Wild Things Party!

Today was my baby girl's birthday. My little Brooklynn Wynter turned TWO years old! Sniff, sniff! Although I have LOVED watching how she has just grown into such a cute (albeit, SPUNKY) little girl. Her giggles and laughs are enough to just make your heart melt.

The theme was "Where the Wild Things Are" 

Here is the cake and cupcakes I made. I'll get to the cake later :)

For the Wild Rumpus, I had a few things for the kids to play...first up, was a silly string fight! We had a break in the rain, so we headed outside to do that first.

I think even the adults had fun doing it :)

Then it was "Pin the Tail on Max"

And some balloon popping fun!!

Then it was cake time!

The cupcakes were just vanilla and chocolate, but the cake was zebra striped!

All you do is have 2 different batters, and then just add the batter on top of each other, one scoop after another. Don't play with or help the batter, just let it spread on its own. I used the left over batter for the cupcakes, so I had about 24 cupcakes too.

When you cut into the cake, it looks like this...

Happy Birthday to my little wild thing!!

Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate!

Supplies I ordered for this party

Getting Ready for Christmas!

We've been getting ready for Christmas in the Ross household.

Autumn wrote her first letter to Santa - I am so excited to keep this memorabilia! 

She asked for an airplane, beads, and a Strawberry Shortcake Doll.

If you'd like a letter writing template, I shared a freebie on my teaching blog, you can get it {HERE}.

She even sealed it, addressed it, and stamped it with a heart!

I've been told that our post office will actually write back so I'm going to make a copy of the letter (so I can keep the original) and then send it out tomorrow. I am excited to see if she gets one back!!!

We also made the first batch of Christmas Cookies!!

These are TECHNICALLY called Frosted Nutmeg Logs, but I call them Yule Log Cookies....they are some of my husband's favorite cookies!!

I found the recipe MANY years ago in a magazine that I ripped out to keep - but I found the recipe online. Click {HERE} to get the recipe!

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving break!

So much to be thankful for!

So it seems it's customary to profess what you are thankful for on Thanksgiving. I feel that it's a little odd that you only say the one day a year when you're supposed to...to me these are the things you need to let people know ALL year! It's kind of like Valentine's Day for me. I feel bad for boyfriends and husbands that are being trapped into finding a fancy and expensive way to tell you that they love you. Shouldn't they do that all year 'round???

With all that being said, I AM going to give in and profess what I'm thankful for....because I AM thankful.... and I'm a very lucky girl! It's not just today, but always....

I'm grateful for my little mischief makers

for my husband who puts up with me and my craziness

for my parents who may live across the country but never let a day go by where they don't let me know they think of me....

I'm thankful for my health...and I try not to take it for granted and keep it going!

and for my friends - for the ones that have given my children some of their best friends....

and have given me a great group of friends too!

 and the ones who have become more like family!

There are many more friends I am so thankful for - and so many other things, this list could go on forever!!

I'm thankful for nap time (for children AND HUSBAND) so I can cook Thanksgiving dinner quietly...hehe

I'm grateful for all the friends I have made through my life of my teacher blogging - they are some of the most kind hearted, giving, funny, awesome group of ladies!!

But most of all, I'm thankful for everything God has blessed me with!!

So today, and EVERY day, I am thankful and a VERY lucky girl!!

Life is a Roller Coaster

Five years ago, I married my best friend....

We "eloped" to Jamaica to get married. Everyone knew we were going, it was planned, but I just didn't feel like planning a wedding and stressing out. No one came with us, we just went on vacation and got married. It was WONDERFUL. I am still so happy that's what we did.

We SO want to go back....

We came back and did a photoshoot at home.... these are some of my favorite pictures.

Fast forward 5 years.....

A lot has happened...

two beautiful girls

new house

deaths in the family

grad school

The last month has been one of the most stressful times in our marriage. Between the passing of my husband's father (and the leading up to it) stress at my job, we really just needed a day to be free....

So I took the day off of work, we dropped the girls off at our FABULOUS sitter's,  and we headed to Islands of Adventures...

so we could go to Harry Potter World!

We relaxed in Margaritaville (one of my FAVORITE places...I just love Jimmy Buffett)

And we rode all the roller coasters....it has been about 7 years since our last roller coaster, I think. We were thinking we could go in, ride all of the rides 2-3 times each, so we bought the express pass - UNLIMITED.  HA!  well.... we did ride ALL the rollercoasters and rides, but ummm.... our bodies can NOT handle roller coasters like we used to. Our first coaster was the Hulk....which, if it's your first time back in the coaster-saddle, then whew! It's a doozy...lol. 

As we were leaving the park today, I thought it very apropos that we chose to go to a theme park...life is such a roller coaster, especially the last month. We rode those roller coasters, we screamed we laughed, we got a little queezy. But we survived, and we're ready to take on the next ride.  

Life has its ups, it's downs, its twists and turns. Scream, cry, laugh, it's all part of the ride. And if you have a friend by your side, you'll make it out alive.

That's the lesson I came up with today, and I'm so glad that I have my best friend to share life's roller coaster with! Here's to many more rides!

Weekend routine

If you follow my teacher's blog, you know that I've been back to school already. Well, during the week, I barely have time to breathe. You know what it's like, chaotic. But I love it. I get to rummage through all those ideas that I've found or bought and try to figure out HOW I'm going to fit it all in. 

Well, that means, that I'm back to making my weekends into a routine. Saturday's not really a routine. But we usually go to the pool, or do something fun. I can't always say it's as a family because my husband's schedule doesn't always allow for that, but we do what we can. 

Yesterday, we went to the pool with some friends, and then we came home and played in the backyard, where I got just hang with my girls...

and Pete. He's so pretty, isn't he??? He's about 10 years old though, and for big dogs, that's pretty old.

And Sundays are reserved for beach days and school planning. In the mornings, we go to the beach with some friends...ok. I just have to say. I don't know WHERE else I would ever live. I mean, I think I would be one depressed person if I couldn't go to the beach. Just looking outside and seeing the clear blue skies makes me want to be outside...but I have to be near the water. and pools are great, but there's something about the beach that just makes everything better.

When I was a kid, I remember being at the beach all the time, day and night. That's one thing I hope to pass on to my girls...so far so good.

I went to a new beach today. I pass it all the time to get to on of my other regular ones. I think I found my NEW beach. It's perfect. It has lifeguards (which I like because of my "no fear" girls), it has showers (again, for my sandmonster kids), and best of all?? It has a food shack! But it plays Jimmy Buffett music (LOVE) and it has some seriously yummy food with a really shaded area. I love it!

My girlfriend, that I usually go to the beach with, posted on her FB this morning with a hashtag of #saltwatertherapy

I love it. It's so true.  That's why this is one of my favorite sayings ever.

(p.s. that's MY picture..MY beach...and thank you to my talented friend for working her magic with the words! I'm totally turning this into a poster for my house!)

A BIG welcome cheer for the return of my weekend routine!!

Now...I must go plan for my week.

Girls Night: Painting

You know what's fun? a painting night!

We were all set to go to one of those Bottles and Brushes places, you know where you drink wine and paint pictures? Well, the one that they were going to paint that night wasn't something that we liked. SO, we decided to do our own. One of Jolyn's favorite artists is Peter Max. So we found one of his paintings that we liked and decided to try it on our own!

This is the one we were set out to do.

So to Jo-Ann's we went!  I had all the paints already, and paintbrushes, so we only needed to get the canvases. We found canvases, 2 for $13 and then they were 50% off of that! Sweet deal!

We stopped off at Publix to get some dinner...yep. Subs and Mimosas for dinner! haha!

We like to keep it classy. haha!

I printed off a picture for us both to use as a guide, and away we went!

Here's what we looked like most of the time...lol!

And ta-da!!  I actually REALLY like how they came out!! 

I think we're going to do it again...a different artist this time.