This blog is about our family, who have dealt with the loss of two sons with Muscular Dystrophy, the adoption of a son diagnosed with Agenesis of Corpus Callosum and the birth our a healthy little girl. It's a crazy life, but we are loving it.
I'm one of those people who try to take it one holiday at a time. I enjoyed Halloween and I don't even want to think about Christmas till after I have my turkey on Thanksgiving.
However, Mark and I trying to be intentional this holiday season. We are trying to stress the importance of the real reason and meaning behind Christmas. We chose to participate in Operation Christmas Child.
Both of our kids got to pack a box for a child. They were really excited to pack all the little things we got and I'll post more about it when we drop off the boxes of Saturday. I'd post pictures but my camera ran out of batteries and I can't even turn it on to download them.
Whew, what a week it's been. I'm gearing up and getting ready to make A LOT cookies for our bank's annual Christmas party (this Saturday, before Thanksgiving), I've been practicing making homemade rolls, since I volunteered to bring them on Thanksgiving and Ethan decided to share his stomach bug with me which knocked me out all weekend. Thanks, E!
If I survive this week and remember to buy batteries, I'll post pictures!!
The kids had a great Halloween. They raked in a lot of candy. Our first stop was to Granny & PawPaw's house where my mom made the kids cute candy bags. Then, we took the kids to a couple of older neighborhoods in town. We walked up and down several streets and enjoyed watching ours and other kids go door to door.
Now, back when I was a crazy lady in pain with my sprained hip (about a month ago), my mom took my kids costume shopping for me. Believe me, I am so thankful she did that for me. That took one more thing off my list that I had to do while being the crazy lady in pain that I was.
That being said, Ethan's costume that he picked out was not one that I was exactly...... hmmm... how do I say this..... crazy about.
I have a rule of no scary, evil, ugly costumes. The first time I saw what he picked out, I told him I didn't approve. I got the "It's just a costume, Mom" from him. But, I let it go. And to my {happy} surprise, he only wore the mask to 1 house. He wasn't comfortable in it and said it was too hot.
So here is what my kiddos were for Halloween.
Bride & Goul
The blushing bride.
My Stinkbug!
Granny & Emily
Some of the loot.
And here is some blasts from the past. Tell me you remember Antione Dodson. Remember the "Hide yo kids, Hide yo wife" guy. If not, google him. You will not be disappointed.
2010 - Army guy, Dorothy & Antoine Dodson
2011 - Ninja & Vampire Queen
2007
Here is one from 2007. Max had passed away the week before and I didn't have time to get the kids a costume. I rushed to Walmart on Halloween day and found the Batman costume for Ethan, but couldn't find anything for Emily. I finally put this cheerleader dress on her that used to be mine when I was a little girl. It was way too big for her, but it was something.
I'll have to dig through my other photos to see if I can find older Halloween pics. They're so fun to look back at and remember.
One of my favorite blogs, Kelly's Korner posted this video.
I watched it and laughed and laughed because I can really relate. Sunday mornings are really hectic in my house while we're trying to get everyone up, bathed and ready for church, and then there's that big sigh of relief when you sit down and you've finally made it there.
The last Saturday in October means it's Hogeye Festival time.
Last year, we took the kids to our town's fall festival. And I think I complained a couple of times about how hot it was.
This year, we went again but instead of sweating, we were freezing. It's central Texas, go figure. You never know what the weather's gonna be like this time of year. Freezing rain, blustering wind or serious heat, you just never know.
Anyway, this year Mark decided to rent a booth for our church. If you didn't know, Mark is the pastor of our church and his goal was to get the name of our church out there.
We live in a small town where there is 70+ churches, and we are one of the small ones.
So, the day was beautiful. The sun came out but is was so cold in the morning and the wind was coming from the north, we all froze our tushies off. It warmed up some in the afternoon, but not enough for me. It felt good in the sun as long as the wind wasn't blowing.
Here is our tent.
My handsome husband.
Ethan helping in the booth.
He kept all the prizes filled out on the table.
When Ethan & I went to find Mark some coffee, this little girl came by the booth. Her name is Kelsey and Ethan said she is his girlfriend. I was so upset I missed meeting her. Mark had met her previously and took a picture for me... and Ethan.
By the way, I got Mark a large coffee and Ethan ordered a snow cone. He ate the whole thing and then complained how cold he was.
Kelsey & Momma
Emily saw a clown making balloon animals. She wanted one, so I told her to go ask how much they were. She comes back to me with this butterfly and tells me it's $4. OMG!! for a couple of balloons? I had to fork over the money since she already made the thing, but I told Emily she was supposed to ask first, then let me know how much they were. Had I known it was $4, I would have said no, no and no!!
Ethan got to climb in an old fire truck.
Some of the crowd.
A lady came by with a pink guinea pig. Pink is the theme of the Hogeye Festival.
Ethan demonstrating our booth's penny toss. He had to get a penny in the cup inside the water.
The Citizens On Patrol (COPs) from my work were there doing Child ID. They took pictures of the kids, fingerprinted them and got them on video talking and walking to capture there voice and mannerisms. They then gave me the CD's to keep. If anything ever happened to the kids, I can give the CD to the police to help them ID the kids and find them faster. I loved this!
They even got to meet McGruff, the crime dog.
We ran into Emily's friend, Emily.
And the highlight of being outdoors all day were using these....
I think this was the one and only time in my life I ever wished I was a man.
We had a great, successful day. Mark ordered 48 bibles and gave away all but 6. He made lots of connections with the people of our small town. I was so proud of him and the members of our church who came out on this very cold day and reached out to the people who came by.
Emily had her first field trip of the year. They went to a corn maze and pumpkin patch and Mark went with her. Here are a few pics.
Emily & her friend Emma.
Shooting corn husks.
This morning my kids picked a bunch of pecans from the pecan trees by our church. I had them shell the pecans this afternoon and placed them in the freezer for the holidays.
Then I let the kids paint some pumpkins.
Ethan painted 3/4 of his pumpkin purple and said he was done. I finished it for him.
I'm sure he appreciated the big glitter S I put on it.
In true Emily fashion, she took her sweet time with her pumpkin.
Here is Emily's pumpkin.
The other day I went to TJ Maxx and found a cute lantern. I've seen lots of cute lanterns on Pinterest, all filled with Christmas decorations and ribbons, so I picked it up.
I then went to Walmart and picked up some yarn. Emily and I spent several evenings wrapping Halloween colored yarn around balls of paper and putting it in my new lantern.
I then added a ribbon. I love it.
Lastly, I'm getting my Christmas cookies list together and I'm already trying new Christmas cookie recipes.
I made Jello cookies yesterday.
Really easy and really good.
One batch made like 4 dozen. Wowza!!! I definitely think these are a winner.
This post is really random. Nothing specific, just some things here and there.
In my last post I told you that I hurt my hip. In fact, I sprained by left hip. Not sure how, but I did. I went to the chiropractor, he fixed my hip right up and I felt great. But then the muscles in my left leg, from my bottom down were so painful and sore, I was in some serious pain, couldn't (didn't want to) move and I was down for a while. My new chiropractor is now my BFF. Apparently, my muscles over my hip seized up when I sprained it and now I'm working on loosing these muscles up.
Seriously, this pain has made me one cray-cray women. I apologized to my husband, kids and co-workers for any unkind words I may of spoken out of pain in the last two weeks. I think I'm on the mend now.
Ethan had a really rough week this past week with his behavior and home and school. He received an "N" (needs improvement) at school, he got in trouble on the bus and failed his spelling test. *Sigh*
All that to say, my kids school had their fall festival on Friday night. The hub and I discussed it and decided that Ethan would not be able to go, due to his actions and behaviors this week.
I really, really tried to talk Emily out of going. I tried to bribe her with a new Barbie and going to get her toenails painted at a nail salon if we could skip the fall festival. You know, I've been a crazy women in pain this past two weeks and I had worked all day Friday and I was seriously tired. Mark has been suffering from allergies and he's coughing his head off and he didn't feel like going.
No go. Once this child has her mind made up, she does not change. So, I put on my big girl panties and took her. She really did deserve to go. She has been doing really great in school and has such a great attitude towards everything.
I'll spare you the details of the festival. It was just like last year. You can read about that here.
I did grab a few pics of her before we left. I think I earned eleventy hundred cool mom points for going.
Afterwards, I took her to Subway (she loves her some Subway sandwiches), went through McDonald's drive-thru for Ethan and finally took myself home. My bed never felt so good.
In other news, I made a new fall yarn wreath for my door.
Please pay no attention to my ugly door. As I probably mentioned before, I live in the 1970's house from Haides! Everything in this house is brown or harvest gold, and the people who built the house in the 70's never updated anything when we bought it 4 years ago. We're slowly trying to do updates.
Anyway, I found the yarn at Walmart and just made a few flowers out of felt.
My Friday cookies that I make for a local bank this past week were these.
Pumpkin cookies with caramel icing. So good. I mean really really really so good!
You want the recipe, I know you do! Here you go...
Pumpkin Cookies with Caramel Icing
1 c. shortening
1 c. sugar
1 c. pumpkin
1 egg
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 ts.\p. salt
Cream shortening and sugar. Blend in pumpkin and egg. Sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add to creamed mixture and mix well. Drop by teaspoon on greased cookies sheet. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes.
Caramel Icing
3 Tbl. butter
4 Tbl. milk
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. powdered sugar
Cook first 3 ingredients until sugar is melted. Then let this mixture cool. After cooled, add powered sugar and vanilla. Spread a little bit on the cookie and let dry.
I just dipped the tops of the cooled cookies in the caramel icing and placed on a wire rack with wax paper underneath to catch any dripping of the icing. Makes 4 dozen cookies.
So there you go. A really random post. So Random!
Speaking of random, do your kids watch the show So Random! on the Disney Channel? It's a cute show and reminds me of a kid version of Saturday Night Live, where they do different skits, songs and fake commercials. Here is one of my favorite songs from the show. I'm not sure if it's just sad I like this song and am putting it on my blog or if it earns me more cool mom points.
I think I like this song because back in the day, I totally rocked this look... enjoy.
