Happy Birthday Lillian Leigh!

You're 7 today!  Seven precious years of fun and love because you came into our lives...

All dressed up being a super big sister......

or hanging out in the hunting fields.....

WE LOVE YOU EVERYDAY!!!!

hope your birthday has been fantastic!!!

Birthdays Galore......and a Great Wolf!! i

January and February are heavy birthday months around this place...we have 8 out of 14 to celebrate in these two months.  Crazy, I tell ya!
Lilli's is January 25 and Austin's is Feb 1 so their moms decided to celebrate them together and instead of a "friend" party, they did an "experience" party.  Something they would always remember.
So, last weekend, we all piled up and headed to Grapevine Texas to have a Great Wolf Lodge experience!  And what an "experience" it was!!!!  Laughter, giggles, hugs and lots of playing took place.  It is an inside water park with loads of kids activities to keep them busy for days.

Little kiddie areas everywhere!

Slides!

Lazy River!

Lazy River Laughter!

Wave Pool!

One of our rooms had a cute bunk bed room and a pull out sofa and queen bed

and mostly it was chaos with all of us in there...which meant FUN!

pizza night!

Birthday buddies!

Story time cousin buddies!

Arcade cousin buddies!

Arcade brother buddies!

Carousel Doll!

It was such a fun weekend and memories of those smiles on my grandbabies faces will never fade from my heart....such an honor to have them call me YaYa!!!

Rainy Day Soup!

My boyfriend has been making fun of me making a soup with 15 different beans!  HA.....was still laughing as he had a big ol' bowl of it with jalapeno cornbread last night at the end of a rainy day!

This is a great packet of beans and makes a delicious pot of soup...I just followed the directions on back and added a few more ingredients!

Lots of cubed ham, lil bacon because I didn't have a ham hock to put in, lots of tobasco and crushed red pepper, fresh carrots and kale from the garden!

I let the soup sit overnight in fridge before serving so the flavors could meld.

Perfect for a chilly rainy day!

It's Hailey's 30th Birthday Today!!!

I'm not sure how I got so lucky in the daughter in law department, but I definitely SCORED!

All 3 of mine are like the daughters I never had and are my BFF's!!!

On today, hailey's 30th birthday, I know those boys of hers will treat her like the queen she is!

Mother & Child!

(my favorite pic of all time!!)

She's wife to my babyboy.

She's mom to my 2 grandsons.

She's our daughter in law.

She is SO much fun!!!!

HOPE YOUR BIRTHDAY WAS PERFECTO!!

Doesn't get any better than this!

My little boy...um, my grown son, who is recovering from open heart surgery and his sweet wife cooked dinner for us last night to celebrate my birthday!!!!  Oh MY!
Bacon wrapped grilled teal breasts...
Cheesy potatoes...
Stuffed mushrooms...
Roasted vegetables...
And to top it all off?????  Birthday Cake and singing from two granddaughters!!!!

The meal was excellent and the company was even better --- BUT the fact that my boy was able to cook a meal for me????  5 weeks after open heart surgery???  It just don't get no better than that!  AND he was able to go to the duck blind with his dad, brother and friends that morning....not to hunt but to take videos and pictures of the beauty of duck hunting!!!!  We are all so happy for him

I think he's back!!!!!!!  WoooooHoooooo!!!!

Move Over Elvis...

It may be your 80th birthday today.......and I do love that it is just a lil bit -- Cuz that makes me feel like a YOUNG punk!!!!   Ya see?  We share a birthday today and I'm not even close to 80......heheheheh.....YET!!!!
But you know what makes me SOOOOOOO happy?  That because I've had so many birthdays....I also have this!!

And I think that's just about the best birthday gift EVER!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIRLFRIEND!!!

                                       TODAY IS JOSEPHINE REECE'S 2ND BIRTHDAY!!!

We couldn't be more blessed to have this sweet, sweet babygirl in our lives. She's precious and funny and loving and makes us laugh every dingle dangle time she's with us!!!

And I cannot believe it's been two yrs since she joined our family and became our 5th grandchild!

"Granddaughter, through you I see the future.

                                                       Through me, you'll see the past.
                           In the present, we'll love one another as long as these moments last."

                HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY SWEET JOSEY!!!

Good Luck and Good Fortune on New Year's Day!

Every year, I include this quote on the blog on January 1.  A good friend sent it to me over 10 yrs ago and I put it onto an image I took out in our pasture one day.  It just puts all that "resolution" stuff into perspective for me...

Very early this morning, I started the pot of blackeyed peas...using andouille sausage, hot breakfast sausage and venison ground meat.

While they cooked for several hours, the smells permeated my house on this cloudy, foggy winter day

making for an oh, so homey feel!

Late this afternoon, mah boyfriend and I went out to his garden to pick a head of cabbage to go along with our blackeyed peas.

This is what I call a head of cabbage!

Thinly sliced cabbage sauteed in caramalized onions and crisp bacon!

Cap'n eats his peas over cornbread.....I like mine over rice.

Hoping all of you had your helping of peas and cabbage for good luck and prosperity in the new year!

(I included a dose of good health in there too!)

"Let our New Year's resolution be this: we will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word."

                                                                           ~ Goran Persson~