road trip.

2 days. 

836 miles.

3 states.  

18 dead armadillos. 

47 Icy Bridge signs. 

600 road construction signs. 

12 actual construction workers or signs of road construction. 

13 hours of driving.

3 cds. (We mainly just talked.)

Hours and hours and hours of one-on-one time with my mom. 

Totally worth it. 

The Garmin is our friend... kind of. =)

It's like a little car... without doors. 

I missed the Oklahoma sign. Twice.

The real reason we were there. Delivering a 1/2 side of beef to my sister's family. Dallas was pretty close to halfway, and my aunt's house was a perfect meeting spot. (Bummed my sister couldn't make it though. Boo for sick kids.)

This girl was happy. All 3 of her aunts and 3 different dogs in 1 weekend. She's a dog lovin' little thing. =) 

So fun to see my niece and nephew, even just for awhile. Anxious to see the other 4 in a month! 

Toby. 

Southfork Ranch. I never got to watch the TV show "Dallas," but my sister and I loved the theme song! 

The Wylie Opry. I loved this!! 

All different singers. All different ages. All different country songs. 

"Rhinestone Cowboy..." Johnny Cash... "All My Exes Live in Texas..." "Bobby McGee..." Loretta Lynn... "Baby Blue"... 

Thank you for everything, Aunt Carol! 

These signs made me laugh. We saw so many of them! It was 80*... I think we're good. 

Lots of driving.
Lots of caffeine.
Lots and lots of good conversation with my mom.
Already looking forward to next year. =)

productive.

I was really productive last weekend. Crazy productive.
Like 9 loads of laundry... washed, dried, folded and put away. All in one day.
That put away part... that's a big deal. I'm really good at leaving laundry baskets full of folded clothes sitting around.
All kinds of things crossed off my To-Do-List last weekend.
Which was good.
Because I spent most of my evenings this week like this... 

(Sorry for the lousy picture. My phone was close, my camera was not.)

Poor little Gretchie started running a fever Wednesday morning. 103* most of the time. 

She wouldn't eat or drink or do much of anything. She just wanted held. And it was like holding a little space heater. Poor, sad baby. 

Corey stayed home with her the last two days. I was worried she was close to getting dehydrated, so I got a last minute sub today and went with Corey to take her to the doctor. Strep test was negative... just a virus. We spent several hours just like this today and luckily her fever finally broke. 

By evening, she was back to her happy, spunky little self. She ate more for supper tonight than she has in the past 3 days. (And kept it all down, too. Yay!) We were so happy to see that sparkle back in her eyes. 

I guess she just needed a day with her momma. =)

pasta table.

Last year, we did beans. (Gretchen looks so little! And she wore those same pants today...) 

This year, I decided to try pasta. (and a couple bags of beans) Totally worth the $7. 

She loves her new pink shoes...

pinterest party.

Such a good time. So much craftiness for one church basement. Such fun and wonderful women. So much yummy food. So many good conversations. Some really good laughs. It was a perfect little crafty retreat. And totally free. Can't beat that! 

This perfect crate full of craftiness... from the girl who claims to not be crafty. You're not fooling anyone, Gina. 

Mary claims she can't craft, but holy cow... she can cook.

We may have all just pulled chairs up directly to the food table for awhile. Just maybe.

We presented a fun little gift to one of our favorite internet sensations. =) Seriously... she had gone out for dinner with Pioneer Woman the night before.

Everyone brought their own projects to work on. We had such a variety...

I would suggest always inviting a non-crafty cooking person to any craft weekends you might host. Mary's cinnamon rolls are amazing...

We will be doing this again... and you can see we have room for more! Anyone is welcome to join us!

I was lame and didn't have any fabulous Pinterest projects. Boo. But I updated my little Halloween scrapbook and got all our Christmas cards from 2010 put into our Christmas Family and Friends album.

I spent the rest of the time working on my blog book. Lame. (But the food and socializing were totally worth it!)

I might have wanted to steal this quilt...

Friday was a late, late night. 5 of us left the church at 2:15 am.
I crawled in bed at 2:45 am.
My alarm went off at 7:00 and I managed to get all 3 kids to Lawson's 8:30 soccer game. On time, even! (Somehow I managed to help plan this little party on a weekend that Corey had to work.)
Corey was home by 9:00 and I was back at the church at 10. We had a smaller crowd on Saturday, but still so much fun.

You can read Beki's post about it here... Jody's post here...

Can't wait to do it again, ladies!!

easter eggs.

{Doing a little bit of blogging catch-up here...}

Sophie spent much of Easter day right here... (which I loved)