i miss them.....

jerry and tina used to live next door to me....they moved away about 18 months ago and we miss them like crazy.  she made our family part of her family and introduced us to the fabulousness of greek food and life straight out of "my big fat greek wedding".  we always have so much fun with them and their families always treat us as if we were part of theirs.....

  tina is a personal trainer and she trained me down 3 clothes sizes a couple of years back....

i will be forever grateful to her.......jerry is a pharmacist and took immense pride in his yard.  he and don always had so much in common because of that.

we missed last year's photoshoot when she moved and subsequent chaos that ensues because of it....

we are back in the swing of it now though!!

their little girls are eden and london.....

one is an image of her mama and one is an image of her daddy!!! 

 i think that this picture of london flying with daddy is one of my all time favorites that i have taken so far....it takes my breath away!

 we took the pictures on a windy summer evening at a small local beach 

just as as the sun was getting low in the sky....

 it casts the most amazing light and shadows....

 just gorgeous.....

 eden has a couple of new teeth and was happy to show them off for me.

we miss your family, jerry and tina, and we have got to get together more often..

we are going to work on that, okay??

Have yourself a merry little christmas......

my friends, may your celebration of the season bring joy to your heart

now and throughout the new year.

xoxoxo

they won the championship today.....

today was austen's last baseball game for the summer.  

they played 4 games in a tournament this weekend and won them all.  austen is a very good athlete but like many kids his age, he struggles with confidence sometimes when he plays.  

he can go a few games without a hit or will strike out 2 or 3 times in one game. 

yesterday he had one of those games.  struck out, grounded out, flew out and walked.   

so on the way to today's game, he was very quiet on the car ride there.  don tried to give him a pep talk but i think that made him more nervous.  

as the lead off batter, things didn't get much better for him when he got up to bat...

 his coach tried to boost his confidence

but by the look on austen's face, he didn't have any more luck than daddy did...

with the determination that he pulled from the deepest depths of his being, 

he got up to bat,

planted himself in front of that plate...

got that awesome look of determination that i love to see on his face...

and smacked the living crap out of the ball!!!

all the way down the left field line.

and as luck would have it, a hit like that is a sure confidence booster and ice breaker.

especially when it is a double.  

and you steal third base....

and then slide into home plate head first under the throw on a well placed bunt...

and are called safe.

head first sliding into home is never without its consequences, however, 

and he came up with a face full of dirt.

that ended up mostly in his eyes and mouth...

his teammates and coach were very excited for him...

and a little water helped clean him off.  

the rest of the game was very exciting and the entire team played their hearts out.

dad keeps score. 

they won 5-0.

and they got the big trophy this time...

it was half his size!!!

that one however, was the team trophy...

his was a little more manageable.

after the game we went here

 the coaches treated the boys to ice cream.

and they made sure to let passing cars know that they had won the championship...

and everyone honked!!!

i will miss every one of those boys on his team.  i have never met a greater group of kids. 

and i'll miss their parents as well.   

well done bobcats, 

well done!!!!

productive day.....

i don't seem to have too many productive days when i have a day off of work.  i am so whacked out from the work week that the weekends leave me barely able to scrub a toilet.  (oh, that's right, i don't scrub toilets. the boys do. because they mess them up).  but today, i went grocery shopping with don (which was a mistake because he said we spent $30.00 more that we would have spent had i not gone with him.... remember this?)

anyway, 

the one thing i do every weekend is make sunday dinner.  i usually work past dinnertime on the weekdays and really, who cooks on saturday night?  so sunday is my day to shine.  today, i went grocery shopping, made 5 meals, finished 2 loads of laundry, painted my living and sitting rooms and shingled my roof.

okay, i didn't do the last two things but i did make 5 meals.

i made beef enchiladas,

stuffed peppers,

cream of mushroom soup (thanks again, gemma)

corn on the cob (that was easy)

a big pot of spaghetti sauce,

and a pork roast shredded into pulled pork sandwiches.

i've never made this before and it was fabulous....and was one of the easiest things i've made.  that, and the corn with a salad was dinner tonight.....we were full....

this one....

laid at my feet and waited for scraps....

which he got mixed in with his dog food.  (yes, we feed our dog people food sometimes, if i don't, he gives me the stink eye, the sassy brat!)

we were so full that we needed to walk off all of that good food.  so we gathered up our happy and full dog and our wonderful neighbors curt and laura and walked around the 'hood.

we walked...

and walked...

and walked
because i made this for dessert...

strawberry pie

that deserves a closer look...

doesn't it????

so honey, that is where that extra $30.00 went....right into your stomach!!