Integrity is super important to me and if I didn't ONLY SHARE WHAT I LOVE, I would be posting all of the time in hopes that you would just shop my blog and be influenced to buy anything and everything so I could disingenuously make money off of you. NOPE! While that is what most influencers and sellers do, it is NOT what I do. I want you to love what I share so much that you actually run to my socials to see
"What else does she recommend!"
Instead of,
"Her last product review was crap. I am not listening to her anymore!"
Soooo..... let's talk about the NEWEST LOVE that has be craving a beer over a margarita lately. WHAT?!?!?!?! It's called, "Fizzics".
One of my favorite holidays to celebrate with my little tribe is Father's Day because my children truly have one of the best men this world could offer them. I believe he is "THE BEST"! And he deserves a special day, set aside, just for him.
On Father's Day, I am always honored to celebrate a man that fully deserves to be called dad/father. Being a father is a selfless act. It's laying down your selfless desires to put your children first. Darren is that father. He is such a hard-worker. His integrity is matchless. He is a wonderful husband, father, and coach! He's our hero! I LOVED the photos above, captured by Carissa Divant, with By His Grace Studios. They were the perfect way to express this man's heart for his children.
In the morning, I set up a few gifts around the house for Darren to wake up to. The first gift was an improvised coffee cup that said, "BEST.DAD.EVER", along with some bourbon infused coffee, from Uncommon Goods.
I fell in LOVE with the below T-Shirt. It spells out my husband, their father perfectly. "HUSBAND. DADDY. HERO." That he is.
Every year, we do this comical, smooshed faces photo. I love to see how these photos change from year to year.
Later in the evening we took Darren's dad to dinner to celebrate both dads. We met up at Carrabas' Italian Grill and blessed Reid/Grandad with an Amazon Echo.
Darren and Lilah: These two are the funniest duo. They are both so witty, sweet spirit, and man o'day... mess with anyone in our family and you'll wish you hadn't. They love HARD! Darren, you know my story. You know what every little girl deserves, craves, wants, and needs from her father. You have filled all of my emptiness, hurt, and struggles by allowing me to witness the most precious gift you have given to our only daughter... A God fearing, hard-workng, generous, kind, involved, protective, supportive daddy with the upmost integrity. She loves you and I love you!
Darren, Ty, and Jax: This man puts his absolute heart and soul into these boys. He is not only their daddy, but hie is their COACH. He coaches them through life in our home, on the court, in our backyard, and even on our car rides to and from. He is raising two sons to be gentleman, complimentary, selfless, amazing husbands, and excellent fathers. Darren may only have 3 children, but I know there are so many youth out there who personally light up when Darren walks into a room. One of Ty's friends even said, after TY's paintball party, "The best part about Ty's party was Mr. Bolling played with us!" MELT. MY. HEART. There are so many youth who jokingly call him dad, but probably because he's so sincere to every boy he coaches. Darren, so many young men take your advice to heart and look up to you. The roll you play in not only our sons' loves, but so many other boys' lives is a beautiful thing to have a front row seat to. You are their hero. AND MINE!
For father's day, I decided to create Darren's gifts around the Blackstone Griddle Grill Cooking Station. I did pay $299.00, but then I went back to Lowe's and showed them that Amazon had it for $265.00 and they price matched. SCORE!
I used my Heidi Swapp light box to create a cute, lit up sigh for Darren, "Dad, Grill Master!"
The gift came complete with EVERYTHING he needed, even adorable hamburger plates from Target.
And matching napkins.
Thank you Bed, Bath, & Beyond for personalizing our kabobs with these College flexible kabobs by Sports Chest. I believe I paid $19.99.
I created my own printable and frame it, titled "Grillin & Chillin'". I will be including the link, in this post, later today!
One of my favorite finds was this "Grill Station". You can find them all over the internet, especially Amazon, but it must be so popular that Amazon was quoting me TWO months for it to arrive. I found this online, at Walmart, and had it shipped directly to the store for FREE.
It comes with two trays, one for RAW meat and one for COOKED meat, so you never mix and match the two, contaminating the food you are ingesting. How clever, right?
Of course the new griddle grill needed a cover, to avoid rusting. (Lowe's).
Just grilling' food net/tent. LOVE THIS. It keeps the bugs, especially the flies away. I also got this cool accessory at Bed, Bath, & Beyond.
A nice collection of "rubs" from Williams-Sonoma.
A "DAD" spatula from Bed, Bath, & Beyond.
I also made this tag and I will be including later for FREE, for your use. "Dad, you're flippin' awesome!"
Another FAV of mine... a BBQ branding iron! I can't wait to be creative with this thing. Okay, let's face it, this gift was for me!
The first thing we will spell is "Dad". You know it!
Above: A BBQ tool hanger from Williams-Sonma.
Below: "Why you all up in my grill!" - t-shirt. I wish I could insert the laughing or crying emoji here.
Too, too funny and FUN! Darren was so thankful and we have used the griddle every night since we got it. It has created SUCH a FAMILY FUN affair. Each night, we cook together as a family.
Ahhhh, I feel like I have begun ALL of my blog posts over the last 6 months this way... I PROMISE I am not giving up on my blog. I am finding it extremely difficult to make the time to sit down and post because there is simply TOO much, ALWAYS, going on. I want to get caught up on the backlog desperately and I am praying it will happen soon. In the meantime, thank you for sticking around and enjoying the few monthly posts.
Father's day around here was very chill. Darren and I actually went out of town the weekend before, so I was not fully prepared, the way I would like to have been. I asked Darren if I could just cook him a nice dinner and told him we would celebrate him with gifts the following weekend. He was totally fine with that. The kids had their own homemade gifts for him as well.
Ty created the word "DADDY", in Roy G. Biv colors, with dominos. He woke up extra early to work on it. When his daddy walked down, he released the first domino.
Jax created a "Remember When" wall of fame. He added just a few things to it and allowed his brother and sister to also add to it. I thought the things they wrote were so sweet. One of my favorites, which you can't read because it's in yellow, was Ty's message:
"Dad, remember when you lead us to the Super Bowl two years in a row?"
Lilah created a jar of "I love when" or "I love you because..."
The first thing that Darren pulled out of the jar was, "I love when you tickle me!"
Our day started out by worshiping the Lord. I always consider my King on Father's Day because our earthly Father's WILL fail us, but our Heavenly Father is so unconditionally loving and perfect.
After church, I planned to make Italian sausage, onions, and peppers. I wanted to personalize it, so I just shaped the sausage into the word dad. Hehe. I served it on fresh pretzel rolls from the Fresh Market. YUM!
We spent a nice portion of the afternoon at the pool. Just relaxing. When we got back, we captures our traditional and funny photo of Darren and the kids smooshing their faces up against the window. It's our "fascinating pandemonium or beautiful chaos". LOL! I have been relying TOO much on my iPhone camera, instead of my amazing T6i, so this year's photo is slightly grainy, but it's still so hysterical. They will NEVER beat the first captured, smooshed faced photo though.
Then, we created Darren with MORE food. The "starter" was shrimp cocktail, served in a "Best Dad Ever" cup. I made him homemade ribs, smashed potatoes, Cesar salad, and garlic knots. YUM! As they say, "Food is the key to a man's heart!" If that's true, then I sure did complete his Father's Day. LOL! Wouldn't you agree? Stay tuned soon (I hope) for we decided to purchase for him for Father's Day! He will receive his gifts probably Saturday!
"Daddy's" was served on real plates, but he was already chowing down BEFORE I could snag a photo. I just chose to eat off of paper plates to make clean up easy peasy.
Oh my goodness, does the title of this post prove how FAR BEHIND I am on blogging? Let's just say that Father's Day June is NOT as far back as my "blogging back log" goes. Sigh... Oh well, I'll just call that "blogging security". Let me interrupt your day to bring you the cutest post about the most amazing father/husband we know. We celebrated him this year, on Father's Day, using the theme "Hugs and Fishes!" Darren has picked up a few new hobbies that he is attempting: hand guns and fishing. Haha. Who is this man? So, we decided to shower him with HUGS and ALL THINGS fishing related. I sure wish he ate candy during this theme. I would have used hugs hershey kisses and Swedish fish.
The kids and I went shopping and personally picked out some things we thought he'd LOVE to have. I had it all displayed on our kitchen table so when he woke up he would be greeted by it all.
We bought him his very OWN fishing pole.
Along with a basket of goodies: Lenny & Larry's Cookies, Buff Bake Protein Spread, Gulp Bait, a Yeti Rambler, Whiskey, Peanuts, Venison Jerkey, Fishing Line, Fishing Hooks, Fishing Weights and more...
We also purchased Darren a SHARK bottle opener. We have it displayed in our beach condo.
Jax picked out a nice Ugly Stick fishing bag.
We also got Darren a big fishing net and inside of the net the kids placed their personal greeting cards, to their daddy, inside!
We thought getting him some Obama toilet paper and prank poop, for our neighborhood pool, would be funny. Darren is ALL ABOUT practical jokes!
Darren read his cards with the kids.
The kids were so proud to show their daddy what they said in their cards to him or what they made for him. Jax had been drawing him artwork, specifically for Father's Day, for several weeks.
I joined the family at the pool and it felt so good watching this hardworking man relax. He deserves it.
Then we did our traditional, father's day GOOFY pic. This year, the way the sun was shining and the glare from my camera's lens, sorta messed the end result up, but it's still OUR original idea and yearly tradition.
Lilah snuck up on Darren and surprised him with a "cup" that she insisted we buy him. #bestdadever.
I loved this shot!!!
I think it's safe to say, he LOVED it.
Then... Lilah played waitress with Darren and served him.
She presented him with EXACTLY what he ordered. LOL!!!! We made him homemade meatballs and marinara sauce + ziti noodles.
He was thankful and happy.
After dinner, he ended his evening JUST THE WAY he so desired. The boys watched the NBA finals between the Golden State Warriors and Cavaliers. It was a sad night when the Warriors lost.
Warriors Game in Hyperlaspe mode! Their father/son mannerisms are almost identical. So funny.
A special shout out was given to my pops (below). He may not be like "Susie's" dad, but he is the ONLY dad I have. The one the Lord has given to me and I will love him the best way I can. No matter what life throws his way, he is always making everyone laugh. I pray he always keeps his sense of humor.
Another Father's Day celebration success. Darren gave it "two thumbs up!"
Above: A BBQ tool hanger from Williams-Sonma.
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