DMB Date Night at Starpower

Last Sunday night Dallas Moms Blog hosted a FREE date night at Starpower.  

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This date night was right up Matt's alley because it was essentially an indoor tailgate party watching the Dallas Cowboys play on all the big screens in the store!!  

They a chef cooking lots of yummy tailgate food in one of their test kitchens.

Since it felt so great outside we ate our dinner out on the patio while watching the game on one of their outdoor TV's. 

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For dessert they served up some Nothing Bundt Cakes.  OMG......so delicious!!!

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We actually ended up scoring one of the media rooms to watch most of the game.  There were only three seats in the room so we had the whole room to ourselves.  The sound system was amazing so we felt like we were right at the game. 

 I don't normally watch the Cowboys games, but if we watched every game in this atmosphere, I could get used to it!!!

Such a fun date night with my handsome hubby!!

chevy after dark

On Tuesday night Matt and I got to have a little week night date night.  It pays to be a blogger sometimes!! Chevy contacted a handful of different local Mommy Bloggers and invited us and a guest to come to the State Fair and test drive their cars in the Chevy Ride and Drive Exhibit.  The closed it down from the public and we and about 15 other Mommy Bloggers and their guests had it to ourselves.  We didn't have to wait in any lines to drive the cars!!

We got to test drive a 2014 Silverado Double Cab, a 2014 Camaro Coupe, and a 2014 Impala, 

But the best car that we got to test drive was the 2014 Corvette Stingray!!!

To bad there's not enough room for two carseats in the backseat because I think I looked pretty good in this red Corvette!!

After we were finished test driving all of the car each of us were given 2 more tickets to come back to the fair and 20 coupons to spend!!  Since we were already in the Fair we walked around and spent our coupons!

We hadn't had dinner so we were both starving.  We spent all of our coupons on food!!  Matt got a famous Fletcher's corn dog. 

I'm not a fan of corn dogs so I always get a Corny Cheese! It's my must have at the fair!

We always like to try something new.  This year we tried the Fried Biscuit & Gravy.  It wasn't good at all.  I don't recommend it.

We also tried the Fried Spinach Dip Bites which were one of the award winners this year.  They were delicious.  It was too bad that we only got two of them because I could have eaten like ten of them! 

Our last stop before we headed home to get our little man was a Nutty Ice Cream Bar.  Sooooooo good! It's also one of my must haves.  

I'm so glad we got free tickets to go back so we can take Pearson and do some of the kid things with him.....and of course indulge in some more fried food!

it's been 10 years.....

It's been 10 years since I graduated High School.

On one hand it's kind of hard to believe it's already been 10 years, but on the other hand it feels like it was forever ago when I was in high school.  So much has happened in the last 10 years.  I went to college, my parents moved out of the house I grew up in, I graduated college, started my teaching career, became an aunt, met the man of my dreams, bought a house, got married, made lots of memories together as a married couple, got pregnant, quit teaching, became a Mommy, got pregnant again, and sooooooo much more.

Our 10 year reunion was a few weeks ago.  We had it at Katy Trail Ice House in Dallas.  I graduated with about 300 people but only about 50 showed up to the reunion.  Reunions are kind of weird now that we have Facebook.  I "keep up" with quite a few people from High School on Facebook, so it's not like I've been totally disconnected from people in High School.   It was fun though to see and talk to people that I hadn't seen in literally 10 years though.

 I was most sad that only one of my close friends from high school came.  Matt and I enjoyed spending the evening with Brittany and Preston.

 We only live 30 minutes apart but we don't see each other near enough.

We went to Matt's 10 year reunion two years ago, so he was a good sport about coming to mine.

 Around 10:30 all of the married couples and the couples with kids started leaving.  Apparently after we left things got a little crazy!! Some people were definitely re-living their high school days.  We ended up going to our favorite dessert place, Sweet Mix, with Brittany and Preston.

And just for kicks and giggles, here are some of my High School Senior pictures.....

I thought I was sooooooo cool with my serious look in this picture.

 This was my obligatory "show off my class ring" pictures.  However, the funny thing is that this isn't even my class ring.  We got our class rings during our Junior year and I lost mine the summer before my Senior year.  I had to borrow a friend's for my Senior pictures!!

And I save the best pictures for last.......

Yep, I was wearing capri pant overalls!! What in the world was I thinking??

I thought I was actually kind of stylish in High School, but these overalls are making me re-think that!! 

Did you go to your 10 year High School Reunion??

5 on Friday

Just a few things to share with you on this BEAUTIFUL Spring Friday.....

 1.  I bought this hall tree at a Garage Sale for $90 and I have been needing to paint it ever since I got it.  I was going to paint it black because just about every piece of furniture in our house is black but I'm sooooooo tired of black.  My neighbor has convinced me to go a different route and paint it turquoise.  She recently painted some furniture with Annie Sloan paint and it is amazing!!  I can't wait to get started on this project and add a new pop of color to my kitchen. 

Here is my color I'm going with....

(Annie Sloan-Provence)

And if it looks good I'll be painting a little chair I have like this for Pearson in the same color.  (Another garage sale find for $3) It's like a transition chair in between a high chair and a regular chair.  

 2.  In a few weeks Matt and I are going to do the Advocare 10-day cleanse.  I've been so bad about my eating habits lately and I'm excited to flush everything out and start fresh.  And hopefully lose the 3-4 pounds I've gained in the last few months.  I'm also hoping it will also kick start healthier eating for us.  I plan to blog all about it while we are doing it, so stay tuned!!

 3.  Pearson and I went on a walk this morning.  The weather was absolutely perfect!!

While we were on our walk, I picked up these Gap swim trunks for Pearson for $2 at a Garage Sale.  Can you tell I love Garage Sales? Ha!  I already had this navy Landsend rash guard (which I got for $2.50 at Once Upon a Child) to go with another pair of swim trunks but it matches these swim trunks perfect too.  Can't beat a new (to us) swimsuit for $4.50!!

 4.  It's time for some Spring Cleaning at The Link Home.  I'm going to be joining in on this challenge and will hopefully be able to clean out a few areas in my house.  I might even blog about the progress, we'll see though. 

Here’s the schedule:1. Drawers and Shelves (week of April 9)
2. That Pesky Closet (week of April 16)
3. Piles (week of April 23)
4. That Put-Off Project (week of April 30)

5. And the best part of my day was that I got to go on a date with this hottie tonight.  No pictures to prove it, but we did!! We dropped the little man off at the church for Parent's Night Out (seriously can't pass up $11 babysitting for 4 hours) and we went to dinner and then got dessert!!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

We've got a busy one ahead of us but I'm looking forward to it all.

just me & my hubby

Last night we dropped off Pearson at the the church for Parent's Night Out.  The first Friday of the month is quickly becoming my favorite day because I love date night with this guy!!

It's so nice to get away and know Pearson is well taken care of by the sweet ladies at our church, so we can have a kid-free date night.  And it's especially nice to be able to go out to eat with my hubby, have good uninterrupted conversation and not have to cut up food, share my food or pick up messes (or sippy cups) off the floor!!  We decided to go to Sicilano's Taste of Italy for dinner because we had a Groupon.  

Check out that total!!

 We split the Combo Plate which had Chicken Parm, Veal Parm, Eggplant Parm, and Lasagna.  It was so good, but I seriously could have just eaten the rolls. Y'all these rolls are the bomb! I am not even going to admit to you how many I ate.  It's a little embarrassing!! If you have never been to Taste of Italy, you should go just to try the rolls!!

After dinner we hit up SweetMix again to get another Bananas Foster Crepe.  We have decided it's going to be a Parent's Night Out tradition since it's so close to the church.  

We definitely had a wonderful date night together!!

Until.....

I realized (when we were about 5 minutes from our house) that I had left my purse on the floor at SweetMix.  I quickly called them and thankfully they had it behind the counter.  They said when I picked it up I just had to identify what the purse looked like and what was in it.  Matt ended up dropping me and Pearson off so I could put him to bed then he drove back over to there to pick up my purse.  Such a sweet hubby!!

parent's night out

Our church has a wonderful ministry called Parent's Night Out.  On the first Friday of the month the church offers 4 hours of childcare for $11.  ($18 for 2 kids and a max of $25 per family) It's seriously the steal of the century when it comes to babysitting!!  We definitely plan on utilizing this every month as one of my New Year's Resolutions was to have a kid-free date night each month!!

Last night we dropped P-Man off at the church and headed to BJ's for dinner.  We love BJ's.  It's one of our favorite restaurants.  There are so many things to choose from on the menu and it's all sooooooo good.  We even had a gift card from Matt's birthday so that made it even better!!

As we were finishing up dinner I told Matt that I wanted to get a crepe.  I have no idea why I thought of that, it just sounded good to me.  So we got on our iPhones and googled "Crepes in Dallas, TX" and we found this awesome place called SweetMix in Richardson not far from the church.  We got a Banana's Foster Crepe and it was to die for.  Seriously........Best.Crepe.Ever. I think we might make SweetMix our go-to dessert place on our Parent's Night Out date nights!!

I'm already looking forward to next month's Parent's Night Out!!

this weekend......

We had such a busy weekend!!  I didn't have a spare moment to sit at the computer this weekend, so the blog has been pretty quiet the last few days!!

We started off our weekend by meeting this little guy.  Parker is the newest little guy in our ABF at church.  He's a healthy little guy weighing in at 9 pounds.  I just love his little cheeks and the little rolls he already has!! Pearson's newest work is "gah-ker" (cracker), so we we asked if he wanted to go meet Parker he said, "gah-ker".  So for now, Parker is a cracker to Pearson!!

After meeting Parker, we dropped Pearson off at the church for Parent's Night Out.  Our church does an amazing thing on the first Friday of every month.  For only $11 ($20 for 2 kids, and I think $25 for 3 o more) you can drop your kid of at the church for childcare from 6:30-10:30 so you can go on a date with your spouse!!  We were given a certificate for my birthday from our Preschool minister, so we put it to use and went on a date to Saltgrass!! We even had a gift card to Saltgrass so we had a really nice cheap date!!

 Saturday morning we got up early and had family picture done!!  Our photographer posted these two sneak peeks!

I'm in love!!  I can't wait to see the rest!! I'll have to keep the rest in hiding because we are going to use these pictures for our Christmas Cards!!

 We were planning on having a relaxing day at home on Saturday, but a friend from church had two free tickets to the Baylor football game in Waco.  I swiped them up because my hubby is a die hard BU fan.  When we got into Waco, we ate lunch at Health Camp.  We also got a Orange Dreamsicle shake and it was the best shake I had ever had in my life!!

I was going to be crazy and take Pearson to the game with us, but luckily I got out of it last minute!! Our good friends, The Hoopers, just moved away from Dallas but were also in Waco for the day.  Jonathan ended up going to the game while I hung out with Tammy at Chelsea's house.  Tammy is friends with Chelsea in real life, so she introduced me to Chelsea's blog.  We read each other's blogs, so we are "blog friends" but we had never actually met.  It was so nice to be at someone's house that was set up for a toddler.  She has a little 15 month old, so Pearson had a ball swinging in her swing and playing with all of her toys.  

 

I'm sad Carter was with her grandparents for the day because I think Pearson and Carter would have had a ball together.  

Thank you SO SO SO much Chelsea for letting us invade your house for the afternoon. Especially even after you left!!  You are so sweet!!

While Tammy, Pearson and I were playing and catching up on life Matt and Jonathan were enjoying the game with some pretty close seats!!

 I am SO thankful that Pearson and I ended up not going because after half time there was a lightning delay and it sprinkled for a little while.  Lots of people left so Matt and Jonathan upgraded their seats to the 50 yard line!!

 After the game we had Ninfa's for dinner and then headed home.  We had such a great day in Waco.  It was so good to have an unexpected day of fun with The Hoopers!! 

a night out with my boys

So Matt and I were totally blessed by a sweet friend of mine tonight.  A friend that I used to teach with called last week and asked if we would be interested in 2 Baylor tickets to the Men's Basketball game at the American Airlines Center and a free nights stay at the W Hotel in Dallas.  Her parents had won the package in a contest and weren't able to use it so they wanted to give it to someone who could really enjoy it.  If you know my husband at all you know he is  huge Baylor Sports fan so we jump on board immediately.  

We shopped around at Park Lane this afternoon, leisurely drove through Highland Park, then checked into the hotel around 4pm.  I got my camera out to start taking pictures and of course, my battery was dead.  I was so mad.....so iPhone pics for the weekend.  Thank goodness for phones that take decent pictures!!

P-Man was loving the big King Sized bed!!

 We got free WiFi for our stay!!

 And we have a nice view of the city. (behind these curtains)

 The bathroom is sooooo modern.  

 We literally walked right out of our hotel and right into the game!!

 We had no idea that our seats were on the floor.  Matt was super pumped about being so close to his Baylor Bears. 

 Me and my little buddy in his vintage BU gear watching the game.  I actually had a great time watching the game.  I can enjoy any sport when I'm right up in the action!!

 See how close we were!!

 We were so close that the refs could possibly hear all the stuff that Matt was yelling at them!!

 Pearson was absolutely perfect for the entire game.  The game started after his bedtime so I didn't really know how he was going to do.  He took a nap before we left so he was so happy to look around at the players and the big screen.  He was even being a little flirt with all the ladies around us.     

 The Bears won 54-52.  It was such a great game.  Matt was super excited for the win!!  The game was on ESPN2 so we had tons of friends facebooking/tweeting/texting us telling us that they saw us on TV.  One friend even said that Matt's reaction when the game was over was awesome!!

Such a fun night out with my boys. 

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to the Collins family for thinking of us and blessing us with a fun night out!!