September MOPS Pictures

I finally got the pictures I took at the last MOPS meeting. Next time need to bring my own camera, if my husband isn't using it. :)

Our Queen for the month

Shaunna and Crystal

My group for the year. Good group of ladies. :)

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

scant 1/2 soft margarine

1/2 cup superfine sugar

2 large eggs

scant 3/4 cup self-rising flour

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 315*F/190*C. Put 8 muffin paper cases in a muffin pan or put 8 double-layer paper cases on a baking sheet.

Put the margarine, sugar, eggs, and flour in a large bowl and , using a handheld electric mixer, beat together until just smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips and spoon the batter into the paper cases.

Bake the cupcakes in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until well risen and golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Makes 8.

Recipes from a great little book I picked up cheap called Easy Cupcakes. I'm excited to make more. We have been slacking on the baking department. I picked this cupcake because of the ingredients. I had all of it. It was as quick and easy recipe to do. Summer and Eugene love to help.

Where is Conrad you may be wondering. Well I'm learning he isn't much of a baker, but more of a drawer.

He loves to take pens and pencils and draw. It's pretty neat. :)

Silverwood

Saturday was Silverwood day! Summer earned a free ticket by reading and Reggie and I earned free tickets because we know family who had some they weren't going to use. (Thank you Brandon and Kaylie) Silverwood is great to begin with but even better when it's free! Summer had a hard time with the rides, so we didn't go on alot. But we got her on Tremors and she screamed her head off, but she did it and was very proud of herself. We were proud of her also, she was great the whole day. Now for the pictures which sometimes tell the story better then I do. :)

Train closed because of Zombies

Spider webs everywhere

YUM!

Always fun :)

She was so brave and amazing!

And very scared!

She bounced right back after Tremors.

The Boys Next Door

My Dad (handsome gentleman in the picture) and I have been going to The Interplayers for 10 or 11 years now. I'm not even sure how or why we started going, but I'm very happy we did. My Dad and I are close, but it's nice to have this time together. Something that is ours. We always go out to eat before, this time was at Europa, which is our old stand by because it's right by the theater. The play this time was The Boys Next Door. It was fantastic! It's about 4 guys with special needs living in a home, and the guy who takes care of them. It was funny, had great touching moments, with some serious thrown in to make it great. I highly recommended Interplayers. They have art up in their lobby to look at during intermission. My Dad and I critic  them and pretend to know what we are talking about. Always a good time. :)

Lunch at Smacky's

Today Erica and I went to lunch at Smacky's thanks to Groupon. Now as much as I like the idea behind Groupon, I'm bad about actually using my coupons. The Smacky's coupons expired today. So I called Erica yesterday and said, "we have to use these."  She said, "of course we do." So we did. After workout, that way we would be very hungry, we took only 4 kids out of our 7 to Smacky's. Now Smacky's may not look like much form the outside, but the food is great and the people are awesome, and yes it is kid friendly. So thanks Groupon for a great lunch with friends. :)

Not the best pictures of the kids, but I think they are all so cute and did so well at lunch that I had to post them. :)

It's Not Women of Faith....

I ended up being sick, so I couldn't go to Women of Faith. Well I guess I could have but it didn't sound like much fun the way I was feeling. Erica and I got free tickets when we signed up for MOPS Convention. She took mine to find someone else to go. I hope she did, and I hope everyone there has a blast.
I 'm feeling a bit better. I slept great and slept in (if 7:30 is sleeping in). Since I was feeling some what better we decided to walk to the Farmer's Market. Summer has (finally) learned to ride her bike without training wheels. :) It felt good but wore me out. I really enjoy family time. Even though I missed something I'm sure was amazing, I feel like I gained good time with my family.

This is why Summer likes it when Daddy makes pancakes.

Statue of Summer Liberty

No training wheels. :)

Who doesn't like being appreciated?

Pic by Summer

Just beautiful :)

Popcorn Pumper

This is the cool Popcorn Pumper (yea that is the name). We are trying to get away from microwave popcorn, which I really love, but we think they might be a trigger for my headaches. We got this bad boy from Reggie's mom. It's fun but not the same. But I'm working on a butter mix and just the right amount of salt. It's fun to watch it pop. :)

Kara's Project

This is Kara, my lovely neighbor girl who's like a little sister to me. She had this great project idea that she wanted me to be apart of. She bought some old records (made sure they weren't classics) and wanted to splatter paint them. Since I have stuff (too much stuff), she brought them down. I got the paints out and let Kara and Summer go at it. To keep the boys out of the way, I set them up with their own painting project. Everyone had a lot of fun and they turned out very cool. 

Eugene helping sissy

So cool!

MOPS Convention Nashville 2011 - Part 4

After a fantastic MOPS yesterday (I might of pictures later, I didn't use my camera) I realized I am very late posting the rest of my MOPS trip a month ago. So Here is the rest of it. :)

Saturday morning we were able to make devotions, which is really the way to start the morning. Erica was ready to go, where I went in PJs. So I had to get ready. While I was doing that Erica scored us Heart Seating in General Session. Which meant front row, baby!! General Session had Lauren Dungy as the speaker and Travis Cottrell doing worship. On to workshops: I had How to Get Your Husbands to be a Spiritual Leaders with Larry Fowler, learned alot in this one. My leadership training was Prayer and Care, I LOVED this workshop. I met some very neat ladies and learned many different ways to pray for my MOPS group and what not. It was great! Last General Session had Mary Beth Chapman speaking and her husband, Steven Curtis Chapman singing some songs for us. It was great to listen to them. They lost a daughter back in '08 and the faith they have is amazing. Travis Cottrell was also there again. Since we had Heart Seating (Erica rules!) we had great seats for this one too. Erica bought Mary Beth's book and wanted to get it signed. So I went a got some burgers, met her later. Then on to see the screening on the movie Courageous before it come out September 30. The movie was so, so good. I was worried it would be a tear jerker, but it had lots of comedy in it. We laughed more then we cried. On to our room where we packed a little, had to make sure all our goodies made it home.

Travis Cottrell

Best picture ever. Look at all those ladies worshiping.

Woodstock and my fries

Waiting to get into the movie.

Sunday morning came too fast. After packing and storing our bags we explored the hotel one last time. We had a couple of hours till our plan. We even made it really early to the airport, so we ate lunch and chilled. It was nice to get home. And it's amazing it's be a month already. Here is a few picture, just playing around on Sunday.