...goings on...

I just had a minute, so I thought I would drop in and say "hi."

Here's some of what's going on:

Tonight I'm headed to: 









Tomorrow is my mom's birthday! Happy Birthday, mom!

This weekend is a big launch weekend for our new Devoted Hearts & Homes emphasis! Excited to see what God is going to do!

Next Thursday I'm headed to SLC to see Kelly, Brandon & SLOANIE!!!! AND we're going skiing for 2 days!!!

 Then in mid Feb I'm headed to Waco for SING with 2 of my sisters and 1 niece and 1 nephew! Here's our pic from last year:

Then that same weekend my church is celebrating its 50th Anniversary!

And the following weekend I'm hosting a group at my house for our church's D-now, SPARK!

So, you can see, things are BUSY!!!  In the midst of that its time to start thinking about VBS! Yikes!

Nice knowing you! Hope you enjoyed these 2 posts 2 weeks in a row...who knows when that will happen again! I'll try my hardest to do updates of all of these goings on...but I can't make any promises!

Have a blessed one!

...iPhone dump...

Sorry for my extended absence.  I feel like I say that every time...sigh...

Anywho, I know we all love pics, so here is an iPhone dump to give you a little taste of what I've been up to for the past 2 months.  Sorry they aren't in order...just deal!

My 2 year old niece, Macie, showing off the Toms I got her for her birthday while we were in Corpus at my parent's house for Christmas.

   

Bradley loving on his cousin Sloanie!

 

Yes, I tried the Spicy Ketchup @ Whataburger.  Like it, don't love it...changes the flavor too much.

  

My parents with 3 of their grandkids on Christmas Eve at our Home Church.

  

6 out of the 7 of my nieces & nephews on Thanksgiving day after they did the annual Cousin Parade and 1st ever reenactment of the 1st Thanksgiving! 

Celebrating my birthday with Jamie @ Cheesecake Factory! 

 

These precious kiddos from church came to my house on the hunt for their Gingerbread Man! He had run away from their house.  They had gone to 3 or 4 other houses looking for their run away felon, when they found him at MY house! We had to eat his legs to make sure he didn't run off again!

Canton weekend with my girls!!!! AWESOME get away!  Yes, go ahead, laugh, I'm wearing a travel belt...but it's SOOOOOoooo practical on long shopping days like that!

I got a sewing machine for Christmas...who thinks I'll have any clue how to use it by next Christmas?

All ready for our Baylor Alamo Bowl watching party (yes, that's a Baylor watch you see on my wrist!)

Waiting at the airport with a special sign to greet Kelly & Sloane when they returned to Texas from Utah!

Cute cousins getting ready for the Thanksgiving Cousin Parade.

During our girls weekend we headed up to McKinney to see Kendi's shop! I made the girls take a pic with her even though they were super embarrassed!

The boys LOVED "babysitting" Sloane, and she LOVED them!

The day before I left for Thanksgiving, Rebecca and I ran around town and ran a few errands...and happened to be by Crave cupcakes, we had no choice but to stop in and get one!

I just returned from a 2 day retreat with the entire Ministry staff @ Tallowood! Let's just say we love to play together, but that doesn't mean it doesn't get competitive!

Sweet Sloanie using the blanket I got her for Christmas!

That's a pretty good wrap up! Here's to hoping I blog again soon!

Happy 2012!

...nablopomo???

You may or may not have noticed that I didn't post yesterday, which was the first day of November, which is the first day of NaBloPoMo.  This is the first year in several years that I missed a day.  I'm not sure that I'm going to do it...just not feelin' it, but I thought I would go ahead and post today and see if it turns into me posting more this month?  We'll see.

This isn't much of a post, but to make up for it, here are a few pics from the 4th annual Jr. Staff Hallowii party and Trunk or Treat at my church!

Incase you're having trouble telling, I was Kate Middleton.  It didn't come across as strongly as I had hoped :(, but if you look closely I do have a replica of the heirloom ring, which is iconic!  I promise to do better next year and live up to this costume!

In true Kasey fashion, I was a ladybug...too bad you can't see my cute polka dot tights!

Happy NaBloPoMo!

...about a month ago...

So, my family is adjusting to this idea of having family members that live out of state.  Let me just tell you...we don't like it, but we are making the best of it.

So, right when Sloane was born in June, Southwest airlines was having a cheap flights deal and we booked a flight for Kelly to fly to Houston in September.  The plan was for them to fly into Houston and then I would drive them down to Corpus so that my all of my parent's friends could meet Sloanie.  Well, if you recall, when Sloane was born life was pretty crazy with my dad having a stroke and all, and I was in charge of booking the flight for Kelly, well...I kind of booked the reverse flights...as in, a flight from Houston to SLC instead of from SLC to Houston.  Thankfully Kelly realized this about a month before her flight and it only ended up costing us about $50 to change the flight...yeah, she was not very happy with me when she realized the mistake I had made.  Thankfully, alls well that ends well.

Anywho, Kelly & Sloane flew in on a Wednesday night and we had dinner with all of her in-laws since a lot of Brandon's family lives in Houston and had yet to meet Sloane.  Then Thursday we drove to Corpus.  Friday was filled with breakfast with Jana, 3 month pics of Sloane (which turned out to be quite an ordeal, but worth it), and then late that night Kristy's family arrived, having driven in from Waco to see Kelly & Sloane for the weekend.

Saturday was fun as a lot of my mom's friends came over for a little "Sip n See".  Here are some pix from that morning.  My only regret is that I didn't get any pics with my mom or sisters, I guess we were letting everyone else have time with Sloane.  Oh, and my 9 year old niece had 2 little friends that came and at one point they stole Sloane away and "babysat" her in the back room...wish I had gotten pics of them fawning over her!  Sweet cousins!

I had to head back to Corpus on Saturday, but only after making my niece, Ashlyn, a matching pair of fabric covered Toms! She said they are all the rage in her 4th grade class, including with her teacher!

Anywho, Kelly & Sloane stayed in CC til Monday to spend more time with Mom & Dad, and Kristy & her kids.  Kristy and her kids went back to Waco on Sunday, and then mom took Monday & Tuesday off of work to bring Kelly & Sloane back to Houston to catch their flight out back to SLC.

So, when Mom, Kelly & Sloane got to Houston on Monday, Katy & her boys had gotten to Houston so that they could spend some time with and see Sloane! So fun to all get together!  We didn't really do anything special, just some shopping and playing and fawning over precious Sloanie. 

Everyone had to head back to their homes on Tuesday, but not before we got a few cute pix with me & the cousins...enjoy!

Can you tell I am obsessed with this bundle of cuteness?  Can't wait to see her @ Christmas...too long!

...DIY Staycation 2011..

As is usual, I am behind in blogging, but here is an attempt to catch up. 

At the end of August Rebecca, Raquel & I got crafty during our self-invoked DIY Staycation 2011! We had contemplated going somewhere, but ended up deciding just some down time at my house being crafty sounded just as appealing and hopefully cheaper! We had all recently been inspired by some Pinterest crafts and were dying to try some out...So, that's what we did!

Date: Labor Day Weekend
Event: DIY Staycation 2011
Participants: Raquel, Rebecca & myself
Location: Mi casa
Goal: Equal parts chill time, craft time, and fun time!

We started off our weekend on Friday evening.  The girls arrived at my house and then we headed off to dinner & a supply gathering stop at Hobby Lobby!  We had decided to each decorate a pair of shoes (yes, idea originally from Pinterest), and possibly some other crafts that may come up along the way.

After some juicy hamburgers from 5 guys, we headed off to Hobby Lobby to make some decisions and hope to be inspired.

The rest of the night Rebecca started her artistic design on her Chuck's while Raquie & I just did some planning for how we would cover our Toms with fabric.

Saturday morning we woke, wasting no time at all, to get crafting, after a nice cup of joe & some pancakes, that is!  Shortly after lunch we realized that we had run out of glue, so we had to go to JoAnne's to be able to finish off our shoes.  This was our first trip to the BRAND NEW JoAnne's in Katy, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint!

We also happened to be passing by Ritter's frozen custard, so we decided to treat ourselves to a yummy cold treat!

On our way home we saw this, look closely, yes, it's a car with car lashes! Gave us a good laugh for sure!

Unfortunately we had to break things up that evening, as Rebecca & I headed to church.  I think most of our shoes were close to done by this point.  After church, we reconvened at me house to make yummy lasagna!

 I believe we watched another movie and put some finishing touches on our crafts while also flipping through some magazines! Ah...perfect girl bonding time!

Of course, we all headed to church on Sunday morning.  After church, Rebecca & I made 7 layer dip tostadas, de-lish! Yes, this idea came from Pinterest as well!

Sunday afternoon was filled with laying in bed, girl talk, naps, and topped off with a viewing of Titanic!

After ordering pizza, we treated ourselves to this amazing dessert: a Cookie Monster! Yes, that's a massive guey cookie cooked in a frying pan in the oven, topped with hershey's syrup, ice cream, nuts and then more syrup! MMmmm

I think it only took us about 3 minutes to get to this point:

By Monday our shoes were done, Rebecca had made a cute rosette necklace and I had painted some canvases for my friend's birthday.  Raquel had gone home to spend time with her mom, so Rebecca & I decided we had no other choice but to hit the 290 Outlet Mall!!! Man, did I get into trouble there!

Here are our finished products!

All in all it was a great long weekend, with a perfect balance of fun and crafting!  Love you girls!

...Single Moments 7, 8 & 9...

Some of you may have forgotten a series I started 2 years ago, entitled "Single Moments." Well, it's back and this time in full force. I have 3, count 'em 1,2,3, moments to share. All 3 have happened in the past few weeks, and all 3 were when in conversation with my niece or nephews...kids, they can be so brutally honest, gotta love 'em.

Single Moment #7

Unfortunately I don't remember the full context of this conversation, but we my oldest nephew (9 yes), Brady, and I were talking about families. This is a summary of the conversation:

Brady: "Well, yeah, Bubba (me), cuz you don't have a family."
Me: "Excuse me?"
Brady: "Uh, well...Uh, you know what I mean."
Me: "I do?" (just giving him a hard time)
Brady: "Yeah, you know. Like you're not married, you don't have kids."
Me: "Thanks for the reminder!"


Single Moment #8

This conversation was with my 6 year old nephew, Blake. What you need to know is that Blake has been asking his parents a lot of questions about boy/girl relationships, why ppl get married, etc. His parents (my sis & BIL) have taught him that you only marry someone if God tells you to marry them. Blake's comment to me:

"Bubba, why hasn't God told you who you are going to marry yet?"


Single Moment #9

While driving in the car with my 9 year old niece, the song "I Loved Her First" came on. If you're not familiar with the song it's a dad singing to his daughter's fiancé, telling him that he (the dad) loved her first. He says how hard it will be to give her away, how he held her first, he loved her first, and she'll always be his little girl. I told my niece how sweet I thought this song was, so I told her to listen to the words. Well one part of the song says, "I prayed that she'd find you some day, but it's still hard to give her away..." I'm not kidding you, out if nowhere Ashlyn says,

"I guess Gramps (my dad) quit praying for you."
Me:"Excuse me?"
Ashlyn: "Uh, I just mean..."
Me:"Yeah, you better mean that he's still praying! Right?"
Ashlyn: "Right."

Seriously, what am I going to do with these kids?

...KIDNAPPED '11...

If you know me at all, you know that for several years now my sister (Kelly) & I have done "Aunt's Weekend!"  And if you don't know me, why are you reading this blog? Moving on, last year Kelly & I told the kids that it was the last Aunt's Weekend :( We knew Kelly was going to be moving to Utah, and then it really sealed the deal when Kelly found out she was preggers.  There was just no way.

Well...as time passed, not only were the kids sad that there were no more Aunt's Weekends, but I started getting sad about it myself.  I hadn't realized how much I looked forward to that special time with those kiddos! I mean, they're stinkers, but I LOVE 'EM!

So, some time early last week, I got a notion, to surprise kidnap the older 5 and steal them away for a day filled with fun and surprises.  So, last Friday, that's just what I did.

Yes, I called it "KIDNAPPED!" The back of the kid's shirts said, "Kids?...Yes!" "Naps?...NO!"  The back of my and my sister (Katy's) shirt said, "Kid?...No." "Nap?...YES!" Ha! Get it?!?

Well, I'll let the pics show you what all we did that day (super annoyed that these are showing up sideways...):

About to go into the Maybourn Children's Museum!

Cute Cole learning about the evolution of communication...land line telephones! ha!

Ash & Brady playing "house"!

Cutest bus driver I ever saw!

Yes, he's about to smack the heck out of those drums!

LARGE Bison!

Very proud of themselves for figuring this out (with some help).

Seriously, love that smile!

Ashlyn doing the wash!

This was his idea to dress like the school boy and pose with his hand up...kid cracks me up!

Walk like an Egyptian! The special exhibit at the museum right now is an Egypt exhibit, the kids loved it, especially the mummy!

You can't go to Waco without visiting the Baylor Bear Pit! Sic 'Em Bears!

After lunch we spent the afternoon painting pottery!

Then picked up a sweet treat at Katy's Custard before heading home! MMMmmmmm!



Always fun times making memories with my favorite kiddos in the whole world!