Weekend Recap!!

Friday--

Well, now that school is in session we are getting a peek at what our Fall will look like!! High school football games every Friday night until late November! McKenna's in the Color Guard, so we will be at all of them. (It's a good thing that I love football so much, isn't it?)

HHS had its Jamboree Game on Friday night, getting ready for the season which will start next Friday night. We played at home against Sylacauga and won 37-0. I hope we can play like that all season!

The band performed two of their halftime songs, since they're still perfecting it and were just giving us all a "preview." The show this year is a Jazz show, with songs like "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Stars Fell on Alabama." They did a great job--sounded great! And the color guard did excellent. McKenna was on time and didn't drop her flag. Yay!!

Here she is as we got ready to head out (they have a different show uniform, but wore this because the entire band was wearing shorts and t-shirts because it's been so hot!)...

Delaney found a friend at the game and proceeded to cheer with her, and then wander around the field for most of the game (this, apparently, is how middle school kids entertain themselves during football games!. I almost didn't let Delaney wander around, but Gary assured me that I needed to loosen the reins and let her "be a preteen" with her other friends. Ugh! It's beginning again...


A picture from the halftime show. I know it's dark, but I was way up in the stands and my flash didn't do a great job. McKenna's in there somewhere...

Sydney takes her purse with her EVERYWHERE she goes and it usually contains Polly Pockets and her tea set. So, yes, she had a tea party at the football game!! . . .


Saturday--

Oh...My...Gosh!! We had the BEST time and the BEST food when we went out for our Girls Night Out on Saturday night!!! We ate HERE and it was so yummy!! Some of the culinary highlights? Fried alligator for appetizers (surprisingly tasty!), seafood gumbo (delicious!), beach martinis (really good!!), catfish pontchatrain (a delicious catfish stuffed with a shrimp and crab mixture and covered in a gooingly yummy sauce and cheese; and it was spicy, which I love!), and fried green tomatoes as a side dish! (Plus, samples of everyone else's dishes. Of course!) How could I have been any happier?

Here are four of us (me, Franki, Angi, and Allison)...


Then we went HERE, which is one of the best bakeries inBirmingham! (I'm telling you--click on the link and just drool over the stuff there!) It happened to be Franki's birthday, and also mine is this coming Friday and Angi's is on Saturday. So...we had a lot of birthday celebrating!! So...obviously...an ENTIRE cake was in order!

We had actually ventured down to Edgar's while we were waiting for our dinner table. While there, we basically ogled the beautiful cakes (they taste so good, but are also SO pretty!) and all the other yummy baked goods; we decided that we would forego dessert at the restaurant and come back to Edgar's afterwards for a slice of cake. Well, imagine our surprise when we got there and a sign said, "All cakes on counter $11.00" (these cakes sell for around $30 regularly). Apparently, Edgar's is closed on Sunday so they reduce everything on Saturday night. So, we got a WHOLE cake that we promptly sat there and sliced and ate! We also got-- "buy-one-get-one free" rugalach, cookies, cheese straws, wedding cookies, and cupcakes! (I'm telling you...anyone who lives in Birmingham needs to pop by on Saturday evening and you can get some yummies for the next week for almost nothing!)

Here is the cake we bought. (Chocolate with buttercream frosting.) It was almost too pretty too eat...but not quite! LOL

Chris, Birthday Girl Franki, and Allison getting ready to indulge in it...


After eating so much that we were literally waddling out the door, we went on a shopping spree and then home to the husbands and kiddoes. (Gary called me at least four times during the night asking, "Does Sydney ever stop talking?" Ha!! This is why GNOs are SO important; they appreciate the work it takes to spend so much time with the children, even if it's just to listen to Sydney's non-stop jabbering for six hours!)

Sunday--

We are starting a revival week at our church and the visiting pastor preached this morning and it was wonderful! My favorite message was his comparing us to thermometers. He said we are too often like thermometers--when outside conditions change (crises, challenges, worries), we tend to go up or down. When we have our finances under control, when we are happy with our children, when we are healthy...we're up! When we are struggling in our relationships, when we are sick..we're down! He said that we need to devote ourselves to being thermostats instead. Thermostats remain the same temperature, despite the conditions outside. As Christians, we can have joy and love and peace despite the circumstances. That really spoke to me! That is definitely a challenge, but I know it's true. I cannot control so many circumstances (some things just suck because, well, that's life!), but I can certainly control my attitude about them!

We spent (well, I spent) the rest of Sunday afternoon relaxing and doing not much of anything. McKenna went with some friends to the dollar theatre, Gary and Delaney went to practice, and Scout and I watched tv, ate leftover cake (oh yeah, half of that cake is in my house for some reason! lol), had tea parties, ate a few cookies (oh yeah, six of them came home with me!), and surfed around online. A good way to spend an afternoon!

And, now I'm getting ready for one of my favorite weeks EVER!! Friday is my birthday and I will admit it--I LOVE birthday celebrations and get a kick out of opening presents and eating a cake made just for me. I have no problem with celebrating me every once in a while! We will have several celebrations, which I am really looking forward to! And then next Saturday is opening day of Alabama football. I have been wating expectantly FOREVER for this day and it's almost here!! (Oh, and also, Bunko is this week. Yay!!)

But...amidst all this excitement and anticipation of fun things...I have a ton of work to do. So, you'll notice that this Weekend Recap is being posted on Sunday evening instead of Monday morning. This is because I will be hiding away all day tomorrow getting two articles written and turned in. So, it's a blogging mortatorium for tomorrow and tomorrow night until they get done! So, forgive me if I don't pop by your blogs until Tuesday. That will be my reward for getting my work done!

In the meantme--

I hope you all had a great weekend and that you're looking forward to an awesome week. See you all soon!!