Halloween weekend in pictures!

Saturday afternoon I met my blog friend, now real life friend, Lianna at Chili's for lunch.



It was a wonderful time but just not long enough. We had actually seen each other before and met briefly at a blogger meet-up at Beth Moore conference in Atlanta back in April but didn't really get to spend any time together. Turns out we both live in Florida and we decided to meet up. It was great to spend time with her and she is just the sweetest thing. Can't wait to do it again real SOON, Lianna!

Saturday night I went to a Halloween party! My BFF Melissa and her hubby Ben invited me. I've been kind of adopted into Ben's family. When Melissa and him got married it was kind of a package deal, ha! You get her, You get me, LOL! Ben's Mom went all out with the decorations and food and there was so much for the kids to do. It was a fun time.

And before you look at pics, yes... I wore the same outfit all day, haha!!

We took a hayride around the neighborhood at night with everyone and the kids.


They set up a haunted room in the house for the kids and Melissa, Ben, and I played the scary people with the masks. We scared the kids so bad, haha!!!

Melissa and I modeling our masks!!


Oh, did you want a closer look??


We clean up well!


I got my hair did. I was going for the Lady Gaga look, haha!!


It was a fun night!!!


Tonight I met up with my brother and SIL to go with them and trick-or-treat with my nieces.

Could you just not die at this cuteness??


And can't forget about my precious niece, Cinderella!!


They live out in the boonies so we went to a neighborhood one exit up from where they live. It was such a neat neighborhood and they all really get into Halloween. There were so many people out!

All the kiddos before we left!


Me and the cutie. And don't mind how awful I look!


SIL and her girls!


One might call this a lazy way to trick-or-treat but we call it brilliant!


Trick-or-Treat!




This house doesn't joke with Halloween!




And just because this cuteness needs a close-up!


Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!!!

Night of laughter!

I am constantly reminded of the wonderful people that God has put into my life to “do life with” and walk with me through certain seasons.

It has been even more evident to me as I’ve been in court reporting school.

It’s like our own little family. Because honestly, no one will begin to know the stress and the highs and lows of court reporting school more than the people going through it with you.

Yesterday was a costume contest at school for Halloween. It was a fun night. I haven’t laughed so much in a long time.

Laughter really is good for the soul!

Two of my good friend’s Trish and Danielle dressed up. Trish was Snooki from Jersey Shore and Danielle dressed up as her friend Angela from the show. They made these fabulous glasses (and they had the spray tan and all) and of course I had to get a picture with them and me modeling the glasses, ha!

Danielle on the left and Trish on the right!


Future Court Reporters of America! Ha!


We were just being goofy during one of our breaks and taking a ridiculous amount of pictures, ha!

Peace out!!!


And no, you could not see a thing through those glasses, ha!

And yes, I was a party pooper and didn't dress up, ha!

“The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.”

"Park my butt on the couch night."

I work full time and go to school three nights a week.

Wednesday nights are my ONLY free night out of the week. I have come to LOVE my Wednesday nights!

I will never take Wednesday for granted ever again!

Wednesday keeps me sane.

You are the bomb, Wednesday!

Typically one might think that I’d take Wednesday night to get caught up. Do some house cleaning, or maybe laundry perhaps?

Oh, but not I.

I have officially deemed Wednesday night “Park my butt on the couch night.” In fact, you could probably find my cheeks implanted into the couch cushion as I finally decided to make my way into the bed.

But really, I blame this whole Wednesday night tradition on the good TV line-up that’s going on, on Wednesday nights.

My motto is always better to blame someone or something else.

For the better part of the night I finished up watching my last DVD from Netflix to catch up on the first season of the show Parenthood.

And then by that time it was time for my Wednesday night TV:

Better With You
Modern Family (Hilarious Halloween episode last night)
Law & Order: SVU (Repeat last night. BOO)

Oh, but it doesn’t stop there. Then I made my way to the bed but only to catch up on Glee and watched it from my computer. Apparently my TV craving was not satisfied for the evening. I wasn’t all that thrilled with the Rocky Horror episode. I loved the costumes but the music I wasn’t all that impressed by.

After that I really thought I should catch up with Dancing with the Stars, but I had to draw the line somewhere, or else today I would find myself a TV zombie. And I’m sure the dear Lord created nights so we can actually sleep, don’t you think?

So the moral of the story….

A. It’s sad how much TV makes me happy.

B. As a whole, the productivity level for the evening was a big fat ZERO!!!

Oh, and I vaguely remember eating dinner somewhere in there! And of course, may or may not have been watching TV while partaking!

So when is your “Park your butt on the couch” night? And don’t be afraid to say it’s every night, ha! We are a non-judgmental group here!

Memories!

The beginning of October is the start of many sweet memories for a lot of families each year. You have Halloween, Thanksgiving, and then comes Christmas.

I have a lot of wonderful memories as a kid of holiday traditions that every year I would come to look forward to. And as you get older, things change. You become adults and start having families of your own and then you start seeing these times through the eyes of your children and they bring on a whole new meaning.

Obviously, I’m not married and don’t have children, so it’s different for me. But I see my brother who now has two girls of his own and I see how he and his wife try to make traditions of their own with the girls and make it special for them.

I see my niece who is now 5 years old and she always makes me look back and think about my 5 year old self and remember what it was like for me and throughout my childhood. My Mom spent a majority of her time being a single Mom but she ALWAYS made sure that the holidays were a great time for us.

I remember loving the carving of the pumpkins and picking out that perfect one. Sadly, I can’t tell you the last time I carved a pumpkin.

I remember the MANY Halloween costumes that my Mom spent time perfecting. Oh, yes, there was the year of the Queen of Hearts, the gypsy, a bride, pirate, and many more. The fun part was coming back home and picking through our candy and seeing what all we got.

I think I’ve always loved the Thanksgiving holiday the most. The simplicity of it I’ve really come to love and appreciate as an adult. My Mom has always been a wonderful cook and Thanksgiving never disappointed. Looking back I can see how God blessed our family year after year and there truly was so much to be thankful for. It’s all about being with the one’s you love, giving thanks, good food, and of course the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade playing in the background and wanting to start the Christmas music at midnight on Thanksgiving Day, ha!

I’ll remember Christmas and walking down the stairs in awe because Santa had pulled through and given me exactly what I wanted. I’ll remember the Christmas music that played throughout the house during the holiday season. We always had the most amazing Christmas trees. We had white lights and to me, there is nothing more beautiful then walking into a living room with the lights off and the lights of the Christmas tree filling the room. White lights have always been my favorite. We had artificial trees for the longest time with the lights already on it. And it seemed each year there would be a part of the lights that would not work, ha! Each year we would make a trip down Christmas Tree Lane. It's a local street here in our area where all the houses would decorate (and still do). And you just drive down it. And the funny thing is, it's a mobile home park and this was the highlight of their year, ha! I can’t remember the exact time I stopped believing in Santa (you would have thought I’d put two and two together when Santa’s handwriting looked a lot like my Mom’s, ha). But Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas if you could not have that childlike faith that there was truly a guy in a red suit with a beard who came down from the North pole to grant kids around the world their Christmas wishes.

So many sweet holiday memories. Gets me nostalgic every time!

Until I have a family of my own, I want to continue enjoying these times as I did then and I’ll remember this little girl:



And the sweet holiday memories of the past, and the sweet memories to come!

"A Perfect Pair"

My best friend Melissa’s 1st year wedding anniversary is coming up. So hard to believe. It was such a special time for her and I was so excited to be a part of her big day.

Not only that, but she got married in Vegas. What a fun time we had. You can read about it here.

I know it’s not customary but I wanted to get a little something for the couple, but I had no idea what would be appropriate and just in general didn’t know what to do for them.

You can ALWAYS count on the Twitter world. I threw a tweet out there to get some ideas and my friend Jessica delivered. She said the typical first year anniversary gift was paper, and so why not do some customized stationery.

Never thought of that but thought it was a great idea and even better, she makes customized stationery. She gets some business and my anniversary gift is knocked out.

This is what she came up with for the customized stationery.



I was SO very pleased with it. I wanted to do something to commemorate their Vegas wedding, and this is just a little something to thank them for allowing me to be a part of that day a year ago.

I talked about it with Jessica yesterday and she had something to me by last night. She is so sweet and obviously fast and it will get here just in time for their anniversary!

So for all your stationery needs!! I highly recommend, Jessica!!

Melissa doesn’t really keep up with my blog (I’ll try not to take offense to that, ha, JK), so don’t have to worry about her seeing this!!

Jessica didn’t ask me to do this, but this was too cute not to share with y’all!!

GPS: Good Pressure Scare!

My stepsister and I went out for some Starbucks after church yesterday morning! We hung out there for awhile and then I was to go meet my Mom and her hubby for lunch.

Simple right?

The getting there, not so much!

I knew where we were eating and the location because I had been there before. But wasn’t exactly sure how to get there from where I was coming from.

So I plugged it into my GPS and then I would be good to go. Or so I thought.

The GPS lady was going to be the death of me yesterday! How can a voice of a lady who doesn’t even really exist cause your blood pressure to rise? It’s a gift she has I tell you.

So I’m on my way to my destination according to the good ole’ trusted GPS lady (and she needs a name, don’t you think?)

And come to find out she does not know the difference between northbound and southbound. Ugh! Clearly, not as trusted as she wants you to believe.

The whole time she is telling me to get off at these exits that I know I’m not supposed to be getting off at, and then come to find out she has me going in the complete opposite direction.

As well, her voice is so completely annoying. I compare it to nails on a chalkboard.

I was seconds away from foregoing the whole lunch all together. But doggone I was hungry and persevered. We were going to a cute little café with some yummy Chicken Salad Croissants and I wasn’t about to give that up.

So after much frustration, many phone calls, and wanting to strangle the invisible neck of a lady who I’m almost certain is laughing in her little GPS home, I made it.

And when I got back in my car after lunch I had forgotten that I hadn’t turned her off and she clearly doesn’t know when to shut up and she was telling me “Go right in 2.5 miles and then turn left” or something like that...

I may or may not have told her to shut the HE..LL(double hockey sticks) up. Just keeping it real. And then shut her trap with the good ole’ off button!! If I didn’t know how to make it home, I would stop at a gas station.

That my friends was my blood pressure high for the weekend!!!

A dream is a wish your heart makes...

When you're fast asleep......

Sounds nice and fluffy, right???

There are dreams which are hopes, ambitions, desires that have been placed in our hearts.

Then there are dreams that occur approximately between the hours of say 11ish-6am. (At least for me)

I usually tend to go to bed between 11-12am. I didn’t get to bed until around 11:30pm last night. When I finally went to bed it didn’t take me very long AT ALL to be knocked out cold. I’m talking deep sleep people.

REM I believe they call it.

Within the first hour or hour and a half of being asleep, I had the craziest dream EVER. So much so that I felt the need to tell the Twitter world about it at almost 1am. Surely someone is bound to be awake out there, right?

I’m telling you, it felt so real and I felt like I had been asleep forever and seriously thought it was time to wake up when I woke up from it. But indeed, had only been a sleep not even two hours.

Every time I have a weird or crazy dream I always wish the next morning I had written it down because I forget what it was about but just remember I had some off-the-wall dream.

But oh no, not last night. I physically dragged myself out of bed when I woke up from that dream, got a pen and paper and wrote my notes down on the dream, because I was not going to forget this so I could tell my Mom about it in the morning (because she was one of the people in it).

And now you’re probably wanting to know what the dream was about, huh? Ha!

Dreams are such a funny thing!

Do you ever have those reoccurring dreams?

Ever have those dreams where you try to move and speak but your body can’t move and nothing comes out of your mouth? Those are the FREAKIEST ones!

I always wonder what dreams truly mean!

Do foods you eat before going to sleep really affect the dreams you have?

I have no clue.

Or maybe I should just stop watching Law & Order: SVU before going to sleep! Ha!

But my advice to you, keep a pad and pen next to you and you’ll be amazed at what’s going on in that head of yours!

Happy dreaming!

:)

Out of the kindness of my heart......

.....I've got to write y'all.

I'm having writer's block today. Don't you hate it when that happens? The juices just aren't flowing.

I've got to write something though.

It might not be much of anything.

But it's simply because I don't have the heart to leave you with the freakish clown picture from yesterday's post. Because frankly, the picture even scares me! HA!

You're welcome!!!

Lets think happy thoughts people!!!!

Happy Hump Day!

I'll be back tomorrow when hopefully I'll have something more to say!!!

:)

Not a fan of clowns!

One great thing about living near the Orlando area is of course the attractions.

Well, every year Universal Studios has what they call Halloween Horror Nights.

A few years ago I went. It was the year of the clowns. Clowns would be chasing you and scaring you and they would not leave me the heck alone!

It left me traumatized.

Ummmm, anyone remember the movie "IT" with the clown?



Enough said!

So in the spirit of Halloween coming up, it got me to asking on Twitter last night what horror movies freaked people out the most. I got some great feedback.

We can’t forget:

Nightmare on Elm Street
The Halloween movies
Chucky
Arachnophobia
Scream
Amityville Horror
Saw
The Exorcist
Silence of the Lambs
Texas Chain Saw Massacre

It's kind of fun because around Halloweeen a bunch of these movies are playing on TV. Why is it in our nature to want to scare ourselves?? HAHA!!!

These are just a few, and I know I'm probably leaving some movies out. What would you add to the list?

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

I invite you to a Royal Princess Birthday Party...

Who: My Niece Lexi (Princess Cinderella)

Where: Her royal castle

Age: 5 years old

The guest of honor:




It's tea time:


And yes, there was one boy there. We cast him as the prince :)




There was a candy station:


Cupcake decorating station:


Sand art station:




Nail and make-up station:








Gift time for the Princess: I have never seen someone open gifts in record speed.










Party decor:






Friends and family of the princess:

The Grandma of the princess with the princess' sister, we call her princess #2.


Aunt #2 with princess #2.


Aunt #1 (hahaha) with princess #2. (Safe to say we all got our picture with her).


The Aunts.


Me and my Momma.


Miss Ava, a friend of the princess.


Being a princess is such a hard life. A shame there's not someone there to push her :)




I saw these laying around, and assured the princess that the prince would indeed be back to slip these on her feet and they'd ride off into the sunset!


And in the way all good fairy tales end....

They all lived happily ever ever!!!