Short hair, Don't care!

Last week my long awaited hair appt. arrived. I had no idea what I was going to do!

Did I want to stay blonde? Do I cut it? Did I just want to shave my head?

These were some of the questions I had been asking myself for two weeks. But when it came down to it and I sat down in that chair I knew exactly what to do :)

Here I was a couple of weeks ago at a charity cook off.

(Sorry for the bad pic. It was really bad lighting)

In the chair...

***THE BIG REVEAL***

Before and After

Did my child really say that?

As much as I wanted to post about our lovely Fall weather, today I am going to get real and pour out my confused, broken heart.

Jacob, my third grader has had a rough couple of years at school.  He is a very emotional child that is extremely tender hearted and tends to overreact in certain situations. On top of all of that he has had a very, very rough time making friends. I have tried helping him but he can be overwhelming for some kids.

Everything got so bad last week and he got so upset that he told his teacher that he wanted to kill himself with a pencil.

Now, a few days after I have let it all set in and gone through every emotion imaginable I see where he was overreacting and lashing out for attention. But sadly, the effects of the statement have not gone away. The school takes these kinds of things very seriously and he does not quite understand why they are making it seem like he is crazy. Knowing my son I do not feel like he is going to harm himself in any way.

There are just so many questions running through my mind. What am I supposed to do or say in a situation like this? Are we not doing enough to show him we love him?

These are a few of the questions that I have been asking myself this last weekend. My mind is like mush. At his appointment today with his pediatrician they suggested that he see a psychiatrist and we discuss him being medicated. See my mind is pure mush. I don't think that medicating him is going to solve these problems. And I definitely don't want him to think that anytime you have a problem that we just mask it with pills. Is that wrong?

As a mother it breaks my heart to see my child so upset. I would give anything to help him make friends and take away his pain. And I definitely don't want people to think that he is crazy!

I guess one of the reasons I am writing this is hoping that there is someone out there that has been through the same thing and has some advice for me.

chaos with a capitol 'C'

Well Howdy! It has been a really looooong time since I have posted anything.

Sixty nine days to be exact!

That's okay though. It has been pretty chaotic around here and things have finally slowed down enough for my to jump back on the blog bandwagon. You would not believe how much I have to blog about!

To start things off, just recently we thought we found a new house. I am always looking, but I found one in our price range and in the neighborhood I wanted. I could have so lived there. It was definitely not my dream home, but it had more room for entertaining and it was really nice. We really liked it. After putting in our offer I was okay for a day or two but then I started to have serious cold feet.

What if our dream house came along? What if I moved in and absolutely hated it? What if we decided we wanted to move away? What if we can't sell our house? How will we pay for everything?

These were all questions that I had not really considered and I just had this horrible gut feeling that something was just not quite right. So I prayed and prayed every day that God would show me what he wanted me to do. I just wish I would have listened sooner. After tons of talking it over with my husband, a few beers and several bouts with hives from stress we decided to opt out of the contract. I do feel horrible we cam this far in the contract, but this is what was best for me and my family and I hope the other people are not too mad at us. But I also believe that they will get buyers for their house  who absolutely love it and are meant to be there.

Now that we are not stressed and losing sleep over what to do about the house I have more time to spend on our current house and to do a few things I have not been able to do in a while, like blog :)

I hope that you all have had a great couple of months and I can't wait to get all caught up on the blog-o-sphere!

hello sweet brunette

If you read yesterdays post you already know that I decided that I wanted a change from my summer-y blonde locks. Considering summer is over (Thank you, Jesus!) and i'm ready for a change so I better do it quick before I talk myself out of it.

At first I thought what about pink...

Just playin! I don't want that big a of a change!

I decided to go with Ion Color Brillance Medium Brown from Sally's. I looked at the golden browns and the ash browns, but in the end I decided to stick with a neutral shade. The ash browns looked like they had a lot of green in them, and well green and hair are never a good thing. Unless you the Joker. Then it's okay. But i'm not. And the golden browns had a lot of red in them, and well my husband dislikes red hair for some reason. So I thought that since I was springing the whole hair color change thing on him in the first place I would steer clear of a color he does not like.

This was me last night. I decided to do it at Courtney's house so she could help if I needed it. And she did. She fed my little monsters :) All the kids kept looking at me like I was crazy!

 And now, the BIG reveal..... drumroll please..... Ta-Da!

So, what do you think? I have to say that I really like it. My hair feels healthier than it did when it was blonde and it is a whole lot shinier than it has ever been. Not too shabby for $16. In the end I would definitly color my hair again on my own over going back to the salon. 

blonde today, gone tomorrow

For some reason every year around this time I get the urge to drastically change my hair. Whether it be cutting it all off or going from blonde to brunette. I just love to change my hair in the fall! This time, I am going from my super blonde locks to a medium brunette. I have been blonde so long that I am not sure what to expect even though I have gone brunette like this once before. I really liked it the last time,   so here I going for it again. My poor husband on the other hand, has no idea I am dying my hair tonight and will be shocked when he comes home from work today! I love me a good shocked face :)

Pardon my hick talk for a second, but don't you ever just get the hankerin' for somethin' different? I know that I do. Probably more than I should. Luckily though, it's never too drastic. Well by my standards anyway.

Let's get to colorin'!

So here is to saying goodbye to my summer blonde and hello to autumn brunette!

Peace out, blondie!

a colorful run... walk

Yesterday my two favorite girlfriends and I participated in the Color Vibe 5K. In all honesty it was probably the happiest and most colorful 5k that I have ever been too (not to mention the only one). Everyone was pumped and ready to get the party started... and it was only 9am! Shortly after we arrived everyone broke open their color packets and went completely crazy with it. 

I think we got more color on us while we were waiting our turn to start than we did while we were on the course. All in all the experience was a blast (had I not been sick)! And we will definitely be doing the Color Run next month, but this time we will be taking all of the kids. We really think that they will enjoy all of the crazy colorful fun! 

Don't let that smile fool you. I was trying to hide my pain and that's when the funnest part came. I sat for 3 hours in urgent care. Color and all. I had started my weekend with what I thought was just a pesky UTI but soon learned that I had a double kidney infection and that the jog/walk that I attempted during the 5K only aggravated the whole thing. So I spent the next two days in and out of bed in pain waiting for my antibiotics to start working.

Now that I'm all better I am ready to put my happy colorful socks back on and put my feet to the pavement!

one crazy month

Oh my, what a month it has been! I swear all I ever do is play catch up. I think I am going to sit down and schedule in some blog time. I really do miss sitting down an reading all the posts on my blog roll and sharing about what's going on in my world with everyone.

I want to start off by talking about the name of my blog. I have spoke about my little identity crisis in the past and apparently still feel confused. I hope you all don't think I am too crazy. Xo

Now on to the catching up part. I thought the best way to catch everyone up was to just post the pictures. Hope you all enjoy this little catch up post! 

Let's start with these wonderful Strawberry Spinach Popsicles I made for the boys. They were super easy to make and they were super yummy!

This delicious Enchilada Casserole was a HUGE hit with the family! Thank you Jen! 

 My amazingly wonderful friends got me this awesome Kelly Moore Libby bag. And I absolutely love it!

Tyler started flag football, and even though it has been rocky and back and forth, he still loves it.

Love watching him play!!!

Finally got my Fall Bucket List up from Loves of Life. Thank you Katie!

Found this sign at Marshall's and thought it would make a great addition to my kitchen.

 Bought me some new boots for this fall and have been having fun dressing myself from Pinterest :)

 And dressing myself out of things that I find in the back of my closet. 

Well that has been a lot of catching up for the past month. Hoping that I will be better about at least updating every couple of days instead of every month. 

Y'all have a Wonderful Wednesday! 

playing catch up

Here it is Wednesday and I have not posted on thing this week. I swear one of these days I will get my act together and start posting regularly again, but until then my sporadic-ness will have to do. Sad I know. I will do better. 

Let me start by saying that I have not had one beer or cigarette since Sunday night. This is HUGE! I really like to have a beer in the evenings and lets not even mention my morning cigarette. The no beer is because of a bet between me and a friend. (PS. Im gonna win!)

I thought since I was giving up my vices I would also start being a little healthier than I am now. I could stand to lose a couple of pounds and eat a little better than I do. I could definitely drink more water than I do! So this week I made a couple of healthy meals to replace my not so healthy meals. 

The first one was a Pinterest find and it was UH-MAY-ZING! I so will be making this one again! And again! Seriously you guys, you have to try these Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps. Not only were they something I want to make all the time, they were super easy to make as well. 

The other one is a Veggie Stuffed Sweet Potato. I got the idea from Jen over at Peas and Crayons and fell in love! They really are the easiest thing ever. I cook my potato in the microwave for 6 minutes then load it down with tomatoes, black olives, bell pepper, jalapeño, and a little dollop of sour cream. Yum! You can load your down with anything you like. The possibilities are endless.

Now that I have told you what I ate I will just give a brief explanation of this last pic.

This year I decided to be an active member of the PTA and figured that I should probably dress a little more like a mom than I have all summer. Somehow I don't think the cutoff shorts and tank tops would go over so well at our first meeting of the year. (I can hear Harper Valley PTA playing in the back of my head as I type this.) 

After a lot of looking of Pinterest I dug this out of the back of my closet and thought it would make a cute outfit. I really like the stripes with the camo! I did change the pants though. I just had to wear my ripped up boyfriend jeans :) 

Well there ya have it! I have y'all all caught up. Hopefully this will continue so I don't have post so much at once from now on. Happy Wednesday!

the great hair debate

Okay okay...

It may not be that big of a deal to most, but it is to me. My hair appointment is coming up quick and I have been wanting to do something different for a looooong time now. The problem is I'm chicken. Right now my hair is pretty long. Like when straightened the longest layer is past my bra.

But I can no longer deny my true feelings. I must confess... (shhh! don't tell my hubby) Long hair, especially thick long hair is a pain is the a** to work with on a daily basis. And not only is my hair long and thick, but it is wavy/borderline curly. There are places where I have ringlets. It's just no fun! Maybe if I had a job to get dressed up for every day it would be different. But I don't. My hair gets washed, dried and thrown into a ponytail most days. Sometimes church is the exception. It just depends on what my morning was like. And when I flat iron it I have to have it on the highest setting and it takes for-ev-er!

Since I am the kinda girl that likes to see what my hair will look like before I make the big decision I downloaded the InStyle Hair app for my iPad. All you do is download a picture and try on as many styles as you want! It's great! Here are my favorites...

My hair would still be long, but with some cute bangs. 

Sadly, even bangs scare me lol

I really love this cut!

It's just scary to whack off that much hair.

Here is another short one that I like.

Can you tell I really like short hair :)

There it is. Next week at my appointment I will have to make a decision.

 I would love to hear opinions :)

identity crisis

I sit here typing and wondering who I am as a blogger?

What is my identity? 

What do I offer the bloggy world?

I read blogs and these people know who they are. They are decorators or photographers or crafters or travelers or the next June Cleaver. They have whole blogs built around who they are.  

I have been struggling with a concept for my blog. Which is sad because I have been blogging on and off for 4 years. Do I stick with the hodge podge type blog where I post about my life and everything in it? I really like my hodge podgy-ness. I really want a family blog where I document our lives for our family who lives out of state. So they can see m wonderful boys. Lately I have just been finding it harder and harder since my boys are either in school or at work with their dad. I also want to be able to post about the things that I like and that make me happy or sad or frustrated. 

And I really want a really cute, catchy blog name. 

Something that people will remember. 

Something that will stick. 

That is where I always run into my problems. 

I am not creative like that :(

I have tried and tried and nothing seems to jump out at me or scream 'that's it!'

So here I sit and will be pondering what is next for my blog.

From the layout to the name I want my blog to be great!

Thanks for listening to me whine a little today :)

one of those days...

Have you ever had one of those days where nothing made sense and all you wanted to do was bury your head in a pillow and cry. Ya, you know what I'm talking about.

The last part of twenty-twelve and the start of twenty-thirteen have been kinda rough on me. With my dad's cancer, both my boys growing up super fast and the fact that I can not have any more babies has taken a bigger toll on me than I originally thought.

{Just a little back story... My dad was diagnosed with stage 4 esophageal cancer in June of last year. And against all odds he is doing AMAZING! But the fact that he is still sick and seeing him actually look sick gets to me sometimes. He is doing so well that when he does get sick it's like shock almost. Both of my boys just celebrated birthdays. They seem so grown up these day. Tyler is getting so independent and Jake can read. It has just been a lot for me. I swore I was never going to be that mom, and here I am... being that mom. And lastly, in December I had an appointment with a fertility specialist about expanding out family and was told my tubal ligation was not reversible. There are other options that are still open and on the table but the sad fact is they are way too expensive.}

As I sit here and read over everything that I have just typed I feel horrible. I should be thanking and praising God for all the wonderful things that I do have in my life. The fact that my dad is doing amazing when they gave us no hope, that my boys are healthy and smart and that God has blessed me with two wonderful gifts instead of dwelling on all the stuff that I don't have.

This is my chance to love my life and everything in it and thank God daily for the grace that he shows me and the blessing that He gives me.

day date

The past few weeks my hubby and I have not got to spend a whole lot of time together with work and kids and all so he took the day off to spend with me since both the boys were at school. 

It was wonderful! 

You know, we didn't do anything super special or spend any money, but the day was everything a girl could hope for. The most exciting thing we did the whole day was vote! 

Yes, on our date day we went and early voted :)

And I got my shirt in from Victoria's Secret that I ordered for the wedding that I am shooting next weekend. I don't look as sexy as one of those models in this outfit, but I think I'm rockin' it pretty well! 

(If you have never tried Dr. Scholls Fast Flats, I highly recommend them! So comfortable!)

new mama-mobile

Back in August I was starting to get new car fever. Bad.

I was really wanting to downsize a little, but not too much. My Suburban was amazing and had lots of room, but it was way too big most of the time with just two kiddos. Plus, I have always wanted a Tahoe.

So while we were in Dallas for a Rangers game we went to a few car lots to look and see if we found anything that we just fell in love with. After 4 different car dealerships and lots of talking and praying we found the perfect one. We worked everything out and it took about a week to get all the paperwork complete and my new car delivered to me. I have never had a brand new car before so I still get pretty excited when I get in and smell that new leather smell.

This was Betty. She was a good car that was with us through a lot. 

This is my new mama mobile and I have named her Ethel. Yes, I realize she looks very similar to Betty, but what can I say, I have a thing for white cars :)

The captain chairs make it so much easier to get people in and out of the 3rd row!

I love it that when we are parked I can watch movies with the kids :) And I never get lost anymore!

kids will be kids

Today being one of the days that I do not have any children I decided to stop and get me a quick lunch on the way home from running errands. While standing in line I noticed a woman and her five kids walk in. Yes, five kids! Well, I noticed that this mother had a bad attitude from the minute she walked in. One of the younger girls needed to go to the bathroom and she was so awful to her. She acted like it was this huge thing that her poor kid had to go to the bathroom and made her feel bad about it. Then turned to one of her other kids and said ‘she’s getting on my freakin’ nerves today!’ and then proceeded to rant about her other son watching the tortillas being made and how she just wanted to smack him for walking off.

You could see that people were uncomfortable with that was going on, but what do you do in situations like that? I felt really really bad for those kids. If she was like that in public, what is she like at home?

I won’t sit here and tell you that I have never been annoyed with my kids in public. I am sure that I have sounded like that at times, but I can tell you right now that I will make darn sure that I don’t ever treat my kids like that again. It was just horrible! And all I could think of was do I sound like that when I am frustrated? Do people think I am the crazy lady getting annoyed over nothing?

It is my boys job to piss me off and make me love them all at the same time. Even in the middle of HEB. And yes, my kids will at some point annoy me to the point I want to scream, I just need to take a deep breath and remember that they are only this small once and enjoy it!

polka dots and cosmos

I don’t have much to say today so I thought I would post some of my pictures from Instagram.

I think I may be slightly addicted :)

{you can find me on instagram @tonjatonne}

Happy Friday!

r.i.p keurig

Yesterday my favorite appliance broke.

We had been friends for almost two years.

They were two wonderful years.

I remember the many cups full of coffee and the cold nights with yummy hot chocolate.

But... all good things must come to an end to make way for newer models.

R.I.P Keurig

August 2010 – April 2012

erin condren life planner

Eeeeeeeeeeeee!

Yesterday I received my Erin Condren Life Planner.

I can’t wait to start using it!

She has such an amazing deal going on. The planners are marked down from $60 to $36. The only thing is it starts in April 2012 and only goes until December of 2012. But that is fine by me. It gives me a chance to use it for the rest of the year and then just order another one around Christmas time :)

And even though I have only had it a day...

I am in love with my new planner!

Happy Planning!

New Year, New Set of Goals

I am horrible about making New Year’s resolutions and never sticking to them. I always make this huge list of things that I want to do, but never end up doing.

So I have decided not to call them resolutions, instead I call them goals. For some reason it is easier for me to get done when I think of them like that. Nutty, I know!

Here are my major goals for the new year…

---

1. Read my bible more. Read the kids their bible more. Convince Michael to read his bible more.

2. To actually get out that get er’ done list and fix up our house!

3. Lose 20 lbs. (I gained that much when I quite smoking)

4. Eat better. Make healthier meals. Have healthier snacks for the kids.

5. Workout at least 5 days a week!

6. Be better with money and work on paying off my urban burban.

---

I have already started on 99% of everything on that list. And if you know me at all that is a HUGE!

Have you set any goals for the new year?

Bye Bye Blondie

I don’t get to treat myself often, so I was excited last week when I was able to make it to the salon for a little much needed ME time. And I enjoyed every minute of it.

Instead of the usual highlights and lowlights I decided to change the color :)

Here I was as a blonde…

Now I’m a BRUNETTE!

What do you think?

I wasn’t to sure about it at first, but now I absolutly LOVE IT!!!