Awards Assembly- 2nd 6 weeks

Unfortunately I couldn't be there for the girls 2nd 6 weeks awards assembly. But because we live in a great town with great people, I received pictures!! Jamie sent me pictures of Miss Brenna. And Ashley sent me pictures of Macie Claire! I was so thankful! 

Macie received the perfect attendance award! 

And Brenna got Perfect attendance AND A honor roll! Way to go baby girl! 

So proud of these girls! They both make my life complete! 

Junie B Jones: The Musical

The Sunday after Halloween we had tickets to go see Junie B Jones: The Musical at Casa Manãna. I'm not sure who was more excited- Brenna or Aunt Kim! 

We had it planned for a few weeks, but I didn't tell the girls until the day before. Sometimes it's easier to not have to listen to "how many more days"! (Even though I had to answer that question from Aunt Kim several times..... Some kids never grow up!) ;-) 

But Sunday was finally here and we all got dressed up and picked up Nina and Aunt Kim and headed to go eat at the girls favorite restaurant....Papasitos! 

It was YUMMY! And no trip to Papasitos is complete without tossing some coins in the fountain! 

From there we headed over to our 1:00 show. Except..... I should have taken a second look at the tickets... Because it was a 2:00 show! Oops. So- a trip to Target was in order to kill some time. 

But we finally made our way back to

Casa! 

And Nina and Aunt Kim treated the girls to some cool Junie B light up glasses! 

Sweet girls and their Nina. 

I just love these two. They give me a run for my money some days, but at the end of every day I am thankful that God entrusted them to me. 

And I am also thankful for these two wonderful ladies. I am thankful that they love and support me. And I am thankful that they love my babies. And that my babies love them! 

It was painfully obvious that there was someone missing from our fun day out. In fact, I had myself a little breakdown that morning and just got flat out MAD. Mom should be going with us. These type of girls days were her most favorite thing. But then I had to stop, breathe, and remember how thankful I am for the numerous times that she WAS with us! So many memories were made. So much fun was had. And those memories are what makes it all ok. And what would SHE want us to do now? She would want us to go and have fun with her girls and make sure that they had the best day ever. So- that's exactly what we did. We forged through- and had a great time being together. 

After the musical (where Macie begged every 3 minutes to just leave), we went to the mall for ice cream! Because no girls day out is complete without ICE CREAM! 

And since we were already at our favorite place- we decided to go for a little ride on the animals! 

I rode with Macie so that I didn't have to walk beside her the whole time. I think I had just as much fun as the kids! 

Crazy kid! 

Aunt Kim eventually took over the picture taking. 

It was a great day! We enjoyed the musical. But most of all we enjoyed the day with our Nina and Aunt Kim! Nothing can take the place of time spent with family. 

Halloween 2015

When you are a kid, Halloween holds just about the same level of excitement as Christmas. For an adult, not so much. I usually dread the whole costume shopping hassle, and then trying to go trick-or-treating on a school night gives me a panic attack!
But this year, it went rather smoothly! I was impressed. Talk of costumes started months ago, as it always does. Macie Claire had her heart set on being Anna. Just. Like. Last. Year. I tried to convince her to be something else, but nope! Nothing but Anna would do! Luckily we had a costume in the play clothes box up stairs. But the weekend before, she discovered it wouldn't fit! SO- Nina to the rescue! She went and got her one at JC Penney and it was WAY cuter than the one we had last year anyway. Score!
Brenna Grace wanted to be Taylor Swift. ugh. Enter panic attack. How on earth do you dress your kid up like Taylor Swift?? Red lip stick I could do.... but the rest of it was slightly intimidating. I googled pictures but came up with images like this...

um..... No. 

SO- I went with what we had. I found a dress in her closet that was given to her as a hand me down (my favorite type of clothes!) several years ago from Sara. It was a cute halter type dress that she just had never had an opportunity to wear. From there I bought red lip stick and a pair of heals (against my better wishes),and VOILA- TAYLOR SWIFT costume!

Our first trick or treating excursion was the Central Christian Church truck or treat. It's a tradition for us that we do every year. We have been going with Nikki and Tia since Brenna was 2. The girls talk about it every year! 

Just a sampling of our CCC adventures through the years.... 

We got dressed this time at Nina's since it was a Wednesday and took a few picts before we headed out.

Then on Halloween we had our neighborhood hayride. I LOVE this about our neighborhood! We load everyone up on trailers pulled by tractors and take the kids around the neighborhood to trick or treat. It's a safe and easy way to let the kids do the trick or treating thing and it's easy for the neighborhood people because they know about what time to expect us and they either stand at their mailbox and pass out the candy or they set it on top of their mailbox and we pass it out to the kids as we go around. Easy Peasy!
This year, I asked Dad to come and go with us. I thought it would be fun for him to be with the girls and have some fun with us. I think he ended up having a great time! 

Josh drove our hayride. And showed up wearing this..

It was too funny. But he couldn't see very well out of it so he took it off to pull the kids around. Made for a good photo op though!

These two are BFF's. Maylee insisted on being Anna since Macie was! The best part was that they had the exact same Anna costume! 

The hayride itself was a blast! Great friends make anything fun!! 

Taylor Swift looked a little to grown up for this Mama's liking! 

I think we may be in trouble in a couple years. 

It got a little chilly before we got back. 

The best surprise was looking up and seeing Pops waiting on our trailer on the side of the road! 

Poor Memaw was sick on Halloween, so Pops went and got candy and met our hayride on the side of the road. Neatest surprise of the night! The kids were thrilled! 

Then he went back and waited on us at the clubhouse. Eventually all of the trick or treaters return to the club house for hot dogs and smores over the camp fire. It's awesome! And it was made even better by Graddy and Pops! I love watching the love that our parents have for their grandkids. It melts my heart. I love that they are so involved and do crazy things like riding on hayrides, and cleaning the Peaster store out of candy bars and waiting on the side of the road for us. We are blessed. And I don't take it for granted. 

Halloween 2015 was wonderful. Fun was had. Memories were made. That's all that matters. 

Red Ribbon Week

Red Ribbon week is always highly anticipated at our house- because what kid doesn't like to dress up??! It also comes with a lot of anxiety... For me! In years past they had crazy themes that involved me trying to figure out how to make Brenna into a scarecrow! I still have nightmares about that one. 

Luckily this year's themes were much easier! 

Monday was Team Jersey day. And since life happens- this is the only picture I have of that day. 

Yep. You can't even tell what Brenna is wearing! Emily took this picture of the kids doing homework after school. Oh well. 

Macie wore her Romo jersey and Brenna wore her volleyball jersey, because she said it was her favorite team! Love it. 

Tuesday was twin day! I love that these two wanted to dress alike! 

Brenna was also twins with her friend Kinley. I was thankful for Kinley's mom sending me this picture. TRIPLETS! 

Wednesday was the day that almost gave me a heart attack. Mismatch day! Ugh! It was so hard to let them leave the house looking like this! 

Thursday was Wear Red day! 

Friday was costume day! It was raining and yucky outside, so I tried to convince them to wear different costumes to school, but they wouldn't have it! So- Taylor Swift and Anna got all dressed up for school! 

It was a fun week- but I was glad it was over and we could resume our normal clothing choices with no restrictions! 

We are wild and crazy....

Josh and I were married almost 5 years before we had kids. I feel fairly certain that we did fun things before we became parents. The problem is.... I just don't remember much of it. I honestly have no idea what we would do on just an average Friday night. Sure- I remember hanging out with friends at times, and going to concerts and stuff like that. But I know there were lots of Friday nights when Josh was at work that I was home alone. What on earth did I do??? Who knows.
Here is one thing I do know though- my Friday nights now are SO much better!
Most Fridays consist of Volleyball practice. However, a couple of weeks ago practice got canceled right before we were we got ready to go. I'm not gonna lie- I wasn't sad at all. :) We needed a break! It just so happened that our school got out early that day because the Roos were playing at Cowboy Stadium at 5:30. SO I had time to swing by the grocery store and get home in plenty of time to watch the girls get off of the bus!

It was awesome! It's these little things that I miss out on because of being a teacher that I hate. But it makes it so much more special when I get a chance to sit in my rocking chair on the front porch and watch the bus pull up and my two angels climb down those steps with huge smiles and run down the driveway. It melted my heart.
After we got the call about practice being canceled, the girls were in their pajamas by 4:45, and headed to the back porch to paint the pumpkins I bought at the store on my way home.

Kitty Kitty was supervising. 

While they painted, I fixed dinner. We ate, watched it rain, and relaxed! It was heaven.
After Macie went to bed, and Brenna settled into my bed to watch TV, the party got REALLY CRAZY!

Yep- I pulled out the ironing board and put in a dvd of Designing Women!
Like I said, I know that before kids we used to do fun things.... I just don't remember what they were anymore. And, honestly, I much prefer this new level of wild and crazy that involves paint, pizza, pajamas, and, yes, even the ironing board on a Friday night.

Johnson Girls Weekend- part 2

I knew there were so many pictures from this weekend that doing it all in one post was NOT going to happen. :) SO- here is the second part of our weekend!
Friday was our first full day together in Shreveport, and there was SHOPPING to be done!
We all slept in- like till 10AM slept in! CRAZY!! I couldn't tell you the last time I slept until 10am! It was absolute HEAVEN.
But eventually we all started stirring and got up and got the coffee going, because PRIORITIES! Everyone sat around for a bit and snacked on some breakfast and chatted while we all took turns getting dressed. The mall was our destination for the day!

Everyone enjoyed just strolling around the mall and taking in the sights. Our plan was to go to see another 7pm movie, but we were done way earlier than that, so we decided to head back to the hotel room, get in our pajamas and order Chinese!
If only we had known how MUCH food we were ordering..... it was crazy!

We each ordered something different and just shared. Chinese food in your pajamas is a wonderful way to relax! It was a first for me.

Mimi's fortune was the BEST!

We watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Father of the Bride. We all 5 laughed until we hurt! It was the absolute best time. We once again turned in late and slept well!
Saturday morning we slept in...surprise surprise! It was almost 10 when we all started stirring again.... except for Aunt Susan. Oh no.... she was up at the crack of DAWN- which I think was sometime around 8 am..... And decided to be nice and go down to the breakfast buffet downstairs and secure breakfast for us all! Which really was a sweet gesture...until she came back into the room and dropped the silverware that she stole borrowed from the dining room! It woke pretty much everyone up, but no one was willing to say anything in fear of us all getting really woken up and not being able to go back to sleep! But it was later confirmed that we ALL heard her banging around in the "kitchen" of our hotel room!
However, when we did decide to finally wake up, we discovered that we had a nice breakfast waiting for us....in Walmart sacks! Oh yes.... Aunt Susan had not only gone down to the buffet and secured some breakfast for us, she did it in her bathrobe and carried empty Walmart sacks to put her groceries in! We had yogurt, fruit, bagels, cream cheese, peanut butter galore, hot chocolate, plates, and SILVERWARE! We had it all!! I can only imagine what the hotel people must have thought about her getting on the elevator with her full Walmart bags! I mean- SERIOUSLY! Did people laugh at the bathrobe breakfast bandit??? How did she not laugh at herself??? I will tell you this one thing for sure....it provided LOTS and LOTS of laughs for the rest of us as we gave her a hard time about it!!! However, we were very thankful for our breakfast! :) It kept us from eating leftover Chinese for breakfast!
We discussed several options for the day, but in the end, Canasta won! Because- DUH! I couldn't believe we had all been together this long and NOT played cards yet! So we took showers and put our pajamas back on and by lunch time we were elbow deep in a mean card game!
We did the obligatory card draw to see who would be partners, but it showed that Mimi and Aunt Susan would be partners and Taron and I would join up. So we knew for sure that the cards were wrong and just partnered up in the RIGHT way! Mimi and Taron (aka- the cheaters!) against Aunt Susan and I (the winners!). 

Aunt Bit, the non card player of the family, took her seat on the couch to yell at watch some Bama football! We really aren't sure how we got a non card playing member of this family. It just ain't right. She did, however, heat up leftover Chinese food and serve it to us as we played! She says that she can't take all the harsh words that are spoken at the card table, that it would make her cry. I tell her that the harsh words are all said with LOVE. But I'm not sure she completely believes that.
I am pretty sure that the absolute BEST part of the whole trip was beating Taron and Mimi at cards 2 1/2 times!!! And nothing causes "Mrs. Johnson" to come out in my grandmother quite like loosing!
This is her fake smile she gives when she is LOOSING!!!!

And of course Aunt Susan and I remained calm and quiet and collected about winning.....NOT!!!! We reminded them constantly who was ahead! DUH! That's what they would do! It even got so bad that after each hand, instead of announcing the new score, Mrs. Johnson Mimi would just turn the score sheet upside down and not say a word! Oh sweet Victory!
They ended up forfeiting the third game half way through it. Yep- we were winning that bad! And it was time to get dressed for dinner! ;-)
Luckily she forgave me and let me be her granddaughter again...

I just love this lady!! 
We had spotted a cheesecake bistro down on the boardwalk. (is anyone else singing?? or just me?? LOL) So that is where we decided to go for "dress up night". It was so very good!! But once again we had TOO much food! We couldn't even fathom cheesecake when we were done. However Aunt Bit and I forged through and ordered it anyway!

Pumpkin cheesecake! O..M..G.. heaven on a plate! It was so good, but we were SO full! Even the 5 of us couldn't finish it!
We attempted pictures afterward in front of the boardwalk sign...

But they didn't turn out that great.
It had turned a little chilly out (not that we would have known since we didn't leave our hotel room at ALL until dinner!) and Taron shared her wrap with Mimi, which caused a lot of laughter as they TRIED to walk!

And after we got back in the car, we had to document that Aunt Susan had worn HEALS!!! Really- she did!

But they were replaced with flip flops soon after getting in the car.
After we got back to the hotel, we decided to take some pictures since we were all dressed up!
The hotel clerk was nice enough to capture some great ones for us!

(Notice Aunt Susan's shoes....) 

Mimi and 2 of her 3 granddaughters... 

But next we needed some with our TIARAS!
Mimi, Taron and I posed first, and Taron posted this picture on Instagram. I absolutely love what it says..

Our first attempt at a group princess shot was with the trusty ole selfie stick in the room...

But the coloring was horrible! So we stepped into the hallway...

And it was definitely better.
We should have gone back down and asked the hotel clerk (who already thought we were crazy) to take pictures of us in our Tiaras.... but for the sake of looking completely insane, we decided not to.
Our night ended with our pajamas and Father of the Bride part TWO. One of my ABSOLUTE favorite movies of all time!! We discovered the night before that Mimi had never seen the second one- and that's just Un-American! So we quoted it all day long.... and finally watched it that night. I'm pretty sure she agreed with us that it was an AWESOME movie! We all laughed until we had tears.
It was hard to go to bed knowing that we had to get up and leave the next morning. But since we had to get up EARLY we gave in and went to sleep. Pretty sure we all slept great. We were exhausted from all the laughing!
The next morning we loaded up the few bags we brought...

Johnson Girls Don't Travel Lite! We did however, pack a little better the second time! 
And we said our farewells. It was hard, yet, oh so wonderful because of the great time we had! I have not been that filled with fun and love in a long time. It was an amazing weekend with 4 women that mean the world to me. We laughed, we talked, we laughed some more, we ate, we drank coffee, and did I mention that we LAUGHED?! Memories were made that will not be forgotten. Inside stories and jokes will go on for a long time! ("Are you going to shoot that light out?") I can not even begin to describe the love that was felt with this group. I plan to make sure that this was not a once in a lifetime opportunity- it will become a tradition! Girls weekend 2016 is already in the works! (and so is PIE day!!!!) See- I told you.... INSIDE JOKES!
Thank you wonderful ladies for the amazing weekend. I needed it. I am blessed.