The one with no pictures of my kids

Last weekend I went back to Texas...

wait for it...

BY MYSELF.

It was one of the best weekends of my life. No lie.

Now I love my kids and I may even love my husband more after last weekend since he was the one that made it all possible.

But it was a little piece of heaven to go back to Houston, and spend 72 hours with friends, family, good food, shopping, and no distractions.

I even had 3 hours to myself at Market Street.

I'm anxious to see what this store turns into...

The weather was toasty, but nothing like what I was afraid it might be.

On Sunday I was hanging out with my mom and she commented about what a gorgeous day is was.

I looked down at the car thermometer, and said, "Mom, it's 98 degrees!"

She was like, "I know!"

But really, the weather was beautiful.

After spending some time with my parents on Thursday night at Carrabas, I got to meet my sister in law & niece at Starbucks, and then headed up to the Woodlands and connected with Sheila & Becky.

And I got to love on little Davis too! I hated that it took me 5 weeks to meet this little punkin.

Long distance sucks.

After doing some shower prep on Friday with Sheila, we headed out to Grimaldi's that night.

It was amazing....two of my closest friends in one of my favorite spots ever. Oh, and there was red wine....and no kids.

Saturday, it was all about celebrating Jacqueline and Mark's two little miracles.

Words cannot express how happy I am for them. I have been waiting to help throw this party for a long time.

Because Mark & Jacqueline had kept the gender of their twins to themselves for 8 weeks (rock solid discipline), we used the colors blue, pink, and green to decorate.

Becky made adorable invitations and print outs to go with the theme.

I was almost in tears when this picture was taken.

The football one below me.

A&M played OSU....and lost.

It was a good thing that Andy was in California because the thought of having to lose and look at his grinning, obnoxious, orange clad self would have been too much.

Then it was time for the big reveal!!!

Mark & Jacqueline hadn't even told their families what they are having.

We were all in suspense. I had been trying to (over) analyze everything she's said for the last two months.

I went ahead and chose my pink clothes pin (we had to guess) and waited...

Unfortunately that Houston heat sucked the helium out of their reveal

but it was still awesome...

black balloons? WTH?

Nice try. We know you're not waiting until December.

Tell us already.

Let's hear it for the BOYS!!!!!

and then there were lots of hugs and happy tears!!

Mark & Jacqueline, we are so happy for you!

Girls Weekend!

About three months ago, I happened upon my old neighbor, Ashley's, blog.

She talked about a fantabulous girls' weekend, and instantly got me thinking.

This we must do.

It's good for the soul to go away with your girlfriends.....sans kids and husband

And I am very thankful that my husband (and my 7 other girlfriends' husbands) were willing to help make it happen.

So last weekend we headed to Palm Desert (outside of Palm Springs)

I can't remember the last time I rode with girlfriends in the car (without car seats)

Me, Paige, Annie

I forget that we pretty much live in the desert. It doesn't really feel like it because the weather is so mild where we are, but we definitely drove through some honest to goodness desert.....and made a pit stop at the outlet malls.

Then we kicked off the weekend at Tommy Bahamas....I heart this place.

Karen, Amanda, Me, Amanda, Annie, Jamie, Paige

Ahi Tacos, yummo

When we got to the house late Friday, we wasted no time throwing our stuff down and getting hard at work being lazy.

Annie stuffed our bags

with lots of fun stuff

and we broke out our new wine glasses, made especially for this occasion by Amanda & Jamie

So Saturday morning, I thought we were all going to sleep in.

That's what you do on vacation, right?

Well, at 9:00am I woke up to seven girls taking my picture....they had already been on a Starbucks run, a real run, and a golf cart drive ....al by 9am.

I'm blessed with sleepers, so waking up at 9am was actually only about an hour later than my usual wake up time.

I was feeling seriously lazy and unproductive.

But it was VACATION.

and then after a little shopping break

we spent the rest of our day here.

Taking Ashley's lead, we split the meals up, so you only had to cook once, and got to vedge out and relax the rest of the time.

I haven't eaten this well in a long time....

Team lunch

Soula & Annie

Amanda popping the champagne for breakfast

more vedge time.

I think I actually read 5 magazines last weekend.

That had to have broken some sort of record for myself.

My fellow dinner teammates

Amanda & Paige

games & dance parties at night

Karen & Annie

I told Andy the best part of this whole trip in my opinion was the gift of eating and carrying on a conversation with girlfriends with no interruption of kids.

and pool time.

Lots of pool time.

And then on Sunday, we finally had to pack it up....

and head home.

Thanks girls for a fabulous weekend!!!

I can't wait to start planning next year....

because this is going to be an annual trip, right?

Brown paper packages tied up with string.....

These are a few of our

I have wanted to throw a favorite things party for at least two years now.

Luckily when I moved out here, I met this girl....

and she had been wanting to do the same thing!

Annie and I have both been hard at work planning our Favorite Things party for over two months now.

It all paid off last Thursday.

We made these cute invitations (free by the way)...

and attached the instructions......

Here’s how it works…

You bring 5 items of one of your favorite thing $6 and under (not 5 different items….5 of the same item)…examples are kitchen utensils, lipgloss or nail polish, food, anything that you LOVE and want to introduce the group to. Have fun with it!

There will be no judging…..unless your item totally sucks. Just kidding!

And then we did A LOT of other planning to put some fun stuff together. I sent out a survey to all of the guests asking them about favorites including:

perfume, cleaning product, make-up, vacation spot, date idea, hidden gem....etc.

All the girls were asked to send me a copy of their favorite recipe as well.

So after putting all of that together, each guest had a bag with all of these fun results and recipes in them.

The day of Annie came over so we could set up.

We were a tad excited and started about 6 hours early.

We baked up a storm and had enough drinks to feed about four times our crowd of 23....oops.

On the menu...

Red sangria, white sangria, champagne punch, sparkling lemonade, decaf coffee

Oh, and there were desserts too

mini lemonade pies, baked brie, cookies, Heath brownie trifle, Biscoff cheesecake bars, and peanut butter cupcakes.

Where were the kids in all of this?

With an exceptional sitter....thank you Christa!

Finally, everything was ready to go!

When the girls arrived, they put their name 5 times in a bowl and grabbed a tag from the tree

Each tag had a number (for order of gifting) and an icebreaker question.

We had a lot of fun with those.

And then there were all the favorite things.....

Did you really have any question which one would be mine?

Before we got started, there was a lot of visiting, scoping out favorites, and a little bit of eating.

Seriously, I have enough desserts left in my fridge to feed an army.

Or at least Andy for a few days.

Amanda & Annie

the good stuff

Then it was time to begin!

Soula answering her question and drawing her lucky 5 people..

Lots of laughing going on....

Speaking of laughing....

This is my funny friend, Jamie.

She's also my gorgeous friend, Jamie.

Karen showing off her Starbucks card....dangit, I missed that one!

Mary brought Starbucks Java Chip ice cream.

My name wasn't called.

But someone who's name was called forgot theirs.

And as of 7am the next morning, I claimed it as lost property.

Our whole group

And since one of our very favorite things is music, each guest got a cd on the way out.

Annie and I put together a very eclectic playlist, complete with O.P.P.

And I don't want to play favorites, but these happen to be some of my favorite people.

This party was an absolute blast and Annie and I had so much fun hosting it.

We are thinking about putting a different spin on it come holiday time.

We just may need a few months to recover first!