I Get To!!

Ruby made me not do it.

2012-01-30T22:03:00.000-06:00

You know I've been so busy ... what with Ruby and all, that I haven't made my way over to the blog in way TOO long.

But I am enjoying cooking a little bit. As proof that my world has changed, I totally forgot to go pick up Caroline for volleyball the other day because I was busy chatting with the chef that cooks food in our grocery store. He sold me all manner of sauces that I probably don't really need and before I knew it, I got the call saying "MOM, where are you?!?".

My bad.

Now the old Darla might have forgotten to pick up carpool but it wasn't because I was chatting it up about what to put on the fresh salmon I was cooking that night.

The other day Caroline even said that the hallibut I made was "really good" which made my heart leap for joy ... but I played it cool ... because you know she's a teenager and we wouldn't want to act all happy that they liked something we did or they'll start to hate it (sorry about that run on sentence). Right, moms of teenagers everywhere?!?

Anywho ... we celebrated Brittany's 13th! birthday.

a time or two ... :)

Went to a basketball tournament ...

(they won!)

A volleyball tournament ... that Grammy and Grandy got to go to (so fun!) ...

and a visit with Grammy, Grandy, Addison and my sister Deah (who apparently I never took a picture of). ...

So, I haven't just been sitting around and mixing it up with Ruby (haha ... pun intended!).

Not all the time anyway.

And y'all .... this has nothing to do with anything ....

but, be still my heart.

Hoping to write more soon!

Meet Ruby.

2012-01-11T17:36:00.000-06:00

This is Ruby.

She's a beauty.

Shiny and red .... I LOVE her!

Ruby was my Christmas gift from Bill.

I know you aren't supposed to give "domestic" type gifts to your spouse, but I asked for this so it's o.k.

I first saw it on a pre Christmas trip to Williams Sonoma looking for peppermint bark. I kind of gasped at her beauty when I saw her. The employee told me that it is retro/commerative edition with a glass bowl, handle and pour spout on the bowl and shiny, ruby color.

She had me at shiny.

Truth be told, I had always wanted a Kitchen Aid mixer but didn't feel like my cooking warranted the expense. I mean my Walmart $14.99 mixer has held up for years and years.

But that was before I knew the joy of using a Kitchen Aid.

Y'ALL, it is an EXPERIENCE to use it.

Talk about the joy of cooking ... just use a shiny, red mixer!

I love it so much.

But back to the story ... Caroline was with me when I saw it and (in front of the employee) said things like "why would YOU need a mixer?!?" and "you don't even cook!".

So we left.

As luck would have it, a few nights later Bill went with me to the grocery store ... NEVER happens. He wanted to stop off at Starbucks before hand.

And well ... Starbucks is just down from Williams Sonoma. The store was closed but I said ... "want to go visit something beautiful?!" and I took him and showed him the mixer in the window.

His reaction was similar to Carolines ... "you want a MIXER?".

I told him it was red and shiny and looked like a bicycle sitting in a window to me. Truly the thought of spending more than $14.99 seemed wasteful but it WAS shiny. :)

Christmas monring, what to my wondering eyes should appear .... but a Kitchen Aid Mixer from Bill so dear.

So excited! Honestly, I have always wanted one of these.

So, another resolution, use Ruby at least twice a month. That's not going to be a problem though because I find myself trying to think of things to make with it. Last week it was chocolate chip banana muffins. The kids liked it so much I went out and bought more bananas that day and made more.

Yummo.

I think the secret to them was that they called for cream in them. (Speaking of cream ... remember the omelettes from yesterday? ... well cream was their secret ingredient too. I had to ask "facebook" if cream meant "heavy whipping" because I had no idea, but they answered yes and it was delightful!).

And speaking of the omelettes, the presentation did improve with each one. I found better pictures on my phone today. See for yourself ...

So now my kitchen looks like this ... a lot. So fun!

This week's yummy was cinnamon chocolate chip cookies. They even had oatmeal in them. I found them on pinterest. Look how fancy I am with the parchment paper. HA! I don't know why I had it but now I LOVE it ... no clean up!

I've put the recipe for the banana bread below. Pinterest has the cookies although I think the cinnamon m and m's were a Christmas thing. At least that is where I found them ... in the 75% bin at Target. So I'll be making these 3 more times. :)

Ruby and I have become fast friends. Someone asked me if Ruby was going to sit out on the counter or go in the appliance garage.

For now ... totally on the counter.

She's like a work of art.

I'm sure there will be more tales of ruby the red mixer. Stay tuned!

Banana Bread

5 Tablespoons butter

½ c sugar

½ c firmly packed light brown sugar

1 large egg

2 egg whites

1 tsp vanilla

1 ½ c mashed, very ripe bananas

1 ¾ c all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp baking powder

½ c heavy cream

1/3 c chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat butter until light and fluffy.

Add sugar and brown sugar; beat well.

Add egg, egg whites, and vanilla; beat until well blended.

Add mashed banana, and beat on high speed for 30 seconds.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder. Add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with cream, ending with flour mixture. Add walnuts to batter; mix well.

Bake until browned and toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. About 1 hr 15 mins for bread, about 15-20 mins for muffins.

Operation Omelette

2012-01-10T13:17:00.000-06:00

A lot of kids ask their mom ... "what are we HAVING for dinner tonight". (In my house that question is usually followed by some gagging noises). Last week however, as I was taking Jacob to school he said "Mom where are we GOING tonight for dinner".

So I decided ... some things are going to have to change around here. We are going to eat at home more. When I shared this with a friend she told me she knew it was time to start eating at her home more when she asked her daughter what she wanted for dinner and her daughter responded, "A number 1 at Wendy's with a Sprite". Cracked me up.

Now this "resolution" is a little tricky because we have a lot of weeknight sports events. We have games tonight and tomorrow night and let's just be honest here ... I'm not the mom who plans out her weekly menu on Sunday, buys all the ingredients, and has everything cooking early in the afternoon.

Most days I can't even remember to thaw out meat for dinner.

I think though ... with a little more effort on the planning side ... I can turn this ship around ... at least a little.

My first "effort" was to make omelettes. Now a lot of people have said to me ... "you can't make an omelette?!?" ... and well, the answer was "no". In fact, I had never even tried. Just the flipping over of the omelette was intimidation enough for me to leave that for someone else to make.

But for reasons still not clear to me, I offered to make Bill an omelette during the holidays. He said "sure" and it was then that I remembered I didn't know how to make omelettes.

With a little help from pinterest though, I was off and running.

Except then I realized I didn't have eggs.

So Bill went and bought eggs while I watched videos on how to flip omelettes.

This was my first one. Ever.

The best part was that when I set it down the kids came over all wanting a bite and then wanting their own omelette .... proof that Operation Omelette was a success.

In the following days I've tried a few new things .... and we really have cut down on the number of times we are eating out. Of course the challenge will be to keep that up.

One night I had no plan and nothing thawed and then remembered you don't have to thaw spaghetti or Ragu ... so it's not necessarily that things are going gourmet around here ... just going more "at home".

I'd love to hear any family favorites you have! I'm up for a challenge!

Like Simeon ...

2012-01-05T13:17:00.000-06:00

I mentioned yesterday that I would be sharing some of my New Years Resolutions.

I have tried many times to read the Bible through in a year and I have never been successful. And no, that isn't my resolution for this year either. I didn't even mention it when I jotted down a few of my goals on New Years Day. But then earlier this week I came across a reading plan that I thought I could handle .... reading the New Testament through in a year.

For those of you who have read the Bible through many times and in many versions, you may be disappointed that this is the best I can do, but I'm excited about it. It has a chapter a day, 5 days a week. So if I miss a day, fall behind, etc., there is "catch up" time.

If you are interested in the plan, you can find it by clicking here. They have one for the Old Testament too if you'd prefer.

ANYWAY ... I started my reading yesterday and was reading Luke 2. In light of the new year, I was so struck by what I read in Luke 2:25. It said .... "In Jerusalem at the time, there was a man, Simeon by name, a good man, a man who lived in the prayerful expectancy of help for Israel".

I LOVE that.

Prayerful Expectancy.

Simeon lived in prayerful expectancy.

Isn't that so good for the start of a new year? To live like Simeon ... "with prayerful expectancy" of what God is going to do?

Praying God's will and living in expectation of what he will do in, through and for us.

2012 is going to bring more change for our family. In 2011 we changed our address and in 2012 Bill will be changing jobs. We are going to have to live "with prayerful expectancy" because we honestly have no idea what the future holds (other than a mortgage, 4 college tuitions and perhaps 3 weddings - ha!).

Bill's company was acquired by another and in the next several months decisions will be made which will change Bill's career. He may move to the new company or be asked to look elsewhere. Either way, there will be change.

But I, like Simeon, want to live in "prayerful expectancy" of what God has planned for Bill and our family.

Today I was watching the live stream from the Passion 2012 Conference (amazing!) and something Louie Giglio said resonated with me regarding all this. He said ... "God turns pages in life. It's not like God to put us in a place forever. He has seasons for us. Don't get stuck in the past when God is leading you into the future. Don't ever think something is so great that you are too afraid to let go of it and let God give you something else".

I think there will be a story to tell about the new chapter in our lives.

I'm prayerfully expectant.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-04T19:35:00.000-06:00

I was going to title this post ... "you know resolutions really start on the day the kids go back to school, right?!", but then I remembered that I didn't start all my resolutions today so I canned that title. I did start a few .... and there is always tomorrow.

We just got back from a fun few days in Minnesota. It wasn't as cold this year .... which was good, but there also wasn't any snow until the last day. It snowed about 4 inches on New Years Eve. Jacob, Savannah and Bill stayed out until 1:30 in the morning building a fort for a pretty big snowball fight. Caroline, Brittany and I just stayed inside and watched the ball drop in Times Square on TV. :)

We still had a little time after church and before our flight on Sunday for a little more snow time ...

We had a good time visiting family AND watching Baylor win the Alamo Bowl ... yes, that was very good.

One of our favorites in Minnesota is "Christmas Pie". It's worth getting cold just to have a slice.

We took the traditional ... "in front of the tree" picture ...

And played in the Baerg family carpet ball tournament. I don't want to say too much about it except that I beat Bill. HAHA.

We got together one night with Bill's extended family. It was actually the night of the Baylor game and we hated to dine and dash but it was a bowl game and the Heisman trophy winner (RG3!) was playing and there are certain things that call for dining and dashing ... like that. I did take a picture of this cinnamon roll type cake. One of Bill's cousins has brought it for years. I think it's kind of "pintresty".

So now it's back to reality. The kids went back to school today and I started on a few of my resolutions. I'm normally kind of private about goals and such but I heard today that part of making yourself accountable is telling someone your goals ... so in the coming days .... well, the blog is going to hear about some of mine and I'd love to hear some of yours too.

Looking forward to 2012!

Holiday Happenings

2011-12-24T13:15:00.000-06:00

You know what? I've enjoyed this holiday season. I really have. It hasn't felt quite as frantic as some in the past, I've enjoyed putting Christmas decorations in our new home, making cookies and spending time with some friends.

I didn't get to many, many things on my list. I would have liked to go to Arkansas to see my family, I wanted to host some friends for dinner or a small party or two. I don't necessarily feel like I've bought the perfect gifts ... and actually they aren't all purchased.

But, like Mary did so long ago, I want to "treasure up in my heart" the right now.

Hearing of my kids play the Wii and laughing and joking together, shared moments in the kitchen, the fire in the fireplace, the streets lit up with Christmas lights ... and mostly the wonder of knowing Jesus came as a baby in a manger to save the world.

A few of the things we've done the last week:

School parties -

Earlier this week we took a trip to Palestine to ride on the Polar Express:

For some reason I can't make these pictures go in order, but they read the story over the loud speaker, we got cookies and hot chocolate and before we knew it the train arrived at the North Pole. Lights were everywhere and Santa was waving. He then got on the train and gave a bell to the kids and rode back with us while we all sang Christmas carols. Most people had on their pajamas like in the book ... our kids wore sweats ... does that count?

We've decorated (this is an uploaded picture from Hipstamatic - It makes the pictures look like your grandmothers camera and I love it!):

I made the wreath above the stove (normally our Elf on the Shelf isn't sitting in it ... it just happened to be the day I took the picture and everybody knows you can't touch the Elf). :)

(Pinterest might be one of my favorite things of 2011).

Last but not least, we had our traditional Brown and Lackey family Christmas celebration complete with the re-enactment of the Christmas story. We all love this tradition. The oldest child leaves for college next year and we thought the Christmas story drama tradition might be coming to a close but alas ... it wasn't. This year it was completely directed and performed by the kids and there were a few unusual twists. Most noteably, the girl parts were played by boys and the girls parts were played by boys. (Jacob was the one exception to this and insisted on being a shepherd!). Oh ... and baby Jesus was played by the Lackeys dog this year.

Today is Christmas Eve. Rain (wish it was snow!) is falling and the we are finishing up our to do list. Not all of it will be done, but that is fine.

I just opened a Christmas card from a friend who said ... "the Christmas season brings hope in its songs and candles and stories, and we breathe peace knowing God had a plan then, and He has one still".

Breathe peace.

And that is my wish ... that you and your family would know the peace and the joy that comes from celebrating the birth of our Savior.

Merry Christmas and peace to you all!

Santa Baby ...

2011-12-20T12:07:00.001-06:00

Bill and I went to a sweet, sweet wedding on Saturday night. Bill has worked with the bride's mom for years and years and we think their family is awesome. We had such a great time.

I convinced Bill to get into the photo booth (really, why do I have to convince him of these things?!?). I gave him a Santa hat and thought he looked so cute. The photo booth guy gave me an elf hat which I quickly donned.

We took these pictures:

AFTER we came out, the guy working the photo booth said .... "You know, Santa doesn't kiss the elves, right?".

My bad.

Santa Claus came to town.

2011-12-14T23:16:00.000-06:00

I love being invited to Christmas festivities. I don't want to miss a thing. But, truth be told, cookie exchange parties always make me a little nervous. I'm not exactly known for my culinary talents.

But I can copy a recipe (kind of ... anyone remember last year when I failed to notice that one batch of cinnamon roll dough made 7 pans and I ended up with something like 35 pans of cinnamon rolls?!?).

It's actually been several years since I've been invited to a cookie party and when I got an invite this year I quickly scoured pinterest to see what kind of cute concoction I could make.

Or better yet ... that Savannah and I could make together. We bought some Nutter Butters and began working ...

We worked ...

And worked ...

He's cute, huh?

And kept on working until we had almost 6 dozen Santa Nutter Butters.

I think these might have been my favorite cookies I've ever "made" mostly because there was absolutely no cooking involved.

And y'all ... I totally wasn't embarrassed to walk in with this platter of cookies!

It was a Christmas miracle.

I'm not going back to this Christmas Party for a LONG time!

2011-12-11T22:54:00.000-06:00

I love making gingerbread houses with my kids. I've bought several of the packages in the past and we've enjoyed putting them together but I usually end up thinking .... "these would be better with different candy" or "why do my walls keep falling down?!". More recently I wondered ... "why have I bought kits for two years in a row and not ever made the houses?!".

So this year when I saw an announcement for a gingerbread party at our church I signed right up. It sounded fun to me ... someone else puts the houses together (getting the walls to stick together was always a PROBLEM for me!), there would be lots of candy ... and best of all ... I wouldn't have to clean my kitchen.

Saturday was the big day and we headed out (minus Caroline who had a finals study session).

The party was set up so cute and we got our directions.

We found our house (SO excited that the "structure" was already standing!).

We ALL worked and worked ...

It was at about this point when a worker came up to me and said ... "sooo, y'all are doing this without grandparents?". And right then ... RIGHT THEN I realized this was a party for grandparents and grandchildren!

I could not stop laughing!

Now it had crossed my mind that none of my close (in age) friends were there. I thought they must be too busy or didn't enjoy a good gingerbread party... but in reality, it was because they read the fine print!

In my defense (or in an attempt to make me feel better!), the coordinator of the event (who did a GREAT job!) ... told me that after not so many grandparents signed up she opened it up to the public. So truly I either saw the one piece of paper that didn't say grandparents or I totally skipped over the part that said grandparents.

Either way it was funny.

Although we would have enjoyed having grandparents there, we still had fun! I thought our house turned out pretty cute.

I even took an aerial view ... fancy photgraphy, huh?!

Someone had even donated this CUTE gingerbread tree for the party:

The party was really cute. The kids got gingerbread cookies to take home, we got a picture in front of the tree in a cute mat as a favor and they had cookies and punch and LOTS of candy to decorate.

But as fun as it was, I'm not planning on going back for a LONG time.

It's a story that had to be told ...

2011-12-09T11:04:00.000-06:00

There was kind of a big deal football game last weekend in Waco. Baylor played the University of Texas. Although we won the game last year, they've won it so many times that any time we win we are really, really excited. So excited that one year we took the girls to the game (maybe 10 years ago) and when we beat UT we all watched as the fans tore down the goal posts. Good stuff.

Moving on to this year ... Savannah wanted to go to the game and really, so did I. The problem was that no one else in our family could go. At some point I realized Savannah had a sleepover birthday party to go to the night before (that usually means she would be super tired) and it was supposed to be cold and rainy.

So I told her we probably wouldn't go.

She begged.

I thought about the cold and rain and said "no".

She begged some more. In fact she said ... "I'm going to the game on Saturday".

I assumed that when she came home from the party she'd be so tired she'd forget about it.

Instead, she came in the door wearing her Baylor t-shirt (cracked me up that she had remembered this), put down her sleeping bag and said ... "I'm ready to go".

Y'ALL, the look on her face told me one thing and one thing only ....

I'd better get in the car.

Problem was, I was still in my pajamas.

I quickly got ready and put in a quick phone call to Bill (he was helping with a basketball draft at church) that said ... "by the way, Savannah and I are going to Waco".

And off we went.

My girl has game.

It didn't bother us that it was sold out and that we didn't have tickets and that we were leaving with exactly enough time to get to the game ... never mind having to park in ten buck too.

We just drove.

Quick stop by the Baylor Bookstore (I NEEDED a new sweatshirt, it was supposed to be cold, remember?) :) and a look at the bear and we were off ...

You can't even believe how things worked out. Somehow Sav and I turned on a road that ended up being the exit to the parking lot right next to the stadium and suddenly we were parked. A man selling tickets at the gate sold us tickets for 1/2 of what people were asking on line ... and we were in.

IT WAS SO FUN!

RGIII (you might have heard of him .... and tomorrow maybe the Heisman?!?!) is such a fantastic player to watch.

The rain didn't even bother us. In fact the next day someone asked if we got wet and I said "no". Savannah corrected me. I did have Bill's rain jacket so I guess it did the trick. Seriously the rain didn't bother either of us at all.

I asked Savannah a couple of times if she wanted to leave (it became a blow out) and she said "NO. I'm staying until the end".

And so we did.

The very, very end. Then she jumped over the fence and I watched her walk into the crowd.

She was pretty easy to keep up with since she was wearing pink in a sea of green and gold but all of a sudden I couldn't find her. I saw what looked to be a parade. And there ... standing right next to RG 3, as he carried the Baylor flag around the field was Savannah. I almost fell over laughing.

Did I mention that Savannah has game?!?!

Of course my camera was dead at this point (story of my life), but Savannah snapped a few with her itouch:

Y'all, she walked all the way to the gate where the players walk in. RG 3's mom was there hugging all the players as they walked in.

Savannah wasn't finished yet though ... wanted her picture with a player and so bless the heart of #50, whoever he may be, that took the time to get a picture with her.

I headed onto the field too ... after I recovered from the shock of seeing Savannah walking around next to the front runner of the Heisman trophy award :)!

All in all it was a FABULOUS day. I'll never forget it and I don't think Savannah will either.

Well, she will remember everything up until the time we got into the car and she IMMEDIATELY fell asleep.

Sic 'em Bears!

The blog is back.

2011-12-07T23:19:00.000-06:00

For starters, I don't even know where the blog has been the last month or more. Not only did I not write blogs, I didn't even read blogs. Yes, I did go on pinterest a time or 200 ... I even made a few things from the site like this ...

And a grilled cheese with bacon and avacado sandwich .... that was DELICIOUS. I made it for the Hilltop Honeys and the Dilla Honey's (ha! my parents, the Dillahunty's) and they all agreed it was a keeper. This picture isn't very good but the the truth of the matter is that it is one of only two pics that one of the honeys (Deb) took at our girls weekend ... and the other pic was of the sandwich too. My how the mighty have fallen. Anyway ... this sandwich will change your life. For real.

I've spoken a time or three since I've blogged (this was at First Baptist in Russellville, AR): (don't you always wonder where to look when the person speaking is on a big screen right behind them?!).

I also mentioned on the very last blog I wrote, which was quite a while back, that I was going to tell you about a great big surprise that happened when I spoke in Dallas. The great big surprise was that my friend Robin drove up from Houston and SHOCKED me by coming. I'm pretty sure it's the most shocked I've ever been in my life. Her best friend Leslie goes to the church where I was speaking and having Robin there was pure joy for me. I know by looking at this picture you probably aren't seeing joy ... what you are seeing is SHOCK. I could NOT believe she was there and I had just found out when this picture was taken.

One of the things that shocked me so much about Robin being there was that I had just seen her the night before during one of my 517,000 carpool runs that I made to football practices. She just smiled and waved. And to think that 24 hours later she was in Dallas was just incredible.

Speaking of football (Robin's husband was the coach) ... it's over. I still haven't gotten over how cute I thought Jacob looked in his football uniform (took me FOREVER to stop calling it an outfit). Basketball is now in full swing and Bill is Jacob's coach ... and it will come as no surprise that I think Jacob looks awfully cute in his basketball uniform too. :)

Tonight was the end of the season banquet for Caroline's high school volleyball team. I love watching her play. Brittany's volleyball ended and she has already had basketball games. She is playing for the middle school and LOVES it.

We celebrated Savannah's birthday with a fun "Amazing Race" party.

We celebrated Thanksgiving and I made the ENTIRE meal by myself ... thankyouverymuch.

Just look how tired I look in this picture!!

I did have some help from my two "foodie" children:

And all that cooking turned out like this:

If I was a better blogger I'd turn that picture the right way ... but it's too late and I'm too tired. :)

Jacob requested a pumpkin cheesecake chocolate chip pie. He saw the picture in a magazine and I do believe it's been added onto the "must have" list for Thanksgiving. It was really good!

And now it's Christmas ...

I'm having such a good time decorating our new home and today ... today for the first time since we moved away from Dallas (that was in 1993 people!), we had a fire in the fireplace.

You can't begin to know how happy that made me.

About as happy as it makes me to be blogging again.

Pinterest is my downfall ...

2011-10-24T22:17:00.000-05:00

I was thinking tonight (while I was perusing through Pinterest ... my latest addiction), that I hadn't blogged in awhile and that I didn't really have anything to blog about. Then I went to my pictures and thought ... well, I guess there have been a few things. So, I've stopped (momentarily) clicking on tons of cute ideas, delicious looking recipes and the like to catch back up on my real life.

A week or so ago our elementary school had it's fall festival. Tons of fun and plenty of sugar.

Savannah won at the cake walk and brought me this:

Does she know her mama, or what?!

We've seen tons of volleyball. Caroline's last game is tomorrow and Brittany's is Wednesday. Brittany's team won their school tournament on Saturday .... cute girls, poor camera quality.

And Caroline has had a great season too. I love watching her play volleyball. Long story for another day about why, but let's just say ... "you've come a long way baby".

Speaking of Caroline, she spent the night at a friends last spring and came home telling me that her mom "MADE BELGIUM WAFFLES". I said ... "I can make Belgium waffles". She said ... "no, you don't understand. These were real ones. Not frozen .... she even has her own maker that she makes waffles in".

Can I just tell you how badly I felt that she didn't even know we owned a Belgium waffle maker?! We actually have two. They were both wedding presents. Apparently, since Caroline is almost 16 years old, I haven't used them in awhile.

I decided to shock her the other day .... made these:

Fancy, that's what you call that.

My mom, dad and aunt left today after a very brief visit. They were here to visit my moms brother who is in the hospital in San Marcos. I think they were our first house guests ... but I might not be remembering right because I am really tired. :)

Tomorrow I HAVE to tell you about getting one of the biggest shocks of my life. Seriously. It was crazy.

Until then .... happy pinning (or whatever it is that you do that wastes time)!

So many things to love ...

2011-10-10T23:21:00.002-05:00

There are so many things that I loved about today. You'll have to forgive me for writing a list, but I wanted to write them down so I wouldn't forget ...

1. I woke up ... thought I'd overslept .... then remembered it was Columbus Day and went back to sleep. It was a beautiful moment.

2. Caroline and I went to Target. It didn't start off great but honestly ... having some one on one time with her did us both some good. So much good in fact that a lady stopped us and said ... "you two are having too much fun together". And we were!

3. I got to take Jacob, Savannah and Brittany to the pumpkin patch. I had pinky promised Jacob we would go today. So many years they start begging to go the day the pumpkins are unloaded and we end up going late in the month. This year we went early and bought two great pumpkins and lots of little pumpkins. They cost twice as much as the grocery store but I'm planning on remembering it for twice as long.

Plus I think they make my (new) front door look great. :)

4. Brittany and Jacob got hair cuts. This seems so small, so whatever ... but it was good. It wasn't rushed, we weren't trying to squeeze it in ... and they both looked fab when it was finished.

5. After piano lessons I had just enough time to take Savannah to Harwin (Houston landmark) to buy hairbows for $1.99 each. She has asked for so long to get hairbows and for some reason it just never happened. Today ... we got hairbows. She was SO excited. She wore a white one to taekwondo and a blue one tonight to match her soccer uniform and she was beaming. (again ... I LOVE days like today!)

6. We finally got most of Brittany's things hung on her wall. We had been debating placement, looking for just the right frames, etc. and we finally got it all just right. She told me tonight her room felt bigger and yet cozier. I was so glad to get this done for her. I would share a pic but she's asleep in there now. :) One will be coming soon.

7. We worked on Savannah's birthday party invitations. Her birthday was in September. I absolutely had to get this done for her. We made progress! (We are doing an "Amazing Race" party. Ideas welcomed.)

8. Brittany asked me what symbol I thought of when I thought of forgiveness. She had to pick one picture for a "forgiveness quilt" for a school project. Absentmindedly I said ... a white flag or a dove ... and then I said ... "no, a cross. Absolutely a cross". She said ... "that's just what I was thinking of." On Friday she has to present her "forgiveness symbol" to her Language Arts class. Really she will be telling them about salvation. Pray for her and those in her class on Friday. Grateful she can and is willing to share. I love Brittany's heart so much.

9. Brittany asked why we had a blender if we didn't make smoothies. I said ... "well, now is the time to start". We googled a recipe or five and then made the one that sounded best. I was lamenting that we didn't have any strawberries and then, lo and behold, I remembered that I had bought some frozen fruit that said "perfect for making smoothies" on the bag a month or so ago. I found it right away and thought ... "could this day get any better?!".

10. But it could ... because we made the smoothies and we both loved them. She poured half for me and half for her and said ... "mom, we have to try it at the same time." We did, loved it and high fived each other.

Afterwards she said ... "mom, there isn't any reason to get those $7 ones at Smoothie King anymore". And I knew somewhere in Houston Bill Baerg was smiling.

But it STILL gets better.

Caroline came home from volleyball (no Columbus Day for high school sports) and Brittany told her about the smoothies. She asked me to make her one and I was all "pins and needles" if she would like it. Even altered the recipe a little. She didn't declare her undying love for it but she drank the whole thing.

THEN .... wait for it ... wait for it ....

About 30 minutes after she went to bed she called me (yes, I said called ... she used her cell phone and called my cell phone downstairs, this is 2011) ... and said ... "mom, could you make me one of those smoothies for breakfast tomorrow?".

Caroline hasn't eaten breakfast since the 6th grade.

So, inwardly I did a little victory dance and outwardly said ... "sure".

So about today ... there wasn't anything super fab (oh, I did order new den furniture!) ... but it was just good. I had so much sweetness with each of my children. So many moments where I would have been fine to freeze time for just a bit. There seemed to be time to be a mom to each one of them. So often I wonder which one I'm failing at the moment but today was just right. It was just good.

And I just wanted to remember.

Such an exciting 10 seconds ...

2011-10-09T22:20:00.000-05:00

Jacob has LOVED playing soccer this year.

If you are thinking to yourself .. wait, I thought he was playing football .... well, you'd be right. He's doing both. We're nuts.

I prefer soccer. Lots fewer injuries. But alas, he wanted to play both and we're doing church league soccer which is very low key. I love it. It's the exact opposite of football which is ... practice all the time.

Anyway ... a week or two ago Jacob made a goal. I wasn't there (volleyball tournament) but another mom caught it on film and Bill told me all about it.

My two favorite things about the video are:

1. I showed it to Jacob and told him he should show his sisters. He said ... "well, can I fast forward through the part where I fall down?" (maybe he does take after me a little bit after all!).

2. The chest bump with his best friend Josh after the goal .... watch them walk all the way back to their places.

The chest bump is Jacob and Josh's favorite part of the video too.

I love boys.

You can click on it here if you can't see the video.
http://youtu.be/ivxbmgTqyZ0

#cutesayings

2011-10-03T18:00:00.001-05:00

It will come as no surprise to you that Jacob is the absolute apple of my eye.

He says things on a regular basis that make me think ... "I should write that down".

In an attempt to not be behind on every single aspect of my life, I've written down a few of my favorite things here that he has said in the last couple of weeks.

*Bill was recently out of town and I asked Jacob if he would say the prayer at dinner. He bowed his head and then looked up and said ... "wait ... are there any prayer requests?". #sweet

*He made an 86 on a spelling test recently. I asked him what happened and he said, without skipping a beat ... "I missed the hard ones". #likeduh

*A mom at school the other day asked him how he was liking football. He told her he loved it and she said ... "what position do you play?". He said .... with lots of pride and confidence ... "I play SUBSTITUTE ... on offense AND defense". #lovetheswagger

#thatisallfornow

Oh blog ... where fore art thou?

2011-10-02T21:44:00.000-05:00

Yikes. It's been almost a month since I posted a blog! This month has been an absolute blur. In the last month I've been to Arkansas twice and Bill has literally been coast to coast with a stop in Chicago and Minneapolis thrown in. Add football, soccer, volleyball (middle and high school) and there has been little time left for anything but driving carpools and watching games.

The Arkansas trips were awesome. We went to the lake with my family over Labor Day.

Played on the lake a little ...

Hung out with Grandy and Grammy ...

Played with the cousin .... (and her mom and dad):

Found some springs ... and yes, they were hot:

Played some mini golf ...

And wore ourselves out:

I went back to Little Rock two weeks later to speak at Second Baptist Church in Jacksonville. It was a "tablescapes dinner" and the ladies had wonderful tables and it was fun to meet so many of them.

In addition to getting to meet lots of nice people there, I got to be in Little Rock ON my moms birthday and just a few days after my dads. So we did some celebrating.

I so enjoyed the trip with my family and then I SO enjoyed my trip alone. And, I get to go back in November to speak at a church in Russelleville. Can't wait!

SO much to share and planning on carving out more time to do that this week!

Hello blog world ... I've missed you!

9-12

2011-09-12T23:24:00.000-05:00

There has been a lot of talk the last week about what we were all doing 10 years ago. And 10 years ago today, we were celebrating Savannah's first birthday.

Joy came in the morning.

This 11th birthday is tricky for me.

She's my baby girl.

She's Savannah.

A friend recently said there is always a child that you wonder how they got that old, that fast. And this year, for me, it's Savannah.

How is it that she is in her last year of elementary school?

A few weeks ago she asked me when she could start flat ironing (straightening) her hair. Kind of caught me off guard. When did she start caring about her hair?

Her beautiful, thick Rapunzel-ish hair. The hair that was CARROT orange when she was a baby. Now people stop me and ask if they can take her to the hair salon with them because they want their hair to be the exact color as hers.

And as pretty as I think Savannah is ... I think it's her heart that is most beautiful.

You see, she and I are birds of a feather on many things. We're forgetful, we love to have a good time, we want to do it all and we want to see it all.

Last week ... the first week of homework for 5th grade, I got emails from two of her three teachers. They began ... "If you are receiving this email your child failed to turn in a homework assignment this past week".

TRUST ME ... in 9 + years of schooling for Caroline and 7 + years for Brittany, I've never gotten one of these emails. And when I asked Savannah about it she said ... "It was probably a mistake". The teachers mistake ... not hers! :) I told her she needed to really think about it and figure out what went wrong. She came back and said that she forgot to have something signed ... and I'm hopeful it won't happen again.

Truth be told, it probably will.

I'm enough like her to know.

Then yesterday I went to church and her Sunday School teacher from last year (she just promoted) came up to me and said ... "The silver necklace and the note Savannah gave me were so precious".

And I honestly had no idea what she was talking about.

None.

She must have noticed my blank look because she said ... "you do know Savannah gave me a necklace and a letter, right?". And I had to tell her that honestly ... I did not.

Savannah, on her own initiative, had written her a letter thanking her for what she had taught her (it was a page in length and her teacher said she wanted to photo copy it so I could read it). She wrapped the letter in some silver Mardi Gras beads ... cheap, plastic beads that she treasured none the less.

And although she may forget her homework (and that is really, really important, I know) ... I'm so thankful for her heart that blessed her teacher with what she had .... sweet words and a silver bead Mardi Gras necklace.

Her teacher wore those plastic beads into church and told other people what Savannah had done. Savannah had blessed her.

There's a part of me that wishes Savannah would have told me she wanted to give her a gift (there's a bigger part of me that wishes I would have thought of it) ... I could have upgraded the necklace ... but it's better knowing that she did it on her own. I think it's more meaningful and honestly, it inspires me to want to do better with blessing others.

She delights us now ... just as much as she did the day she wore that pink party hat. She is an encourager to everyone in our family ... and to others as well.

Savannah Grace ... you bring us great joy.

Happy 11th Birthday baby girl!

Where were you?

2011-09-11T00:32:00.000-05:00

Last week we got a TV installed (finally!). It was just in time to see all the 9-11 coverage. CNN, The History Channel, Dateline NBC ... you name it, we've watched bits and pieces of all the dramatic footage. And this year in particular, the children have asked lots of questions and have wanted to see the accounts.

And one of the inevitable questions you hear the reporters ask people is ... "Where were you when you heard?". One lady responded that she saw the footage, she assumed it was from a movie.

If only it were a movie.

And tonight, I told my kids the story of how I heard ....

Caroline had gone to school and Brittany and Savannah were at home. I was turning on Barney for Brittany to watch but the TV was still on NBC from the night before. I heard Matt Lauer on NBC talking about a plane that had hit the World Trade Center and just as the picture came into focus, the second plane flew into the other building. Immediately they knew this wasn't another accident but, in fact, an attack.

I never turned Barney on that day. As with the rest of the nation, we watched it unfold, minute by minute. Sometime between 8 and 9, I got a phone call from my mom. She was yelling ... "What is happening?!?! What is happening?".

You see, my parents were at the White House. They had taken a group of students from Arkansas Baptist High School on a trip to Washington, DC. My dad was driving the bus.

I can still remember EXACTLY what the background of the phone call sounded like ... it was as if you could hear the anxiety and the confusion in between hearing the Secret Service yelling for them to "RUN".

The phone went silent, cut off by the millions of cellular calls that were trying to be made. Or perhaps it was cut off during the craziness of the run. I did not hear from my mom again until the next day. Maybe it was late that night ... all I know is it was a LONG time.

I took Brittany to her preschool that day and told my friend Cindy about the phone call. We sat down and prayed for their safety. I assumed they were making their way to safer territory and they were. I think they drove all the way to Tennessee before they stopped for the night.

What the day before had been a wrong turn my dad had made on the streets of DC turned out the next day to be a blessing in disguise. The officers were telling my dad he couldn't get through one way but he remembered the "wrong turn" from the day before and expertly took that bus away from the the city ... while the smoke was rising from the Pentagon.

You know why they were safe?

They were safe because a group of American heroes attempted to overtake an airplane in rural Pennsylvania. With the words "Let's Roll", they fought and although they lost their lives ... many, many people were saved because of their heroic actions.

Including my mom and dad and the students and sponsors on the trip.

For those men bravery and heroism weren't just words, they were actions. And it will never be known how many they saved because of what they did.

Yes, we remember. We remember because we cannot forgot. We remember because we don't want to forget. We remember because while so many of us didn't lose a loved one ... so many people did.

And ten years later we are all still moved by the images and the remembrances ... and we pray.

God shed your grace on us.

The hurricane that is Texas football ....

2011-08-28T09:19:00.001-05:00

As the whole country kept it's eyes on Hurricane Irene this weekend, I had a storm of my own.

My storm was called "Texas football".

Football is big in Texas.

By big I mean HUGE.

Perhaps you've seen the show "Friday Night Lights".

And this past summer Jacob announced that he wanted to play football. "Flag?" I (hopefully) asked. "No, Tackle" he said.

I asked lots of questions like ... "are you sure?", "can you sign up to be the kicker?", "do they have kickers in 8-9 year old football?" ... you get the idea.

Practice started last week and it just so happened that Bill was out of town on business during the week and had his annual golfing weekend in Minnesota over the weekend. Apparently our wedding vows left out the line about not leaving for the first weekend of football practice in pads.

That left me on football duty.

Wednesday and Friday were "helmets only" practices.

How hard could that be ... except we had to buy the helmet.

One of dads on the team offered to meet me at the store to help me pick out a helmet which was good.

Wednesday ... we were ready and off he went.

After practice the coach told me Jacob needed to practice attaching the chin strap to his helmet. Turns out is was bent so we had to get a new helmet.

Friday, same thing except Jacob couldn't find his mouth guard because I didn't realize they were supposed to be attached to the helmet. Another "rookie football mom" mistake.

But Saturday .... Saturday was the first "in pads" practice.

I was SCARED to death. Not that he would get hurt but that I wouldn't know how to dress him! I had seen the shoulder pads and they had what looked to be seat belts that fastened somewhere and there were ties and a shirt went under and a shirt went over and it was all a bit much for me.

Around midnight I sent a message to one of my best friends whose sons is a highly recruited senior, starting quarterback, for a 5A football team in Clear Lake. I questioned (again) why she had to move away and told her I needed her son ... STAT. She wrote back ... and I quote ... "Calm down. It will be fine".

Good advice but I still barely slept Friday night.

I'm not kidding. I was SO worried about it. I laid everything out and checked and re-checked.

We got up early and started the process.

Pants, shirt, pads, shirt, helmet, mouth guard.

Check.

While we were eating breakfast Jacob said ... "Mom, can you take the sticker off that says 'Large'?". "Sure", I said kind of laughing that I had left that sticker on. Then he said ... "can you also take off the one that says 'Import', which was actually "Important". Oops, hadn't seen that one either ... probably because it had warnings of the potential harms that could befall your child while playing football so I was blocking it from my sight.

But when I went to take off the stickers .... I saw it.

THE PRICE TAG.

Sitting right there on top of his helmet. Right there for everyone to see. I had accidentally made my son the "Minnie Pearl" of football.

Jacob may need to unpack that one in counseling some day. Poor kid.

Graciously a dad with three sons (and an assistant coach on our team) who lives on our street offered to do a "once over" of Jacob Saturday morning. Bright and early we were down in their driveway and he pulled and tightened and hooked and did all the other things you need to do to football gear. We got there looking like this:

And ended up looking like this:

I thought it looked like we were preparing him for a lunar launch however a neighbor walked by and said it looked like we were stuffing a scarecrow.

I liked my analogy better.

One of the first things the dad said was ... "Jacob, you got a new helmet" and because we might as well get it out in the open, I said ... "yes, and I took the price tag off this one".

And he laughed and said that he'd seen Jacob's stickers. In fact I'm sure all the boys had probably seen the bright yellow LARGE "IMPORTANT" sticker that was slapped right across the front of the helmet. Truly it was hard to miss (you know since it was IMPORTANT), unless you were me.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times ... I'm not a detail person.

In the end, all the stress was worth it. As Jacob suited up he said ... "this is gonna be FUN"! He loved hitting the dummy and the fact that someone brought cupcakes to practice was ... no pun intended ... truly the icing on the cake.

Afterwards he called Bill and told him all about it. Thankfully he left out the "Minnie Pearl" part. He also left out the part about me asking who was playing "catcher". I was told that was actually a "receiver".

There are some things Bill just doesn't need to know.

Crazy, but true ...

2011-08-25T12:33:00.002-05:00

I'm not a do-it-yourself -er.

I'm not married to one either.

It's great because, for the last several months, there have been workers around to help me hang mirrors, fix this or that ... and t0 loan me tools when I hung the lamp in this room.

Lately I've read blog after blog about the wonder of "Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint". My sister found a supplier in Houston and so I decided to give it a try. The "magic" is that you don't have to prep the furniture. At all. No sanding, no nothing. It's true, you just start painting.

I sent my sister a text before I started telling her how terrified I was. She told me to "just do it" and so it began ...

I decided to start small with an inexpensive stool I bought at Walmart. It fits perfectly under our island but wasn't the right color.

A little chalk paint ...

and viola:

Once I had my confidence, I decided to try it out on a little side table that Bill's aunt had given to him for his first apartment. This scratched and worn little table has moved with us each and every time.

This time I decided to go for something a little different so I mixed the "old white" with "Duck Egg blue" and got started:

Bill came in after we finished painting and COULD NOT BELIEVE we painted on brand new hardwood floors with just some newspaper down. I told him it was 157 degrees outside and he reminded me that our laundry room is still concrete. My bad.

But the table ... well I think it turned out quite nicely.

When you finish the painting you rub the pieces with a clear Annie Sloan wax. It goes on super easy and takes no time at all. I am going to go back to the paint store to get the darker colored wax to go over this clear wax to give it the stained look.

Two thumbs up on the Annie Sloan paint!

***I've gotten several questions, so here is an addendum. The paint came from Wonderfaux Studios in Sugarland. You can order from them online and they will ship it or the shop is just off 59.

Maybe tomorrow ...

2011-08-24T22:28:00.001-05:00

I still haven't taken a back to school picture of Caroline.

Tomorrow is Day #4 of the new school year.

Mom of the year, I know.

I did snap a pic of these two on my phone:

Caroline left at 7:10 (thrilled that her new ride to school wanted to stop at Starbucks on the way) ... and raced out of the door without a picture. Bill took the other three in the traditional "front door" shot but the pictures are on the camera that is upstairs. I can't go upstairs because they stained the wood on them today and we aren't really supposed to be walking on them at all - which is tricky because there are four beds up there ... this is my life.

Mornings are now complicated by the fact that Brittany is trying out for the middle school volleyball team and has to leave by 6:10 am. Whenever the alarm clock is set with the number 5 as the first number, I cannot be expected to be on top of my game (and it will be this way until November). SOOO early.

And speaking of being on top of my game ... I meant to write a post about the ending of summer 2011. I wanted to share how much I loved this summer and the memories we made and the fun things we did and how I felt we truly savored every sweet second of summer. But instead we went to a movie - which turned out to be a very fitting ending to our summer. Although I still haven't developed our pictures of our dolphin swim trust me ... it will forever be on the highlight reel of my life. Forever.

And so when I got an email asking if I, as a Houston blogger, would like to bring my family to a pre screening of "Dolphin Tale" I jumped at the chance! The funniest thing was that later I learned it was for "Houston home school bloggers" and I'm not sure how they confused me for a home schooler but they let us in anyway. Enjoyed the movie ... especially the ending.

I'm a sucker for dolphins:

So, I'm back to carpooling like a crazy person and filling up virtually all the white space on the calendar. And I will post some pics.

Maybe tomorrow.

Speaking of water ...

2011-08-18T09:48:00.000-05:00

You might have heard it's hot in Texas.

I mean REALLY hot.

Like record breaking, above 100 for days in a row, hot.

And no rain.

We are on mandatory water rationing now and can only water two times a week ... after 8:00 PM and before 10 AM. I read somewhere that there has been less than an inch of rain since January - or something crazy like that.

So basically it's really hot and really dry.

And if you are outside for anytime at all you start muttering to yourself ... "I think I'm gonna die". Yesterday we had a lemonade stand in the neighborhood. I wondered if the kids would mind if I just sat in my car ... with it running - but instead I stood out there and wondered aloud why I had bothered to shower that morning.

Speaking of being REALLY hot ...

Last Saturday I took Brittany and Caroline to go run some "before school" errands. After we had tackled school supply shopping we stopped off at Orange Leaf yogurt. (Yes ... it was just two days after I went with Bill - don't judge). :)

When we got back into the car,. it wouldn't start. Completely dead (turns out we needed a new battery). We called Bill and he didn't answer so we went back to the yogurt store and bought a water bottle and enjoyed their a/c. And we called Bill.

All told we called our house and his cell a total of FIFTY FOUR times.

He never answered.

We were across the street from the mall ... you know ... air conditioning and clothes .... so I thought we'd just go hang out there. The girls had other plans. For reasons TOTALLY unexplainable to me they wanted to walk home. In the heat. The brutal afternoon heat.

It was pure craziness. Brittany was almost giddy ... "I've never walked home before!!!". As we started out it seemed like she almost thought it was the most fun thing she had done this summer.

It was at least a two mile walk ... much of which I spent furiously dialing Bill's cell phone. I finally decided that he, Savannah and Jacob had surely gone on a bike ride and that he hadn't taken his phone with him.

When we got to Memorial Drive we got really tired, hot and thirsty.

Brittany was saying things like she was lost in a desert like ... "water ... water ... is that water I see up there?". And so when we passed a little neighborhood grocery store we decided enough was enough and went inside to cool off.

We stuck our heads in the ice machine. We opened the freezer doors and welcomed the fresh air and I honestly felt like I should apologize when the girls began eating all the fruit samples in the produce section.

In the freezer section Caroline wrote "HELP" on the frosty glass and I was pretty sure someone was going to think I had abducted them. Except that we all seemed to be having a good time.

We finally found an area of the store that sold individual cold water bottles and as we were grabbing one I heard someone say ... "what kind of adventure are y'all on?".

As I turned I saw that, sweet mercy, my friend Missy Coward from our Sunday School class was standing there. Her car had a working battery and a/c and she gave us a ride home.

We fully intended on telling Bill we walked the entire way ... leaving out the part about getting a ride for the last mile. But that is when we thought he hadn't been home.

When we walked in the door ... there he, Savannah and Jacob sat .... at the kitchen table .... playing the game of "Life".

YES!!!!!! .... while our car was broken down they were driving little plastic cars around a game board.

They assured us the phone hadn't rung and said .... "try it ... you'll see".

So, for the 55th (and final) time, I dialed our house.

And lo and behold, it rang.

Bill over and over said ... "I never heard it." (hearing aid perhaps?!).

Savannah said ... "oh, I heard it, I think".

And with that Bill put up the little plastic car he was driving and took us out to dinner.

21 years later ...

2011-08-16T11:04:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday Bill and I celebrated 21 years of marriage.

When my parents called to wish us"Happy Anniversary", I was cleaning toilets. For better or for worse. :)

The funny thing is, I clearly remember people telling me when I got married ... "oh, you will love him so much more twenty years from now". Or they said ... "I love my husband so much more now than I did when we got married". And I felt sorry for them. I really did. I thought ... "that is sad that when they got married they didn't love their spouse as much as I love Bill".

But 21 years later, I get what they meant.

And they were right.

Bill planned dinner at a really nice restaurant but when it was time to go we both were in the mood for Mexican food and a movie .... I told him I was a cheap date. We saw "The Help" which I really, really loved. Afterwards we tried a new yogurt place in town.

The funny thing is on Saturday I was back with the girls at this same yogurt spot and there was an elderly couple sitting at this same table - perched right in the window enjoying their yogurt. I almost asked them if I could take their picture because it was such a "before" and "after" but then I thought it might freak them out. :)

Anyway ... I love being married to Bill Baerg. I've loved 21 years of falling in love with him more and more. As Robert Browning said ... "Come grow old with me .... the best is yet to be".

Savannah's Bedroom - pretty and pink

2011-08-09T06:00:00.004-05:00

The past week they have been laying the wood floors in our house. I love how the floors look! We are getting oh so close to being finished!

While the kids were gone last week I put a few finishing touches on Savannah's room and decided it was time to do another "before and after". If you missed the hall bath transformation, it is here.

Next up ... Savannah's room. I really love how it turned out! I just think it fits her personality perfectly.

If you remember, this is what it looked like when we first saw it - gold carpet, beige walls ... :

First up .... take out the gold carpet. We had to add new sheet rock because we re-did pipes and electrical.

Somebody had big plans for her room ...

In the meantime, Grammy and Grandy brought the bed I had when I was a girl from Little Rock. My mom had an "inspiration page" from a magazine and we followed their lead and painted the bed green. I use the term "we" very loosely. My dad did it. :)

We found the perfect bedding (TJ Maxx/Marshalls) to match the pink of her room with the green of the bed ... and we LOVE bubble/dot fabric.

Next up was the pink paint. Took us awhile to settle on just the right one ...

We added new windows ... Savannah thought it was AWESOME to hang out ...

Got a little crazy ...

Supervising the installation ...

And see this lamp .... I hung it myself. First ever solo home improvement project. I'm kind of proud of it. :)

And now ... the big finish ...

TA DA ....

Tales from the camp trunk ...

2011-08-08T00:18:00.001-05:00

I told Bill on Friday night that I had envisioned my reunion with Jacob when we picked him up from camp.

My "vision" was that the music to "Reunited" would be playing in the background as we ran towards each other and embraced.

In reality, we saw Jacob and his cabin walking to the closing ceremony. Bill and I called his name .... he turned around .... gave a little half wave and then kept on going.

WHAT?!?! The mother who gave him life? A little half wave?!

It's cool ... he hugged me later. Told me he missed me and thought about me. Then all was right with the world again.

He also told me some other stuff that I'll tell you in a minute.

Found the girls too and everyone said good bye to their counselors:

And their friends:

Everyone had a blast. They looked taller, tanner, their hair was blonder ... and their faith was stronger. We had some great conversations on the way home about what they had learned and it just confirmed in our hearts how much we love how Pine Cove does camp and the things they teach and how they inspire. It's awesome.

What was not so awesome were the camp trunks. Actually just one trunk.

Jacob's.

I have heard stories of moms opening their trunks and realizing their son only wore one pair of shorts all week or how much it stunk, etc.

And for some reason I thought it might be different for my boy.

But alas, it was not.

Jacob told me as we were leaving that he ran out of clothes. I thought that was strange because they tell you to send nine outfits although they are only there six days.

Then he told me that he "got a little confused and accidentally wore the theme night outfits (which were in labeled Ziploc baggies) during the day so he didn't have some of the things to wear to the theme nights. When we got home he showed me the bag that "confused" him. It said "black shorts".... which I wrote on there so he'd wear black shorts with that particular shirt. He thought it said "buck snort" which was the name of the first theme night (Buck Snort County Fair). That is where it all went wrong.

He also said he didn't write any letters because he "looked and looked but never saw his (self addressed and stamped) envelopes and paper.

When we got home I found:

4 weekday outfits still in their ziploc baggies

2 theme night outfits in bags (unworn)

2 (out of the 3 he took) bathing suits (unworn) - said he never saw the other two

Blue jeans (unworn) for riding horses - said he wore shorts because he didn't know he had pants

And ... last but not least ... the ziploc baggie holding all his letter supplies.

Oh, and it stunk. Might have been the wet socks he put in ziploc baggies that had clean clothes in them. Why ask why?

Truly none of this seemed to bother him ... which is good. His sisters are SO meticulous about what they pack and wear. Savannah told me she did ask Jacob every day if he was having fun and he always said "yes" so clearly it wasn't an issue.

Unlike the year I got a letter from Brittany that was only one sentence:

"Dear mom ... you forgot to pack my belt".

Or the next year when she wrote another one sentence letter:

"Dear mom ... you forgot to pack my hair brush".

Now that I think about it ... perhaps it's a good thing Jacob couldn't find his stationary.

No letters telling me what he thought I forgot!

The trunks are now back in the attic until next year.

Maybe next year I'll get a letter.

Maybe.

Camper Call

2011-08-05T18:13:00.001-05:00

Last Sunday we dropped off Jacob, Brittany and Savannah in Tyler at Pine Cove camp. Jacob and Savannah are at Towers:

and Brittany is at Ranch:

It was Jacob's first year at camp and his buddy Josh went too. They opted for side by side top bunks.

Big boys off for their swim test:

Savannah had two friends from school who she was sharing a cabin with:

I got a letter from Savannah that said ... "My new friends are SOOO nice. They are like sisters". That just screams Savannah. Brittany sent a letter said how nice the girls in her cabin were too. Jacob ... well, I haven't heard a word from that boy. :)

Caroline has been here all week with high school "two a days" for volleyball. All the driving has only made me more excited for her 16th birthday to approach. It's been a lot of back and forth. But we've enjoyed some great "only kid" time too. She told me she had put the others "out of her mind" this week. :) Last night I seriously thought it was too hot to eat dinner. Why not just call it a day? But Bill mentioned "Cheesecake Factory" and Caroline and I were ON BOARD. Big time. It's been fun to visit with just her at some restaurants this week. (Just FYI ... they laid the wood floors in the downstairs this week so we "had" to eat out).

But tomorrow ... sweet tomorrow .... we go pick up these sweet faces (SO glad the camp posts pictures for me to copy!):

And if this is any indication .... it looks like they've had a good time:

I can't wait to put that craziness in our car!

Aloha!

2011-08-04T16:38:00.000-05:00

Bill told me that growing up one of his uncles would go on vacations and when they returned they would have everyone over for a slide show and snacks. Good times.

We decided to make our own "slide show" of pictures from our trip to Hawaii. You are invited to watch. You'll have to provide your own snacks. :)

Here is the link to Hawaii ... Baerg style:

http://www.vimeo.com/27201557

Aloha!

My Lords and My Ladies

2011-08-03T00:00:00.001-05:00

As I mentioned, there was more partying to do before Jacob and I rounded out Birthday Bash 2011.

I mean ... I hadn't seen my parents yet!

So, Saturday morning (with camp trunks packed in the Suburban), we headed north to Dallas and met up with my mom and dad. I have wanted to go to the Medievel Times for years and years. Even when we lived there I wanted to go but am glad I waited until we had kids to take with us (and my mom and dad).

Our hotel was literally right next door so we walked over and they dressed us up like this:

It made me laugh. Bill was a joker, my dad looked like the pope and Jacob ... well, he was so cute!

This picture is too light but I still like it.

We wore our crowns for dinner:

We all enjoyed it:

And after a swim in the hotel pool and a McDonalds sundae, we called it a wrap.

Until next year!

We partied ... and then we partied some more.

2011-08-02T09:12:00.000-05:00

My birthday is July 23.

Jacob's birthday is July 24.

So he and I ... well, we like to celebrate together.

I mentioned we went to New Braunfels to float the Guadalupe. There are still no pictures because I have not taken the film to be developed. Every day when I see it sitting there I think to myself ... "what did I do before I could just upload pictures to my computer?!?". Seriously.

But I did take a few phone pics ...

We started the day off with Buccee because it's kind of an unwritten rule that if you are driving West on I-10, you must stop for a visit.

Me and Buck had a good time.

After our river float we went to the little town of Gruene, TX. We tried on a few things at the General Store:

We went to the Grist Mill for dinner. It's right on the river and you wait for them to write your party's name on a big chalkboard.

It almost felt like we were eating dinner in a tree house with the river just below us.

Jacob was turning 8 and I was turning 44 so we held up the same number of fingers. :)

It was a fun time in a quaint little town.

But the party wasn't over. Not even close. We drove back to Houston and somewhere along I-10 midnight struck and it was Jacob's birthday! And yes, he was awake and yes, we cheered.

The next day ... per Jacob's request, we went bowling and to Chuck E. Cheese.

And we still weren't finished partying.

But I'll have to tell you about that tomorrow.

A sounding alarm ...

2011-07-27T10:42:00.000-05:00

This past Monday found our family, for the first time in four weeks, at home. Bill's alarm went off just shy of early and I wondered aloud why he had set it.

Then he reminded me that he did, in fact, have a job and he needed to get back to it. And I thought to myself ... "oh yeah". I honestly thought ... in my sleep state ... that there was a mistake. I mean, WHY would an alarm be sounding?!?".

Duty called.

It was a fun run with some incredible family time. The blog was ... oh so silent ... for the past five weeks as we traveled out of the city, out of our state and out of the continental U.S. At one point my cousin sent me an email asking if I had burned down our house with my new stove (ha!) because it had been so quiet. My intention hadn't been to stop blogging the whole time but there was just no time to stop and write.

A quick recap ...

On June 26 swim team came to an end. Savannah made it (for the first time!) to the preliminaries of the Meet of Champs and Brittany made it to the finals. Brittany swam Sunday afternoon (first place in breast stroke!) and the minute it was over we busted a move to Columbus, TX for family camp!

Family camp was awesome! It fills my cup. It's a special place for us and it was awesome that we were able to go. The theme this year was "remember" what the Lord has done. It was very fitting for our year.

We got home from camp on Saturday afternoon, church on Sunday and then ... early Monday morning, the 4th of July, we said "Aloha" and headed for Honolulu.

We dropped off our bags and walked to Waikiki Beach. We couldn't believe we had just arrived and there we sat having dinner on the beach looking at Diamond Head in the background. It was incredible!

SOOO many pictures, lot of stories ... trust me ... it was a good time.

We got into Houston on the 12th at 8:00 in the morning and Bill went straight to work. Talk about vacation coming to a crashing halt! He was there two days and then on Thursday we jumped another plane and headed to Minnesota. It was fast and furious but our niece was getting married so off we went.

We enjoyed getting to be there for her special day (she had been at our wedding just after she turned one). Unfortunately there was a heat wave in Minnesota when we were there. One of the perks of going there is the cool weather ... and that was not around this year. The wedding was beautiful and the reception was in a big red barn. Quaint and cute!

I love this picture ...

And want to know when I cried at the wedding? When the groom hugged his mama.

It's true.

And there's more ... including a float trip down the Guadalupe River but those pictures will be another day. We used up our waterproof camera film and that has to be taken to be developed and well, that is so 90's and will probably take me a while to do.

Stay tuned ...

Fondu'n Family

2011-06-20T13:57:00.000-05:00

Sometime late in the spring semester I read where straight A students would receive a free meal at "The Melting Pot" if they brought in their report cards.

So you know what I did? ... I said .... "Girls, go study". And then I said .... "Go study some more".

Actually they are very self motivated so I didn't really have to say that - and sure enough ... they ended up with straight A's. (In all AP or Pre-AP classes!). Apparently Bill did very well in school because if I had been in AP Geometry ... well, I'd probably still be there. I still don't understand why I need to know how to figure out a math problem about a shape that has letters of the alphabet in it. Ridonkulous I say!

So, Saturday night we went off to the celebration. Caroline questioned why we would go to a RESTAURANT to cook the food ourselves over and over but by the time we started eating, I think she was a convert. Having four kids huddled around two very hot pots filled with oil has the potential for trouble, but we did just fine. Enjoyed it!

The straight A'ers:

Our favorite was the dessert! Yumorama.

In other news ... because there is ALWAYS news around here ...

* We had a SUPER week at Vacation Bible School last week. I taught, the older girls helped and the two younger attended. Savannah worked on the musical each day afterwards it it was great to see it performed on Friday night.

Before the musical there was a family fun night ... who wouldn't want to ride carnival rides on black asphalt at 4:00 in the afternoon?! It was HOT.

While Savannah was at the musical practice Jacob played basketball with Camp of Champs. There are no pictures to prove it, but rumor has it that he broke a 20 year camp record for shots. That deserves a Woot! Woot! Made his daddy proud!

Speaking of Bill ... we did celebrate Fathers Day over the weekend too. We went to church and watched as Brittany and Caroline and seven busloads of students took off for a week at Camp Tallowood. Then Bill spent the afternoon watching the US Open while listening to Jacob BEG to take Bill bowling. BEG!

So, at 8:30 last night we went to the bowling alley. And 50% of his kids celebrated Bill like crazy!

It will be quiet(er) here this week with two kids gone. We have one last swim meet, a few parties to attend and some kitchen boxes to unpack!

The Friday pick up of our campers will be here before I know it!

What Tom Hanks and Bill Baerg have in common ...

2011-06-17T23:17:00.002-05:00

They both made fire!

After waiting (what feels like forever!), we now have appliances in our kitchen!

For realz.

And for the first time in my life I have a gas stove.

There is NO WAY to describe for you how funny our first experience on this stove was ... but trust me, it was funny. My sister was on the phone with me for part of it and she said if we were video taping it we would have won money on "America's Funniest Home Videos".

I knew the stove was installed but they told me the electricity to the appliances didn't work yet. So I told Bill I was going to go see if a neighbor could boil noodles for us so we could have spaghetti for dinner.

Then he mentioned that you didn't need electricity to use a gas stove.

And I may or may not have said something like ... "well how do you turn it on?".

Then I said "duh" and we lit a match and threw it on the stove.

It exploded and we screamed like fools.

Then I stated yelling that Bill Baerg made fire. And it was something like this at our house ...

It worked perfectly and we high fived like crazy because WE. HAD. MADE. FIRE.

After months of microwaved food, sandwiches and take out ... this fire was a thing of beauty.

The only problem was that I didn't know where our pots and pans were in the garage. So I called my neighbor and said I could boil my own noodles but needed to borrow her pot.

And I know for sure ... a watched pot eventually does boil.

And Ragu has never tasted better than it did than it did on this night. I'm pretty sure my sister thinks it is a crime against foodies everywhere that I would use Ragu on such a pretty stove but Ragu is how I roll.

There you have it ... our first meal. A triumph indeed!

Oh, and see that box in the picture? That is the dishwasher. And once it is installed I'm going to yell ... "I. HAVE. MADE. CLEAN. DISHES!". You just wait.

Paper goods and plastic forks will be but a memory!

Too hot to blog!

2011-06-09T00:34:00.001-05:00

It's only the beginning of June and so far Houston has set five heat records (of all time!) for this month. You know what that means, right?

It means it is too hot to blog.

Not really ... but it does mean we've been trying to keep cool.

Summer started with the traditional "Boogie Down Brittmore". That is where we all stand on the side of Brittmore Drive and throw balloons at the graduating 5th graders from our school. And while everyone else was throwing balloons I tried to determine how it could be possible that next year my sweet Savvy Sue (Savannah) is going to be among the graduates. Someone tell me how this happened?!? It almost feels like there are entire years I don't remember. But the kids enjoyed it:

We even saved a balloon or two for when we got home!

There have been lots of trips to the pool ... some for fun ....

And some for swim team practices. Our first meet was last night.

Each morning after practice Jacob hangs out on the sand volleyball court while his sisters swim:

I watch and pinch myself because it feels like I've moved to Mayberry.

We've also had a "schools out" sleepover:

And one day this crew showed up on my doorstep. Before I knew it there were five little boys playing foosball (a neighbor gave it to us!). They were loud. VERY loud. Much louder than a sleepover of girls. Trust me.

LOTS has happened with our house too. It is suddenly going very quickly. See how there is no mantle above the fireplace? Well, as of today, there is! :)

Exciting, huh? The counter tops are due to arrive tomorrow and the floors next week and then there will be lots of pics. And lots of rejoicing and the singing of "It is Finished" and "Hallelujah", etc.

Again, trust me.

So far I've loved everything about summer.

Especially these chairs. I'm still in love with these chairs.

They are especially nice for sitting in while we eat our Dreyer's fruit popsicles every day.

We have to have something to keep us cool!

Last time ... trust me.

Signed,

Hot in Houston

Blue cupcakes

2011-05-29T23:22:00.000-05:00

With so much packed into one month, it is easy to forget a thing or five. That is why I was so glad when Jacob's teacher emailed me and said ... "we need to celebrate Jacob's summer birthday". And I said ... "why yes, yes we do". Although there are still about eight weeks until his actual birthday ... it was fun to celebrate early.

And what better way to celebrate than with cupcakes piled high with blue icing .... made to look like puppy dogs?!

He loved 'em. And judging by the blue lips everyone had ... I'd say they all did!

Just another manic May ...

2011-05-28T15:08:00.001-05:00

Here we sit. May 28th. I had to look up the date because I honestly had no idea what it was ... it just seems this month has been unending! I'm tired, my kids are tired ... I even think the school bus sounded tired the other day. Jacob told me they are learning about the ocean this month at school and have watched "Finding Nemo" and "Little Mermaid". Sounds to me like his teacher might be tired too. :)

Summer is coming ... although I do wish it was already here. I want to celebrate Memorial Day without final exams looming over two of my children's heads. I want to go to the lake!

It seems like forever ago that baseball ended and suddenly we are full steam ahead in swim team. We did pause last week for field day at the elementary school. I worked the water balloon volleyball station which was a lot of fun. The kids had a great time:

I love living on our new street. Last weekend we all gathered out in our yard to watch the high school seniors get their pictures taken before prom. When we turned around we saw Jacob and his buddy Jack ON TOP OF our car. And we figured we'd laugh about it (or maybe cry!) eleven years from now when they are being photographed for their own prom.

And, surprise! surprise! I have an extra room in our house I didn't even know about. It's the front porch and we now have TWO rocking chairs on it. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I have enjoyed them. I sit there and drink tea (it's the right drink for a front porch rocking chair, dontchathink?!) and wait for the school bus, talk to my neighbors, visit with the kids, read, watch the world go by ... you name it. I absolutely LOVE it. Favorite "room" in the house so far.

Speaking of the house, we are getting close. Bill and I went this morning and selected the final granite for the kitchen. It was BLAZING hot out there. I'm thinking by the end of the week it will be installed. Yippee!

Happy Memorial Day weekend! And good luck Baerg girls on your finals! Hang in there ... June is coming!!

I'm still here ...

2011-05-22T22:23:00.000-05:00

With the exception of the night that Osama bin Laden was killed, we haven't watched TV at our house since before we moved. It wasn't really in the plan to not watch TV ... although I must admit that I LOVE that my children are outside a lot more ... it just kind of happened. We bought a new TV to go over the fireplace but it is still in the box as the family room isn't quite finished.

Proving that they haven't kicked the TV addiction fully, one weekend I was speaking at a retreat in Galveston and Bill brought the kids down for one night to play on the beach and hang out at the San Luis Hotel.

They enjoyed the beach but THE SECOND they got into the hotel room they yelled ... TV!!! Disney Channel!!!! and promptly became glued to it.

Then the other night I found my kids sitting on our porch. I asked them what they were doing and they said they were watching the TV in the house across the street. It seemed a little bit like the days when only certain families had TV's and I kind of liked it.

All that to say ... our only real news has been from the internet. And you almost didn't even need that this week to know about the guy who had predicted the end of the world on May 22. Of course it came and went without so much as a blip but there was lots of talk about it. I thought the billboard that said ... "That was awkward" followed by Matthew 24:36 ... "no one knows the day or the hour" was funny. It WAS awkward because one day He is coming back, but not even Jesus knows when that will be.

I thought, jokingly, after the date passed about saying ... "Good, I've got more time to pack now" but all joking aside ... it's a good question to ask ... "are you packed?". The only thing you need in your suitcase is your faith. Believing in Him and that He died for your sins will assure you that you have what you need when you get to your destination.

And, I know we long to hear him say ... "well done, my good and faithful servant ... well done".

So, pack your bags.

Moving on ...

Quick "announcement". I know many of you that read this blog are friends of mine on facebook, but for those of you who aren't ... I wanted you to know that in addition to my website www.darlabaerg.com, I now have a facebook page. Just type in Darla Baerg in the facebook search bar and it will come up. My sister made the page (seriously, does anyone think I would know how to do that?!?!). At first it felt a little awkward to "promote" myself but this is what I finally decided ...

I know I honor the Lord when I speak. I know I use the gifts and talents He has given me. I want to hear Him say "well done". Speaking to and encouraging women gets me so excited I can hardly stand it. It is my ministry and I want to do it well. And if I was going to, let's say, go to the mission field, I wouldn't just go, hoping I found the right place, ... I'd apply and write letters and find an organization to send me. And my mission field is here ... with women ... and if a facebook page or a website helps then I don't want to be opposed to it. I would be so honored if you passed it along to your church ... I love knowing someone in the audience!!

So there you have it.

Last thing .. my friend Debbie Bertrand has a blog. She wrote the other day about the list of names in the Bible. You know the ones you usually skip over or skim ... and surely you have wondered why they are there. And I loved her perspective that she shared. You can read it here. SO good. We do all have a story to tell.

That is all. Hope you have a great week!

If we could walk with the animals, talk with the animals ....

2011-05-19T23:00:00.001-05:00

Climb on the animals ...

Yesterday I went to the zoo with Jacob's class. I helped herd a group of little boys around the exhibits. This is not something for the faint of heart.

Little boys kind of act like monkeys at the zoo. They run, jump and climb on any and every thing. It was fun, but I was in serious need of a Route 44 about 2:00 in the afternoon. Whew, that wore me out!

We did contain the boys ... for about 15 seconds ... in the ground hog exhibit.

But boys will be boys ...

I'm pretty sure the girls didn't take any pictures like the one above! And why do boys feel the need to make weird noises with their skin? I'm pretty sure we'd lost control at about this time.

My two favorite sights at the zoo were:

1. The monkey who looked like his mom packed him a Lunchable:

Can you see the plastic box? I thought it was hilarious.

And my all time fave was this guy:

I mean SERIOUSLY, I was telling boys to get out of trees, stop jumping off benches, get off other people's backs, etc. ... and this guy was just all laid back and relaxed. He stayed posed like that forever. I loved him. I wanted to be him!

Lucky for me, the bus did not have room for the chaperone moms so trust me ... on the car ride home ... the QUIET car, with air conditioning .... I looked like this picture. I just sat there. Without moving. Almost daring someone to break my trance.

But I digress.

We had a good time.

Really we did.

I enjoyed hanging out with him:

And a whole bus load of his friends!

Except I wasn't on the bus! Whoo hoo!!

Thank you El Paso Energy ...

2011-05-16T20:53:00.001-05:00

Saturday morning Bill declared that after 15 years of not attending the El Paso company picnic we were indeed going this year. We went the first year we moved here ... you know, back when we didn't have kids and sports schedules and birthday parties and all manner of other things to do on Saturday afternoons. Hard to imagine now those days where we woke up and wondered what we would do that day. Anyway ... back to the present ... we loaded up and went to the Houston Oaks Club, and can I just say .... we had a fantastic time.

The weather could not have been more beautiful ... I mean really it was perfect. There were parts of the day I felt like I was in the movie Truman or something ... everything seemed exactly as it should be .... the sky was a beautiful blue, the grass was a gorgeous green and the kids loved every minute of it.

After a wonderful barbeque lunch, we hit the water. (figuratively speaking)

Just the fact that they had kayaks made the day great for me. I tell Bill on a regular basis how much I miss Tahoe and the kayaking day we had.

The girls enjoyed these bicycle boats:

Jacob took his buddy Josh and the "men" went out on a paddle boat:

The little boys watched some big "boys" playing ball:

And all the kids took a turn on the jumper thing (for lack of a more sophisticated term):

And perhaps best of all ... you could have as many ice creams or fruit bars as you wanted. Like NO limit. We only had two but still ... no limit!

Well done El Paso ... well done! Thanks ... we had a great time!

A list of sorts ...

2011-05-15T23:30:00.002-05:00

1. BIG Bear didn't work. Jacob gave it a go but ended up in a pallet on the floor before the night was over. Looks like Big Bear might be making the long trip back to Costco.

If you have any advice, feel free to pass it along.

2. Baseball season ended on Friday night. So enjoyed watching this boy play ball:

3. We bought two rocking chairs for the front of our house. We put one of them together. I will leave it up to you to decide if Bill:

A. Questioned my reasoning skills in not paying the extra $20 per chair to have it assembled at the store.

B. Tossed a hammer down in complete disgust during what was supposed to be an "easy assembly" job.

C. Only got one of the two chairs assembled even though it was supposed to be a "quick project".

D. All of the above.

This might be considered cheating, BUT THE ANSWER IS "D".

It wasn't pretty. But I did rock in it tonight and it didn't fall apart (despite it lacking one screw because one was stripped when we were assembling chair #1). Between you and me, I'm not bringing up chair #2 for quite some time.

Maybe never.

4. I taught Sunday School today. I absolutely love teaching Sunday School. And because I was up ALL.NIGHT.LONG with a cough that won't stop, Bill went to McDonalds and got me a large Diet Coke before church. THAT IS LOVE BABY. TRUE LOVE.

5. We got doors on our kitchen cabinets. Tomorrow's "homework" is to go pick out new counter tops. And ... as much as I've missed the sink ... I've also missed my counter tops. I currently make lunches, cut apples, etc. on a round end table that is about "not very many" by "not very many" inches.

Can't wait to start looking ... right after I sit in my rocking chair and wait on the school bus to drive my babies off to school!

And I'll probably have a Diet Coke while I wait!

Think Big, like REALLY BIG ...

2011-05-10T23:24:00.003-05:00

Since we (still) have no kitchen, almost every Saturday since we have moved, Bill has loaded up the kids and taken them to Costco for lunch. For reasons unknown to me, they think the $1.50 kosher hot dog and a drink deal make for good eatin'. Granted, the price is right, but I've been perfectly content to slap some turkey between two pieces of bread and call it "tasty".

While at Costco, they do supplement their meal with a vast array of "samples". And many of the products they try end up making their way back to our house. And often, they don't get used.

So this past weekend I said as they walked out the door ... "don't come back with anything crazy".

And apparently I need to define "crazy" because this is what showed up:

Meet "BIG Bear".

To be fair, they did send me this picture from the store, so I wouldn't completely freak that a 4 1/2 foot stuffed animal was coming into our home.

I guess the good news is that they only brought ONE home!

(And can I just interject here that in the "great purge of 2011" ... that actually started in 2010 .... I got rid of so many stuffed animals. Tons and tons. And maybe it's better that lots of little ones are replaced with one big one. But it's a really, really big one!).

Big Bear does have a job - which is to keep Jacob safe.

You see, we've now lived in our house something like six weeks ... and tonight will be the very first night Jacob has slept alone in his room.

The first few weeks he convinced Savannah to sleep in his bottom bunk but she quickly grew tired of that set up. Brittany wouldn't come to his room, but she did graciously allow him to pull out the trundle under her bed where he has slept for the last month.

He was honestly scared.to.death in his room alone.

According to Jacob, Bill and I were "too far away" in this house. No matter what we tried, it was all to no avail.

Until now.

Tonight is "Big Bear's" first night on the job. And with a light on in the closet and a flashlight pointed towards the ceiling Big Bear has worked his magic and Jacob is asleep.

And that may very well may have been the best money ($29.99) Bill has ever spent at Costco!

Somebody get the girl a dog ...

2011-05-08T22:47:00.002-05:00

Mothers Day was filled with so many of my favorite things. After lunch we went to Hungry's restaurant. We have gone there for many, many years. Moms get a free dessert and nothing says "Bring mama to us" like a free offer of their chocolate mousse cake! After lunch we went to see the movie "Soul Surfer" which I HIGHLY recommend. I loved it. We followed that up with a family bike ride.

There were a few gifts ... I especially love the ones wrapped in tissue paper that the kids bring home from school or Sunday School. This year I got a cute flower pot where Savannah had painted her fingerprints to make bluebonnet flowers all over it. Jacob painted a cute tile. They made these gifts at school.

Savannah made me a rockin' purse out of duct tape which I should go photograph just so you could see. Unfortunately the purse is downstairs and I am up and apparently I am THAT lazy. She told me the purse would have been bigger but she "only had one night to make it". I think it is hip and cool.

I also got a gift that Savannah made for me at Sunday School. It was a cute heart notebook where she had filled each page with "coupons" for me to use. One was for a thirty minute massage. I used it this afternoon but I only got 5 minutes. Rip off? I'm hoping I can still redeem the other 25 minutes at a later date.

There were also coupons for washing the car, doing jobs around the house, even one that said ... "good for one dollar".

I thought it was precious.

As I was reading it she said ... "the best ones are in the back". And as I got to the back I read ...

"Good for walking the dog".

"Good for washing the dog".

"Good for feeding the dog".

"Good for playing with the dog".

And, as you know, well, we don't have a dog.

Which is why each sentence was followed by the phrase ... "when we get one".

This mama loves to laugh and that is exactly what I did!

I love being a mother to these precious four.

Looks like the only thing missing in this picture is a dog!

At least one of us looked good ...

2011-05-03T22:39:00.001-05:00

The week that we moved was long and hard. We literally worked until very, very late and night and got up very, very early to go back to the old house to continue packing and cleaning. Although the movers had taken almost everything (we thought), there were still several closets to be cleaned out, storage rooms, the garage, etc. It was A LOT of work.

The final walk through with the new owner was at 3:00 one afternoon. We finished at 2:00 that same day. I don't know that I've ever been that tired, hot or gross. It seemed like I needed more than a shower. I needed a long soak in a sudsy tub ... but we didn't have one so that couldn't happen.

I remember one day walking in to order some food somewhere and thinking ... "I'm quite sure I've never looked (or smelled!) this badly in my entire life. I was literally getting up, putting on a cap and leaving. I had circles under my eyes, not even a trace of make up, dirty hair ... are you getting a picture?!?

I honestly wondered if I could recover from looking that badly. It took me some time before I found my hair dryer, make up and even my shoes ... and I must confess, I was relieved when one day I actually dried my hair, found my curling iron and put on make up ... all on the same day!

I'm sure my family was relieved as well.

A week after we moved ... during which time I was still suffering from post traumatic move syndrome, Caroline went to the "Sweet 16" dance. It's a big dance at her high school where the girls turning 16 host the girls in the other grades for a big soiree. We didn't even look for a dress until a week before the event. THANKFULLY we found one in about 30 minutes and it fit her without requiring any alterations.

She looked so beautiful that night.

And had a great time.

And after weeks of feeling grimy and dirty and gross, it did my heart good to see at least one of us prettied up!

Everything and the kitchen sink

2011-05-02T11:19:00.002-05:00

Last night I started to write a post about the fun Royal Wedding watching party I went to on Friday but as I was starting to write it, we got a phone call saying "Turn on the TV .. Osama bin Laden is dead".

"England, we'll see your wedding and raise you a funeral" is what someone posted on facebook from the "Sarcasm Society".

Big props to the special operation forces! As George W. Bush said ... "The fight against terror goes on, but American has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done."

And about the royal wedding ... well, I thought it was splendid. Princess Catherine looked beautiful, elegant and in love with her prince. Having watched Princess Diana's wedding at 4:00 in the morning all those years ago and having Kate's wedding on the DVR I could not help but think ... "technology, you are a wonderful thing!!!".

I do hope they live happily ever after.

I'm still waiting for the perfect time to watch the wedding in its entirety with my girls but seeing how Friday night Jacob had a baseball game, Saturday morning Savannah had a volleyball game, Caroline had an all day volleyball tournament and Brittany's basketball team had a tournament as well (by the way, her team has only played in two tournaments and lost one game this weekend 31-5 and yet still somehow qualified for nationals), we just never got around to our own family wedding viewing party.

Trust me, we will have it!

In other news, I was supposed to be on a plane this morning headed to Little Rock for a speaking engagement at Second Baptist Jacksonville tonight. Due to flooding and power outages because of the bad weather there, the event had to be postponed. I am sorry to not be there today but it did allow me to be here when my new kitchen sink arrived. I now think everything ... AND the kitchen sink ... are here and ready to be installed.

Want to see what is looks like so far?

Please tell me you think it looks almost done. Tell me that paint, counter tops, back splash and appliances don't take that long to finish. I need to hear that.

Truth be told, I have missed a kitchen sink most of all. More than the oven or the table that seats six as opposed to our card table that seats four, more than the counter tops to prepare food rather than the TV tray I have been using, more than regular forks and spoons vs. the plastic ones ... more than any of that, I've missed my kitchen sink.

I have not however missed my oven.

Nope, not one bit.

No time to eat ...

2011-04-28T06:00:00.002-05:00

A week or two ago I was doing what I always do .... getting the kids off to school and racing around preparing for workers to show up in my house. I didn't exactly make it because I still had my pajama top on when they arrived. I threw on a jacket and began my day. (I did go change after I answered a few questions ... not to worry!).

I went from thing to thing. Answering questions, meeting with contractors, driving out to pick up some chairs and raced back for a 1:00 appointment that didn't show. During this, I realized I was hungry and hadn't eaten and sadly noticed I had no bread for a sandwich. I hoped, as I opened the freezer door, that there would be something I could microwave, but there was nothing.

I kid you not ... at the EXACT time I was standing with the freezer wide open, lamenting my lack of food and inability to leave to go get something, a sweet friend knocked on the door and said ... "You've probably already eaten, but I brought you lunch/dinner." Chicken salad, croissants and this TO DIE FOR chocolate cake.

It still took me another hour and a half before I could eat it as two more appointments showed up but when I did ... oh it was good. Delicious. It hit the spot ... it was just the refreshment and nourishment and encouragement I needed ... at exactly the right time.

Scripture mentions Jesus not having time to eat either. Mark 6:30-32 says:

The apostles then rendezvoused with Jesus and reported on all that they had done and taught. Jesus said, "Come off by yourselves, let's take a break and get a little rest." For there was constant coming and going and they didn't even have time to eat."

Constant coming and going? Sounds familiar. No time to eat? I was there.

And I think all of us are faced with constant coming and going.

And we have to take time to stop and rest.

We have to get some refreshment, some nourishment.

I love that it was Jesus who suggested it .... "let's take a break and get a little rest". It wasn't the disciples wanting to slack off. It was Jesus who knew it would do them all some good.

Does me good too.

Does us all good.

And seriously, that chicken salad was delicious.