Coolin' Off... Pool & Cocktails

Today, I was a YES MOM. I didn't say no! It was so hard but I learned something from my sweet friend who has been working on being a 'yes mom'. She has taken her kiddos bowling and hiking this week and when she witnessed the joy in the eyes, it's something she wants to continue doing.

Me too!

Today, I had both of the big girls bring a friend to our big, huge, way awesome water park - just ask the girls!

We stayed and played for 5 hours! 5 hours friends! I was by myself with one 10 yr old, one 9 year old, two 8 year olds and one 7 month old.... by myself. And I was a YES MOM!... (Did I mention I was by myself?)

No really, it was FABULOUS!
The big girls got along so great and little Bear and I relaxed all afternoon. She LOVED the water

 .... got wiped out and took a nice long nap while I worked on my bible study - Gideon by Priscilla Shirer (AMAZING study - if you ever get the chance - DO IT!)

When we left the pool, we went to DQ - YEP! YES MOM! They felt so 'treated' today and it was SO fun to hear about them talk about how much fun they had on our 15 minute drive home with ice cream drippin' off their chins. It was one of the best, lazy summer days we've had in a long time (first one this year for sure!)

Tonight, I wanted to do something special for my hard workin' hunk of love. (OK, I won't ever call him something cheesy like that again...... or maybe I will. But I'll try not to... I'll just call him Julio! <---- if you know us well, you already know that is what I've called my husband for a decade now. If you don't know us that well, well... now you do :)

He LOVES Bloody Mary's! I wanted to make a cocktail for him so I threw this little recipe together... I combined a few different ones from pinterest and came up with this one. It got his approval!

THE Bloody Julio - that's what I'm going to call this drink since he sucked it down faster than I've ever seen a drink disappear from a glass.

Ingredients are shown in the photo.

 3 cups tomato juice

1/4 cup vodka

1/4 cup olive juice

1/4 lime juice

2 T. worcestershire sauce

2 big shakes of hot sauce

Stir it all up and serve in a glass of ice with some jumbo olives, pickle spear and if I would've had some celery and pickled asparagus on hand I would've totally used that too!

What's your favorite cocktail? I would love to try it! Please post it in the comments here! :)

I also made a homemade pizza - just your regular crust with some red and green pepper and pineapple! Yum!

If you are on instagram - follow me! - -and join me in Elsie's challenge of one self portrait a day for 30 days. Today is 3/30 for me. It seems silly at first and hard to 'get a good shot' but I think it will help me be a better photographer and actually get a few photos of me. You know, if you're the mom who's always behind the lens you rarely get photos of you. So.... yeah... it's fun! Join me!

XO.
Jari