30 Days of Thankful - Day 1

I am thankful for my wonderful husband.  

This summer we celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary and this fall marked 11 years of being together.

He is a an awesome father, a great provider and a hard worker.  I am thankful that his mom raised him to be the man he is.  He has such a strong character and always puts me and the girls before himself.

I am so thankful that the Lord chose us to be together. 

photo courtesy of yourgloryreflected art

30 Days of Thankful

I saw that somebody was doing 30 days of Thankful on facebook and I thought it would be a great way to help me take a moment and reflect on all the things and people that I have in my life.  It is so easy to take for granted the small things.
What are you thankful for? 

My Friend Came To Visit!!!

This weekend one of my best friends from high school came to Michigan to visit.  After high school she moved to Florida to live with her mom.  I have only seen her a few times since she moved.  

One of the best things about my friendship with Ashley is that even though we don't see each other often and don't keep in touch as often as we want, we can always just pick right up where we left off.  With her there aren't those awkward moments of silence.  We can just talk and talk and talk.  

We had planned to get together on Thursday afternoon.  I had a meeting at work and then I was going to take half the day off.  We ended up getting to spend the whole day together due to a power outage at Lakeshore.  

I dropped the girls off at playgroup and then picked up Ashley at 9:15 am.  We went for breakfast and did a few things.  We picked up the girls and went home and played.  She stayed for tacos and cookie baking.  I brought her back to where she was staying at 7:00 pm.  

Being a Michigan girl, Ashley wanted to get to the beach.  Ashley was hoping to experience cool fall weather during her visit and Michigan delivered.  She came right in the middle of the very high winds.  We took a picture at the beach.  Keep in mind the super high winds when wondering why we look a little wind blown.

I am so glad that it worked out for us to spend the entire day together.  I guess it is my turn to go to Florida to visit her next!

High Winds = No School

This week we had Tuesday off because of high winds and tornado warnings.  
I didn't know if I should leave the house so we stayed home and did some playing, organizing and relaxing.


We made cookies and the girls got a hold of those decorating candies.  Ariel got the cover off of her bottle and dumped them out.  Then Annabelle "accidentally" dumped hers out.  As you can see they really enjoyed helping me clean up.  

We had lunch downstairs and then watched a movie and ate our cookies.  

Since we weren't going to be leaving the house I told the girls they could wear whatever they wanted to.  Annabelle went with a leotard and yellow jellies (2 sizes to big).  Ariel went with Annabelle's jammie shirt, Dora panties, and one shoe.

Now This Is Love

McRae Family Love

Fall Family Fun

I had the day off of work so James decided to take the day off also.
We took advantage of the beautiful weather and headed to Crane's for lunch and apple picking.

My sweetie girls

Looks like our project was a good idea to take along.

Ariel loved our grilled cheese.

Picking the apples they could reach.

Oops, Ariel, choose a different one.

That's a yummy one!

Annabelle found a baby apple.  
4 hours later she is still carrying it around.

I kind of feel like a real photographer with this picture.

All tuckered out.

p'[[-

Dress Up Paper Dolls

This project turned out so cute.   
I went found this blog (gwennypenny.com) by clicking on lots of blogs and just ending up there.
I printed the paper dolls, cut them out, and laminated them.  
I knew that I wanted the outfits to stick on somehow and I was originally going to do magnets so it could be used on the fridge.  Well, I didn't have any magnets and I wasn't exactly sure how it would work out so I used velcro.
This works perfectly.  
I wanted this to be easy to take places (restaurants, cars, etc.) so I thought that I could put the dolls on felt so they wouldn't move around too much.  
I took a piece of felt that I had and folded it in half and put a piece of velcro on the edge so it could close.
Then I made a pocket and hot glued 3 sides of it onto the outside of the folded felt.  I stuck a piece of velcro at the opening of the pocket.
I glued a bit of felt to the back of the dolls so they wouldn't slip.
I decorated the outside with fun things I had from my bow making days.
Annabelle loved it.

"Oh wow Mommy!"