Fun Birthday Weekend!

This past Sunday was David's birthday and we had a nice, but way too short of a weekend. Saturday we had a pretty laid back day at home for the most part and then went to go to the Great Indoors to look at refrigerators yet again that afternoon and then out to dinner at Grand Lux at the Galleria. Dinner was great and Hudson was really good and behaved fairly well considering we decided to let him seat in a booster seat at dinner which was the first time we've ever done that. Normally, we still have him use a highchair, but we figured we'd give the booster a try and surprisingly, he wasn't that bad. So, that's definitely a step forward! After dinner we walked the mall a bit and then headed home. David decided that he wanted to open his gifts Saturday so we did that once we got home. Unfortunately, my gift did not get delivered before the weekend as I had planned so I had to give him a picture of it in his card instead! I ordered him a new Weber grill and it's by far the nicest birthday gift I've ever gotten for him and was so disappointed that it did not come in time for his birthday. =( In any case, he LOVED his gift even though he didn't have it yet. Then I also got him a grill cover and new tools from Hudson, so he was able to have something for his birthday. After he opened his gifts we decided to catch up on some Project Runway and then afterwards I was able to talk David into staying up late to watch Sex & The City movie, which I loved just as much the second time around! David was actually a sweet hubby and bought it for me as a surprise earlier in the week. =)

Sunday I got up and cooked breakfast for the three of us and then we just hung out at the house all day. David's birthday request was to stay home and to watch football all day, so I was happy to oblige. I just worked on design orders for a good portion of the day and we just had a nice day at home. Nothing too exciting, but it was a much needed day to relax and get caught up on some things. We only have a couple of more weekends in October that aren't totally booked up with things we have going on, so this was a good weekend before things get really crazy!

Here's picture of David's new grill (no, that's not our backyard, this is a picture I found online)...

These are pretty funny....

I got a couple of emails with these so-called new versions of motivational signs that I thought were pretty funny, but these were probably my faves. I'm a dork, I know! There were some other ones that were probably even more entertaining, but I thought that they might be a little bit too inappropriate for the family blog, ha! The first one I just got a kick out of because David is such a HUGE Star Wars fan, so I figured that I would include it as a homage to him. =)

Our Little Spelunker!

Pink Hair for Hope

I just wanted to share a fabulous event that my good friends over at the Spa & Salon at the Four Seasons Resort and Club are hosting on October 1st. The 1st annual Pink Hair for Hope event to benefit The Cancer Center at Baylor Irving. I think that it sounds like a fun way to help a great cause and support the fight against cancer.

Hudson's New Obsession....

Running around the house in the buff.....apparently our child thinks that he should be able to randomly strip at any given time these days, ha! Don't worry, he's covered up in these pics, but the last one is pretty funny!

LOVE it!

I had a most horrible day, one of those days where you wished you had just crawled back into bed and stayed there, but there was one glimmering little light at the end of my day.....a package on my doorstep when I got home! :) My new handbag arrived and I absolutely LOVE it! It's freakin' huge, I mean, I guess I totally underestimated the size, but even still, it's SO me and I totally love it can't wait to use it! David even said that it was definitely my kind of bag because it WAS so huge, ha! He knows me very well! It definitely made me smile at the end of an extremely long and wearing day. :)

(David and Hudson made up for the rest of my crappy day by being their sweet usual selves, so it didn't turn out so bad after all ---- have I ever mentioned how great of a husband and son I have????)

Oh, all smiles were derailed once I watched ER and bawled my eyes out, but that's a whole different story! :P

Per Jess' request, here is a pic! =) It's kind of a small picture, but oh well, that's all I could find.

So if you say to me poodle....oh, I'll say noodle everytime.....

Hello, my name is Charlotte and I *think* I have a problem....

...does anyone have a recommendation for a potential handbag addict treatment center??? I mean, is there a such thing as handbag rehab?? Yes, I think I might be developing a bit of an addiction for handbags. I am fairly certain that I do not qualify for a full-fledged addict just yet, but I have purchased two new handbags in the past month and consistently look at them online at least once if not several times a week. Just Friday night David caught me online browsing and didn't say anything just looked at me with a "Why in the hell are you looking at handbags!?!?!" kind of look and I said "I know what you are thinking, but I am just looking and besides, if I buy one then I will get it for such and such since it is on sale and" yada, yada, yada. You ladies probably all know how that story goes, you start having to convince yourself why you have to buy it because you will be saving X amount vs. the original Y amount, etc., etc. In any case, within the hour I had ordered a new Charles David tote that I should hopefully receive by the end of the week. :) I know, I know....I'm a desperate soul and need a serious intervention. I'll probably be going straight to hell for my horrible shopping sins too...hell in a handbag...a very, very chic handbag. ;) j/k

SO Excited!

I am so, so excited for David's birthday this weekend as for once, I think I will totally surprise him with his present, ha! :) It's top secret so I cannot share, but it's awesome and I can only *hope* that he LOVES it! Fingers crossed........oh, and no, I am NOT getting him this *kick-ass* birthday cake either, lmao!!!!

The Refrigerator Search Continues....

After trekking to numerous stores to look at countless french-door refrigerator models, we have come to a standstill. :( Unfortunately, we are just having an extremely difficult time making a decision as we are not completely sold on any of the models that we've seen and we also have concerns about the reliability and quality of many of the models. Mostly this is attributed to numerous consumer and expert reviews that we have read online that have now made our decision even more difficult as it seems that the two choices we have narrowed it down to also have quite a few poor reviews due to malfunctioning or even non-functional issues mostly concerning the ice makers in the units. We haven't completely ruled either one out because they also have enough good reviews to keep us from totally excluding them, but instead we are now looking at some of the other options which scored more stellar reviews from consumers and experts alike. We figure that this is a pretty big investment and we want to a) be extremely happy and confident in our decision and b) we of course want something that is reliable and will last a long time as we aren't planning on purchasing another refrigerator for many, many years. Right now, our first choice that we will be going to look at in person this week is a stainless steel model from Jenn-Air. Everything that I had read about the unit sounds very promising, so that's good, and I also love the way it looks from what I can tell from the pictures I've seen online, but the real test will be seeing it up close and personal per se. So, I guess we will just have to wait and see how we like this unit and then go from there to see if it's a winner or not or if we are back to square one! Who ever thought buying a new refrigerator would be such hard work and so CONFUSING!?!?!?!

Welcome Fall!!!

I am SO glad that today is the first day of fall....my most FAVORITE season of the year! I love everything about the fall....the turning colors of the leaves, the brisk cool air, the smell of the air, pretty fall decor, cool breezes, pumpkin scented candles, Autumn at the Arboretum, the State Fair of Texas, etc. Next week it will be the start of October, which happens to also be my favorite month of the year too! Hudson's birthday is in October, our wedding anniversary is in October and one of my favorite holidays - Halloween is in October. I have always loved the fall and October and continue to love it even more every year. This October we will be especially busy, but my hopes are that we will be able to enjoy every spare minute doing something that will allow us to completely take advantage of my favorite time of the year. I just want to be able to enjoy it just a little bit, I'm selfish I know, lol! :)

Um yeah............

Hudson's a silly little boy and has decided that the storage bench makes a good place to play, hide and maybe even take a nap, ha! Boy, he is a handful, but he sure does know how to make me smile!

My little punkin'

LOVE this chair!

Wouldn't this be an awesome chair for a little sitting area in my office? I don't think I have the room for it, but I just love it! Maybe someday when I have a bigger office. Until then I will just dream.....

Wanna Flip???

This is definitely another fabulous find on my have-to-have it list and I might just have to splurge and get myself one real soon! It's a Flip Video which is a compact video camera that fits in your palm. It's basically the size of a small camera and they come in a variety of sizes and colors. I love the pink one myself, either that or the green....who am I kidding, I'd take any of them because they are just too cute! The things that I love about them are obviously their compact size which makes them very convenient and portable, but also the quality looks fantastic! I haven't used one yet, but I've seen videos online captured on Flips and truly the quality was VERY good. They are actually very affordable as well and range in price from around $ 130 - $ 180. I'm thinking these are probably going to be on a lot of people's wish lists for Christmas too!

Here is just one article from Time magazine about the Flip Mino which is their top of the line model.

Flip Ultra Model - $ 149.99

OMG! OMG! OMG!

It's almost here ladies! (and those of you men out there that care) The Sex and the City movie is released on DVD next Tuesday, September 23rd!!! Anyone up for a viewing party sometime soon??? :)

I saw it opening weekend at the theater, but cannot wait to watch it over and over again, LOVE this movie! Hopefully, my hubby will surprise me with it on Tuesday. ;)

Decisions, decisions....

To maintain our sanity and some type of organization in the kitchen we have decided that it's about time to go ahead and update our fridge as we have outgrown our current one and it is starting to get a little crazy and disorganized because we simply just do NOT have enough room for everything. Ever since Hudson has graduated to grown-up food we have definitely had to be creative in order to get everything to even fit in the fridge with all of the extra bottles of juice, gallons of milk and extra food and snacks, etc. We have also been wanting for quite some time now to purchase an additional refrigerator / freezer to use in our garage for extra storage for additional food items and to also keep lots of cold drinks for when we are entertaining or anything as well. This would also be useful because we shop at Costco a lot and they always have quite a few things that we would buy in a bulk size package, but unfortunately there are often times that we just can't because we don't have the room for it. Personally, I like to also buy a lot of our meats and poultry items in bulk so that you get a much better value and having extra freezer space would definitely help in that aspect as well. We were going to wait to get a new refrigerator until we eventually move, but have just decided that it would be better to buy it now since we are having so many issues with a lack of space.

Now comes the difficult part....which refrigerator do we want?!?! We both know that we want a stainless steel french door model, but which brand? What features? What size? And in case you haven't been appliance shopping lately, let me just tell you that there are SO many options now that it's almost overwhelming! We did go look a bit last weekend and so far, we've narrowed it down to two models that we liked best. We only looked at Lowe's and Sears so far, but the Samsung and the GE Profile were the two that seemed to catch our eye visually as well as have the best features or rather, the features that are best for our family. We also liked the Kenmore Elite, but there were several things that we didn't love about the models we looked at and I liked the LG models too, but was completely turned off by the look of the water / ice dispenser on the ones we looked at. Overall, these two just seem better for us all around. I don't remember the specific model styles, but here are a couple of pics...what do you think??? (any opinions from other french door style owners are welcome and would be greatly appreciated too!) :)

SAMSUNG



GE PROFILE

Oh, and we are pretty much certain that we want the water and ice dispenser on the outside for convenience purposes, but I would be interested in hearing if anyone has one with the water dispenser on the inside of the unit to see how they like it too. :)

New song.....

I couldn't take Rubberband Man anymore, lol! Sorry, David....I still love ya babe!

A Little Comic Relief....

This is for all of my home-chicas....you KNOW who you are girls! ;)
LA face with an Oakland booty!

Ladies Man.....

I'm not sure if Hudson is a *Ladies Man* or not, but he sure was having fun earlier tonight trying to get Bailey to wear his daddy's work cap. Just be glad I didn't take any pictures about 30 minutes earlier....you would have seen Hudson in nothing but that shirt and his sandals, ha! He has become infatuated with undressing himself lately and had just taken off his shorts and diaper not too long before this....it was definitely a funny sight to see! In fact, that would have made for some GREAT blackmail pictures once he gets older, hahaha!

Little man playing in the yard....

Just a few more pics of Hudson playing in the back yard yesterday...it was just starting to lightly rain so we let him run around a bit in it before the weather got too yucky for the rest of the day. He LOVES to play outside! So much so, that we practically have to drag him in the house whenever it is time to go inside, ha!