Monday, August 31, 2009

FREE stuff and coupons

I love FREE stuff and coupons. I have just discovered Downy Wrinkle Release. We took a trip to Austin and I found a cute little travel size bottle of DWR at Target. I threw it in my bag to give it a try. I could not believe how well it worked. Seriously! Spray it on, give the fabric a tug and let it dry. You know on trips how you wear jeans or shorts more than once, but they have that wrinkle thing going on at your hips? This takes care of that problem and makes them look fresh and new. I LOVE it! If you haven't tried it, this coupon makes it worthwhile. My iron is going on vacation.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Family Reunion

Rachel's shadow puppet

fishing

Hayden caught one!


Friendship bracelets

on the farm

She helped make the cookies.

A 'little' sample of cookie dough.


Can't see the one in the front or the dog. We were loaded!


The first weekend in August, we had our annual family reunion. What an adventure... me and 6 kids (John was out of town) spent the weekend on the farm. Well, some of it anyway. We drove up to Childress to the family reunion and had a great time visiting with family. We had about 70 people at our reunion. It was great to see cousins, aunts, uncles, great aunts... We all take food and boy was there a ton of it. My dad is known for several things in the family: Chocolate chip cookies, Homemade ice cream and home made peach cobbler. When he's feeling really energetic, he makes the peach cobbler in a dutch oven. YUM! Dad put me to work both Saturday and Sunday helping make the Peach cobbler. It was so fun to be in the kitchen with 20 other people telling stories, laughing, cooking... Pure joy! I do have to confess that on Sunday, I had dessert first. While everyone else was in line for lunch, I knew the ice cream was done and I scooped a pile on top of my warm Peach cobbler and sat down for a little bowl of yumminess. Kate caught me. She couldn't believe I was eating dessert first. Just talking about this makes me hungry for Peach cobbler.

The kids played and had a great time. They went to the park, went fishing, fed the ducks at the pond. It brings back memories from my own childhood and going to the reunion. One year, my brother caught a duck and brought it over to the reunion building. We have a picture of everyone around him as he held his prize. Ahh, fun times!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

The Hike in Cloudcroft



We went for a hike in Cloudcroft. We tried to do this hike 5 years ago and didn't make it. We did have four kids under 6 years old and two of them were in strollers. This time, no strollers. We did make the 1.3 mile hike down to the trestle, but we almost didn't make the 1.3 mile hike back up. You think 2.6 miles is not that bad, well not normally, but do it on the side of a mountain. A little bit harder. We had a map to follow and handed it to Sarah to read. It was funny to see her read it. She was so confused. It was a map that had no directions on it and was not even close to accurate. None of us could have followed it, but it was sure fun to see her try.