Our Tale of the Leprechaun

The easiest way to wake Keagan up in the mornings is to tell him something he can be excited about for the day. Yesterday morning I went into his room, shook him good morning and told him, "Guess what!? When you get home from school today we're going to build a leprechaun trap and catch us a leprechaun." He didn't buy into it and told me leprechaun's were way too fast to catch. I told him that was not so....Just wait and see. I looked up to see Aaron staring at me most likely thinking,"What are we going to do now??!"
I put together my plan at work and this is what we all collectively came up with:
The long trail to nowhere....

We had our trap sitting on the tv stand and in ordered for the little guy to be able to get to it we built a really tall ladder for him to be able to climb on up.
The trap...

We painted an empty box of grits and then decorated it with things that would be charming to a little leprechaun. The leaves hold some lucky charms for bait. Little does he know that when he steps on the leaves he'll fall into the hole and not be able to get back out....
Morning:

Keagan was shocked! It looks like we did indeed catch a leprechaun but he used his shovel to dig himself out....And left gold chocolate coins along the way. I thought that was the cutest shovel I had ever seen. It was pure luck that I found it on my lunch break and knew exactly what I'd use it for!!
After all the excitement Keagan collected the coins and said, "I must have had a nice leprechaun because he didn't turn anything green." I just nodded and went about my business for the morning.

A few minutes later I hear, "Ok....The leprechaun peed in my bathroom!!!" haha! I thought that was so funny. He actually refused to use it until I cleaned the green out.
Breakfast time:

You've got to have Lucky Charms on St. Patty's day, right?? I sat Keagan at the table and poured the cereal into his bowl. Then I went and grabbed the milk and started pouring....The look on his face was priceless then he said, "Mommy, he peed in our milk too!!"
It was quite the excitement for our morning and unfortunately Easton missed the whole thing. He slept in until 9:00!! Oh well, there is always next year. :)

My Pre-Birthday Bash

It sure left its mark on us, we sure left our mark on it.
We let the world know we were here with everything we did
We laid a lot of memories down, like tattoos on this town.....

I didn't get much of a 21st birthday.....I don't have all the stories to tell, the memories to smile over, and really nothing to say about the day I turned 21. Because of that I've told myself for years that I would ring in my 30th with a bang. We decided to do it a little early this year because for my actual birthday I'll be camping with family for Thanksgiving vacation and while that will be more than nice....It wasn't quite the adventure I was looking for.
A couple of months ago we put together a plan and this weekend we put our plan into action. Thankfully we had the boys' Nana here to watch them and A and I were on our way.
We reserved a fireplace suite that was more than just nice. It was AWESOME!

We had a nice cozy fireplace inside with a huge king size bed and a loft with a pool table. Who needs more?? Well we had more! Outside on the balcony we also had another fireplace that sat right next to the hot tub that was just perfect during the nights when it hit a frigged 26 degrees!
Saturday morning we woke up when we were ready (and yes, it was still 7am)...No alarms, no children crying, no little 5 year old sneaking into our room saying, "Mommy, is it time to get up yet...."
We dressed and headed to our first adventure~Ziplining the Nantahala Gorge.

The ziplining was incredible!!! Look at the drop! The speed.....and it helped even more to have a great crew to go with.

We left there with an exhilarating high and contemplated going back to the room to watch some football.....We looked at each other.....Nah! Let's go out on the town!
It's not to often that we're near a casino so we decided to head there. If you had seen us walk in we stuck out like a sore thumb. We roamed the casino glaring at the old ladies with their oxygen tanks hooked up while smoking their cigarettes. We spotted the folks who had their frequent flyer card in the machine yet looked like they may be wondering where their next meal would come from. The smoke was so heavy in the casino that I wondered how on earth I would be able to stand this for even 5 minutes....And then, we found our seat at the bar.

We got to know our bartender who happened to be a Georgia fan....We made some quick casino friends, played a little poker, and actually had a pretty good time.
After cashing out our vouchers (and yes, Aaron did win us a little something at poker) I could tell he was ready to head back to the casa.....Not without ONE more stop though. I wasn't going to be satisfied unless I came home with my final tattoo before turning the big 3-0.
I could tell he wasn't very enthused and after looking through book after book after book I thought we'd walk out with nothing. I had saved on my phone what I wanted and was fortunate enough that the artist was able to draw something very similar. Once I laid down to get mine, Aaron came around and found one of his own. While I was about ready to take a nap durning mine....I would about have to compare it to getting a massage....I couldn't help but find the misery Aaron was in a little funny. ;)

And well....That's about the end of our trip. We woke up this morning with smiles remembering our awesome day. We stopped for a great breakfast and picked the boys up a sweet treat before picking them up. To describe the trip as "fun" would be an understatement. There aren't any words to describe. It was so nice spending the weekend with just my husband. We laughed at things we otherwise would have never thought were funny. We took in every single minute of our day and relished in it. This pre-birthday bash to celebrate my 30th could have honestly not been any better! Happy Birthday to me!

We love Summer!!

Sometime there is no time to edit a photo! It's far to good for that anyways. We've had such a great time in the 100 degree weather...just hanging out with family! I love it!!

May I please have my tail back!?!?

This weekend was a fun filled weekend at the family's house. The boys get along so well with their cousins. It's like a vacation in itself when we go there. We decided to head over at the last minute and learned while we were on our way that there was a bowling party that the kids would be going to on Saturday afternoon.
Awesome! Keagan had never been bowling and it had been years since I'd been so I thought it would be fun for the whole family....Kids party or not.

Let me just say...Bowling in real life is nothing like bowling on the Wii....You forget these things. Apparently according to the Wii I'm a bowling pro...Ha! Funny! In real life I think my score was a 64 or something crazy like that. And that's with bumpers!!
I also tried to snap a few pictures but between the horrible lighting and chasing after a one year old who was fascinated with the huge colorful balls-not too many pictures came out of that trip. Fun nonetheless!

On our way back home Sunday morning we were running on little sleep and very grumpy children. We decided to stop for a quick breakfast at one of our favorite unapproved fast food restaurants and this was our view! I laughed and laughed....I'm also still trying to decide if this was a worker (who would obviously be very motivated to get to work....) or a customer (who would obviously be very hungry)...either way-I have never seen a moped quite so pimped out!

Please note the homemade windshield....and the rodent at the bottom of the picture who clearly wants his tail back! :)

You Are What You Eat....

They say you are what you eat....I personally find that very hard to believe. I think both my boys look just like me. Don't you??

I owe Chelsey over at Paper Heart Camera a big thank you for putting up a tutorial on how to do this. I see a little more practice needed....The noses proved to be very difficult for some reason but I had fun, no doubt!
I can't wait to show the boys what they turned into while they were off at school today. Somehow I think they are going to find it even funnier then I have.