The Longs: July 2017

Monday, July 31, 2017

#twinning with my favorite little sister!

This week Rilyn left for camp and this little beauty has been loving all the special mother-daughter time she and I are having while big sister is gone - which included twinning for church on Sunday! ♥

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

HAPPY 31ST BIRTHDAY BABE.

Ya'll, today Josh turns 31.

Let me go ahead and start at the beginning, when I first met Josh, even though the story as to how I met him isn’t all too exciting. I met him when we started working at the local movie theater together, The Fain. I didn't know him at the time but I immediately thought Josh was pretty much a stud muffin!

And apparently, he thought I was a pretty good lookin’ mamacita, too.

And just for fun, because I'm feeling generous; here is a funny/embarrassing story. (One of our wild stories from when Josh turned 18) It literally brings us to to tears because we laugh so hard when we reminiscence about it. It was that one (and only) time we decided to rent an "adult movie" from the back room of the Move Gallery.

There we were, movie in hand, it was sure to be a great night!

When we arrived home we said "hi" to his dad in passing and rushed up stairs before he asked which movie we rented, or even worse, asked watch it with us!
(This was right before we bought our house when we still lived with his parents.)

Our victory was short lived though, because five minutes later Josh's little brother, Troy arrived upstairs with popcorn.

He said, "Dad wants to watch the movie, too, and asked if we could all watch it down stairs."

#wewerefreakingoutforreal

We were like, "um.... sure....."

We hurried and took the movie out of the case and replaced it with one we had bought from Walmart's dollar bin a few months earlier.

#genius

And to this day we still laugh just thinking back at his dad's reaction to the movie, his face in disgust, saying, "Oh gosh! That was the worst movie, EVER! I didn't think it would ever end!" -after he sat thru the WHOLE MOVIE!

#imstilllaughing

And also, to this day, Josh and I have still not set down to watch "The Human Stain"... you know, that movie we once rented/bought/tricked his dad in to watching!

But time flies when you're having fun and before we knew it we were buying our own home (while I was still in high school), and then married. After high school I decided to become self employed and went into business selling insurance and just to spice sh- up because clearly we didn’t have enough happening we decided to throw a pregnancy in the mix and a home renovation! That was the busiest two years, ever, ya'll!

And now here we are 11 years and 4 kids later and having more fun than ever!

Josh, I want you to know, over the years I have learned that you are far more than just a mean piece of eye-candy, you are awesome for so many reasons. There's a lot of things I could ramble on about you but I have decided to highlight my favorite things about you in this post for
~~the world to see~~ my four blog readers to read, and I am hoping you actually read it too.

Here goes...

I love that we are so much alike its crazy. Most people gush over how great of a couple we make … and the others have mistaken us for brother and sister.

I love that you bring me toilet paper when we run out. To be honest, a lot of times I notice that we are out of toilet paper before I even sit down. However, I still sit down... because I know you will bring me a new roll regardless.

I love that you wear briefs and not man panties. Man panties freak me out. The word ‘panties’ also freaks me out.

I love that you teach our kids all the in’s and outs of old school rap music.

Thank-you for always putting air in my tires and gas in my car. I apologize for my negligence in both areas. You know it is only a coincidence that the gas light only comes on when you drive my car.

I love how you pretend to understand my spending splurges—-and also for not hitting me over the head with a frying pan every time I go crazy on E-Bay/Amazon/Justice/the neighbors garage sale/Etsy/Ect.

I love you because you give me 98.9% of the closet space. I want you to know I will work on downsizing my wardrobe here in the near future…..near future…as in, before the kids graduate... college.

Spoiler Alert: It definitely was not your killer guitar skills that hooked me. I am so thankful you decided to give up on learning guitar. I mean, I know you love Jewel and all, but there is only so much of her I can handle.

I love how you are passionate about so many other things though, like: Reddit, remembering EVERY SINGLE WORD TO EVERY SINGLE ONE OF EMINEM'S SONGS, telling us last nights never-ending dreams you have, dumb jokes, and seeing how many days in a row I will let you wear the same pair of shorts. Hey- its your passion that drives you to be the best you can be and that includes being the best daddy in the world. #yourekillingitboo

I love how have always been the first to volunteer to snuggle with the kids at nap-time, not because you have to, but because you want to . And plus, sleep is probably your most favorite thing in the world. #sorrykids

Lastly, thank you for being you. You work hard for our family, you put up with five lunatics each and every single day and still seem to love us all. We are grateful to have you and we think you are handsome, manly, responsible, and most of all—-the greatest guy we all know.

I want you to know, that because I don't do it enough, I plan to start regularly bragging to everyone about how lucky I am to have you. And while, like you, our kids are also super cute, extremely funny, and crazy smart, too. We all know they got it all from me and that those qualities are why you fell deeply in love with me. #yourewelcomekids

Happy Birthday my Stud Muffin.

Love, your mamacita.

Saturday, July 22, 2017

CJ'S 9TH BIRTHDAY! {REPTILE PARTY!}

Today we celebrated our oldest son turning 9! Where does time go? It seems like it was just yesterday we were handed our feisty little 3 year old!!!

We opted for a simple morning swim party! It was so nice out and I was so happy to be having it in the morning before it got 579 degrees outside.

This was definetly one of my simpler parties! I only had one table to decorate, talk about relaxing!

In true Roxie-party fasion, almost everythig was bought at Dollar Tree. :)

I spent about $20 and picked up the black ribbon, black tissue puffs, green plates, plastic-ware, napkins, green plastic containers (I used these for the food because flies are super crazy right now here in Texas and I wanted something with a lid, but also something that matched, plus- bonus points because I can use them after the party for storage!)

I also bought a pack of

green jars and put plastic animals in there for decoration, an assortment of Growing Reptiles we gave out as favors, and green netting, too! Don't you just love that store?

I also picked up this foam wreath and threw some mossy stuff and plastic reptiles on it I found at Dollar Tree- it literally took all of two minutes to make!

This fake lizard was a toy of Ryker's that I dug out. I love parties where I already have decorations to use

All the boxes were free from my work and of course all the printables came courtesy of my hubs!

The large black frame and "reptile catching net" also came from DT, too! #iheartdollartreeyall

Isn't he so handsome?!

Again, this snake was already a toy of ours.

These are the favors I found at DT that matched the party PERFECT!

They are suppose to grow up to 600%!

For food, we served a variety of breakfast food and cake of course!

The chocolate donuts were "Tortoise Droppings!"

The donut holes were "Snake Eggs!"

The fruit was "Snake Venom Fruit!"

I guess I got distracted and didn't get a picture of the rest of the food, we also had: mini kolaches that were "Mealworm Snacks!"

Chicken and waffle bites that were "Lizard Snacks!"

And powdered donuts that were "Tortoise Eggs!"

I wasn't sure if I was going to have a traditional cake since the party was at 9:30 am, so at the last minute I picked this one up at walmart and threw some plastic reptiles on it!

The easiest and cutest party decoration was a picture of CJ and his new pet, Rango!

Oh! Here is some of the other food:

And a reptile party wouldnt be complete without a reptile! CJ's birthday present from us and his new favorite thing, Rango, stopped by to see the kids!