Happy Tuesday

Last night we had quite a storm. Tornado watches, hail and thunderstorms rolled over my bed around midnight last night and happily kept us awake until 4. At some points thru the night I swore Jesus was returning and had opened up the heavens to shine the glory of the Lord all over the place because the lightening was THAT bright.

But it wasn't and I'm still here.

I realized I never did a weekend wrap-up  {oops} I'm sorry.

Our weekend really was great. After a week long of gray skies and rain, the sun came out. We took FULL advantage of the warmer weather. After spending time outside, we ended the day with grilled skirt steak and Ice cream. Yum!!

I think we can officially say that Spring has hit the south. All of my perennials are up and almost blooming. Our tree out front has blooms on it {finally} and my clematis has climbed my mailbox. Looks like I might even have a bloom or two in the next few days.

YAAAA!

Our Little Red House is busy once again. Sissy is coming down for a visit in 2 days! So today we must get alot of school done so we can enjoy our time together.

The house needs to be cleaned, some food shopping done and my purses organized.

You all know how she brings me purses every time she visits right??!!

Well this visit is NO exception.

Isn't she the best?

I bet you all wish you had a sister that did that huh?

Ha!

Anyway, Im going to leave you with a picture I took off the news last night. Some people in West Virginia had problems with looting, so they took the law into their own hands.

And it worked!!!

Gotta love Rednecks

Xoxo

P.A.R.T.Y

 I decided to crash a party.

I mean, who passes up a chance to dress all cute and eat??!! 

Certainly not me!!

So let me start by introducing myself...

My Name Is GiGi

You can read more about me HERE!

And this is my handsome Hubba Hubba

We have been married for almost 17 years and have 7... Yes, SEVEN... S-SEVEN kids.

No, we don't know what causes it and  we DON'T have t.v.

(Ok we really do have tv but even with 500 channels, there still is nothing good on.)

Our only son thinks my hubz looks like this:

Most of the time I have a few of them hanging off of me.

Aren't they cute?

We live in this Little Red House that hubby had built just for me!!

( ok, and maybe for our 7 children too :)

I love this house to bits.

I homeschool all of our kids and would not have it any other way.

Is it hard??

HECKS YEAH!!

Is it worth it??

100%

This is my oldest Daughter Emma.

When she was born, she was going to be my last. But God had other plans.

She will be 16 soon which makes me old. Wise! Very Wise!

And this little Flower pot is our youngest daughter Penelope.

She is 5 months.

She was prayed into existence after many long and hard losses.

With her birth came healing and a deeper love I never knew existed.

I live for my coffee. Mmmm its so good.

And I LOVE big chunky jewelry. I also love wearing flowers and recently started making them.

I have one older Sister named Cindy. She is 4 years older than me and lives up in NY.

I call her sissy-cindy-lu.

She is ok with that too.

You can read all about our relationship HERE.

(pictures coming soon)

She has 1 son named Brian and he is just sooooo handsome isn't he?? He is 10 years old and in the 5th grade and fits right in with all his cousins. Perfectly!

My sister is coming to visit in 4 days and I can't wait. we always get into trouble have adventures when she visits!

My brother from another mother A.K.A Cousin Neal lives on the next block.

We love Neal and for ages could not figure out if the kids should call him "Cousin" Neal or "Uncle" Neal.

So we named him Cuncle.

Seriously.

Our kids call him Cuncle.

We think it suites him just fine.

He comes to our little Red House every Saturday Night for our WING Nights. We LOVE Wings.

He also plays ALOT of Xbox with my hubz.

Im ok with that. MAYBE!

This is my favorite Italian Michelle.

Yes, she knows I call her that and she is ok with it.

The south is definitely lacking in Italians so moving here has made me gain 5 pounds added to the culture! We need more of her kind in these here parts. Ha!

She recently moved here from NY and lives just right across the stret. She "gets" me. Maybe cause we are both NEW YAWKAS!

Ha!

Our family is firmly grounded in our faith in Jesus and believe whole-heartedly that:

My best friend is THE CHATTY MOMMY!

Her name fits her to a T! ( LOVE YA CM)

And I miss her to pieces...

But thats it! 

My life in a nutshell. 

Surrounded by colorful people who make my life VERY interesting!!

Whom I love with ALL of my heart.

and who drive me crazy!!!! Batty! I mean batty!

Im on twitter and FB as well.

Hope you make GiGi's Place

your place too.

Xoxo

Just A Touch Of Random...

HAPPY FRIDAY

And 

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY.

Sadly I have no spectacular prank to pull on all of you but Im sure you will forgive me ;). Im a bit under the weather. Almost a week of rain has got me lacking in the spunk department but PRAISE THE LORD this morning the sun shone bright and I will be off running around town catching up on some errands and just soaking in the sun.

So I wanted to leave you some Friday Randoms of our gloomy cabin fever fueled day yesterday.

This picture will make ANY mama proud. My Noah drew a portrait of his daddy! I think it looks just like him don't you??

The resemblance is uncanny!!

My girls go to sewing class once a week. My friend is so kind to take them for the day as the class is waayyyy up in the mountains. The first day the girls went, they turned to their friends Mom and said

"My mom would never  drive this..."

Aww, they know me so well. I probably would have ended up crying on the side of the road calling 911. Rumor has it the driveway is one way on the side of a mountain and my big black beast is hard to drive as it is.

No way!

But anyway, My Hannah has really picked up a natural talent for this and enjoys it to the fullest. Tomorrow we will be hitting the craft store to give buy her more fabric to practice on.

Now whats a post without my Miss Penelope??

Here she is in my arms happily sucking her thumb. I just love it and could just eat her up.

I noticed she is cutting 2 bottom teeth and that just makes my heart so sad. She is getting so big...

But I thank the Lord for her every day  and am so blessed that I have her. I hold her at least 80% of the day and just kiss her little head and smell her sweet scent. Babies ARE Heaven sent!

And of course here she is in her cute little Easter PJ's. Isn't it precious. This pic was the best I could do. She kept falling straight over and the other kids were laughing HYSTERICALLY!!! Like it was the funniest thing they EVER saw.

And her little cute Bum had this fuzzy bunny!!

=)

It was a noisy, rough day for me so tonight the craft bag came out. I made these flower pins. I will be wearing them tomorrow. Im just not sure which one. You can't tell by the picture but they are pretty big... and gaudy... just like I like!

Not a super exciting day, but a day none the less.

And now its FRIDAY!!

Who doesn't like FRIDAY!!

Join The Chatty Mommy for her Friday Follow!!!

Xoxo

A Lesson Learned While Shopping

Its amazing what life lessons you learn, or in this case, what lessons are brought up to the forefront, when you least expect it.

One of my favorite small grocery stores went out of business. Even though it was my favorite, I hardly shopped there due to their insane prices. But their sales on meat always had me stocking my freezer and running into their doors.

Yesterday everything was 60% off. The start of the end. I had good intentions of running in while my kids waited in the car, picking up some things and then head off to homeschool gym class. Those plans were quickly trashed as I entered the parking lot.

Chaos.

At 9 a.m. Cars were practically parked on the roof, and people left with carts overflowing with anything they could toss in.

I knew this was gonna be a shopping with strategic planning. So with that in mind, we headed in. Orders were given, buddies were assigned and central meeting places were talked about. Everyone had cell phones in case we got separated.

We were ready to shop.

But no matter what, nothing could prepare me for what was inside. People everywhere. Lines wrapped around the back of the store. And a level of greed that went beyond my expectation.

My first shot as I walked in and was blown away by the sounds and sights.

After going down a few aisles, I knew shopping with 6  kids was just not gonna work. I set them all to a corner of the dairy department that was already cleared out. Nothing left but dust and weird cheeses that nobody in their right mind would eat.

With them standing still. I was able to slip in and out of the aisles and shop as quickly as I could. I returned to the kids, unloaded and went back in the mob of people.

After about 10 minutes of that I got smart and just put them in line. The lines were averaging 1-3 hours long.

So I pulled up right behind this nice lady. Lets just call her boozer. HA Ha. I just have to. After all, she had a cart full of wine just for her own personal enjoyment.

We chatted a bit and she kept looking at all my kids and my cart full of food and giving me strange looks.

Wait for it. Wait for it...

I was ready for the comeback...

"YOUR saying I'M crazy... look whats in YOU'R cart boozer.... have another swig why don'tcha..."

Ok, I wasn't really going to say those exact words. But I was thinking them.

(Yes, I prayed for forgiveness already.maybe)

I don't even know how long this line was but I do know the lady in the dark blue shirt is really nice. She explained the difference between a fluted and a bundt pan. I don't remember a word she said but I bought the pan anyway.

( Um it was 60% off)

Soon it was boozers turn to check out. The wine just kept coming and coming and once she got a total, I just HAD to know.

$586!!!

Wow...

Then it was my turn. The above picture was taken halfway thru my line wait. By the time I actually purchased my food, I added about 50 more things to my cart...

My grand total was $136.

Which included several detergent bottles, bounce barS, cascade packetS, Lots-O-ice cream, canned goods, my coffee, and all sorts of goodness.

So, I know what your asking??

Whats this big lesson I learned?

Well, I learned that greed can be a dangerous thing. Food was being snatched out of peoples hands and you had to watch your cart.

I mean, I did meet some really nice ladies while waiting and we chatted up a bit but I remember thinking that if this was a national crisis, my experience yesterday would pale in comparison to the horrors that would take place in all grocery stores all over America.

It also confirmed to me that our grocery stores really only have ONE DAY worth of stock. If their ever were a crisis. Grocery stores nation wide would be wiped out in 24 hours. NO DOUBT.

You don't want to believe me?

Thats fine. I assume you were not on the 3 hour lines we were on yesterday...

Or see the people running thru the aisles

Or emptying COMPLETE shelves of food into their cart.

It really makes you think twice before ever letting your cabinets go bare.

Before you go, here is a quick article posted recently. 

The CEO at Wal-Mart says expect prices to go up dramatically come mid-year.

Perhaps all those World Net Daily news alerts weren't so far fetched after all???

But hey, if anything scary were to happen, at least Boozer would be happily inebriated would be VERY unprepared...

Xoxo

What Brings You Back

Nothing brings you instantly back to your childhood faster than a heaping pile of strawberry Jell-o With whipped cream.

Its a rite of passage and should be given out in those diaper bags that the nurses hand to all those new moms with new babies. It should be written on page 2  of "What To Expect When Your Expecting." EXPECT to make LOTS of Jell-o. Preferably Strawberry Flavor with a dollop of freshly made whipped cream. Mmmmm.

So tonight, after a delicious dinner of baked chicken, everyone got a bowl full of sweet goodness. 

Even Me.

I happily ate my share with a piping hot cup of evening coffee and had Molly read to me from her reading book.

It was good.

Our Little Red House is just starting to re-coup from cabin fever... again! Since Friday the heavens opened up and rain has been pouring on our Little Red House. Gloomy days have taken their toll on us and perhaps we got a bit too excited when the sun started to peak out from behind the clouds.

Tomorrow the southern weather is returning. YAAAA

We plan on venturing out. 

But while we were trapped up for days we kept busy with lots of things. School continues on until Spring Break. Im working on memorizing my lines for our Church Easter Performance and whenever I get a moments peace Im studying and test-taking all my Travel Agent information. I LOVE it and look forward to more bookings.

My kids have also become "experts" as well since they insist on breathing down my neck  watch me while I study and view these classes online.

Such is life.

Im going to leave you with my most precious picture of the night.:

My Little Miss P. who has (almost) officially become a thumb sucker. Its happening more and more and tonight, for the first time, as she was crying and I was crawling around in the dark looking for her paci... she soothed herself back to sleep with her tiny thumb in her little mouth. I could have just eaten her up right there.

Now don't be hatin and fill my comment section on all unsolicited usless  advice that I could care less about. After all, Im not dumb.

I know, as a Mom of 6 children. S-I-X.... that they will eventually get off my hip, they will eventually sleep in their own bed and they won't go off to college sucking their thumb.

So until then, I will lean over my sweet baby's crib and stare at her in the dark and smile.

Transparency On A Whole New Level

I think I am about to take being transparent to a whole new world with this!! I know my sis is gonna call and wonder WHY THE HECK I PUBLISHED these pics. But I had to. I had to tell y'all about my most newest, exciting adventure... 

ready??

I now own my OWN business.

Yuppers.

Little 'ol me is now a TRAVEL AGENT.

I am super excited and already have 2 clients who I am booking right now.

An amazing agency has taken me under their wing and has trained me to make vacation dreams come true. Can you believe this??

What an amazing blessing.

Im humbled and still in awe of the opportunity I have been given and I promised myself I would not take it for granted or let it go to waste.

Now.. I now what your thinking..

What does this have to do with the below pictures??

Um...

Welcome to my um mess. I mean Office. Yeah Office. I have been inundated with travel magazines, brochures, documents, important phone numbers, notes on clients etc and I NEED to totally re-organize everything to make me stop freaking (from the mess)

My "desk."

And yet more of the chaos.

I know what your thinking..

"There is NO way Im booking my vacation thru her. She will lose all my stuff!!!"

No No No.

I promise I won't. I plan on making a consolidated list for staples and get some basic office supplies, a filing system and a calendar. That will just about make this area efficient and equipped. I also need a small bookshelf to hold the two MILLION travel brochures I have coming in the mail this week. 

Ok, maybe not that many. But I do have a few..

I also promise to not make this a travel/pressure buy blog. It will remain the same as it always was. Life as GiGi...

But I will be adding a vacation deals tab up top so you can check up on the latest vacation promotions and if you see something that interests you, then just contact me. I will just let you know at the end of my blog post if I updated.

See, easy peasy.

So, thats what I have been up to...

What about you???

Lowes Knows

Last week my sweet Huba Huba came home with some beautiful ferns for our front porch. Every year we buy them and enjoy them swaying in the breeze as we watch our kids run the streets play outside. But after a few days I started to notice this:

UCKY DEAD FERNS. I was so heartbroken. They were looking worse and worse every morning. I watered them and still... NOTHING! So I took them back to Lowes yesterday and they replaced them for

F-R-E-E!!

Now my Little Red House looks like this:

I can't wait to get more flowers to decorate with.

Gotta Love Lowes!

S.L.A.C.K.E.R

Thats what I have been.. a new post is coming.. I PROMISE

Random.Really.

Im not surprised by this title... really. Random is the perfect word to use right now. Like the random ten million thoughts running thru my brain.The van we need to search for/buy. Perhaps its the super duper strong coffee I had after dinner or the fact that I just cried my brains out from reading a random blog I stumbled on. Or my belly ache. ( No Im not pregnant SHUT UP!!!!) Who knows. All I know is I can't even collect my thoughts to write a list. So I did the next best thing. Ramble BLOG! Yeah, who the heck thinks I will actually write something halfway comprehensible right now... Ummmm  apparently ME!

Whew, that felt good. Perhaps now that I vented I can share some thoughts. Random thoughts (there's that word again.) As I said earlier my mind is a-racin. So here I sit in the dark at 10 p.m. Well, maybe I shouldn't be so dramatic. Let me explain. Im in the dark because Miss Penelope is fast asleep and I would not dare do anything to wake her up.( Like turn on a light) Oh, she is a sweet thing and all but she has the runny nose blues which = cranky baby! But don't feel bad for me. I swiped my hubbys laptop and my iphone is getting plenty  of attention right next to me. Did I mention my new high score in Skee Ball?? I beat it... and my hubs... (we are in a massive, massive skee ball competition.) I just beat his score last night and want to revel in my glory. I got to because it won't be long before he creams me again. Gotta enjoy it while it lasts Ya know??

I have so  much on my mind and so much coming up. We need to buy a van soon. And not just any van... a 12 passenger van. A  large family van. A church-like van. HA! I actually can't wait. We need the extra room but the stress factor comes in when we shop for one. Luckily we won't be purchasing until a month from now so I have 30 whole days to pray without ceasing that God provides THEE perfect van for our family. And I know He will!! But seeing as Im incredibly thick-headed and incapable of learning, I will worry.worry.worry. We also have to refinance our home to get a better interest rate...That will reduce our payment THUS making us be able to afford our new van payment. All while entertaining house guests from next week till Easter.... getting Miss. P dedicated and throwing an awesome southern cookout bash. Finish schooling the kids and ending our craziness by packing up our big black van and heading to the beach for a MUCH needed vaca.

Phew... Im out of breath just thinking about this. But I know once my brain settles on my pillow and I realize no matter how much I sort thru everything in my head, only God can make it all happen... I will hopefully, finally fall peacefully in a deep sleep. Until then, my thoughts will remain a crazy, jumbled, random mess.***Darn that word!*

For Shame..

Attempting Bball

I was on such a roll for sooo long with blogging daily. I loved it but alas, I fell off the wagon this weekend. Sorry folks!! But this weekend I was buzzing around like a busy bee AND I managed to almost take pictures every day of my outfits for What I Wore Wednesday blog-hop. Remember I mentioned it was a challenge?? I also took pics of my Penelope cause she is so darn cute in her warm sundresses...

This weekend was fun. The weather was perfect. I met some neighborhood moms at our neighborhood playground which is always nice. Since I homeschool and live in the way back, I tend to not see many people who live in my sub, But thats ok. Once the weather gets warm and my kids are running amuck thru the streets, Im bound to see someone. Dinner was relaxed and once evening hit the hubs and I laced up our sneakers and hit the pavement. We walked for a bit and ran for a bit.... although more walking happened because I am sooo out of shape but im getting there... slowly. Very slowly.

Abby-girl smelling our Yoshino flower from our tree.

Im trying really hard to remember what we did on Saturday... But I think it was just a bunch of hanging out. I do know the kids all got together with other kids (anyone they could collect) and had a massive game of red light green light. Then the darkness rolled in and we got a massive hail/thunderstorm but that blew over and we were back outside playing B-Ball with the kids and every so often other kids would run thru our yard or thru our gate playing hide and go seek.

everyone is playing around with the flashlight app on their phone... cause we are cool like that. Ha!

That evening was our WING NIGHT!! Whoo hoo... but we mixed it up a bit and invited my Aunt and Uncle over. We put on the party lights in our screen porch and indulged in perfectly crisp wings and deluxe nachos. We chatted and laughed and ate as the lightening flickered in the background. The evening was good! The weather was perfect! And the frogs were loud!


We made it to church this morning barely almost on time... Late, but earlier than we usually storm in. I missed it, It seems like for one reason or another we have not been there that much and I always miss my church family, so it was nice to see everyone's face again and chat away... It was an ol school service to say the least... a guest speaker evangelist that had all the gracefully aged members jumping up and down yelling Amen while the teens snickered at the hootin and hollerin goin on. It felt like a scene from Fried Green Tomatoes and I enjoyed it to the fullest...


Now its Sunday evening... the kids are all up in bed for the night sleeping and reading. Hubby is on his laptop and I am surrounded by perfect silence. My printer is working overtime in preparation for tomorrows SPRING arts and crafts lessons... an easy way to glide into the week ahead.

If you can do me a favor, please say a prayer for a facebook friend for me... Have I mentioned I LOVE FACEBOOK and when used responsibly and not stupidly its an amazing resource...
Anyway, we knew each other growing up and lost contact eons ago but are friend on FB..
She had a beautiful little baby boy yesterday morning who has serious serious heart problems. He had his first surgery yesterday and will undergo open heart surgery tomorrow...

For all you mamma's who read this blog... and I know there are alot...

Can you imagine your tiny 6 lb precious new baby undergoing life-saving, potentially deadly surgery??? This baby needs prayer. This Mama needs prayer. Please remember them tonight and tomorrow. Thank God for facebook, because of it we can gather more prayers together...

Thanks all so much my frineds and I can't wait to read all about your weekend fun!!

Xoxo

GiGi