A Field Trip

Today I went with Emily and her class on a field trip to.............. a brick yard! Yep, that's right. To a brick yard. Our small town is famous (ok, well known here in central Texas) for two things. #1, our B-B-Q sausage and #2, our brick yards. Apparently there are 3 brick yards in our small town, I thought that there were only two. I learned something new today.

So, we visited Acme Brick.

We donned our safety glasses and hard hats...

We put fallen hard hats back on little heads about 500 times!

We toured the plant and found out how bricks are made. Very cool!

 

 

Then we hit the park for some pizza and some playing.

Ethan had his first tooth pulled today. One of his grown up teeth were coming in and the baby tooth hadn't come out yet, causing the grown up tooth to grow sideways. He was a champ and did wonderful.

He has been non stop fishing at the pond in our subdivision. He rides his bike down there and goes fishing by himself quite often.

He's growing up. I'm trying to give him more responsibilities and more expectations. So far, he's doing great. We have had a great, no, make that an awesome week with Ethan and his behavior. Thank you to everyone who has prayed for us, and most of all, I thank my God. He listens when we pray.

15 Years Ago

I'm a little late with this post. The Hub and I celebrated our 15 year anniversary on February 1st. We went out and celebrated (something we haven't done in quite a few years) and made a day of it. I received beautiful flowers at work and I bought 3 six-packs of the soda Crush (orange, grape & strawberry flavored soda in glass bottles) and wrote out 15 reasons I still had a "Crush" on him. I had them sitting on the counter so he could find them the morning of our anniversary. Thank you Pinterest for that idea.

But, I'm dedicating this post to my sweet hubby. Hears a look at him (and me) through the years.

Us at our church bridal shower.

February 1st, 1997

Right after moving into our first home. As you can see, we had nothing in this room but an iron and an ironing board.

Mark and Chandler.

At a church Valentine's Banquet, less than a month after Chandler passed away.

Mark and Ethan, not very long after he came to live with us.

Christmas 2006

Ethan and Emily meeting baby Max for the first (and last) time.

Mark and Max. Look familiar?

Helping open a new doll on Christmas.

Easter 2009

Daddy at Emily's Pre-K Graduation.

Daddy and Ethan at Cub Scouts

Mark is a very sweet, kind, loving gentle, funny, awesome man. He is a great husband and a wonderful father. He is the pastor of our church and is a wonderful teacher. He's working on two, that's right, two master degrees at the moment. He's hard working, a great cook, and all around great guy.

Thank you Mark, for being all those things, plus being so patient, kind and loving to me and our kids. When you married me 15 years ago, we never dreamed that we would lose 2 of our little babies or even adopt a child or even thought you would be working on two masters degrees at 40 years old. I love you. Through the good times and bad times. Through richer or poorer, through sickness and health, you have loved me. I will forever love you!

Fish, Cookies & St. Patrick's Day

First of all, I want to thank everyone who has thought about my family and has prayed for us the last week. I went on a one week fasting from blogging/Facebook and reading my favorite blogs. I used the time I usually blog, read other blogs or read Facebook to pray for Ethan this past week. Continue to keep us in your prayers. School starts back tomorrow from Spring Break. The break was nice, but it's time to get back to reality, you know trying to get kids up and out of bed, getting them dressed, to eat their breakfast off to school and then to wrestle with homework when they get home. You know, the normal stuff.

It's certainly been spring weather here in central Texas. It's been raining and the weather has been mild. It's been wonderful.

Warning, I took about 378 pics this past week. Picture overload. 

Our subdivision has a nice pond that we have been taken advantage of for some fishing.

Emily caught her first fish.

Ethan has been fishing almost every day this week.

Yep, she's got her pink boots on.

The cute little bridge that goes over the pond.

I really want to learn how to make cute sugar cookies with royal icing. I have been doing a lot of practicing on my family. It's a lot of work with the piping and different icing consistencies. I need lots of practice.

I made the Texas cookies recently.

 

I also made some cookies using my bank's logo on them and took them to the bank and passed them out.
Now, my mom works there and it's a real small town type of bank. They were super excited about these cookies and asked me to make up some for their Christmas party. I'm so excited! I still need lots of practice!

Here's the logo.





Here's more practice cookies.

There was a cookie with Emily's name, but she promptly ate hers.

Ethan and his decorated cookie.

My Goobers!

Do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day. We don't usually, but since it was on a Saturday, I tried to play it up. I made cinnamon rolls with green icing.

And of course, some St. Patty's cookies!

My little leprechaun.

I hope everyone has a good week!

Love, Jennifer