21 Weeks

Yesterday was 21 weeks!  Time is flying!  At this point, I can barely think of anything other than baby names!  We have a couple of stipulations so it is narrowing down my options, but I can't find a first and middle name that I feel flow together and are within our "guidelines"!  Hopefully soon baby girl will have a name!  My other focus is baby bedding and decorating the nursery.  I know it will include pink, but other than that I don't have any specific ideas yet.

Here is my 21 week belly picture.  I'm pretty sure I look like I'm 31 weeks in this picture!  I was looking at some old pictures and can't believe what I used to look like:) HA!

I decided this week to use the pregnancy form that I've seen on some other blogs.  That way I can document more memories so I don't forget later!

How Far Along: 21 Weeks

Size of baby: 8 in, 1 lb!  The size of a spaghetti squash!

Total Weight Gain/Loss: I'm not keeping track (my dr.'s office doesn't tell me each week so I choose to ignore it.) So let's not talk about it. K?K.

Maternity Clothes: I am fully in maternity clothes.  My blousy non-maternity shirts were getting too tight and too short.  Thanks to some friends for loaning me their maternity clothes and to my mother-in-law for taking me out shopping last week!  I love maternity pants/shorts.  Still not a huge fan of the all maternity tops (even though the ones I have are adorable) because I got them big enough to last for the summer, so they are blousy and I feel like they make me look even bigger than I am! :)

Gender: GIRL!!!

Movement: A few weeks ago I thought it was muscle twitches but now I realize that those twitches are my baby girl moving around!  I can't wait until Jonathan can feel her!

Food Craving: Cucumbers:) and sweets.  Some days it changes from minute to minute!

What I miss: Running!  I finally gave it up and I miss it!  A girl was running past my house yesterday morning and I totally wanted to throw my shoes on and run with her!  I was having too many muscle aches after running that we decided it is better for me to give it up. 

Sleep: I miss sleeping the entire night without getting up for potty breaks or leg cramps or both! I lose track of how many times I'm up during the night.  And I can no longer sleep in on days I don't have to wake up early!  I used to be a good sleeper-inner, but not anymore!

Symptoms: Just some muscle aches that my Dr. said were normal.

Best Moment this week: Finding out that she is a girl and having fun looking at girl clothes.

What I am looking forward to: Finding a name for my baby!  And decorating the nursery! 

We got some fun girl stuff in the mail yesterday from Jonathan's mom.  Is this outfit not adorable?  I promise that I won't post every outfit that baby girl gets, but I just had to post this one.  It is so soft and I love the print.

And please look how small the little feet are!!  I can't believe my baby's feet will fit in there one day!

And check out baby girl's first hair bows! So sweet:)

Girly Girl

So, when I say that I want to dress my little girl up in bows and pink, I just have to say that I come by that naturally.  I was an only girl in my family and my mom always had me all dolled up with matching bows and ribbons.  This weekend, my parents spent the night at our house and brought with them all of my old hair bows that my mom had kept.  It's amazing how many memories some of these ribbons bring back.

They also brought some cutie little girl outfits!  Our baby girl's first pink outfit!  Look at this adorable cardigan with ruffles!

And growing up I had pet ducks, so I have a special place for ducks in my heart:)

Please look at the Mary Janes on this little outfit!!

I went to the mall this weekend and found some great sale deals at Gap and bought sizes that should fit next summer!  This shrug is sooo tiny I can barely stand it and it was only $5!!

And I couldn't resist this adorable sundress!

Girls are SOO fun!!!  I'm already loving it!!

Summer Bag!

Billie and I were hard at work last week making a few bags.   We took about a year sabbatical from sewing and it was nice to get back into it.  The bad part was that we had 4 bags to get done in one week so every single evening was sewing.  Talk about jumping back in!  Maybe we'll take it easy from now on:)  Anyway, here is a picture of the finished bag that I had posted the fabric swatches last week!  Is this not the cutest summer bag??  The colors are awesome in person!  Bright pink, orange, green and blue.  They are much brighter in person.  Now I want to make one of these for myself:)

Of course since it had been so long since we've made bags and taken pictures, that I totally forgot to get a picture of the inside of the bag.  It's so cute!  It's striped and has pockets all around.  I just love Amy Butler fabrics!  This season's collection has such great prints and colors!

In my dreams I would love to have organized, painted and decorated the office/sewing room in the basement before we have another sew-a-thon.  But that might not happen and I'm just going to be ok with that!

It's a.....

GIRL!!!

And we are sooo excited!  I need to start buying hair bows and accessories!  The bigger the bow, the better!!!  Good thing Jonathan likes the color pink!!  (IntelliGender was right!) Stay tuned for a name...we're still deciding:) 

(Precious Baby Feet!!)

20 Weeks - Halfway!!!

Yesterday marked my halfway point.  20 weeks!!  So crazy.  I can't believe I'm halfway there!  This week along with my "normal" belly picture I thought I'd put a picture of one of my new skirt outfits. (Do I need to apologize every week for the poor quality and dark pictures? Still don't have a functioning camera unless you use it outside.)  Let's just say that I am now a fan of skirts.  I put jeans on this morning to go to work and I had to go back up to my room and change into a skirt.  Skirts just keep me so much cooler than jeans!

Tomorrow is our big day!!!  We have our 20 week ultrasound to see our baby and find out if it's a boy or a girl!  I cannot wait!  I'm interested to see how the baby has grown since the last ultrasound!  What I can wait for is getting on that scale at the Dr's office!  I feel like I'm just expanding so fast!  But oh well.  That's just a part of it and if it means that my baby is healthy, then I'm ok with it.  Unfortunately I won't be announcing the sex of the baby on here or on twitter until Sunday, so you all will have to wait!  Sorry!  We have to tell our parents before we announce it to the internet! :) 

According to What to Expect, the baby is the size of a banana (7in, 11oz).  I guess we'll see if that is actually correct when they measure the baby tomorrow!  The baby is starting to swallow the amniotic fluid, so he or she can taste what I eat now! Crazy how fast they develop!

Change of Address

Unless you haven't read my blog before, you know that we recently moved from our starter home to a wonderful new house in a neighborhood we adore on a side of town that we love.  With moving comes lots of decorating (see past 647 posts about what color to paint my walls, and where to put wall hangings), arranging, and notifying places of your new address. 

Seriously, isn't the most annoying part of moving having to change your address with everyone??  The general doctor, ob, dentist, vet, eye doctor, and a bazillion other places.  I still haven't changed my address at Two Chicks for their mailing list so how will I know when their Annual Barn Yard Sale is?? *Reminder: I need to do that asap!*  Anyway, two things that I needed to get regarding our address were new return address labels and change of address cards.  I was spoiled by winning return address labels on Chelsea's blog a while back and they were soo cute but now they are wasted with my old address:( BOO!  Now that I've had cute labels, I can't go back to computer print outs {unless it's for a mass mailing (which may or may not include mailing change of address cards)}.  I found these really cute labels at erincondren.com.  I love the stuff on their site and have been really pleased with the customer service and quality! I didn't want to take a picture of our actual labels because I figured it's probably not a great idea to advertise our address on here, so imagine this says "the burns family".  Aren't these adorable??

I thought long and hard about ordering my change of address cards from Erin Condren also, but then it hit me!  One of my girlfriends makes cards!  I need to order them from her!  If you were reading my blog last year at this time, you might remember about 2 weeks worth of posts about my old college apartment-mate's wedding in Orlando that was to-die-for.  I don't know what Angela's official title is, but she is a wedding planner for the Hyatt Grand Cypress in Orlando and is a total perfectionist.  She is in a profession that is perfectly "her".  She also makes announcements and invitations on the side for her business, Paper Charm Custom Designs.  Check out her blog to see some of the beautiful designs she has made (and also the beautiful table settings that she creates for these weddings!)  Anyway, I gave her a couple of ideas of things that I thought would be cute and this is what she created!

Are these not the cutest?  The green is actually a separate piece of cardstock that she mounted the white onto.  I just love how they turned out.  They are so fun!  Pretend I'm not covering half of the card up.  Didn't really think you needed all of our personal info!

We needed to send these out because we send a ton of Christmas cards and I love getting Christmas cards in the mail from people and I would hate for those cards to be mailed to the new owners of our old house!  And for that matter, any other fun cards people want to send me:)

Angela reminded me that we will soon be designing baby announcements (for both of us actually!! Congrats Ang!!)  AAHH!  Crazy! I can't wait to see what she designs for that!  If any of you are looking for any sort of announcement or invitation check out Angela's blog.  She can do amazing things!  (And it even comes in cute packaging!!)

Fabric Sneak Peek

It has been a long time, years even (ok maybe not that long) since I have posted about a new Abby and Billie Design project.  We've been busy being pregnant, having and raising a baby, caring for an injured husband (Billie), moving, decorating and being pregnant (me) so we let our side business get pushed to the back of our priority list.  Billie had been asked to make 2 diaper bags and we had been asked to make two purses, so needless to say we have been busy!  But it's a fun busy!  I forgot how much I missed getting together to sew! 

I don't have any finished product pictures yet, but I do have a little sneak peek of a fun new fabric collection that we used for at least one of the 4 bags.  You really can't go wrong with any Amy Butler fabrics and these do not disappoint!

How fun and bright and summery is that??  Maybe I'll post a picture of the cute "after" shots, but I'm not sure when that will be, what with all of the baby growing and baby watching:)  I do know it will be sometime this week because we have a deadline - we're professional like that!

I take it back...

OK, I take it back.  I will admit when I am wrong and I obviously was too hasty in my judgments against Motherhood Maternity.  I was frustrated when I wrote my post the other day because I couldn't find clothes to fit, but that my friends has changed!  My mother-in-law wanted to take me maternity shopping so I went into Louisville yesterday to shop with her.  Did you know that there is not a Gap Maternity, Old Navy Maternity, or Pea in the Pod anywhere in Louisville??  I was soo surprised that a city that large didn't have half of the stores that we have in Lex.  So we were left with Motherhood and I was a bit bummed that we didn't have much of a selection of stores to go to.

Well, we walked into Motherhood and the one in the Louisville mall was at least double the size of the store in Lexington.  I started grabbing anything and everything I could find that looked cute.  I didn't have high expectations.  Never before had I tried maternity stuff on and liked it.  But the workers at this store were great and grabbed me shirts to match things and different sizes and were highly attentive.  And I LOVED a ton of stuff!  It really does make a difference when you feel good about the way you look!

So the moral of the story is that not all of the clothes at Motherhood are cheaply made and expensive.  I can admit when I'm wrong!  The clothes I got weren't cheap fabric and I was thrilled to find some nicely made shirts!  The knit t-shirts and tank tops were all buy one get one 50% off.  And there were tons of sale racks!  So, I was pleasantly surprised!  (I always love me a sale!)

I never wear skirts (I think it has to do with wearing one every.single.day in private school from Kindergarden through 12th grade) so I wear jeans every day to work. But with the heat and humidity this summer, jeans are just too hot so I'm going to give skirts a try!  Yay for cute skirts on sale!


Now, if only the Motherhood store in our mall here wasn't quite so cluttered and disorganized.  I get stressed in cramped cluttered stores and end up leaving without searching the racks.  Maybe I should work on that and give the Lexington Motherhood a second chance...

Whats for dinner...Chicken Noodle Casserole

I think my new kitchen has re-energized me into cooking and baking lately (or is that the hormones and nesting feelings).  I feel like Suzy homemaker... well some nights I do and some nights I just want to order out.  I read about a yummy Chicken Noodle Casserole recipe a few weeks ago at "The Kubeczka Family" that she had found at Sister Stuff (this link is the actual recipe).  It looked easy and my very picky husband thought it looked good.  Win/Win!  I have now made it twice and it's going to be in our normal rotation!  I would call it a comfort meal.  It's not frilly or anything out of the ordinary, but it's an easy, plain good meal!  Try it for yourself!

Here is what you will need: (plus some chicken)

All of the ingredients mixed up while the noodles and chicken were boiling.

All mixed up and ready to go in the oven!

YUM!  I didn't get a picture of it dished up because once it was on our plates it was being devoured!

I would recommend that if you have a larger family or more mouths to feed that you double the recipe.  I made it in a 9x13 the first time and thought it was a full casserole size of food, and had friends over for dinner.  Let's just say that the 4 of us polished off the entire 9x13!  (And I'm not going to admit that I was still hungry afterwards... such is life with a growing belly!)  It's a great size dish for Jonathan and me so we don't have leftovers from a giant casserole for an entire week, but would be way easy to double for a larger crowd!  Try it!

19 Weeks!

Yesterday was 19 weeks!  I can't believe how fast this pregnancy is going!  On the other hand, November seems like forever away!  I think I can finally feel the baby moving.  Everyone said it would feel like little butterflies, but I've only felt things that feel like muscle twitches.  But those "twitches" are becoming more frequent so I guess it must be the baby!

I feel like I'm growing quite fast, although since I didn't take a picture at 18 weeks, I was comparing my picture to the one at 17 weeks and it really doesn't look much different.  I'm completely in maternity jeans/shorts and my non-maternity tops that I was wearing that are blousy are starting to not be blousy anymore if you know what I mean.  :)  I thought I would love maternity clothes...Hey, I get to wear comfy clothes and be fat and it's ok!... But I was wrong.  The maternity sections in stores are ridiculously small and don't have much of a selection (*cough cough... Target, Old Navy, Gap... cough cough*) and don't get me started on the cheap fabrics and insanely high prices at Motherhood! Let's just say that I don't feel like myself most of the time when I try to wear the maternity stuff.  I know that becoming a mommy means that you don't get to be number 1 anymore and that you have to give up a bit of style, but seriously?  So many maternity clothes are just awful.  And where are the fun cute plaid shorts? Oh.  I only get to choose from khaki or denim? Lovely.  I just want to wear what I would normally wear but just with a little extra fabric, you know?  Feeling good about the way  you look when you're the size of a baby whale is a big deal!  I don't need all of this cutesy stuff!  I can't do any empire waist shirts (for obvious reasons) so the only thing left is tent-like shirts or tight shirts (both of which I am not a fan).  oh well.  I can suck it up for this baby!  It is all worth giving up my personal style.  Getting off of my maternity clothing pedestal now.

According to What to Expect, the baby is about the size of a mango and is half a pound and 6 inches long!!

IntelliGender

(I got my camera back safe and sound!!)

I entered a giveaway at Jenna's Journey for an IntelliGender gift box a couple weeks ago and guess what!  I won!!  Do you know what IntelliGender is?  It's an at home gender predictor test.  Jonathan had done some research on IntelliGender because he had thought about buying one at the store.  He found a lot of mixed reviews online about whether it works or not.  Many online sources say that you cannot tell the sex of a baby from urine so we decided not to spend our money on a test and that we'd wait until the ultrasound (only a week and a half away now!) to find out the sex.  That was until I won an IntelliGender test from Jenna!  Thanks Jenna!!!  The test came in this cute box with an adorably small onesie and hat, and a couple other goodies.  So much fun to open!

So, last week I took the test and guess what it said?

It said that it's a girl!  I'm extremely interested to see if it was correct. (The test itself tells you to not paint the nursery until finding out from a Doctor. LOL)  I thought it was fun to do though.  And I do have some friends on facebook that say that IntelliGender has always been correct for them!  I think I'll wait to start buying hair bows though!

Dakota So Sad

Dakota went to the vet on Saturday for his routine check-up and shots.  (Poor Lindsy works at the vet's office and had to hold the squealing dog during his shots!)  He only gets shots every 3 years thankfully (he's a bit of a wimp and cries like a baby!)  During the check-up the vet noticed that the poor thing has a bacterial and yeast infection around his mouth.  We're not sure what caused it but he's now on 2 prescriptions for it.  Jonathan asked if we should wash all of his toys and the vet agreed that was a good idea.  This video is from yesterday after Jonathan put all of his stuffed animals, rope bones and blankets in the washer.  I was gone but Jonathan said he stood there the entire time and even started this pathetic howling thing.  Can you tell he was traumatized?


We also talked to the vet about his behavior issues. (He will snarl and bite if he doesn't want to do something.)  So, we are trying a medication for that also.  We need to get that under control before the baby gets here!  The vet also suggested that we don't allow him to sleep in our bed.  When he was a puppy we crated him at night, but that was years ago and he's quite spoiled now so I didn't know how it would go but guess what?  We brought his bed up to our bedroom and last night he slept in it the entire night without us even prodding him to sleep in it!  It's like he just wanted his own area! 

So, that is the life of Dakota.  Hopefully I'll get my camera this week and can post pictures of my new beautiful bedroom:)

So Lost Without You...

I have some sad news.  So those posts I was going to write last night?  and my camera I couldn't find?  Well, somehow my camera made its way into my parent's luggage and is now living in Ohio and we don't have another camera.  So the pictures I took for a post and the belly picture we were going to take last night and the after picture of our bedroom are not going to happen...at least not in the next day or so.  My mom has assured me that she will be mailing it (insured of course) back to me today.  I'm hyperventilating a bit because lately I've been too lazy to walk to the basement to download my pictures onto our main computer so all of my belly pictures (and about 1000 other pictures - literally) are only on my camera.  Let's just hope that it doesn't get lost in the mail. K?K.

Maybe this will give me the time to get one last thing done in my bedroom before we take "after" shots!

In the meantime, I thought I'd link up a new blog for you all to read.  I went to school with Matt (he was a year ahead of me but our school was so small that everyone knew eachother) who is the lead singer for Sanctus Real.  He and his wife are wonderful people and recently found out that their third baby will have a heart defect when he is born.  They have started a blog and his wife just posted her first post about her feelings and thoughts and I thought it it was touching.  Head on over to Bowen's Heart and give them some support.

I'm still here...

I realize it has been forever since i have posted last and unfortunately I don't have a post today either.  I actually have a couple of different things that I want to post, but this week has been soooo crazy! 

My parents came in town to visit us/work :).  You gotta love your parents when they say that they enjoy coming to work! :)  Anyway, we were busy every night this week and I took the day off yesterday so we were going all day yesterday too.  I cannot wait to find my camera take pictures of our new master suite to show you all!  I absolutely LOVE it!  It's light and warm and calming. 

And I also have a fun giveaway that I won at Jenna's Journey that I want to talk about! And yes, we are 2 days late taking my 18 week belly pictures! OH my. So much to do tonight!

Anyway, all that to say that I've been thinking about posting, wanting to post, dreaming about posting (ok maybe not dreaming about it) but I really do have stuff to say!!  Maybe I'll take some time tonight... Hopefully I can find my camera.  Posts with pictures are always more fun!

Random Running Thoughts

I went running Saturday morning!  Whoohoo for 2 miles!  It was hot and humid but I was careful, ran slowly and drank lots of water.  I just love getting back out there!  I went running by myself and when you are running by  yourself and your ipod runs out of batteries only 1 mile into your run, you have lots of time to think.  So this is a random thought that I had while I was running...

About every other house had people out and about and mowing their grass and working in their yard.  Probably trying to get yard work out of the way before the humidity was too much to breathe in.  (I love how friendly our neighborhood is.  It's such a breath of fresh air after our old neighborhood!)  As I ran past houses, many many garages were open.  And do you know how many of those garages were nicely organized?  yeahhh.  Not many.  Most of the houses had so much junk that it was stacked to the ceiling and then out to the door of the garage.  It started making me about sick.  I wanted to say some smart remark to them about whether they use all that crap and if they even know what is all in there.  What do people do with all that junk?  Do they think they really need to accumulate all that stuff for a reason?  Will they ever use it?  Why don't they donate it so that it can be helping someone that can use it instead of living in a nasty garage?  Bonus!  If you donate it, guess what?  Your car now has a home!!

Maybe some of my dear bloggy friends have this issue...  I noticed it a lot in my old neighborhood and one house even had an entire room - with walls - built in the garage. (I'm sure that was up to code..ahem.)  Anyway, why do we all keep junk?  Now we don't keep a garage full of junk, and we sure did get rid of a lot when we moved, but there are still things that we have in our attic or basement that we could get rid of.  Why do we feel the need to keep it?  What is in our human nature that makes us hoard crap?  I just don't understand the mindset that you'd rather keep your junk in your garage than your car safe and sound (especially in the winter when you have to scrape their windows...). 

Maybe I don't understand this garage-full-of-crap thing because growing up my dad always made sure our garage was organized to the point of being able to fit both cars. And if you remember my pictures from our FIRST day in this house, the first thing that Jonathan organized was our garage to get both cars in there.  (It does make for a nicer looking house when there aren't cars parked in the driveway.)

Just a random thought... my next run I'll make sure my ipod is charged (that's how I keep track of my mileage) but if it's not, I might have another random thought for ya! :)

Dr. Appointment

Yesterday was my regular doctor's appointment.  It was quite routine and we got to hear our sweet baby's heartbeat again!  What a wonderful sound that is!!  My doctor said that the heartbeat sounded perfect and everything was just what she liked to see!  So that is great!  And then...she scheduled our ultrasound for 3 weeks from yesterday!!!  I'll be 20 weeks at that point and normally appointments are every 4 weeks but she happened to be out of town on that 4th week so it worked perfectly for me!!!  Yay!  Only 3 weeks until we can SEE our little baby again!!  And then the excitement of whether it's a boy or a girl!!  I can barely wait!

All in all it was a great appointment!  (We won't talk about my weight gain since my last appointment...we're not thinking about it either! Um, if you saw the picture in the last post, then you can probably guess!  The whole getting-on-a-running-schedule thing didn't work this week because I was just too busy and it was just too humid to breathe.  Maybe next week.)  Jonathan and I did celebrate a wonderful appointment with some yummy Chick-fil-a!  (Not sure that's good for that whole weight gain thing...) We had signed up for free spicy chicken sandwiches not realizing until we got there that we had special seating, sit down service and got a full meal FREE.  Not just the sandwich!  I was a bit worried that baby wouldn't like the spicy chicken sandwich, but we all liked it!  YUM!  And they gave us goodie bags with a little cow, candy and 5 FREE sandwich coupons!  WHOOHOO!  Could yesterday get any better? :)

17 Weeks

Yesterday was 17 weeks!  I can't believe I'm only 3 weeks away from the halfway mark!  If you remember last week I talked about our dumb camera and yes, we had just as many problems last night!  We tried changing settings and changing it back to the default manufacturer's settings.  Still issues.  So we went around our house to find another spot that we could get a "yellow hand" instead of a "red hand" (neither are as clear as a "green hand") but yellow had to do.  I kept thinking the problem was standing in front of a shiny white door, but we got a "red hand" in front of any wall in my house!  Pretty sure I will never buy a Kodak camera again!  Canon Rebel here I come! *hint hint* hehe:)

I have an appointment tomorrow to hear the heartbeat and I can't wait!  It's such an amazing sound!  I would love if my doctor surprised me and let me get an ultrasound, but I don't think that's going to happen.  But I will at least get to schedule the big ultrasound tomorrow!

Baby is the size of a sweet potato (5.5 inches) this week.  Baby's nervous system is developing even more this week and its skeleton is forming from cartilage into bones.  And according to What To Expect, my uterus is about the size of a cantaloupe.  Yep, that looks about like what is under my shirt in that picture! :)

Memorial Day Weekend

This past weekend was blazing hot, so thankfully we didn't have any huge house projects to tackle.  We did hang a couple of items in the living room... it's a slow going process!  We stopped at Lowes to get a few items and found ourselves a new flag!  The previous owners left us lovely holes in the front where they had had a flag holder. (I'm so OCD that that kind of stuff drives me crazy!) So, Jonathan was so excited to hang the new flag and show our patriotism! (Did you know that you are supposed to put your flag at half mast until noon on Memorial Day?  The things you learn...)  And I picked up some hanging baskets for our front porch since we aren't planting anything in the front until next year since we need replant a bunch of stuff in the fall!  If you're in Lexington, I highly recommend Kings Garden!  They were awesome and even carried the baskets to my car and told me exactly how to care for them!

Anyway, I just had to share this picture because it just says "Memorial Day" to me! (Dakota is even welcoming you at the front door!)

Growing up (and even before my time) my entire extended family would always go to a local park and have a huge breakfast on Memorial Day morning.  The guys would always grill the breakfast while the women would decorate their picnic tables for the different individual families.  Anyway, it's been a few years since I've been to the actual picnic breakfast, but it's still tradition to make a big breakfast!  So we did!  I made eggs, bacon, sausage and wait for it.... I made The Pioneer Woman's pancakes from her cookbook (called Edna Mae's Sour Cream Pancakes)!  After I made the batter, Jonathan cooked the pancakes and let me just say that they were soo easy and so very delicious that I will never make bisquick pancakes again!  Here's a picture of our breakfast table!

We had Tim, Lindsy and Kennedy and Derek, Billie and Eli over for a late lunch/cookout and we had such a good time!  The humidity was a bit better so it was quite plesant eating outside on the deck!  We had some delicious food too!  Lindsy made The Pioneer Woman's salsa and it was A-mazing!  I think I could have eaten it with a spoon in order to shovel it in faster!  I also found a couple recipes on Tasty Kitchen that were pretty yummy!  I made "Bacon Wrapped Pineapple Bites" and they were delish and SOO easy to make!  I thought I was making way too many but I had the ingredants so I kept making them and after the 6 of us had at them, there were 2 pieces left!  We also had yummy shish kabobs, corn on the cob, pasta salad, fresh fruit and then for dessert... I made "My Granny's Chocolate Cobbler" from Tasty Kitchen.  Again, the cobbler was from scratch and was soo easy and made me want to lick my plate clean! Although I didn't think to get ice cream to go with it and I would highly recommend vanilla ice cream! (I can't believe I didn't think to get a picture of the yummy food!)

The previous owners left a kiddie pool under the deck so we got it out and the kids played in it and we just enjoyed relaxing and watching them!  Our yard is on a bit of a hill so it was a bit amusing to watch them play in a sloped pool! 

Sometimes you just need a laid back day with your friends.  We were having so much fun that I didn't get any pictures!  Oops!  But I did take a couple of red, white, and blue pictures.  I found some fun mini flags, and window clings in the dollar section at Target and couldn't resist being patriotic!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend!!