going to comment on every post I read. Every. Single. One. Even if it's just to say, "I read this, and it was good."

Comments are like tips for waiters. It's like saying, "You wrote good shit. Keep it up."

Do I want to be a blogger that says shit? I can't decide if that's okay.

So anyway... Comment if you like what you read because it makes people happy.

I said before that I don't believe in guilting people into commenting. I mean, I see you popping in my blog on my little Feedjit thing, and I appreciate the visit.

But how do I know that you liked what you read? Maybe you think I suck. So tell me.

I prefer you tell me I don't suck, but if you feel otherwise, just say it. I won't get upset.

Really, I might, but I won't take on a crazy internet campaign to destroy you and make your life miserable or anything.

Or you can just keep not commenting. Because I'd rather you be here silently than not at all.

This has been a crazy rant brought to you by Benadryl.

Check Em' Out

I wanted to share with you all a few blogs I've worked on recently...

Lynn wanted something simple. "Not many flowers," she said. Well.. the flowers took over and it turned out perfectly. Click on the header to go look at the full design and to check out her blog!


Ariadna is currently in Russia, working as a teacher, so what better theme than Russian Roulette? She sent me the header pictures and I went from there. While I love doing the feminine, flowery layouts, it's nice to do something with guns and blood once in awhile!


Jaime was the winner of the Ultimate Blog Makeover Giveaway, hosted by Summer at Le Musings of Moi. She is a very creative person and knew exactly what she wanted. I took her ideas and we came up with a pretty design that allows her personality to shine through.

Want to know how you can have that perfect blog layout you have been wanting? Need a new look, or something different for the holidays? Visit my design site, Dirt and Lace Designs, for info!

Gotta Love 'Em

Camryn was sitting in her booster seat at the table, finishing up her lunch. She farted, and looked down. About 10 seconds later, she looked at me with a funny expression and said, "My body smews howwible."

While I was in my bedroom folding clothes, Summer and Camryn decided to stick their toys in Harley's water bowl, and then fling the water all over our kitchen floor. I came in, got mad, told them what they did was bad, and put them in their room. A few minutes later, I heard Summer yell from behind the door, "I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

Blog Makeover Giveaway Winner!

Did this giveaway post to your all's Blogger dashboards? I follow my blog just to make sure things post, and it never showed up on mine. Odd. I think there is something wrong with my subscriptions as well... there is just no way I lost 40 subscribers overnight. Right? Oh well... I am going to choose a winner right now anyway, but I will probably do this again soon, since I don't think many people even knew about it!

Here is everyone who entered in the order they commented:

1. Wendy
2. Brandi
3. Chantelle
4. Bridgett
5. Kaileigh
6. Meg

Nobody gets an extra entry because nobody got the right answer!

It was August 9th.

The trick was that in this entry that I wrote on August 10, when I shared Summer's first drawing of a man, I said she drew it *yesterday*.

Brandi... I should have gone with what you guessed. You made me smarter than I actually am. LOL.

Anyway.. let's pick a winner, shall we?

I'm going to random.org to generate a random number.

Typing them in now...

And the winner is...

Congratulations, Brandi!

Good Timing Blog Makeover Giveaway *Updated*

**No one has gotten the right answer yet, so here's what I'm going to do...

Everyone who comments on this entry will get one chance to win a free blog makeover. If you decide to answer the question below and get it correct, you get one extra entry. I will be choosing the winner at midnight tonight! **


I'm feeling generous today! I am offering another Good Timing Blog Makeover Giveaway. The first person to comment on this post with the correct answer to the following question will receive a free blog makeover, courtesy of Dirt and Lace Designs. The answer can be found in one of my previous blog posts. ( If you do not need/want a full blog makeover, please resist the urge to comment until we have a winner!)

Question: On what day did Summer draw her very first picture of a "man"?
(Hint: It might be a trick question.)

Proud Mama!

A couple days ago, Summer was drawing on a notepad and out of nowhere, made an "S". On purpose. Perfectly. It looked like I drew it! She knows her alphabet and knows the names of most letters, but actually drawing one is a brand new skill.

This morning while Joe and I and the girls were sitting at the table, I gave Summer a notebook and pen so she could show her Daddy her new skill. She drew a few S's, and then I decided to see what else she could do. I drew out her name, and explained each letter. She attempted to draw the letters underneath, but of course having just turned three, she doesn't understand how to go about drawing letters. I drew out a dotted version of her name, showed her how to trace, and she went to town. That kid has some awesome motor skills!

After she did that, I drew out some more words and she was eager to trace those as well. She made my parents this to give them when we go over to their house for dinner later:

I'm so proud of her. She wants to learn and try things, and I am happy to fill her brain with as much knowledge as she can stand!

Oops.

So... the blog designer just screwed up her own blog.

I've had the URL "www.dirtandlaceblog.com" for awhile, as I'm sure you noticed. I had to get that instead of dirtandlace.com, because something weird happened when I purchased it and it said dirtandlace wasn't available when I tried to use it even though I was the one who had purchased it before... and even though I was told it would fix itself within a few days it never did so I went ahead and purchased dirtandlaceblog.com.

Anyway... so here I am months later, still irritated that my URL isn't dirtandlace.com, because, well, it should be, right?! So I decide to check, and low and behold... dirtandlace.com is available! I buy it, it works, and then I type in "dirtandlaceblog.com" to make sure it forwarded from there, and it says, "The requested URL was not found on this server." Insert your favorite four letter word here.

So, there has to be a way to fix it to where the old URL forwards to this one. But I don't know what that is. I guess I'll have to do what I normally do when something like this happens... look it up and teach myself how to fix it! But in the mean time, if you have Dirt and Lace saved in your favorites, you will need to re-save it as dirtandlace.com. Hopefully there won't be any other issues, but please let me know if something isn't doing what it's supposed to do!

How You Got Here, 2nd Edition

When looking at how people have arrived at my blog here recently, I came upon some interesting keywords that people searched that brought them here.

"clear nail polish chuck e cheese tickets"

I don't quite understand why someone would google clear nail polish or chuck e cheese tickets at all, they're both kind of self-explanatory. This time they were not only Googling them, but Googling them at the same time.

"what kind of dirt do meerkats need"
If you can have meerkats as pets, someone please tell me. Those are the coolest little creatures ever!

"15 year old girls n@ked in front of tractor"
Yea. This is really disturbing yet somewhat funny. I got this one and quite a few worse searches. Took me a minute, but I finally figured out that it was because of this post I wrote about Hilary Swank sleeping n@ked with her boyfriend's young son in the house. I went back and edited it. Ugh... so disgusted seeing all of that.

"hippo laughing pics"
Hmm...

"said something and it happened"
Lemme try that....
I got rich tomorrow.
We shall see...

"yo mama nu*e"
Hahaha. I love how this person used the phrase Yo Mama, but was proper enough to use the word nu*e instead of n@ked.

"my toddler sprayed cologne in his eye"
Owwww.

Five Question Friday

1. What is your dream job?
I have a few careers in mind that I would love: web designer, criminal investigator, interior decorator, psychiatrist, private investigator... I could probably go on a bit. I have a lot of interests, and obviously I still haven't figured out what I want to be when I grew up!

2. What song could you play over and over?
Hmm... one I never get sick of is Tommy Lee - "Hold Me Down". Or maybe John Mellencamp's "Jack and Diane". Or Jay-Z's "Can I Get A". Hehe.

3. Do you prefer to talk on the phone or text (or email)?
It depends on who it is and what I'm doing. I prefer text in general, because it's convenient and quick.

4. What is your must have beauty product?
My Maybelline mineral powder. It helps me look human.

5. What is your favorite Michael Jackson song?
The one that I am always the most happy to hear is the "Free Willy" theme song, "Will You Be There". It came out when I was a kid. Loved it then, love it now!

I had to ask...

Earlier today...

"You know, Summer, it wasn't that long ago that you didn't know how to talk. And now you talk to us all the time. How neat is that? It must be pretty cool to all the sudden know how to talk to everyone. I mean, a just a couple years ago you were a tiny baby and couldn't say a word, and here you are saying things that I wouldn't expect you to even process until you are 10. It's amazing. What does it feel like to all the sudden be able to express yourself and communicate with everyone around you?"

"Mommy... can you just ask me what my favorite color is or something?"

Thriving in the Dark

I can remember being in school and hating the time change in the fall. It really put a damper on my already limited playtime.

Now, however, as a mom to two non-school aged kids, I thrive.

Something about that earlier sunset. I make dinner on time, I get the kids to bed on time, I get more done in the evenings, I go to sleep earlier. It's great!

This coming from someone who loves warm weather and sunshine. Oh, how I already miss Summer...

Hopefully I can continue to concentrate on the good that comes with the dark evenings.

Better schedule, more efficient, more time to myself...

I can totally do winter this year.