Labor Day Weekend

I have to admit -- even though this past weekend was a long one, we weren't the slightest bit productive, and we didn't get a single thing done around the house.  We did however have a great time relaxing and hanging out with family and friends.

On Saturday, I met up with my running group for a 12-mile run and a dip in Barton Springs, and Ben went dove hunting with a couple of guys from work.  Later that afternoon, we went over to the Messerli house to watch football, but I'll be honest -- I didn't watch much football.  I spent most of my time hanging out with these two.

I hadn't seen Will and Ella since they moved, and I had missed them both so much!  Will must have missed me, too, because as soon I got there, he grabbed my hand and led me all over the new house.  He's talking up a storm now, and Ella is crawling all over the place.

Will doesn't want to be left out of anything, so when anyone suggests doing anything with Ella {taking her picture, giving her a bath, feeding her, etc.}, his response is always, "me too, me too".

We spent most of the afternoon eating, playing, and watching "Elmo Goes Potty" {yes, really...}, and later that evening, Stephanie and I gave them a bath.  Actually, just Stephanie gave them the bath.  I spent most of my time trying to get them to {a} look at the camera and to {b} smile at it.

After their bath, we played a little more.  Will loves the Pooh car that he got on his 1st birthday even more now that he can do donuts on the wood floor.  He's such a cool dude.

I couldn't come over and not bring something for Will, so I wrapped up the viking hat that Ben got when he competed in the Warrior Dash.  Nobody can pull off the look quite as well as Ella though.

On Sunday, we went to church, and later that day, Ben went over to a friend's house for the live draft of fantasy football while Annie, Amos, and I took a road trip over to my mom's house to hang out with her and G.  Annie absolutely loves riding in the car.

But unfortunately, Bubbs doesn't.  He sits as close to Annie as he can and looks super nervous the entire time.

I had a great time hanging out with G and my mom, and Annie and Amos had a great time checking out my mom's entire house and backyard.  Unfortunately, Holly wasn't able to join us for our girls' night since she is currently at Disneyland with Nelson, but I know that they are having a blast.  They both ran the half marathon on Sunday, and now they are having fun at the parks.  Buzz Lightyear sent me a "galactic greetings" email on Sunday afternoon with a picture of Nelson and Holly flying around in space.

When we got home on Sunday evening, we turned on the news and watched some of the footage of the wildfires that had started earlier that day in Bastrop, Steiner Ranch, and Dripping Springs.  I feel so badly for all of the people that have lost their homes and pray that the firefighters are able to get the fires contained soon.  Shortly after we went to bed on Sunday night, Ben got a call from a guy with Texas Parks & Wildlife who suggested that he go out to Bastrop to move all of the equipment on one of his jobs before that area caught on fire. He left at about midnight and didn't end up getting home until about 5 o'clock in the morning, so we slept in before heading out to Uncle Pat and Aunt Beth's house later that day.  Here are a few pictures that I took on the way out there of the fire out in Steiner Ranch.

We had a great time hanging out with Ben's family and spent most of the time out on the back patio while Uncle Pat grilled.  It was a high of 90 degrees yesterday, and it felt amazing!  Especially compared to the 112 degrees that it was just a few days ago.

I also spent most of the afternoon hanging out with Molly and Charlie, both of whom I don't get to see nearly as often as I would like.  Unfortunately, I'm not as familiar of a face to Charlie as I would like to be, but after a game of peek-a-boo, he warmed up pretty quickly, and I had him smiling and laughing in no time.

I didn't get any pictures of anyone but Charlie, but in all honesty, he was the cutest one there yesterday, so you're really not missing out on anything.

I love you, Charlie, and hope to see you again soon.

After we got home on Monday, we decided to make some sugar cookies.  For some reason, I've been on quite the cooking/baking kick recently {anyone who really knows me knows just how crazy that really is}, and I have to admit that everything that I've made has turned out pretty good.  When I made these Chocolate Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies a couple of weeks ago, Ben said that they were the best cookies he's ever had.  Score!

{If anyone's interested, you can find that recipe here.}

 

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case with the sugar cookies though.  Even after refrigerating the dough, it was so sticky that we couldn't even use the cookie cutters.  We tried several times and finally just ending up making some circles by hand.  When they were baking, something smelled a little "off" to me, so when the first batch came out, I decided to taste one before wasting anymore time on the others.  I am so glad that I did because YUCK!  They were really hard and really gross.  Total fail.  I immediately started cleaning up the kitchen when Ben {being the big kid at heart that he is} decided that the best way to dispose of the already baked ones was to launch them over the back fence.  And, boy, did the fly.  They went so far into the ranch behind us that we lost sight of them, and when he threw them off the side of the house, they went over the roof of the house that is 4 houses over.  I was really disappointed that the cookies didn't work out and that we didn't get to ice them, but Ben reassured me by saying, "To be honest, I think I enjoyed throwing them even more than I would have had eating them."  So I guess it wasn't a total fail.

Overall, I'd say that I had a pretty good weekend.  It's times like these that I remember just how blessed I really am and just how much I love my life.