Sawnee Nature Trail

One of my favorite views at our house is right over Nicole's changing table, I love it because I can see the sun rising over Sawnee Mountain! The other weekend we took a short drive to the Sawnee Mountain Nature Trail, it was a treat, very nice!

At the start of the trail is a shady area with this Indian statue, very cool!

Once you start on the trail there is a big fish pond with lots of fish swimming around you can see.

When its 90+ degrees and humid out side, carrying a 10 month old is not my idea of relaxing. But since Hubby's back is out, I had to step up on the Mom strength, Nicole sure liked it! I had flashbacks of being pregnant in summer again...ugh.

Daddy put the bandana on Taylor and she loved it!

They had a real life tree house you could walk into, very cool!

Check out this roof!

Nicole seemed to really like it too.

We were pretty high up in the trees

A little info about Sawnee Mountain

After touring the tree house we walked over to the Fairy Trail!

It's a trail set up by some Girl Scout's, its really unique. There are all kinds of fairy houses along the trail you can find.

We found our first one!!

On our way out Taylor threw some pennies into the fish pond!

We had a great visit on the trail, we will defiantly be visiting again in the fall when it cools down!! If you are a local Geogian, check it out:

Sawnee Nature Preserve
4075 Spot Rd, Cumming, GA 30040

 

Dollhouse Party & the pool

When it comes to great neighbor's, we really hit the spot! Our family next door is so sweet and kind, they are always checking on us to see if we are ok. They have a young daughter Emily who is a few years older then Taylor and who celebrated a birthday this past weekend. It was a dollhouse party! So cute and Taylor had a blast!

The invite said to bring your favorite doll or animal so Taylor took Teddy with her. She looked beautiful and was so excited about Emily's party the entire morning!

The girls made some beautiful bracelets for themselves and for their favorite stuffed animal!

They also got to wear some cute birthday hats, eat some goldfish and enjoy some yummy pizza!

They played a game of spin the tale on the donkey and Taylor won some crazy glasses! Of course she loved the homemade pink cupcakes Emily's Mom made too!

Happy Birthday Emily, we love having you as a sweet neighbor and friend to play with!!

Having 2 little kids means we don't go out to eat that much, it can be a lot more trouble then its worth! But when we are feeling brave we go eat Mexican, nothing like a little cheese dip to keep the kids happy!

I packed tons of toys and baby food to keep Nicole entertained!

While I took Taylor to party, Hubby and Coco went swimming with Aunt Amy and Cousin Ryder, they had a blast! Staying cool in these hot summer days!

The other morning while I was getting ready I noticed how much more the girls are starting to play with each other. Taylor crawls around like Nicole and they chase each other, it warms my heart and makes getting ready easier on me!!

 

 

 

Popeye, yummy burgers & biscuits

Greetings everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend, we just came back from Panama City on a lovely beach vacation with my family. I can't wait to share our adventures this week! But today I wanted to show you just how alike my silly girls are. Hubby took Nicole to the store and got this cute pic:

 I think she looks like Popeye! Look at that mouth! Her big sister did the same pose at her age:

I can't even express how much I love this!!

Speaking of how much I love stuff, hubby grilled these delicious cheese burgers from a blog recipe and it turned out fantastic!

I saw this on Dixie Delights, she always has great food recommendations. This recipe is cheap and easy! She calls them Best Burgers, here is the recipe, it will not disappoint!:

Best Burgers (makes 8)
2 lbs ground beef
1/2 cup Duke’s mayo
1 pouch Lipton Onion Soup mix
8 buns with sesame seeds
tomatoes, thickly sliced
Palmetto Cheese pimento cheese
arugula

• Gently mix the ground beef, mayo and soup mix.  Form into 8 patties.
• Grill (we use big green egg)
• Top with tomatoes, pimento cheese and arugula

It seems like I am always finding new things I like about where we live in Cumming, one of them is Guy's Biscuit Barn! Hubby found it, its an old barn the owners turned into a restaurant and they make fresh biscuits every day. I love the butter biscuit with jelly!

Hubby enjoyed the bacon and egg biscuit

I just love places like this, so unique with a lot of history, if you are ever in Cumming, check out Guy's! They are located at:

30028, 1810 Dr Bramblett Rd, Cumming, GA 30028

Before we left for vacation the girls had a fun baseball theme day at school. They got to play with balls and gloves and watched a real game! They came decked out in their Braves gear!

The new Lilly P catalog arrived last week, there are some many great things I saw, but this caught my eye for sure:

While at the store the other week I picked up some of these nature candies, AKA cherries! They are so sweet and juicy!

It reminded me of the Mark Twain quote, "Why not go out on a limb, that's where the fruit is"

Love it!

Along with the cherries I picked up another one of my favorites from Publix, they make a yummy olive and feta cheese salad,its so good and has no olive seeds in it!

And last but not least, I saw this last night and just had to share!! If you are like me and are married to a teacher and/or have teacher friends, you know what I am talking about! The last week of July usually means school will be starting up again and posts about school starting again. Don't get me wrong, I have much respect and love for teachers, but when your vacation is 2 weeks out of a year and your spouse get 2 months out of a year, you can understand my no complains about going to work rule I issued at my house :-) Yup, I am jealous of the teacher schedule for sure!!

 

 

 

 

I want to see you be Brave, a bathroom light up, & 10 months old

We had a fun weekend, it always seems to go by so fast!! Friday night we watched the Disney Princess movie Brave with Princess Merida!

Merida has bright red hair and an independent spirit. She was also really good with the bow and arrow, I ordered these from Walmart.com!

I didn't have much time to prepare so I heated up some brownie mix then used a round glass to make circle, outlined them in white icing and put a cherry in the middle for a target!

The movie itself was really pretty and I just loved all the accents the characters had!

Check out my bow Mommy!!

Daddy showing Taylor how to use the bow and arrow, it was a challenge!

Nicole was not too impressed with the movie I guess :-)

I picked up these pretty wall candle holders a while ago at Walmart for like $5 each...SCORE! I really like them but have never lighted them cause I am always too busy. But Saturday morning I said why wait! There is something about candles that just makes a home more comfy!! And they smelt great!

Speaking of Saturday morning, it never fails that my girls will sleep until like 7 AM almost during the week if we have to go to school, but when we get to sleep in on Saturday, guess who is up at 5:45 AM. So I took her on a stroll around the neighborhood, it was still cool and quite, it was actually pretty nice to see the sun come up!

I saw this post on Facebook and keep thinking about it. It was taken by a man who had just witnessed a motorcycle accident where the rider was killed instantly. Very sad, but if you look closely you can almost see like a white spirit above him, I think it may be his soul. Pretty amazing.

And speaking of amazing, our baby girl is now into the double digits, 10 months old! She is crawling fast, claps, has 4 top teeth and 2 bottom, loves her sister and ALWAYS wants to be held. She is a sweet baby, we love her so much XOXO

 

Vegetable Salad & sweet smiles

I've never been much of a veggie lover, I defiantly prefer fruit and chocolate :-) But they are good for so when I saw this veggie salad on Southern Plate:

http://www.southernplate.com/ 

It looked really good and easy, perfect for summer! It's super easy and pretty cheap, especially when you let it sit in the fridge over night, a great side dish!

Granny Jordan's Vegetable Salad

 

Ingredients

• ¾ cup white vinegar
• ½ cup vegetable or olive oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 15 ounce can small green peas, drained
• 14.5 ounce can French style green beans, drained
• 2 - 11 ounce cans sweet or shoepeg corn, drained
• 1 cup diced celery
• 1 cup diced bell pepper
• 1 cup diced onion
• 2 ounce jar diced pimentos, drained

Instructions

1. Combine the vinegar, oil, sugar, salt, and pepper in a small saucepan and bring just to a boil over medium high heat, stirring constantly until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
2. Combine remaining ingredients in a large bowl and pour vinegar mixture over all, stirring to coat. Cover and chill for eight hours or until thoroughly chilled. Serve with a slotted spoon.

 Honestly, it really doesn't taste like veggies with the added sugar it has a nice sweet taste to it!

Taylor had a check up last week and is in great health! Daddy and her came by my office with some Chick Fil A for lunch, a fun lunch break!

I love Saturday morning when we don't have to rush around getting ready to go anywhere, just being able to play around in our pajamas!

Daddy found these shoes in Nicole's closet, how cute!!

Nicole is really building up some leg strength standing up, she loves to pull her self up and play!

My new beach hat from Etsy came in this week, and look who got it first!

You probably saw this week was the 15 year anniversary of the movie Legally Blonde, it's still one of my favorites! I have watched it so many times and reminds me of my little dog Gizmo. He would sit in my lap and watch this movie with me before kids, when I had a chance to sit down and watch a movie! Its a great message about always having faith in yourself.

Get ready, here I come!

It no wonder I am never on time for anything, getting ready in the morning is a challenge, especially with a little rascal handing on your ankles!

You know its going to be a good day when this is  your breakfast :-)