Aiken, SC

Today over at Kelly's Korner the "Show Us Your Life" is about where you live. This is the first time I have participated, but I thought this would be a good one!

I live in good ol' Aiken, South Carolina! Our town mainly consists of golf and horses. It's a pretty wealthy town overall (No, I am not included in this statement) and it shows with how well the town is taken care of. It has so many beautiful historical buildings and homes. It really is a swett litte quaint town!

Probably the most famous and photographed street in Aiken is South Boundary. It has these gorgeous old oak trees that line each side of the road. It really does look magical!

We also have a beautiful little park called Hopeland Gardens that is free to go to and it has the most beautiful trees and paths! We like to go to the little pond there and feed the ducks and turtles.

As I said before, Aiken is REALLY big into horses. We have the Steeplechase every year and polo matches all the time. It really is a neat thing! Obviously a much smaller scale than the Kentucky Derby (although a horse from Aiken raced in the Kentucky Derby this year!!) but the ladies wear the wide-brimmed hats and dresses and the guys wear bow-ties! It's lots of fun! 

 

All in all Aiken is a really great town! The people are super nice and will make you feel right at home here! Y'all should come on down and visit!!

Fun in the Sun

Hilton Head Island, beach, sun, sand, and amazing weather! What more could you ask for? Amazing friends! Last weekend we took a trip down to the coast for a super relaxing getaway! It was so much fun! We went with my sister and her family, and also our friend Vanessa and her whole family! So needless to say it was a little crazy, but it was honestly one of the best times I've ever had! 

We went down after work on Friday and just hung out that night. Saturday we got up and V and I went and got donuts from a little bakery and brought them back to feed the masses. By that time, Loren was up so we went back out and got stuff for lunch. When we got back all the kids were lotioned up and in their swimsuits so we were ready to hit the beach! 


All the kids had a great time playing in the sand and going down to the water and getting buckets full of water and bringing it back up to their "castles!

There was lots of soccer playing and football throwing also! Kate could be quite the little soccer girl! She was very impressive in her ball-kicking skills! The moms had a great time relaxing and laying out! So much fun in fact that Kate decided she wanted to lay out with Aunt Loren and listen to her iPod! 

(Aunt Loren had gotten up to take this picture so daddy decided to lay down!)

We saw lots of cool stuff when the tide went out and we could go explore the inlet! We saw jellyfish, stingrays, horseshoe crabs that were mating (although for the record, I never would have known they were mating if someone hadn't told me!) cranes, live sand dollars, starfish, and so much more! Fun was had by all! 

The best part was still sitting in our chairs most of the day soaking up the sun! Here's me and V doing just that!

Towards the end of the day we all took our chairs down to the edge of the water to put our feet in and all the kids came with us and jumped the waves and threw sand and just had a blast! 

We are so glad we went and we hope we can do it again soon! That was too much fun! 

 

Sorry for the hiatus!

So it's not like I was much of a blogger before, but I didn't mean to be gone for so long. I have so many ideas and recipes and crafts, but I just haven't had time to blog about them! I will be back VERY soon with all kinds of fun stuff!

Is all this pollen really necessary?

Ugh! I have never seen so much pollen in all my years in the south! It's so crazy! Everything is yellow. Allergy sufferers beware!!

In spite of the yellow haze, we had an awesome Easter weekend! Saturday morning Jeremy went to our church to help set up for Sunday morning so they wouldn't have to be there super early. Kate and I went and got some shopping done with Amber then it was back home for lunch! We ate lunch then chilled for awhile until Jeremy was done mowing our much-overgrown yard (I'm sure our neighbors were grateful!). After that we decided to go to Publix to grocery shop. Now folks, I am an avid Kroger supporter, but Publix was have tons of "buy one get one free" sales so were off to explore a whole new world! Armed with my coupons and new knowledge of scoring a few deals, I was kind of excited! I'm really starting to get drawn in to the coupon world! I'm even going to a coupon workshop on May 8th that The Crafty Charlestonian is hosting. I'm so excited! (You should check out her blog because not only will she inspire you to save money on groceries, but she TONS of adorable frugal crafts!)

Anyway, Easter Sunday was amazing! I had to teach the 2 and 3 year olds for the 9am service (we usually only have one service, but for Easter we had two) and then I got to worship at the 11am service. I just gotta say, my church is awesome! I can't even describe how loving and wonderful it is! It is such a blessing to be able to serve there! After church we went home to get ready for our Easter festivities with our HomeGroup! We had egg dying...

W

Then we had an egg hunt and Kate even found the GOLDEN EGG! She was super excited! Especially because it had $2 in it! That little saver was in heaven!!

We had a wonderful time and lots of wonderful food! We had ham, sweet potato casserole, fried okra, corn bread, green beans, pecan pie, and apple pie! It was divine! 

What are YOUR Easter traditions? Do you spend it with family? Friends? Do you do fun crafts? Or make special recipes???

Not so much

Well, I'm not as big a fan of Tumblr as I thought I would be. It just doesn't seem as user friendly, so I'm staying here! Anyway...

This is Holy Week, as I'm sure you all know, and I have had a song stuck in my head all week so I thought I'd share it with y'all. Maybe some of you have heard it. It's on the Passions CD called Sacred Revolution. 

Sing to the King

Sing to the King who is coming to reign
Glory to Jesus the Lamb that was slain
Life and salvation His empire shall bring
Joy to the nations when Jesus is King

Come let us sing a song
A song declaring we belong to Jesus
And He is all we need
Lift up your heart in praise
Sing now with voices raised to Jesus
Sing to our King

For His returning we watch and we pray
We will be ready the dawn of that day
We'll join in singing with all the redeemed
'CAUSE SATAN IS VANQUISHED AND JESUS IS KING!!

Man, that song gets me every time. Even as I was writing it I started to get emotional. It's such an amazing hope that we have in Jesus!

I hope everyone has an AMAZING Easter weekend! What do YOU have planned??

 

We're moving!!!

Not houses... just blog sites! I have moved to Tumblr.com because I think it's pretty cool so come check me out at alifetolive.tumblr.com

See you soon!!

Tie-Dyed Cupcakes

So I saw this idea about a year ago on a blog that I can't remember and I remember thinking "That is so cool!", but I never had time to try it. Well my baby (who is no longer a baby) turns FOUR tomorrow so I thought I'd try them out for her to take to daycare. Here are some pictures of the adventure...

These are the colors I chose. Pink and purple are Kate's favorite colors (of course) and I decided to do blue so the boys in her class wouldn't feel too left out! **NOTE** IF you ask your husband to help, make sure he knows it DOES NOT take the entire bottle of blue food coloring to dye a small portion of batter!
Here they are all pretty and swirled! I just took one spoonful of each color and put it in the muffin cup then took a toothpick and swirled all the colors around. Psychedelic, right? Haha!

Taadaaaaaaa!! See how pretty they are? I hope Kate appreciates them as much as an almost-four-year-old can! What do you think??