Fishing Trip, Marine Corpes Birthday Ball, Aquarium, and more....

We have had such a great few weeks. My parents came last Friday and stayed until Tuesday to watch the girls during the ball. Steven and I went to Atlantic beach and stayed at the Sheraton for the Marine Corpes Birthday Ball. We had such a wonderful time, it was like a late anniversary present for us, since we were never able to celebrate our five year anniversary. Happy Birthday USMC! I borrowed a dress from a friend and felt sooo much better than two years ago when I was much heavier sucked into a too small dress! :)

div>We went to the life and science museum in Duram, NC and had a great time. It had a science museum, imagination play area, petting zoo, butterfly garden, music park, and train ride. I would highly recommend it for families. Gracie and Emma had a great time.....Gracie especially loved the butterfly garden, she kept pretending to fly like a butterfly the whole time. Super cute. The weather was awesome, super warm, and the trees were beautiful. Here are some cute pictures from the day.

Steven had a super long weekend, with the USMC birthday and veteran's day, so we went to the NC aquarium. The girls had a blast with their PaPa and MeMe to play with. Mom and Dad aren't as fun as grandparents. :)

This picture is hilarious. Gracie was refusing to take pictures and just closed her eyes and went limp....Way to go ruining the pictures, Gracie!

We were looking in this huge two story aquarium and next thing we know, Gracie is on the floor pretending to be a fish.

Papa and Emma.

Gracie kept saying, "Scary Snake" over and over as she was looking at the snakes at the museum.

Sweet baby sisters.....best friends.




Gracie caught her first fish....with Daddy and PaPa's help.

Daddy and Papa are trying hard to make this prissy princess a fisherwoman.

Menu Planning Monday, weight loss, silly pictures

Hi, I'm starting Menu Planning Monday, to try to get organized at the beginning of the week so we can save money on our meals. My goal is to only spend $50.00 each week on groceries and eat out only 1 night a week. This week we only want to spend $30.00 because we went over on our budget last week....partly due to our football part which was cancelled! :(

Here is our Menu for this week:

Monday - spaghetti with whole wheat pasta, salad, green beans, bread

Tuesday - Chicken Macaroni grill mix, broccoli, bread, pumpkin pie

Wednesday - leftovers

Thursday - Orange Chicken, fried rice, veggies in the mix

Friday-Chicken pot pie with biscuits, baked apples

Sat - Eat out

Sunday - breakfast for dinner (my favorite)

Weight Loss Update: I made goal last week! I have been doing weight watchers for 10 months and have lost 38.6 pounds! I started at 184, now I'm 145....and went from a size 16 to a size 8! I still want to lose 10 more pounds, but since I'm within a healthy weight for my height, 5 more weeks and weight watchers will be free! Yea! I think it has been worth every penny. I have been on a diet my whole life and this is the first time that I have actually done it!

Here are some silly pictures of the girls. I was walking by the playroom and noticed Gracie sitting in there watching TV....wearing my red stilettos! I also caught Emma in the dishwasher...her favorite places to play are in the toilet, the dishwasher, the pantry, and the refrigerator. She has a huge playroom with tons of toys and she loves to be in the dishwasher! Crazy!

6 months in North Carolina....

Can you believe we have lived here six months? The time has gone by soooo fast! We love it here, have made great friends, have an incredible church, and love our new house. It is still hard being away from family and friends in Oklahoma and I'm sure it won't get any better. I am excited about moving home during Steven's deployment.

I love this family picture. We went to the pumpkin patch at Mike's Farm with our Sunday school class, there was about 50 of us! They have the best home cooking, not weight watcher friendly, all you can eat family style. The best part was the macaroni and cheese, the best we had ever eaten, so when all of you come visit us, we will definitely have to take you there! Gracie loves seeing the "punkins"! We left Mike's Farm and drove to Virginia beach to stay with our friends Adam and Natina Gardner. We had a great time shopping at the outlets and hanging out with old friends. Steven even got to go deep sea fishing!

The following week our church had a Fall Festival with free food and games. The outdoor activities were cancelled because of nasty weather, but Gracie had a great time playing the games and decorating her "punkin".

Gracie and Daddy painting her pumpkin.


Gracie loves her little pumpkin which she always refers to as "Mama". Thanks a-lot Gracie!

Emma did really good, she was so happy just hanging out in her stroller. What a cutie!


Here are some sweet pictures of the girls. Emma loves to sit in Gracie's lap. Isn't the chair super cute?! Steven reupholstered this chair, I'm so impressed. We bought it for $5.00 at a garage sale, and he completely took it apart and researched how to upholster it. Doesn't it look fantastic? Gracie loves it!

Last Few Weeks...

Gracie and Emma: Best Friends

It has been a crazy last few weeks! Sorry, I haven't posted more.....The weather is getting so nice here, it is really cool in the mornings and evenings and warms up during the day! We have still been going to the park tues, wed, and friday and the girls love it. I put Emma in the swing for the first time last week, and she loved it...laughed the whole time! I'll try to remember to take pictures! :)

We have had a lot of fun, Gracie loves to "cook" with Mama, especially baking, because I let her pour all the ingredients in...We have been baking a lot lately, which isn't too good on my diet, but I have been trying to tweak recipes to make it more healthy.

Last Friday, we hosted a play date, and we had so much fun with all of our friends. There were kids everywhere, and Gracie did pretty good sharing her toys. All the kids had a great time, but were completely worn out by the end of the afternoon. Last Saturday we went to a "pig pickin" (North Carolina term), and we had some good barbecue. Our new pastor, Jason Brinker, was voted in last Sunday, and on Saturday we had a barbecue to meet him. It was super fun, and it included two Sunday school classes...the young marrieds and the old folks! They were all extremely nice and friendly, and this sweet older couple held Emma for 45 minutes while we ate and helped Gracie with her food! We are so excited about our new pastor, he is very charismatic, has a vision for the church, and will promote change in order to grow. He even preached in jeans....which I thought would be pretty scandalous for FBC!

Here are some pics from the last few weeks: Sweet Emma waking up from her nap

Emma loves to look at the window....she will constantly crawl across the room to peek out the window, and she stands there for a long time just watching. She's our little cat.

Gracie being silly. She has such an imagination...and loves to play pretend. Her favorite things this week are being a duck, bee, and butterfly.

Sweet Emma Claire lookin soooo cute! She absolutely loves her big sister!

Everybody has been asking for a picture of me, so here it is....I've lost 37.6 since joining weight watchers in December, and about 50 pounds from my highest pregnancy weight. I've gone from a size 16 to a size 8, the only down side is I need all new winter clothes!

Super Savings Saturday

I know I'm posting this on Sunday, but here are my great buys for this week. I did great at garage sales....here are my best finds.

This is hard to see, but these are all Gymboree, brand new with the tags. The dress and hat retails for $50, the overalls and sweater for $32 each. I also got an adidas outfit, a penelope mack outfit, several osh gosh shirts, and a not so cute cinderalla outfit that Gracie LOVED. I paid $22.00 for all of it! I couldn't believe what good deals I got! I also got a huge tub of wooden blocks that probably retail for over $50, for $7.00! Gracie and her daddy had a great time playing with the blocks yesterday. Two year olds never seem to tire of knocking down towers of blocks.

I also went to Walgreens and bought alot of the rebate items....with my $10.00 off of $40.00 coupon. I figured I spent about $9.00 out of pocket for about $60.00 worth of merchandise. I credit Moneysavingmom.com for all of my saving. This is an incredible website that will save you tons of money. I know we have saved close to a thousand dollars since I discovered the website in March! Check out this website.....it's awesome.

I also lost another 1.6 pounds for a total of 31.6. Only 6.4 pounds from my goal, and then Weight Watcher's is free!

Henderson Happenin's

Gracie's outfit for most days......

We have had a crazy, but fun week. Steven's truck is getting fixed, so I have had to drop him off and pick him up from work every day.....so we were up early running earrands, which is nice to get them over with. Monday, we checked out the gym on base and loved it! The playroom is awesome, it reminds me of a little preschool with different centers. Gracie had a blast, and Emma was well taken care of since there are only two baby spots. We only had to wait about 5 minutes for a spot in the play room to open up. The gym is incredible, all of the treadmills and elipticals have personal built in TVs, and I am meeting with a personal trainer next week.....and all for free! The child care costs $2.00 per kid, but since the gym is free, its well worth it!


We usually go to the park tues, wed, and friday and walk 3 miles. They have a great park, so while the mommies are doing crunches, pushups and lunges, Gracie gets to play. We only made it one day, because I was sick this week...but we are hoping to go more next week. Steven had duty Thursday and Friday until late so we didn't do much those days.

Gracie has been is destructive mode this week. Her favorite thing to do is empty out all of her dressers or playroom drawers. She literally did this in about 90 seconds..... I feel like all we do is pick up her messes!

Here is a cute pic of Gracie in a boutique outfit I bought for her a few weeks ago at a yardsale. I paid $10.00, which is alot for a yardsale, but it retails for $65.00. She looked pretty cute, if I do say so myself.

Here are some pics of the girls when we went shopping this week at Target. Gracie was singing at the top of her lungs in the dressing room, and Emma kept crawling under the door trying to escape. I spent 30 minutes trying on 5 items.....By the way, Emma is now wearing all of Gracie's old clothes which is great because I won't have to buy her any new clothes for the fall/winter.

Video of Gracie climbing

This is how Gracie climbs into the crib to play with/wake Emma. We are going to move the changing table when we finish painting the room.....It's a work in progress!