Massive Destruction

At 5:15 am yesterday morning we had 2 tornados touch ground in our neighborhood.  One touched down on my street, the other up the street.  I'm still so speechless, I don't even know the words to say to express the fear I had as I walked out my front door and witnessed a massive detruction such as this one. 

By the grace of god my family is unharmed, as well as the rest of my community.  Even though 32 homes need to be rebuilt.  So many of our friends & neighbors are suffering huge losses.  I can't thank those enough who called us continuously to check on us and offer any help needed.

This house was 3 houses down from ours, they lost their entire roof..it collapsed on them in bed but no one was harmed...its a miracle!

This house had the same thing, notice the garage is gone with the roof, they are lying in the forest behind the houses

This was walking up the stairs in our friends' house helping them get their kids' clothing, roof is completly gone

this was their kitchen entry...glass all over the floor

Their cars

This house was 2 houses down from me, total devastation!

This is my house! Someone was watching out for my family...thank you god!

Our backyard, the most of our damage...

I will never forget this day

End of Summer BBQ

As promised, I have some pictures to upload from our bbq.  We had some great people share the day with us, too bad I don't have a picture of Robin & Keith!  They are friends I met on a meetup group, I'm so glad to have met them because our kids are almost all the same ages and they get along so wonderfully.

Paige and her BFF Shelby upstairs being goofy

Kyla the diva...lord help us all!

Alexa and her sweet little friend Aurora playing grown-ups

Luv this girl, so beautiful!

The parents~

This is Shelby & her mom Loraine, they are so awesome!  I'm so glad Paige has made such a great friend!

My favorite friends~The Hoys!  Love these peeps!!



Time Flies!

Holy heck, can you believe it's already beginning of October?? My entire year has just flown by like a rocket! I'm going into my favorite time of year..hip hip hooray!!

It's been forever since I've blogged, but I have been extremely busy and overloaded with other priorities. This PTO position I'm holding seems to be taking a heck of a lot more time then I expected, but I still love it!
Kids are doing awesome and I'll blog updates once I have more time!

Heart-throb

Ugh...he still makes my heart go pitter-patter!

I have the best hubsters ever!! 

We had our first Morgan BBQ here last weekend with some amazing friends (more pics to come soon) and this great man cooked like a pit master ALL afternoon long!!

Ain't he so dang cute?!!

Goodbye diet...hello cakeballs

(I know these look like little skulls or something grotesque, but my lighting was horrible!  Don't let the picture fool you)

These are the most yummiest things I have ever eaten, so rich and delectable, I could hardly stand to eat just one.  I got the recipe from one of the other mom's in my PTO group.  She had brought these yummy little balls into one of our PTO meetings and all of us parents where in cake ball heaven!  If I could do one thing different, I would substitute the white chocolate for white almond bark, the chocolate is super pricey and SUPER sweet.

Here's how to make them:

1 box of cake mix

1 tub of frosting

1pk white almond bark (if you use chocolate instead, you will need 2 packs)

Bake the cake as directed

In a large bowl pour frosting in the bottom of the bowl

Once cake is done baking, pour hot cake into the bowl of frosting, mix well until it's one big gelatinous mess

Make bite size balls (should make 40-45 balls)

Place on a cookie sheet and freeze until well formed & cooled

Melt chocolate and dip your balls in the chocolate

Freeze again until hardened

I stored mine in the fridge but you can also keep them in an airtight container

YUMM-O!!

I'm in heaven...

with all these neat little treats I get from my bountiful baskets.  I can't believe how excited I get every second saturday of the month when it's my day to pick up my basket.  I'm not kidding when I tell you it's like Christmas morning for me, I never know what I'll be getting.  (or maybe it's like opening up a box of chocolates, lol)

Several people got me turned on to the bountiful basket program, for those who don't do it, you're missin' out on a whole-lotta goodness!

I was SO excited when I got my basket this morning I had to share, it was simply AMAZING!

We ordered 2 baskets this time around plus we ordered some of the extras and they were well worth it!

This was our salsa pack, I made some yummy salsa verde & red tomato salsa out of this.  I had to laugh at that tiny miniature garlic tho, I could use that all up in one dinner dish!!  (I've never bought the italian pack but after this awesome salsa pack, I will definetly buy the italian one next time around!)

This 9 grain bread is great!  Ty just loves it!  The tortillas smell so good, what a great bargain for 7 dozen tortillas.

This was our fruit portion of the basket, mind you, this is just ONE of the TWO fruit portions I got!  Talk about generous!

And my favorite, the veggies!!  For those of you who know me, you know that I could eat veggies all day long, I love them & crave them!!  Ya, I know, what happened to my kids?!!

This was the veggie portion of our basket, and yes, its just ONE of the TWO I received!  What you're not seeing is the other 3 packs of baby portabellas I got.  For the record, I received FOUR baby bella packs today...these alone are almost as expensive as the cost of 1 basket!  I was doing my happy dance when I saw all the corn (12 ears total) and the butternut squash, I have a new love for butternut squash and the kids could eat the corn raw! 

I also got a 36 pound box of apples!! 

This week was GREAT for baskets!!  Now I need to think of a bunch of recipes for the week with all this yummy food.

Mommy rambles on again...

I've recently come across some really good scriptures that I felt I had to share.  In my life, it seems that about every 6 months I am needing a re-boost in my positive energy, things to be thankful for and the regaining of my faith.  For me, it's so easy to get lost in the everyday whoas, then I start getting to that place of negativity that I don't like to be in.  Once you are in that place, you know it, because you lose sight of what is right with your life & your situations.

Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE being ME!  I feel I have the best life, best family, best friends, and the best situations, but with 4 kids (2 of which hate living here and hate their schools) and trying to re-establish a business in a new place...getting into a negative downward spiral is not good for me or my family.  Mom needs a re-vamp in order to re-vamp my kids, right?  Afterall, moms are the rocks of their families!

"What is the difference between an obstacle and an opportunity?  Our Attitude tward it.  Every opportunity has a difficulty, and every difficulty has an opportunity."

This is so powerful to me!  It just proves again, that our attitudes in life can get us through anything.  Looking back on all our moves we took to get to where we are now, I realize that they were all little stepping stones with a little bit of difficulty and alot of opportunity.  That opportunity has made us who we are today.

"Some people are born into wonderful families, others have to find or create them.  Being a member of a family is a priceless membership that we pay nothing for but love"

Amen!  No matter what life throws at us, no matter what dysfunctions come about, I know that I come home every day to an amazing family.  Ty & I have created a family that is all ours!  I always dreamed of a perfect, large, loving family and to know that we have created that for ourselves is pretty amazing!  Another example of your thought process, it doesn't matter where you come from, you can have ANYTHING you want!

"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves. "
~ Abraham Lincoln or Rev. William J. H. Boetcker

Ok, so this one is a little off the rocker of my subject but I seen it and I felt moved!  I am so disapointed with the way things are right now in our government and when I voted, I wish I could have seen how things would have been 1 1/2 years later. For that, I take part responsibility since my vote was directed to the democratic party..ONLY because I thought it would change things.  Well, it most certainly did!  When I read this, I felt like they were talking directly to me!  As an employer, I feel I have gotten the short end of the stick since our government seems to think we should keep giving and expect our people to quit working.  I mean really, why work when you can get paid more to not work, right?? Wrong!  Even though I am very outraged with certain government matters, I will continue to shoot for the stars.   I will continue to strive to be the best American I can be, I will continue to teach my children that hard work & devotion will get them anything they desire, I will continue to try to see the best in our economic situation and have hope that it will change soon.