This week has been rough emotionally. Wednesday my oldest baby turned 10. 10 seriously. She is starting the 5th grade this fall. Now I know I am not old! But looking at your kid and hearing her discuss the progress of the traffic on 59 and the humidity outside makes you feel old. She has grown up so beautiful. I remember when she was 2 she was this big headed big bellied toddler that spoke in almost full sentences. Oh, I miss her baby days. (Just not tied into the other 2 baby days!) We spent the 2 hours that I got to see her; she is at her Dad's house for basically the month of June; eating pancakes, french toast, sausage links and eggs. She choose IHOP. Since it was just the two of us we still had an hour to go before she had to be back, so we went to the only shopping other than Wal-Mart that Cleveland has... Big Lots and Dollar General. So here are some pics to look back through this last year with my not so much baby.

Here she is with her birthday present last year. LuLu is also one year older.

This is her posing. She does that alot.

This is her singing. She really likes to sing in front of a crowd.

This is last minute projects, because she "forgot" to tell me.

Days before she left for her Dad's. I think she was a little bored.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY!

Friday nights are our out to eat nights. Usually we accompany Dimples parents to the local mexican restaurant. Not this Friday. Joe was late getting home from work so we headed up the street to a little place called Max & Sam's. Now this place can be a quiet almost romantic grill if you decide to sit inside. But we have kids, we sit outside on the patio. With it feeling like 100 degrees out here in TX you'd think we would melt. This patio is covered with fans so it stays pretty nice. Anyway this Friday they had live entertainment. Lilly walks around with the salt shaker and pours it everywhere and Caitlin dances in her highchair while she chows down on cheesy grits. Only this is not the show that was the highlight of the evening. While loading all the kids in the Tahoe I saw this large plume of black smoke coming from the Shell station behind us. So we drive to the other end of the parking lot and sit and watch this motorcycle burn to a crisp. We watched it burn for a good 10 minutes before we heard the sirens of the firetruck, that later completely blocked our view. So what do we do? The same thing any normal onlooker would, we drove down the street for a better view. My apologies for the pics but all I had was my cell phone.

So a couple of months ago I stole a blog off of my friend Mandy's site. I started reading and just couldn't stop. The Ree woman has the gift of writing. I read well into the night about her meeting her husband and how she lives on a ranch in Oklahoma. She calls her kids punks and sets up one of the cowboys to participate in her own version of "The Bachelor". I need her blog just as much as I need my daily coffee. She is now my new cyber bff. Anyway the point of this is that before I started reading we had plain jane dinners. Bland chicken, spaghetti, crock pot pot roast. You know nothing really special. But now! Oh my, we have this Philly Cheese Steak sandwich she has titled Marlboro Man sandwich, a real pot roast, penne pasta with shrimp. All so very Yummy! This Pioneer Woman has really turned my life around. My house smells good, my husband smiles with a full tummy and my kids actually want to sit at the table and eat dinner; and there are very little left overs. Just enough for Dimples (his new nickname I kinda like it) to take to work the next day for lunch. We won't talk about his cholesterol that will be for another day. When I come down from my shock.