Art

Cade Carter took a break from Art when he began 5th grade because, well-I was concerned he needed a break since he was beginning a new school and we were expecting 5th grade to be extremely difficult.  Since Cade Carter has proven himself to us with wonderful grades, we felt he could tackle on Art Class once again from Ms. Barbara McBride. 

Cade Carter knows I love barns, and bless his heart, he painted one for me.  Isn't it fantastic?

Laid Back Weekend

This past weekend was laid back for sure. We didn't have any ball games, birthday parties or Sardis trips. When does this ever happen...Did I mention it was COLD too?  So off to Memphis we go!  I seldom EVER go to Memphis shopping anymore, we usually head to Jackson but we decided a trip to Abercrombie and Sephora were necessary. Cade Carter needed shirts and I needed new make-up since I have adult acne all of a sudden. UGH!

Of course, if you take children to the mall, they use their OWN money for these silly rides.

Cade Carter finally got his way-we usually try to bypass this at the mall but not this time.  Again, he used his own money. 

Thanks to Kim Mize, we had BBQ nachos for dinner.  Cade Carter always has these when he goes to his buddy Zach's house.  But the amount he ate was a little much...

Thanks Kim for introducing this to him...he ate the entire platter...

Seriously, he ate all of this!  Growing Boy! 

Cam & Jasper enjoyed them too.  We will definitely have these again real soon.  Thanks Kim!

And last but not least, it is TCAP Monday Morning in Tipton County.  We went to bed early and did everything we were supposed to..

So tell me why Cam is asleep in my bathroom after getting up at 6:15am?  I'm so sorry Ms. Glenn, I hope you can wake him up when he gets to your classroom. 

Evil Kinevil

Last weekend, we hung out at home and cooked out.  After dinner, Hank put on a show for us all.  As a child, Hank was really big into bike racing and apparently bike "tricks."  After all this time, he still remembers his tricks...

Riding Cade Carter's bike backwards...

Now, he's gonna JUMP the ramp...oh dear!

WooHoo...he can still do it!

Cam says to his Daddy-get out of my way...you are taking the spotlight!

Cade Carter says "I'm sticking to basketball!"

Jilli was thinking these Sampson's are Crazy!

Cookie Making and lots of Patience!

What would we do without our hobbies?  I would probably have "more" money!  A few months ago my BFF's got together and decided to try to master the art of cookie decorating.   I took a course online at the University of Cookie and studied away. I'm a pin to paper kinda gal.  On the other hand,  Mylea & Erin have gotten extremely good at it and I ended up taking pointers from them.  They are so freakin' created.  This all started back in December so that's why you will see Christmas cookies in April.  Lots of steps in perfecting a cookie...


Georgia enjoyed the outlining the cookie the most.  The coloring in was to time consuming.

Here I am rolling out the dough...did I mention making these cookies consists of 10 hours of work it seemed.

Erin is proud of her perfect outlining. By the way, it was her birthday that night and I prepared her dinner! She turned 26!  LOL 

 

We let the kiddos fill in the outline with the icing.

More cookies!

Peeler concentrating on his bunny cookie.

At the end of the night I was ready to ice Erin's head.  Cookie decorating was making me crazy!  I have NO patience.

Mylea laughing...she's probably thinking "Susan can't outline!"

Mylea worked on these for 2 days.  These were for the kiddos classmates at school.  These were so stinking cute!  Jim was ready to kick up out of the house come Sunday!

These were made for Upward Basketball by ME!  These were pretty easy.

I made these back in July 2011 when the Covington Dixie Youth girls softball team went to State Championship.

I cannot take credit for these.  Mylea outdid herself on these!  I think Erin helped her. 

We worked on these at Christmas @ Mylea's for the classroom. Excuse the blurriness-taken w/ my cell phone

I enjoyed these Easter cookies. I let the kiddo help too.

Mylea is my cookie IDOL!

Little Anniston in her PJ's...she made a cute little pink bunny.  What a cutie!

Tennessee Safari Park

Spring Break

I took off a few days of Spring Break with the boys.  One of the days, we headed off to the Tennessee Safari Park in Alamo, TN.  Talk about a unique place in the middle of no where.  Jaime & I took all the kids to a live safari-and I mean LIVE!! It's a drive thru safari and some of these animals literally climb into the car with you.  There were screams heard in Jaime's van that day.  We had a Texas Longhorn get into the van, and several ostriches and emu's.  No one was injured- just a whole lot of laughing was going on...I have a video that I'm going to attempt to download because it is hilarious. 

As you can see we were feeding the giraffe dry food out of a bucket...note the sign...Why is it that when you go to a petting zoo/safari that signs get ignored.  We were told only carrots for the giraffe.  OOPS!

Jilli and Cade Carter acted like they were to "BIG" to go on the safari, but once we got there I think they had the MOST FUN!!!    Tweens, gotta love 'em!

Baseball Time

Well, it's that time again....Baseball time.  This is the first year in a long time that I only have "1" playing baseball.  Cade Carter made the decision not to play Dixie Youth this year.  Cade Carter has plans to experiment more with his art and to take golfing lessons in June.  I was a little sad he didn't want too...especially Hank...we were both disappointed but who wants to make a child do something he doesn't want too.  It's usually torture for the parents in the end, right? So Cam is our baseball player this season!

                             Cade Carter, Zack and Cam hanging out before Cam's ballgame.

Cam's playing pitcher!

What a day! It started out with baseball pictures, baseball game and then Cam's buddy, Slade's birthday.  Leslie got a HUGE tarp and the kids slipped and slided all day.   Soap and all!!! Lots of fun...