Happy Birthday, Big Daddy!

Today is Big Daddy's Birthday! He's turning ...... {cough gasp cough} 46.

He is wonderful husband, daddy and friend .... everybody loves him and he's the most GENEROUS person I've ever met. Never met a stranger and will invite you to dinner after he's met you in the line at Space Mountain.

He loves his daughter ....

Adores his son .. his mini-me

and oh does he tolerate me ... but that's part of the deal, right??

So Big Daddy, because you literally have everything - because there is NOTHING I could think of getting you for your birthday, I thought I'd give you something you enjoy the most ~ rest.

We're going to the Don Cesar (not putting WHEN on here b/c there are probably a couple freaks that read my blog - don't need any groupies showing up at our room) for a romantic evening away - just me and you. The kids will be wonderfully taken care of by our sweet friends and we'll just relax, eat great food, and enjoy our beach front room!

Can't wait ....

We love you!!

Seriously .... another swap!

I LOVE SWAPS! I've been so fortunate to always get great partners -- except for once, when I did a swap, and my partner did not send my item ... actually, she emailed me, thanked me for her package, and then told me I was lucky my husband was married b/c she just might want to snag him!

Y'all -- you can't make that mess up.

SO anyway, this one I am looking forward to ... .Shawn over at Seriously, one of my real-life BFFs is hosting this birthday swap - should be tons of fun!

So head on over and get yourself signed up - you won't want to miss!

We are NOT going to sleep ..... we're staying up ALL night ...

Yeah ... sure you are.

* Taken 20 minutes after I realized it was AWFULLY quiet in the family room. Princess and my BFF's daughter, who is in town visiting from Atlanta. We have been BUSY ... and they have successfully stayed up WAY past their bedtime every night this week. OH BUT TODAY, I wore them out ....

Weekend Recap .... it was THAT good of a weekend!

This weekend was a great one! I got a phone call on Wednesday asking if I'd like to go see Rascal Flatts -- I went last year and actually, have been 4x to see them. They are one of my all time favorite groups. My husband is very good friends with all of them, but that doesn't mean a whole lot of anything ... until I went to the concert.

See, I always walk in this one particular way. For whatever reason, I decided to go around to the back and see if they'd let me in back there. I had my VIP ticket in my hand, and just walked like I knew where I was going. I was stopped by security and then my husband appeared - right on time. He walked with me through the back where all the tour buses were. He was stammering over his words b/c he had just met Tim Tebow. For those of you that know Big Daddy, y'all know this is a SERIOUS dream come true for him. He loves that kid. He was walking me out to where our seats were and I stopped, looked to my left and realized the boys from Rascal Flatts were doing their meet & greet. The tour manager waved to Chad and I just started walking up their direction. The tour manager waved to me and motioned me up. I asked if I could just say "HI" and he told me of course, perfect timing, blah blah blah. I walked up to Gary and my husband yelled out 'Hey now, be nice, that's my wife' and Gary looked at him, went to shake my hand and yelled back to Big Daddy 'I KNOW! I KNOW!' -- then, I'm not even kidding you, he wrapped his arms around me and gave me the biggest bear hug, like practically lifting me all the ground -- and was making some jokes to my husband. It was funny, great, surreal. I do not get star struck -- ever (except for that one time with Trisha Yearwood) and so I decided to just roll with it and joke around with them. It was great fun.


This is when they were singing "What Hurts Most" --- beautiful song! Loved the set.



"Me & My Gang" -- we had great seats, no?



This was at the end - "Life is a Highway" -- there is Rascal Flatts, Tim Tebow and Darius Rucker.

Then on Sunday, I went out and met one of my BFFs in Orlando. I have her daughter for the week and so I went to get her and have breakfast. Courtney is like a big sister to me - she has been there for me through some major life changing events. She is my mentor and although we don't talk every day, when we do talk, it's like no time has passed!

Pam (who lives in my town and has become one of my BFFs, went to college with Courtney, so she met us out there too), Courtney, and me. The story about me and Pam is one of the fate, God things -- it's SO weird!


So that's it! Awesome weekend. I have a busy week planned and an even busier weekend. It's going to be a blast -- birthday parties and Nick Hotel!

Operation Nice

I was reading one of my daily reads - According to Nina - and she posted about this fantastic blog called "Operation Nice". I started reading and couldn't stop - and knew that I HAD to put this one on my blog.

I am a big believer in honey over salt - any day of the week. It just works - it's easier and people tend to respond better to it. I had an 'erroneous' charge on my credit card - $95 - and instead of calling and t-totally flipping out on the dude, I NICELY asked him if it was a mistake, SURELY it was a mistake, and within 2 minutes, I had my refund. Now, he could have said "Nope, sorry, you signed a contract, we're holding you to it" but he understood my situation, which I explained to him NICELY and saw no problem in refunding my money.

A few weeks ago, I was at my daughter's cheer practice. All the seats were full. There were no less than 4 gentleman sitting in these seats and there were several women standing. Do you know -- NOT ONE OF THESE "GENTLEMAN" offered me or any of these other ladies their seat? I could not believe it. That would NEVER have happened if Big Daddy was sitting there. Anyway, after I was SURE chivalry was dead in our town, I had a lunch meeting the next day - at a very prestigious club in our town. I go there every Friday. I walked off the parking garage and a precious elderly gentleman was with me. He pulled out his phone to take a picture of the level we were on -- I laughed and we struck up a conversation. He literally BOLTED off the garage elevator and when I turned the corner to get on the main elevator, there he was standing, holding the elevator for me - as he remembered I had mentioned I was running a tad late. It truly made my day!

SO I'm all aboard adopting Melissa's mission with Operation Nice! Here is a quote from her blog:

I believe that kindness can change the world, so it’s my mission to spread the concept of being nice, as simple as that may sound.

I encourage you all to check out her blog - it's a great read!

Have a NICE day! :)

Much needed break ...

So this weekend marked the ANNUAL Ritz Girls weekend ~ every July, a group of girls heads to a different Ritz Carlton Resort. We stay on Club Level to enjoy all that it offers (4 presentations of food each day, unlimited drinks (of all kinds) and pretty much treat you like royalty) - it's wonderful.

We headed down Friday morning and were there before lunch ended! We decided to grab a quick bite and then head down to the beach. Naples is beautiful - and CLEAN!

This is a view of the resort from the beach .....

This was our bellman, Court ~ he was from Atlanta and ABSOLUTELY adorable. We tipped him extra to grab us some more Bulgari soaps and lotions.

This was as we entered the property - we literally all squealed like school girls!

The beach from our room -- this looks like a postcard, doesn't it? The weather was like this EVERY. SINGLE. DAY! The water was so warm ... it was great.

Shawn - this one is for you. This dude was walking around with all his jewelry on, denim shorts and that dress shirt. I could have died. He was puffing cigars. He kept yelling out to the 'beach waiter' and when he didn't come fast enough, he'd say "YOU'RE KILLING ME" - but in this weird accent -- so needless to say, that was ONE of the quotes of the weekend!

I surprised each girl with a cute little gift bag I made before we left! It had an embroidered towel in it that said "Ritz 2009", a cup from Swoozies that said "OH CABANA BOY, I'll take another!", gum, lotion, ocean scented sachet, and a sample set of body stuff from Arbonne. They LOVED it and I LOVED doing it for them!

Our first night there -- taken on the balcony of our room.

The sunset ....

This was just a SAMPLING of the desserts we had each night. This was vanilla marscapone with these little crunchy chocolate things, topped with what I kept calling a "chocolate boat filled with caramel" and a HOMEMADE MARSHMALLOW .... OMG!!! I had 2!

Out final goodbye to the Ritz -- this is the fountain at the entrance and we all had on our "Ritz Chix" shirts ... so cute.
A great time was had by everyone, although we were missing a few girls. I think we have voted and we will be going back here next year. It's not a bad drive and quite frankly, they ENCOURAGED us to have fun. We got in SERIOUS trouble last year in Sarasota ... for being too loud. Like, the Manager of the whole hotel had to come speak with us on MORE than one occasion, but I digress ..... not this year.

Until next year -- viva la Ritz!

C.H.A.O.S

I think I've posted about this before - but I can't remember ....

I suffer from C.H.A.O.S - Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome

I feel like my house is always a flippin' wreck. I am OVER IT. I have decided I WILL conquer this house. Now, did you know it takes 10 days to break a habit? Meaning if you walk in, set your keys, mail, purse, junk, whatever on your entryway sidetable ~ it eventually gets to be a mess, right?

WELL -- if, for 10 DAYS, you do NOT set ANYTHING on that table, meaning MAKE A CONSCIOUS effort to NOT set ANYTHING on the table, ie: put junk mail in trash, hang keys up, put purse in bedroom (that's where I LIKE to keep mine) .. if you do this for 10 days STRAIGHT - you will break the habit of setting things on the table. Seriously - try it.

SO -- my big 'issue' has always been my laundry. I will sort it in the hallway, put it in the wash, move it to the dryer, etc. Once the dryer is done, I'll move it to the BIG COMFY leather chair and keep rolling with the laundry .... until I literally have a pile SO big that I dread having to sit down and fold it. THEN once I fold it, I'll put it in respective piles and then either LEAVE it in the family room, OR I'll take it to the room it goes in and stack it on a dresser, etc ... which then stays there for however many days/weeks it takes for me to get so fed up that I put it away. HALF the time, I forget about the washer and the clothes end up having to be washed TWICE!

SO -- rewind to 2 Sundays ago .... my darling, sweet friend, Shawn, came over to check on Peanut, who had spent the night and Babe wanted to see how the crown molding installation was coming (WHOLE DIFFERENT POST -- LET ME TELL YOU). She walks in and says "I will be back at 2:30 - CLEAN UP your kitchen before I get back" ... so you know what ... I did. I had it not quite spotless, but clean. Was it bad that her hubby says 'Well, you know, opposites attract, maybe that's why y'all are BFF' ... he's right ... ALL my BFFs are clean freaks. BTW, she didn't even bring me a prize for having my kitchen clean -- maybe my prize was having a clean kitchen!

ETA: Shawn was NOT b-yotchy when asking me to clean my kitchen. It was encouraging, more like a challenge. This girl has helped me clean my house more times than she probably has cared to (and so as my other BFF, Amber - do y'all see a pattern here??). She is constantly telling me how cute my house is and that EVERYTHING HAS A PLACE, EVERY PLACE HAS A THING (tell yourself that while you cleaning -- and the place may just be the GARBAGE or GOODWILL). Keeping my house clean is a MAJOR challenge for me ~ so I'm lucky to be surrounded by girlfriends that care enough ABOUT me to help me and encourage me and just not come over b/c they can't handle it. Now don't get me wrong, my house is not a pig sty - I just seem to always have crap everywhere. I dream of the day they can stop in and it is CLEAN ... and it's coming SOON, I just know it. I've conquered the kitchen (been over 10 days) and I WILL conquer the laundry/hallway situation.

Let me tell y'all what .... I have made sure my kitchen was clean every night before I go to bed. Big Daddy helps me SOMETIMES, but mostly it is me. I love love love it. LOVE IT.

Sooooo, THIS past Sunday, I get word that we are going to have a visitor on Thursday. One that I KNOW for a fact is a clean freak (WHAT THE HECK!?!!?) -- so I decide "HA! I'm going to have my house so clean, she'll have to go check the address out front!" I start working on the laundry and decide to really CLEAN the laundry room. You have to walk through the laundry room from the garage, if it's open, and then into the house. I had 'do not dry or I will die' clothes on top of the washer, crap everywhere ... I started cleaning that and making piles. I did one load of laundry - wash, dry, fold, PUT AWAY. Hmmm, that was easy. I work through all the piles, all the while, completely FINISHING the laundry. It didn't take me that long either. SO I then decide that I'm not going to make piles of laundry anymore. I'm going to just do that load - completely, and then start the next one. NOT having the chaos in the hallway was enough for me to realize this is what works FOR ME.

I do not have room for a sorting laundry bin, however, I try to do one load of laundry per day. I put my kids dirty clothes in laundry basket IN the laundry room. I may put a white/darks sorter in my daughter's closet b/c she has the room for that. When I'm doing a load, I just go through the basket and pull out what needs to be washed. It pretty much always stays full though (sad sad sad). This is the hallway now and has been since Sunday. It USED to be lined with piles and piles of dirty clothes.

This is my laundry room ~ I faux finished my cabinets myself - LOVE them - AND I made that chalkboard on the back of the door. It's not a huge area, but it's less for me to keep clean!! I have SO enjoyed walking in every day and not tripping over dirty clothes, etc.

Ahhhh ... so that's my boring blog post for the day. Maybe not so boring to some of you, I'm sure, but this is my life.