Hey everyone, it's Lexx. So my mom is going to be M.I.A. for a few days. She hopes you are all doing well, and she will post more when she gets back. Love you all!

We Made It

To another weekend, that is...and extended at that.

Woot, woot!

Whitehaven Beach, Australia

I have some pretty awesome plans that may include my little neice from Arizona.

I'll update you on the deets next week.

Unitl then.

Do you have any cool Memorial Day weekend plans?

Scrapboxes

I was doing some blog surfing and ran across some pictures of some scrapboxes by Darcy Miller. 

 I thought to myself what a perfect gift for a new mom, 

a birthday or special occasions (like a wedding).

  You could probably go overboard with too many mementos in the frames,

 but I thought the examples I ran across were done beautifully.

Wouldn't this be a great gift for a new parent.

You could take a baby picture and add the child's favorite toy

I love this one, mostly because this is one that I would have done

 for my kids if I would have thought about it

(It would have either been hair accessories or sunglasses).

How about a box for a special performance?

I love this idea.  A favorite book with mom/dad/grandma/grandpa/whoever reading it to a child.

If you are interested in seeing more go here.

What A Mess

If you were to visit our house, this is what you'd be experiencing.

It is a total disaster!

We moved Austin to his "new" room, so we were then able to tear the carpet out of his old room.

That meant removing everything from the old room.

Somehow....not everything made it to Austin's new room.

We have tubs, games, blankets, you name it, sitting in the hallway, kitchen and living room.

It is quite the disaster.

I'm hoping that we might be able to get some of this mess cleaned up this extended weekend.

We shall see.

Just a little bit of the mess in the hallway.

Austin's old room, minus the carpet.

I can't decide what color I want to paint the room.

I'm thinking maybe a grey/slate color.

Eclipse

Did you check out the eclipse on Sunday?

Todd and I accidentally ended up watching it.

How do you "accidentally" watch an eclipse you ask?

Easy, you forget that there is one happening, then you look outside while cooking dinner and make the comment to your hubby, "That's weird, it looks overcast or smoky or something."

You then go outside and realize...

Doooohhhh!  

Eclipse.

Shot taken with my camera with no filter light.

Not so impressive.

Todd then took his lens out of his welding face shield and put it in front of the camera.

The eclipse as time went on...

and one last shot.

I like this picture because it shows you how dark it was while the eclipse was occurring.

It's not underdeveloped, just what the actual lighting looked like (see blue sky in background?).

(I guess technically it would be considered underexposed...just on purpose).

So did you get any cool pictures?

Did you even watch the eclipse?

We're Up And Running Again

We got the Internet working again.

Whewww!

Todd and I had a wonderful weekend. 

We started off going to Coffee Depot, Salvation Army,
 The Auburn Home and Garden Show, Mr. Pickles and finally to the movies to watch The Avengers.
And that was just Saturday.

Sunday we ate breakfast, made phone calls to family,
weeded and did yard work,
relaxed and then watched the eclipse. 

Weeds,

weeds,

and more weeds. 

Look at this ginormous moth...at least I think it's a moth.

That's Todd's hand holding the thing.

A little bit of progress.

It was awesome!
I just wish weekends lasted a day or two longer.

Technical Difficulties

I am currently unable to blog from my house, so it might be a couple days before I can post again.

Apparently, unlimited internet is not truly unlimited.

We went over our specified amount.

We should have the problem resolved by Monday.

Until then.

The Other Day

When I got home from work, I noticed something different

about the landscaping around our house. 

There were little rods with wire running across them and wild grape pulled up on the wires. 

I asked Todd what it was, and he replied, "It's your vineyard." 

Brenda's vineyard

The other day when we drove to the coast,

I told Todd how I really liked all the vineyards in Napa.

He was listening.

I think we do have a little work before it becomes a real vineyard.

But wouldn't you agree, it is a sweet thought!

Mother's Day On The Beach

Hope you all had an enjoyable Mother's Day.

I spent the day at Negro Bar in Folsom with family.

It was a perfect and beautiful day.

Warm with a slight breeze.

There were games.

and smiles 

and hugs 

and fun.

 Special love to my Austin,

my Alexxa,

and my Todd

for spoiling me on Mother's Day.

Thank you everyone for a great day.

And special thanks to Robb and Amber for organizing the gathering.

When I'm Sad...

Yep, pretty much.

Oh, and Jermaine won The Voice.

I thought Chris Mann should have won if you just based the performances off the last show.

Have a super-dee-duper great weekend!

The Voice Finale

So my beloved Voice had their season finale.  The four finalist were pretty amazing in their own way - they were all very different.  I was kind of rooting for Juliet Simms to win (because she has a raspy rocker chick voice), but truth be told, Juliet had pneumonia when she performed her song...and let's just say it wasn't her best (I do have to give the woman kuddos for getting up there while being extremely sick though). 

Anyways, take a listen to the four finalist and chime in on who you think should have won,
then I'll tell you who I thought should have won,
and if you don't already know the winner...

I'll tell you that too!

Chris Mann

I liked this performance, but I prefered his performance of "The Prayer" with Christina. 

Totally, totally beautiful! 

Go here if you would like to hear it

(I think you should..it's AWESOME).

Juliet Simms
Not her best performance. 
Go here to listen to my favorite performance of hers, "Roxanne".

Tony Lucca
This was actually my favorite performance by Tony,
however I did like when he sung Brittney Spears song
"Baby One More Time:

Jermaine Paul
I though this performance was nice.
I did prefer his Journey rendition of "Open Arms".

So what's the verdict?

I'm Back...

amongst the living again. 
Wow, that was a long run for a migraine.
 I really hate those things. 
No good, no good at all.

Because I've been gone a couple days,
 boy do I have an exciting post for you. 
(just kidding guys and gals)

It's about a new favorite product I found that I love.

It's a Bounce Dryer Bar

Instead of using dryer sheets,

you attach this to the inside of your dryer. 

It last about 4 mos., and when you need to replace it,

you click the new bar right in.

Todd loves this little goody, he says it makes his clothes

smell better than the laundry sheets.

I'm not sure if this is really true, but I do think that it is possible that they don't get caught up in one particular piece of clothing,

 but instead rub against most of the laundry.

I would recommend this little item if you currently use dryer sheets. 

You don't have the used sheets to dispose of, and at $4, you can't really go wrong.

BTW, this is not a paid advertisement...I just like me some good smellin' clothes!

Whopper Of A Migraine

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. 
I've been fighting with a migraine for 3 days now, and it just will not go away. 
I promise as soon as I'm feeling better, I'll get on the ball again.

Picture source

Double Delicious

Remember when I posted that I loved the show The Voice? 

Do you also remember me posting a Ron Pope song called

 A Drop In the Ocean? 

Well, the two were combined on the semi finals of The Voice. 

They brought back the previous seasons winner,

Javier Colon, and he did the Ron Pope cover. 

 Take a listen and see what you think? 

Ron or Javier?

BTW, I love the song either way, I don't care who sings it.

A Favorite Quote

What a beautiful and amazing quote. 

Just thought I should share it with you.

Very inspirational!

Partied Like A Rockstar

I went to my nephews birthday party last night...
he knows how to throw a party. 

 There was music bumpin', people socializing, Chinese food,
cake and ice cream. 

 It was pretty awesome.

Adam and his "girl" friend (not girlfriend)

The gang hanging out eating Chinese food.

Yes, these pictures are of my 22 and 20 year old kids riding Razor scooters.

Not their scooters btw, their much younger cousin's scooters. 

Birthday boy opening up his presents (with a little help).

I might just have Adam plan my birthday, boy knows how to do it up right!

Snickerdoodle Muffins -YUMMERS!

I had a little time on my hands this weekend so I decided to try a recipe I found on Pinterest.  The picture just enticed me too much and I couldn't resist.

They were fairly easy to make and turned out well.  If you are a fan of the snickerdoodle cookie, I'm fairly sure you will like these muffins.

Snickerdoodle Muffins
Source


2 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
¾ tsp baking soda
¾ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp cream of tarter
¾ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 and ¼ cup sour cream
2 and ¼ cups all purpose flour

1 cup sugar and 2 TBSP cinnamon mixed together for rolling

1.Cream the butter and sugar until soft about 3 to 5 minutes. Add in the vanilla. Add in the eggs one at a time and mix until each is incorporated.

2.In a separate, mix together the flour, nutmeg,baking soda, and baking powder and cream of tarter.

3.Add the flour mixture and the sour cream alternately to the egg-butter mixture in the additions. Start with the flour and end with the flour. Scrape the bowl occasionally.

4. Using an ice cream scoop, scoop out muffin batter one at a time and drop into a shallow bowl filled with the cinnamon sugar mixture. Roll the muffin around in the mixture until it is covered completely in cinnamon sugar.. Place muffin into a greased muffin tin.. Depending on the size of
your tins, you should get about 12 to 14 muffins. Bake them for approx. 20-22 minutes in a 350F
oven or until they are golden brown.

The only correction I would make is reducing the amount of nutmeg.  I'm not a huge fan of it, but can tolerate it.  It was a little too overpowering for me. 
In the future I would probably cut it to 1/2-1/3 tsp.
You would just need to play with the recipe until you figured out what you like best.

Butter and sugar mixture.

Complete mixture in the cinnamon/sugar mixture.

Dough covered up.

Muffins going in the oven.

Muffins coming out of the oven.

Close up -

Picture of the inside of the muffin.