My Birthday & Easter!!

I had the best birthday and Easter weekend. It was spent with my favorite people in the entire world.

Aaron didn't tell me what he had planned for my birthday, but I knew we would do something. I figured we would probably drive 30mins and go to dinner and a movie, but to my surprise, I got home from work and I could smell that he had made dinner. It was all packaged up in our picnic basket with our picnic blanket. He surprised me with a picnic for 3 (me, him & the dog) and a long walk around the spring. Perfect. Couldn't have asked for a better evening. Exactly my kind of date night. Afterwards, we went to our neighbors Easter Eggstravaganza and hung out with some friends and their kids.

 Love these boys so much! They mean the world to me.

Our picnic consisted of grilled chicken pasta salad, potato salad, grapes, wine, and a cookie cake. YUM!

We left Friday after work to go my hometown and stay the weekend with my family. It was the perfect weekend, but way too short. We woke up Saturday morning, had a wonderful breakfast on the patio, took the dogs on a long walk, then we met up with almost all of my dad's side of the family at a local park and hunted Easter eggs and hung out all day. The weather was gorgeous and we pretty much had the park all to ourselves. My dad's family came in from out of town so it was great to spend some time with them.

 On our morning walk around the wilderness.

These cousin pups love playing together!

An intense game of peanuckle. We also played dodge ball & wall ball. It's been a while since I've played those games and I forgot how much fun they are.

  

 We also had pillow case races. They are too cute. The little ones did the best.

The adults had to get in on the action and accept the challenge. Husbands VS. wives. It was a close race.

 Cuties!

All the great grandchildren.

 Almost the whole gang.

After the park, we went to Rudy's BBQ for dinner then back to my parents house to watch the Thunder game.

Sunday morning we woke up, went to church (which was amazing....Easter is by far my most favorite Sunday of the year), had brunch at a local restaurant, and then we went to see the movie God's Not Dead. If you haven't seen it, GO!! Great movie! After the movie, we loaded up our stuff and headed back home. It's so hard to leave every time we go back home and each time we do it we always wish we were WAY CLOSER!

Love my siblings!

My family with my Me-Ma at brunch with the creepy Easter bunny.

Happy Easter from us!!

I couldn't have asked for a better weekend. Thanks to everyone who made my birthday special. The calls, texts, messages, cards, and gifts were greatly appreciated and made my day. I am so very lucky to have you all in my life.

I am so excited about my newest purchase for the house. It is my birthday present to myself and I'm in love.

I found it at a flea market in the local area for a really good price. My goal is to find 3 parson chairs for the ends and one side of the table and then a rustic bench for the other side. I got lucky this evening and found two parson chairs for $25 on a Facebook online yard sale page. I'm going to buy them and have them recovered in a cute fabric. It's just too good of a price not to. I will be selling my old kitchen table and 6 chairs if anyone is interested.

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

Ever since we got home from the Lady Antebellum concert, these two songs have been on repeat and have played over 15 million times. Just ask my husband, he will vouch for me. I'm always a sucker for a good heart break song that you can belt out and sing super loud. These two are perfect for just that.








I've been belting out "It Ain't Pretty" during random times when I do something that's not pretty, like the other night when I was absolutely bawling because we boarded Samson (my dog) for the first time ever. Aaron was in the middle of thinking how incredibly pathetic I was and in mid cry I started singing "It Aint Pretty"....he thought that was pretty great because when I cry it's definitely not pretty.














And they just came out with the American Blogger trailer. You better believe I will be buying it on iTunes the day it comes out. So excited to see it!

Fayetteville Trip!

This past weekend we made the 4hr trek to Fayetteville to tailgate and watch an Arkansas Razorbacks baseball game. We picked a great game to attend. They were playing the No.1 team South Carolina and they just so happened to beat them 7-0. It was a great game, a beautiful evening, and we got to see some of our favorite friends! We road tripped with a couple from here & we met up with three of Aaron's friends from college. After the game we all went out dancing and had a blast. The girls also got a little bit of shopping in :)

March Madness & Where I've Been

I apologize for my lack of blogging. It has been a crazy month filled with work, photography shoots, visitors, weekend getaways, & a few fun surprises. Not complaining about that one bit. I have been looking forward to March & April for a long time because of all the fun things going on. So here's a recap of what we've been doing:

- In February I traveled to Springfield, MO to watch my cousin Parker compete in a tae kwan do tournament. He came home with four medals and two of them were 1st place! He did awesome. I got to visit with my cousins and learn a lot about tae kwan do. It was a short visit, but I loved every minute of it.

-Then, in that same day, I traveled to Tahlequah, OK to surprise my cousin Blondell. She was in a theater production that her town put on and we completely surprised her by coming to the show. My mom, three aunts, and my uncle came along. Afterwards, we hung out at her house, spent the night with my aunts & mom at a lodge, had breakfast together, and went shopping afterwards. It was a great trip and I was so happy to spend a weekend with my family.

-In March, I made a weekend trip to Branson, MO to hang out with my best friend and her family. They had a time share in Branson for Spring Break. Alli and I shopped till we dropped and had a blast catching up.

  These are some of the purchases I made in Branson. The "D" yard flag and the gray headboard are from Kirkland's, the Happy Easter banner is from Target, and we made the wreath in Branson during a snowstorm.

-The following weekend, we had some last minute visitors from Oklahoma. My friend, and co-worker from JCPenney Salon and her two daughters came. We had so much fun and I'm so glad they decided to make the trip. We did a photography shoot, played darts, went bowling, saw the movie "Divergent" (it is so so good, by the way), had a campfire and roasted s'mores and hot dogs, and toured the town.

-Later that same day, we had our second set of visitors. My great friend from college, Laura and her husband came to visit during their Spring Break. They went trout fishing while we were at work, then we hung out, went to dinner, and caught up on life when we got home from work. The next day, we went on an antiquing adventure. She loves to antique and has the cutest taste and ideas. She is my kind of shopping partner. I loved having them in town. We don't get to see each other very often so it was really nice & we had a lot of fun!!

-Our visitors left on Tuesday afternoon & on Thursday after work, we headed to Tulsa, OK to surprise my best friend. Little did she know, we had this trip planned for over 6 months. It was so hard to keep it a secret from her. We surprised her at lunch and got to have lunch with her parents too! That night, we went to the Lady Antebellum concert. She had been telling her husband she wanted to go for so long now. He called us and asked if we would like to join in on the surprise. Of course, we were in. She had absolutely no clue and thought they were in Tulsa for a soccer tournament. It was seriously the best weekend. We had so much fun, the concert was amazing, and we were with the greatest company. We were also able to stay with Aaron's parents for the rest of the weekend so we killed two birds with one stone.

The video of me surprising Alli. Can you tell she was completely confused and shocked? That was for sure an Alli reaction/response, haha. It took her a good 5 minutes to figure out what was really going on. 

We are looking forward to more fun things planned in April & I promise to be a better blogger about those things. I'm off to catch up on laundry, unpacking, grocery shopping, & then a maternity shoot this afternoon in this perfect weather.