The Entertainers

McKenzie made the Grenada Middle School show choir, The Entertainers, this year and they had their first show Thursday night.  The theme of the show was "The Beat Goes On".  I have a short video below of one of the songs they sang, "You Can't Stop The Beat".  McKenzie and all of the kids did a great job!

Betty did a post of her fall decorations earlier today so be sure and scroll down to see that after you watch the video.

Fall

Fall is my favorite time of year. There are so many things to love about fall. One of my favorite things is decorating for it. I have put away everything that is summer and replaced with fall things. The first thing I did was get a new doormat from Target for the back door. That combined with these rust colored mums and a pretty wreath I already had made a fresh look for the season. For our mailbox I used an iron scarecrow. It's hard to see in the picture but it's there! I took the summer cushions off the furniture and replaced with a couple of fall pillows.

Now for the inside, I use the same decorations each year but try to find new ways to use them. I bought these cute little owls at Dollar Tree to tuck in different places. In my Peter's pottery bowl,
 I used some acorns I recently found on a trip to Michael's and a couple of felt pumpkins from Target dollar section. I will use this bowl all the way to Thanksgiving. Another favorite thing of mine is getting fall magazines in the mail. Makes for great reading in the carpool line at the schools!

I have not used my fall garland in a few years but decided to use it this year. I tucked a few pumpkins and owls here and there.

Hot chocolate time and my pretty mugs!

Ok this picture has nothing to do with fall but it cracks me up. This particular day Matt got on purple and got to pick a prize out of the treasure chest in his class. He picked this gross set of teeth. David picked him up that day and he couldn't wait to run to David and smile big. Life with boys! I love it!

Happy fall decorating!

Homecoming 2014

Tonight is Grenada High's homecoming game.  Here's a picture of McKenzie and Matt supporting the Chargers!  Today is "hat day" for the elementary.  That's why Matt has a hat on, not because we were lazy and didn't get his hair combed!

French Dip Sandwiches

I am always on the hunt for easy recipes. Mary Catherine shared one of her family favorites with me and I am so glad she did.  I love the fact that it cooks in the crock-pot all day. This is great for busy nights when everyone is going in different directions.  We loved it! Matt, my picky eater, told me that this was the best thing I ever cooked! Ha, so I will be cooking this a lot. Hope you will give it a try, too.

French Dip Sandwiches

beef roast
1 packet of Au Jus mix
1 can beef consomme soup
1 can water
1 packet dry Italian dressing mix
1 pack sliced provolone cheese
sub rolls

Directions:
Mix the Au Jus, beef consomme soup and water; stir till dissolved.  Put in crock-pot, place roast on top of mix (I always brown my roast first).  Sprinkle dry Italian dressing mix on top of that. Cook on low for 8 hours.

Take roast out and shred. Place meat on the buns with 2 slices of cheese on top of meat. Turn broiler on to melt cheese.

Use sauce for dipping. Yum!

We usually have tater tots with these sandwiches.

Throwback Thursday

Betty is having a garage sale this Saturday and one of the items she's selling is McKenzie's old Easy Bake Oven.  That brought back some memories and we thought we'd share a priceless video of McKenzie doing a cooking show using her Easy Bake Oven from six years ago.

Wrapping Up Summer

School has started but I thought I would share what we did  the last few weeks of summer. David and Matt have been playing golf every chance they get. Matt loves it. They either play at The Dogwoods or practice there at the driving range. David is thrilled that they can do this together because he enjoys playing, too.

 A couple of weekends ago we went to Birmingham for McKenzie's birthday trip. We had such great time! We stayed at The Wynfrey Hotel.

It was such a beautiful hotel and the best part is that it opened into the Galleria mall. She had birthday money to spend so this was the perfect set up. David and Matt would go do golf things and McKenzie and I would go shopping. The mall was wonderful in that it had every store you could imagine. So when we would get tired, we would go back to the room and rest a little, then go back to the mall. We were able to find some cute things for school and she spent some of her birthday money, too. I am thinking this would be a wonderful place to go Christmas shopping! McKenzie and I found Forever 21 store. This was the biggest one I have ever seen. I am always reading about this store on blogs. We didn't buy anything in there but it was fun to look. We ate so much food that weekend. One place that we wanted to try was Dreamland BBQ in Northport, AL. It was a neat place to eat lunch on the way home that Sunday. Here are some random i phone pics we took during that weekend.

The last week of summer break Matt went to Delta State's basketball camp. Matt had a blast. It was four days and David had some vacation days saved, so he wanted to take him over to Cleveland each morning. A couple of days they stayed and played golf at DSU in the afternoons and one afternoon they went to the train museum.  McKenzie and I joined them on Friday. At the end of the last day, the coaches had an awards ceremony and Matt received a trophy for winning the driving layup contest.

McKenzie did a couple of dance workshops this summer where they focused on leaps and turns. I can't imagine how dizzy I would be after that but she loves it! Speaking of dance, Mrs. Mandy has a brand new 4.000 sq ft. studio for her Charisma students. It's not completely finished but it is coming along. It is going to be a great studio. You can see pictures on her FaceBook page Charisma Dance.

It was a great summer but we are getting excited about fall and all the good things that come with it!

First Day 2014

Today it's back to the books! McKenzie is an eighth grader at Grenada Middle School and Matt is a third grader at the Lower Elementary. We took them yesterday to meet their teachers. Matt is in looping so he will have Mrs. Keys and same class again for 3rd grade. McKenzie has all new teachers. She made the singing group Entertainers back in May so she will be doing that 4th period every day. McKenzie has friends in each class so that made her happy. I always have a huge lump in my throat every year at this time and could cry at any moment but that's just part of being a parent.  I did manage to keep it together until I drove home. I'm so thankful for the great summer and time that we spent with them. McKenzie and Matt, we hope you have a great school year!