What a Weekend!

THIS......

Is my poor husbands car, that we've only owned for 1 yr.

And THIS.....

Is the person's car who hit Gerrad's car. THIS is how our weekend started off, first thing Friday evening at 5:30pm.

Melisa had picked me up for dinner, and we had JUST sat down to dinner with Katie and Kela, and ordered our dinner. Our appetizer arrived and my phone rang.... it was Gerrad, talking to a bunch of people in the background stating that a car had hit him, and flipped/rolled and the driver was ejected. It was like he had pocket dialed me and was talking to everyone else but me. My heart sank, and I panicked big time. I finally got his attention and he told me that he and the girls were all OK and told me where the accident was so I could go meet them there. It was about a mile down the street from where we were at dinner.

I took Melisa's car (thanks again girl) and met them there. I know he told me everyone was OK, but pulling up on the scene, seeing blood on the ground and all the commotion made me upset. I rushed to Gerrad's car where the girls were sitting in the backseat with a nurse who had seen the accident and was trying to keep the girls calm until Gerrad or I could get to them. I grabbed Addaline out of her car seat and she just broke down crying telling me "My daddy car broken, Mommy." Macie is my emotional girl anyhow, so this just did that poor girl in. The guy who was ejected from his vehicle landed pretty close to Gerrad's car, and right in Macie's eye line. I had a feeling she had seen WAY too much, but Gerrad thought she probably didn't see as much as we thought.

We were there for about an hour and a half trying to get everything squared away. Gerrad's car had to be towed away from the scene, so did the other 2 cars. A Domino's pizza driver was at fault for this accident... he didn't see the SUV waiting behind someone who was trying to make a left turn (he was waiting for on coming traffic to pass), and he rear ended the SUV, who then veered into Gerrad's lane and hit the front of his car. The SUV flipped and rolled quite a ways, and Gerrad's car jumped the curb and slid just a little further than the SUV. I am SOOO very thankful that no one in my family was hurt, just shook up.

They determined Monday afternoon that Gerrad's car is in fact, totaled! We've already gotten everything squared away with the insurance company and are waiting to purchase a new vehicle, hopefully today. As much as Gerrad wants a fancy new(er) truck, I think we're just going to purchase a car with cash so we don't have a payment, so now we'll be saving what we were paying on Gerrad's car monthly, or we can apply to my car payment to pay it off faster! Car buying is SUCH a headache, ahhh!

The rest of our weekend was pretty good. I went, as planned, with the girls after the whole wreck fiasco, Friday night to go see our friend in RENT. It was a wonderful time, and Lindsey rocked the house for sure! We all sobbed like babies watching her perform, such an emotional act. I somehow managed to not take a single picture, shame on me! Saturday I had the Farmers Market and just hung out with Gerrad and the girls the rest of the day. We were supposed to go to Kansas City but the weather did not cooperate with us, so we stayed here and had a nice dinner with friends at Texas Roadhouse instead. Sunday we went to church, and then ate lunch with some friends, and then went to Gerrad's mom and dad's for dinner to visit with some family that is in town from Texas. It was nice to spend time and hang out with everyone. I just wish it would have been warm outside so we could enjoy Gerrad's parents amazing outdoor area. I MUST snap some pictures of that some time to show you all! HEAVEN!

Just a side note... our lawn mower also quit working this weekend. Gerrad's parents had given us a super nice John Deer riding lawn mower when his dad got a new one, and it shot craps this weekend. I'm hoping its something that can be fixed, SOON. Gerrad tinkered with it most of the weekend, with no success. Hopefully this weekend he can get something figured out with it. Gerrad's dad was super sweet and came over and mowed our yard yesterday so we didn't look like the Whiskey Tango (white trash) of the neighborhood!

LOOK....

What I got last week... TOMS! Yay for me! The hubby didn't buy them for me, I took my own money (from my Farmers Market sales, ha ha) and treated myself to them. If you know me in real life, you know I do NOT buy things for myself so this was a big deal for me. It meant a lot that when I purchased them, I knew a child who was in need of shoes, would now get them! I just love TOMS, and everything they are about. The man who started this company a few years ago, is brilliant! I want to go back and either buy the pink pair, or the silver glitter pair! Maybe for Mother's Day :)

I hope you all had a lot less eventful weekend than we did!! Wrecks are not pleasant, and neither is having only one car for a super busy family! (And YES, these lovely pictures were taken with my phone, hence the amazing quality ;))

Top 2 Tuesdays- Favorite Things About Summer

This week over at The Undomestic Momma's blog is Top 2 Tuesdays, I think you all know the drill by now :) The topic for this week is your Top 2 Favorite Things You Love About Summer!!! I could do more than 2 things on this, but I'll stick with the game and only select 2.

1} Having BBQ's with friends and family all Spring/Summer is my number 1 favorite thing! My hubby rarely cooks (I can count on 2 hands the number of times in 9 years here peeps :)) but he makes some MEAN BBQ! He has a BBQ 'Bible' and has made his own bbq sauce which was to die for, I might add. He recently made some ribs that trump any ribs I've EVER had! I'm salivating already! We have a super nice patio area in our yard and its so much fun to just have people over and lounge outside while the kiddos run around and play.
Our patio area of our backyard!


2} My second favorite thing about Summer, SWIMMING! I absolutely adore loading the girls up and taking them to the pool for the day. There is nothing better than just lounging outside enjoying the cool water on a super hot day! I have a feeling that is where we're going to live this summer!!


What are your favorite things about the Summer???

Family Pictures (All of them)

As I mentioned in the previous post, we had family pictures taken last weekend. Here are the rest of the photos from the shoot. We didn't get a lot of pictures taken because we were running late and didn't want to make the people who had an appointment after us, have to wait. I'm in love with the one's we did get though :)



I love Macie's face in this one, such a sweet and loving big sister!
The train that we used to bribe Addaline the whole time, and then she didn't even look at the camera, ha ha!
I CANNOT believe how grown up my 'baby' looks in this picture. Time is going WAY too fast, I wish I could pause it for a while!

This picture had the potential to be cute if Addaline would have been willing to cooperate

This is my favorite picture!

Have I mentioned that I'm SOOO ready for the weekend? Tonight I'm taking a photography class at a local studio with Jenna, super excited to learn how to use my fancy schmancy camera PROPERLY!! The Dishing Diva's are having our girls night tomorrow night to go see one of my besties Lindsey in one of the lead roles in RENT, YAY!! I cannot wait!! Melisa, Kela, Jenna and I are all going to dinner, Tuptim Thai of course (my favorite), and then heading to the show to meet up with the other gals. Saturday I have the Farmers Market and then we're heading down to Kansas City to take the girls to a petting zoo that is an absolute blast, then we'll probably shop around a local outdoor shopping center and grab some dinner. Sunday we have church and then a family BBQ with Gerrad's aunt and uncle that are coming up to visit from Texas. I will have picture overload next week I'm sure!!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thursday! Its storming here, love the sound of thunder!

Family Pictures

Yesterday we had some family pictures taken. I got permission from my friend, who took the pictures, to 'borrow' one picture until I could get the rest on a disc so I could show all my blogger girlfriends (and family too :)).

Here is my favorite picture that she took! Do any of you know how hard it is to get a 2 year old to pose how you want her to, when she saw a train (her favorite thing) as you were walking into the park where you're taking pictures, and that's the last place you're headed? Well, take it from me, we spent the whole time going "Smile Addaline, pose this way Addaline, then we'll go take a picture on the train Addaline" ha ha!

Well I better get back to building back up my bow supply since I rocked the house this weekend at the Farmers Market. I also have LOTS of order to fill as well :) Thank you for your kind words everyone! You guys make my day!

Just for Fun!!

To get away from the normal 'daily life' blogging, I wanted to do something for fun. I wanted to blog about some things I'm loving or things that I want, at this moment! Feel free to play along and link up in the comment section of this blog if you'd like :)

First off, I'm hoping my hubbs reads this so he can get a good idea of some things I want for Mother's Day, HINT HINT :)

I'm LOVING Toms and Sperry's right now, either of these 3 pairs would be a perfect addition to my shoe collection! The thing I love most about Toms is that when you buy a pair of shoes, Toms will give a pair of shoes to a child in need, One for One.

I've ALWAYS had a love for Yankee Candles, they're in every room of my house. I love Gold Canyon candles as well, but I always get free candle coupons with Yankee so that draws me to them. What's your favorite scent? I haven't tried this one, but it looks fun!
Its been So nice outside these past few days, but today its raining :( I feel so bad for my hubby, every Friday he has had off for the past 3 weeks, he's spent either doing something for me, or its rained :( He got all new golf clubs as I've mentioned before, and his goal was to play every Friday on his day off, sorry honey!

I'm also loving these fun, simple dresses. They're both from Walmart, the first one is only $11, and the second is only $14. Seriously, I love a good dress for cheap!


Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Lately

What have we/I been up to lately.... Gerrad has been working out of town Monday-Thursday so I've been single momming it. It's nice to have that time with the girls, but I also miss having an extra set of hands around in case I've got other things going. I would really love to start working out a few times a week, but the gym we belong to doesn't have childcare, so as long as Gerrad is working out of town, working out is not an option for me. I did drag the girls along with me on a LONG walk last night though. I downloaded new music to my phone, gave Macie her scooter to ride, put Addaline in the stroller, and cranked up my tunes!! (On a side note, I haven't downloaded any music to limewire in probably a year or so, and let me just say that my husbands RANDOM mix of music on there was not exactly the walking soundtrack I would have hoped for, ha ha! I'll be solving that problem today :))

This past weekend was the first week for the Downtown Topeka Farmers Market. I was SO excited to start this new adventure in my life! I'm hoping to turn my love of crafting, into a full time job within the next few months. I'm praying day and night that this is God's plan for us, hopefully soon it will be a reality! Anyway, the Farmers Market went really well, it was kind of slow first thing in the morning, but picked up as the morning went on. There wasn't too much of a crowd, but I still managed to make some decent money, so I was pleased with that! The woman in charge of the market explained to us that it would pick up, and that August was the prime month for it. She said in August there are over 150+ vendors that show up. I can't wait to see how things progress, and pray that I'm a huge success!


Here's a picture of my set up this past weekend! I'm going to be sharing my space with one of our good friends who is doing wood working projects for kiddos, he'll be joining me this coming weekend! My husband worked so incredibly hard helping me to prepare for this first day. He built all my bow holders and racks. He spent his entire Friday off working on my stuff, when I KNOW he wanted to be out playing golf, instead he stayed home and helped me out tremendously! Thank you Gerrad for all you do/did to help me get ready for this!!




Saturday evening we went to Laughing Matters again! We just adore going to this show, its SOOO funny, and a great excuse to get out with friends and just LAUGH! I stressed myself out SOOO much last week with everything that was going on, I definitely NEEDED that night to just forget about it all. Preparing for the market and being by myself all week, including running Macie places really got the best of me. I'm so thankful to have wonderful friends and family to help me out when I was feeling overwhelmed, and thanks to my in laws and parents for really being there for me!!

Here are our friends Cameron and Jenna (aka 'The Lovebirds') at Laughing Matters. It was their first time to go, and they loved it! We're all going back for the May show, which I'm already looking forward to!
Adam and Melisa at the show
Me, Jenna and Melisa at the show. I just adore these girls, they were such a HUGE help for me this past week. Jenna came and helped me all morning with the market. Melisa worked hard for several weeks designing my business card, hand tag and postcard with product shots. Melisa is an AMAZING graphic designer, and merchandising specialist, that girl knows her stuff!!! Thanks again girls, LOVE YOU BOTH!
Gerrad and I at the show
All of us! We are so blessed to have such amazing friends to walk this journey of life with. We missed our other usual group of friends though for the show. One of these times we're going to have to drag them all out to join us (Yes you Carrie, Sheena and Tracy :))

I'm already preparing for this weekends Farmers Market again, and working on filling orders in my spare time as well. My turnaround time is going to be a little longer I believe, but I'm trying my hardest to get it all done. I really need a few more sets of hands, if only!

BTW- Thanks Aly for listening to me vent and ask your advice on MANY occasions last week!!

Hope you're all having a wonderful week so far! Our weekend is super low key which I'm thankful for. The only things we have planned are the Farmers Market, and my friend Katie's bridal shower!

Easter Pictures (FINALLY)

I JUST realized that I still haven't posted our Easter pictures, OH EM GEE! I am slacking SOOOO bad lately on everything but crafting. I love all my readers and miss the blogging world! I definitely need to find a happy medium and try to accomplish all the things I need to. If you think my lack of blogging is bad, you should see my house (or actually just the laundry, AHHHH).
Anyhow, here are a lot of the pictures I took for Easter. One of these days I'm going to just sit on my 7 yr old and make her take pictures ;)

I decided not to participate in this weeks blog hop over at The Undomestic Momma because lets face it, I don't have a lot of beauty secrets, I'm pretty low maintenance!!!





Showing off her Easter basket







LOVE this picture of the girls! Darnit that both Gerrad and I have squinty eyes when we smile, we've obviously passed that trait off to our daughters













Hunting eggs at Grandma and Grandpa's house

Happy Tuesday everyone! Hope you're all having a wonderful week so far! I'll hopefully try to keep up a little better this week. I need to blog about how the Farmers Market went this past weekend!!

GIVEAWAY!!!!

Good Morning to all my fabulous readers... lets start the day off right, with a GIVEAWAY :)

Elizabeth over at Confessions From a Working Mom is hosting a giveaway for ME. To be entered to win, you have to participate in her Top 3 Thursday blog carnival, and link up, or leave your answers in the comment section of her blog. If you don't have a blog, but have an account so you can comment, just leave your answer in the comment section of her blog!

The giveaway is for a pillowcase dress or an applique shirt!!


Happy Commenting ya'll!!!!!

Top 2 Tuesday- Magazines

This week over at The Undomestic Momma's Top 2 Tuesday, the topic is your 2 favorite magazines.. YAY!

1} US Weekly is one of my favorite magazines. I'm all about the Celebrity gossip when it comes to magazines... although I should be reading something more like 'Southern Living' or 'Good Housekeeping' ha ha! When we go on vacations its ridiculous how many magazines I take on the plane with me, and don't think Mr Hall doesn't like to read them as well ;) I like to read US Weekly magazine cover to cover, its always good! It seems like they are one of mags that always has the juicy gossip first!

2} My second favorite is People magazine. I don't typically buy this one, I just get online and read all the updates there.

I really need to branch out and read something with a little more substance, but what girl doesn't enjoy a little celebrity gossip??

I uploaded all of our pictures from Easter weekend last night, so stay tuned for another post today with a LOT of pictures!!