I Scream

You scream , We all scream , For ice cream!

We whipped up some homemade ice cream in 20 mins. How do you, you ask?

First, put some ice in a ziplock bag half full.

Put a half cup rock salt in the same bag.

In a smaller bag or sandwich ziplock bag, add 1/2 cup cream, 2 tbs. sugar and 1/2 tsp. vanilla. Zip the bag.Place the smaller bag into the larger bag and zip it close.

Then shake the bags for 15 mins.

Then whola! You have homemade ice cream!

Smiles all around. It's quick, easy and yummy!

It's Official!

Jasmine graduated with a 4.0 from Mossy Creek Middle and became a rising freshman as a HoCo Bear!

Kiera graduated from Lake Joy Elem. and is a rising 6th grader as a Mossy Creek Gator! She will join Maya there who is a rising 7th grader!

I'm proud of my girls and their achievements this year. It wasn't easy coming back to the states and adjusting to new policies and changes but they held strong and made it!

5th Grade Graduation

Baby girl is growing up. She graduated from 5th grade today with flying colors.

Not only was she promoted to middle school:

She made the Honor Roll:

She received the President's Education Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement:

She also exceeded her end-of-the-year CRCT and writing tests with near perfect scores. The girl is smart. The principal made known that 97% of the students passed their CRCT tests, the highest rate the school had ever made.

Locks of Love

Jasmine has been growing out her hair for about a year now. Ever since I had shown her the website for Locks of Love, she has wanted to donate her hair so that a child with cancer or hair disorder could receive a natural wig. She needed 10 inches of hair to be able to donate. She finally made it to that long length with room to play with and decided on a new cut.

Jasmine's long locks before the cut:

And here she is after the cut and style:

I love her new look.

I love the cut she chose.

It makes her look more grown up. She's definitely ready for high school now.

It was a bonus that our salon took care of all the paperwork and mailing the hair to the company. They even gave the cut to us for free!

Awards Night

Jasmine was honored at her 8th grade Awards Ceremony tonight.

She received an award for highest math average for the 8th grade. I believe she had a 99 average for the year.

She received an award for making straight A's for the year.

And she received an award for making straight A's her entire middle school career.

I took some close ups once we returned home.

Math Award:

Straight A's:

Straight A's 6-8th grade:

And a pic with all the awards she received:

We are very proud and look forward to her keeping it up and racking in the scholarships to college four years from now! She wants to be an engineer. She has her sights set high and I hope she continues to go for it!

Max Running in Sleep

It's a Slithery Situation

*WARNING* THIS POST CONTAINS BLOOD AND DEATH

The kids were playing out in the yard with the new puppy today and a snake slithered by right in front of them. I do not like snakes! I do not want them in my yard, around my kids or my puppies.
So I did what any woman would do and I ran screaming into the house for Charlie to come out and kill it. Once he approached, the snake slithered up and around the dryer vent. That is way too close of getting into the house.

But he got it! Yes, Charlie whacked it real good until it didn't move any more. Thank you babe!

It's a Boy!!

Charlie is soooo happy about having a puppy in the house. He loves this little guy. He text me at work with pictures and pretty pleases. Someone was giving him away free to a good home.

He's so sweet.

Sandy had to show him she's the boss in this house. Then she took care of him as if he were her own. She'll be a good mama.

Such a good boy.

Charlie got up with him in the middle of the night and took him outside to potty. He must really want to keep him.

How could you resist?

Before and After

For Mother's Day, Charlie and I planted flowers around the fountain to complete our project. We are so happy that's it's finished (for now) and we can kick back and enjoy it. We still have ideas to make it even nicer but we are going to wait until next spring to start on those.

I thought I'd give you some before and afters:

And when we bought the house it looked like this:

Now the yard looks like this:

It's amazing what a little water and fertilizer will do along with a lot of sweat and tears.

You Know When...

You know when you are studying 8th grade Georgia history when you have to make a cake that represents Liberty County.

Weird, I know.

Happy Mother's Day