November?

Whoa, what happened to November...for real!

What have we been up to? Well, football season ended the weekend before Thanksgiving. We fought a hard fight...not gonna lie, it was REALLY nice having Joe home and relaxed the week of Thanksgiving. That hasn't happened in a couple of years!

I made an awesome dessert for Thanksgiving...a pumpkin dump cake. I got the recipe from a fellow coaches wife. She served it at one of our last parties and it was the hit of the party. Here's the recipe. Make it, you won't be disappointed. If you are, let me know and Joe will come take the left overs off of your hands for you.

• 2 cans pumpkin
• 3 cups evaporated milk...I used fat free, not sure it made a whole lotta difference
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger {I didn't have any, so I left it out...still loved it}
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsps salt
• 1/2 tsp. cloves
• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 1 stick of butter, sliced into pats
• 1 cup chopped pecans...totally didn't measure, just covered the whole top

Directions: Mix pumpkin, evap. milk, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, eggs, sugar, and salt together well. Pour into greased floured 9x13 {if you have a larger one it wouldn't hurt, this fills it up}. Sprinkle the yellow cake mix on top. Lay out the pats of butter across the cake mix...I just did like 4 across and then spread them out down the rest of the mix. Cover the top with the pecans. Bake at 350 degrees for an hour and 20. One suggestion I have is that if the pecans are getting too toasty, maybe cover with foil? Regardless, this was gobbled up on Thanksgiving. Grandma said she preferred it over pumpkin pie because it was fluffier...and oh, so yummy!

Moving on...

I did go Black Friday shopping at Walmart.......never again. I did get some great deals, but the craziness...SO, not worth it. My mom and I showed up about an hour and a half before the sales kicked in. Just FYI, if you're going to go in the future...Walmart is OPEN, but they don't let you check out until 10:00 sharp. Also, our Walmart personnel didn't really care if you took things off the palette before 10:00, so my buggy was full of what I needed and I was in line by 9:15 to check out. I was 6th in line and was out of Walmart by 10:15! The electronics people {the ones sitting in the pet food aisle were not so lucky}...

Yesterday, we got the tree up. I did NOT want to go back to school without the tree being up. Joe helped me get it out of the attic and assembled...then the kids and I did the rest....I'm liking the tree this year. It's no designer tree, but we like it. :)

To top it off, we are doing Elf on the Shelf this year...and so far, it has been a HUGE hit. Meet Skippy! Last year, I skimped and didn't spend the money, and that was a mistake. Skippy has already provided his money worth in entertainment! Stay tuned, I'm documenting with my good camera!

I also made our 25 days of Christmas bags, we and are starting that Wednesday night...I know that Wednesday is not the first, but you do what you gotta do when daddy has his Fall Sports banquet Thursday night. We are starting it off big with a trip to Santa's Wonderland. We've learned that a week night trip is SO much better than a weekend.

Have a great weekend!! Only 3 weeks left of school for the Fall semester!!! YAY!

Love Them.

Trey...the kid keeps me guessing. God love him, he is a sweet boy....he's just A BoY! :) That means, everyday when I pick him up from Kindergarten I have to ask, "Good day or bad day?!" Then, I have to hold my breath and turn the page in his binder to where a note would be from his teacher.

Yesterday, I was fulfilling my civic duty of voting...with the kids in tow. Moms, I know you know what that can entail. On the way there, we had the discussion of how to act at the voting place. VERY quiet, whisper and you have to stay right by mommy. Luckily, we vote at a church, so I got to a booth that had a row of chairs near by. I instructed Trey and Em to sit there and be quiet...I then went to hand Trey my iphone. He totally snubbed my phone, and says "It's okay mom, I'm going to look for my sight words"...as he's thumbing thru the Bible. I almost cried. It was the sweetest thing EVER.

It's moments like those, in a week that is never ending, that God reminds us to STOP. I stopped and just thanked HIM for that reminder to enjoy these moments with Trey and Emery...and then I gave Trey a big kiss on the forehead for being Trey.

Emery's not to be left out...she's a character. She's decided that she should be practicing her spelling like her big brother. Any thing you ask her to spell right now is 'P-E-R-E-Y'. So she'll say, "MOMMY, I can spell SEAT...P-E-R-E-Y....SEAT" She did that for a good 5 minutes last night at the dinner table and we were all just laughing. Trey was getting frustrated because he knows how to spell it and she fights him on it. It's really quite comical.

Love my 2.

Got questions?

I thought I'd do a little more interacting over on my Owens' Originals Photography blog, so I'm going to do a little Question and Answer session. The only problem? I only have 18 people following over there, so I thought I'd bring it over here...click on THIS LINK and head on over to ask your questions. It can be about Photography Stuff. Camera Stuff. Football Family Stuff. Whatever you got {as long as it is blog appropriate...I feel like I'm talking to my high school kids, sorry} :)

...and I'll leave you with one of my favorite recent pictures from a session! {Sorry, a little partial...my Godson, Lane}

{Halloween 2011}

Another Halloween is in the books! I pulled a Mother of the Year...more on that later. I'll butter you up with pictures first.

Em, and her special face...

This was his tough dude pose.

Awww.

Help me, please...she gives me gray hair. 

Bein' sweet for 2 minutes.

How about a cross eyed clown? That dang nose would not stay on.

She does these faces all on her own. I swear. I know, we're in trouble.

 That's one mean turtle.

They were ready to go!

Emery being nosy. Every picture of them at the door looked like this.

Wanna hear about my mother of the year award? Y'all know when you're taking pictures of the kids, when you say, "Wait, one more!" Well, Joe was done and the kids were ready to go. I said, "WAIT, I need one of Emery withOUT her special face"...so we got a few more shots. Joe said, "come on Em, let's get in the car"...and then it happened. She slipped on the rocks and landed booty first. She immediately got up and cried the 'I'm hurt' cry...moms, you know the difference. I didn't see anything, but Joe checked her in the car and came back and showed me what she landed on. There were some small metal spiky things that we didn't even notice. She had a few scrapes on her 'cheek' and I was 'sick to my stomach' mad at myself. We got home quickly and got her all cleaned up, and once the bandaid was on then all was right with the world again. My guilt is finally starting to ease up. At first, I was sure we were going to end up at the ER clinic having to get a tetnis shot...here's a newsflash for you {that I didn't know}...if the kids are caught up on their vaccinations thru age 4 or 5, they don't have to get a tetnis shot when something like that happens. WHEW. There it is for for ya...one more reason I will have the M-O-T-Y trophy on my mantle.