Missin' Those Babes

I've been having some major niece and nephews withdrawls. They are getting so stinking big and grown up! It almost makes me sad but I'm happy to say that I am finally going to get to see them soon! Brother got a new job and while he is looking for a house in their new town in Texas, the wife will be coming up with the kiddos to her parents house and eventually will make their way down to us. Jaden just had his fourth birthday! 4!!! So old! Gonna be starting school next year! Clara is now 2 1/2 and is such a cutie. She's starting to play with more girly things instead of always boy things with Jaden, but they still love playing games together. Here are the most recent photos of them. Be prepared for the cuteness. 

And how could I ever forget about this cutie! The most recent edition to the family! He's coming just after Jaden and Clara come to visit! 

These kids all have my heart ❤️

There is your daily dose of cuteness. 

Until next time...

Baseball and Bugs

This evening we made the trip to Raymond in the big green bus as we do every away game. With only 9 boys on the bus we had just enough for a team, even the coach was suited up tonight which brought the total up to 10 players. The game started off not so hot but then toward the end we tied it up and made it quite a game. Unfortunately we lost ok the bottom of 9. I was thankful the game was over because the misquotes were so thick! It must be that time of year. We stocked up on bottles this weekend at the gas station at the baseball tournament on Arlington so luckily I had some left over from that. I've got so many bug bites from the weekend and now more added on top of that. That is one thing I absolutely could go without. With the loss the Irish move to 10-9. Not a place we want to be but have been in a bit of a slump lately. I think we need to not drink so much ;) Here is the coach Bob-o scoring a run and batting. Reliving the glory days! 

Nicely done Bob-o

Until next time...

Fiesta Ranch Dip

We always seem to have food in our department at work and I love to eat it so I try to think of different things that I can bring in to share for the whole department. My next creation that I am going to try is Fiesta Ranch Dip. 

I found the recipe on of all places, Pinterest. 

It looks super easy and very good. 

1 container sour cream
1 packet of Ranch Fiesta Dip
1 can Rotel
1 cup shredded cheese
Put in the fridge for an hour 
Serve with tortilla chips and enjoy!

I'm excited to try this one and love to make easy dips to bring to work or to parties to share with others. I love simple recipes that only take a few ingredients so it's super easy to make and to be able to recall and tell to others if they like it as much as you!

Here is the link! 

 

Terrifying Tornados

There are tornado warnings galore and now a confirmed tornado on the ground just outside of Marshall headed right for us. There is nothing that I am more terrified of than a tornado and if you ask anyone that and that is what they will tell you. So to keep my mind off of it for the next 15 minutes until it reaches the Cottonwood area, I will blog! 

That spot in the middle may not look very scary, but I am terrified. The wind is starting to blow again and it sounds like there is some hail outside. Maybe after everything settles down I can go outside and take pictures of the aftermath, I just pray that there isn't going to be an aftermath.

These types of storms are just the things that we at an insurance company like to happen, but not really. This just means if our building in Cottonwood is still standing, we will be extremely busy tomorrow calling many insured to make sure everyone gets taken care of as soon as possible. 

Not only are we in a tornado warning that has now been extended, but also in a flood warning, which is the last thing that we need in this area. 

Super random post, but not much else to do while we sit in this basement and just wait for the storm to pass over us or flatten this town completely.

Until next time...

Wayfair: Another New Obsession

Now that Tyler is buying this house, my head has been filled with so many ideas about what type of furniture to buy and how to decorate it. He has told me that I have reign to decorate how I please! :) I can't wait to get into the house and start painting and getting new things to put in it. However, Tyler also told me that everything costs money... I thought it would all just magically appear. Guess not. We will have this really nice house, with crap furniture for the first few years. I think that I will take it one room at a time and I have decided to start with the bedroom. I have found this site called Wayfair that has very cute furniture for pretty reasonable prices. It is an app on my phone and it reminds me every day when the daily deals come on the site. I always like to look through those because they are normally the cheapest. I am obsessed with having a tuffed headboard and they have so many cute ones on this site. I have already decided the colors of the bedroom and bought my duvet from this site. I thought that I had purchased my headboard too, but it turns out that the order never went through, so I am still looking to find the one I like best. 

If you are looking for anything for your home, I would recommend that you check this site out first! Their slogan is a zillion things home so if there is anything that you want to find for your home, I would guess you would be able to find it at this place! Everything is nicely broken into categories so it makes all the items very easy to find. 

This is the look that I will be going for in the bedroom. The headboard and comforter are very similar to the ones that I have and I will have the wall behind the bed be a navy blue to accent the blue in the bed against the tan headboard. All the other walls will be tan. 

I don't even have the house yet, but I blame this site and Pinterest for giving me so many ideas! I'm pretty excited to get in and start decorating!

Until next time...

Summer Camps, Round 2

This week I had another week of volleyball camp. This week it was the 4-7 graders and it was much easier to work with this group compared to last week with the K-3 graders. They understand the concepts that we are trying to teach them. Even though they are still small and weaker. It is nice to know that they are learning the correct form, even if they can't get it over the net or do it as well as the older girls. The coaches all want them to have good form so that when they reach us at the varsity level, we don't have to take a lot of time going over how to do simple things that they should have learned when they were this age. This week we were able to go over hitting and digging, something that we would not be able to do with the younger group because of how small they are. I was very surprised and pleased with how well they caught on to the concepts that we were teaching them. I am really looking forward to working with many of these girls at open gym throughout the summer and can't wait until some of them are finally playing for me on my team at the varsity level. 

These are just a few of the girls that were at the camp this week and that is the varsity coach, who was their coach this JO season. These will be the 7th graders next year and some could possibly be playing up with me on the C squad next year.

Until next time...

 

Summer 2014: Volleyball Camps Galore

This week starts my very busy summer with volleyball!! My two sports I spend the most time with are volleyball and baseball. Playing volleyball, watching baseball. Monday started just one of many volleyball camps that I have thought the summer. Unfortunately I will not be getting to play, just coach. Which I enjoy almost just as much! This week has been a challenging week because of the age group we have. We have over 25 Kindergarten-3rd graders for 2 hours, 3 times this week. Being a teacher I knew the struggle with keeping the focus of them all, especially the younger ones, but it has been rough! Today was our second day of camp and we went over just a lot of the basics. They are too young to understand the more complex things. So we go over passing, underhand serving, setting and moving their feet. They seem to enjoy it and don't complain too much! 2 hours is a long time for them to be engaged the whole time, that's for sure. I'm looking forward to next week when we have the 4-6 grade girls. They are at a higher level and understand a lot more which is awesome to see! Tune in next week to see how the 4-6 grade camp goes!

Until next time...

Funfetti Cake Ball

It was my mothers birthday on Monday and since we work at the same place I thought I better make her a treat to share with her and the rest of the department. So of course my go to place is Pinterest for anything food and crafts. This time it was a Funfetti Cake Ball, only mine was not in ball form. It was super simple and super yummy! The recipe calls for 1 and 1/2 cups of Funfetti Cake Mix, 1 cup powdered sugar, 3 tablespoons sugar, 1 stick of butter and 1 block of cream cheese. Mix them all together and use vanilla wafers or graham crackers. It tastes almost just like frosting! Like I said, found this off of Pinterest which is my absolute favorite thing. As you can see fromy other posts I have tried some other recipes from there as well. All have turned out very yummy so far! I'm just waiting for that one Pinterest fail! 

This is what it should have looked like, but my presentation was a little off. I just stuck mine in a plastic container. It's more about the taste right?! 

Here is the website that I found this from http://www.whatscookinglove.com/2013/05/funfetti-cake-cheese-ball.html 

Until next time... 

My Absolute New Favorite Hobby

This past Memorial Day Weekend was so great for me as I found my new favorite hobby ever. Paddle Boarding! 

I begged my dad to go to Menards to go look at them on Sunday morning because they were on Sale for memorial day and I haven't seen them this cheap anywhere else. We got there and had a heck of a time trying to find them, but we finally found them in the back and then was the challenge was trying to get them down. But before we got them down I had have a "chat" with my father. My birthday was coming up and using every time I was up at the lake I promised to use it. Which I fully plan on doing! We got it out of the box and had to put the fin on, but after that I was on it literally all day. Tyler and I would take turns and he even took a fishing pole out there with him! That looked like a bit of a challenge, but he managed. Didn't catch anything, but at least he knows he can do it now. The water was so calm and it was the perfect day to paddle around on the lake. I thought that it was pretty easy and got the hang of it pretty quickly and so did Tyler, but my dad struggled a little bit. I don't think my parents will be trying it for a little while, or at least until the water warms up in case they fall in! Now I just want to get another one so that more than one person can go out and we can paddle around the lake together. I have found that it is a very relaxing exercise and it is so calm out on the lake. My parents lake is pretty small and there are normally not many boats, which makes it perfect for paddle boarding! I love it so much and can't wait until I can get up to my parents new house again.