Mt. Rushmore bound!

Well, it's official....I owe Matthew a trip to Mt. Rushmore!

Last August, Matthew told me he wanted to get 300 Accelerated Reader points in 2nd grade. I told him this was quite a lofty goal, as he would have to read around 500 books and take tests on them. He was adamant about it and asked me if I would take him to Mt. Rushmore it he met the goal. It has been Matthew's dream for a LONG time to visit this famous landmark. He has quite the little obsession with all things American history.

Matthew's teacher called me yesterday to inform me that Matthew finished his goal! It was extremely important to him to complete his goal on Bryon's birthday.

Bryon and I are taking the kids on a long trip in July, so Bryon was unable to take the time off for this trip. He suggested that Matthew and I fly there one weekend. Now, Matthew is also is desperately wanting to add more states to his "been there" column, so we decided that driving it would be better. Matthew invited Thomas on the trip, and I invited Lauren for some company! I cannot wait to spend 5 days straight with my sister and sons. (ME and James are going to have to sit this one out.)

We will leave the week school gets out and add New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, (possibly Montana if the boys are super good) South Dakota, and Nebraska to their "been there" list. Just a few more weeks!

Happy Birthday, Bryon!

Just for fun, here is an old picture of Bryon me taken at Cape Cod 10 years ago, after we had been married 2 years!

I just wanted to let everyone know that my sweet husband turns 37 today! Thomas is very excited about this since Shaun Alexander's jersey number is 37!

Bryon has been in my life for 15 years, and he continues to be the most joyful person I know. Bryon exudes energy, happiness, and love from his pores. He works so hard, and NEVER complains. He is never too tired to play with the kids. I know I am very loved. Life wouldn't be nearly as fun without Bryon in it!

I love you, Briney Boo!

Been tagged!

Tagged by Karen:

What I was doing 10 years ago:

*Finishing up my externship for my masters in Speech Pathology- getting ready to graduate!

*Looking for a job.

*Enjoying being a young married.

*Loving being the mother of two large Labrador Retreivers.

*Teaching preschoolers at church.

Five things on my to do list for today:

• Get the boys to their soccer games.
  
• Get Matthew to piano ensemble practice.
  
• Help Mom with a baby shower
  
• Have the family over for birthday celebration.
  
• Cook for our potluck at church tomorrow.
  

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

• Buy a beautiful ranch.
  
• Pay off the houses of my loved ones.
  
• Set up a foundation to help others.
  
• Find people in need and secretly help them out.
  
• Travel the world.
  

Three of my bad habits:

• Throwing away everything.
  
• Saying yes to too many things.
  
• Worrying
  

Five places I have lived:

• Waco, TX
  
• Abilene, TX
  
• Champaign/Urbana, Illinois
  
• Northport, Alabama
• Tuscaloosa, Alabama
  

Five jobs I have had:

• Bagger/Cashier at HEB
  
• Photo lab person at HEB
  
• Jan's Perfect Presents
  
• Speech Therapist
• Domestic Engineer
  

I tag anyone who wants to do this!

Name change

I have been "A day in the life" for 3 1/2 years, and thought it was time for a change! I liked this title, because it really fits where I am in life right now. When I started this blog, Mary Beth had almost no hair for hair bows, and the boys weren't maniacs on heelies (the culprit of many a scraped knee!). Who knows where the next 3 1/2 years will bring us?

I have treated no less than 8 bloody scraped knees since the weather has gotten nice. No tears, usually, just "Mommy, can you help me clean this up?"

Do I have to explain the hair bows? ;)

Atsome point, I want to change up my lay out again, but that is a project for another day!

Change of plans!

What a crazy morning! The 2nd grade field trip was scheduled at a planetarium an hour from school. We all got to school early this morning and got in our cars to follow the buses. The first bus left the parking lot and circled back into the parking lot. We were all confused, but then learned that there was no electricity or running water at the planetarium!

Most of the mothers and fathers attending had to make special arrangements for kids and jobs, so it was a little frustrating, but the principal gave us permission to spend the morning at the park. We are going to try to go back to the planetarium on Monday. What a mess!

We did enjoy a nice morning at the park. I loved talking to Matthew's teacher, my friends, and watching my little man have fun with his friends. The second picture is Matthew's friend, Ashlyn. I met Ashlyn's mother at the beginning of Matthew's kindergarten year at the ball fields. We found out we had a lot in common and began carpooling together. The kids got to be great friends, and Amy is one of my closest friends. We still carpool even though we don't live in the same neighborhood anymore! You can check out her blog on the right under "Amy S."

Totally crazy, busy weekend ahead. Will talk about it later. Have a great weekend!

A day at the zoo!

What a fun day! Thomas has been so excited about his field trip to the zoo for days. He couldn't get ready fast enough this morning and was particularly excited about traveling on a bus for the first time.

I enjoyed hanging out with other mothers from our class, and just hanging out with my little T. This doesn't happen nearly as much since school started, and I love watching him interact with his friends, but also love on me! More pictures from the day are in our Family Pictures on the right.

Matthew got to be librarian for the day today. He earned enough AR points to spend the day helping out in the library. What a special day for both boys!

Writing her name!

I am so proud of my little Mary Beth! We have been working a little while on writing her name. For the longest time, I would write her name and tell her to try to copy it. All she wanted to do was add "pom poms" to the letters I had already written!

Lately, she is getting more and more into drawing and writing, and here is a picture of her first successful name writing! That is a lot of letters for a little girl! This is probably interesting to no one but me, but here it goes:

Bryon- 5 letters
Thomas-6 letters
Matthew-7 letters
Mary Beth-8 letters
Elizabeth-9 letters

Fascinating, huh?

Wednesday

I have been trying to write a blog with pictures all week, but blogger isn't letting me! I just gave up, so you can check out my pictures under my "blogs I frequent".

First of all, Mary Beth reached another critical preschooler milestone this weekend...she cut her own hair.

Early on Friday, Mary Beth looked in the mirror and said, "I need a STYLE!" She sort of sounded like Betty Boop lilting the word style! I thought nothing more about it until Friday afternoon. I was making guacamole, and my sister-in-law, here for James's birthday party, found her in my bathroom with scissors in hand. She cut off a good handful of curly, goldielocks. The funny thing is, is that she did a pretty good job! She cut bangs for herself that weren't too long or short, and cut layers in the front of her hair as well. You can check out a picture of her in my April photo album. Maybe she has a future as a hair stylist?

Other than that, we have been eating, sleeping, and breathing sports. Soccer will be over this weekend, which will free up some time, but we are right in the thick of baseball. Matthew also started his piano ensemble practice for his Houston performance this June.

The boys have their field trips back to back on Thursday and Friday. I am looking forward to both and will have lots of pictures to share later.

Today is an orientation for the Master Gardener program in our county. This program is offered every other year in our area during the summer time. I want to do this so badly, but really need to pray about whether this is the best thing for me to do right now. I think I will have a strong feeling about it one way or the other after the meeting today.

This and that

Yeah for Friday! It is so crazy to me how quickly the weeks go these days. It will be summer before we know it!

Here are a few thoughts from my week:

*Wednesday was my nephew, James's 2nd birthday. We love him so much and are so excited to celebrate his birthday tomorrow! Michael and Jilinda are also coming down for the party, and that always makes us happy. I love having Michael here to entertain my boys. Yes, there will be lots of ball playing in the backyard this weekend!

*Matthew had two games this week. Both games, he hit the ball! He has another lovely bruise on his leg from being pegged by the pitcher from Monday's game, and he is so proud of it. The pitchers are getting better, so he hasn't walked as much as he did in the last few weeks.

*Last night, I dropped Matthew off 45 minutes before his game, and started heading over to Lauren's house. Lauren graciously agreed to take Thomas to soccer practice so I wouldn't miss Matthew's game. We were in a hurry, so I ran through the McDonald's drive through to grab some takeout for ME and me. (The boys had already eaten). Other than an occasional breakfast, I eat at McDonald's maybe once a year. We have a Wendy's and Burger King on the same street as McDonald's, and I like those better.

Anyway, I ordered a happy meal for ME, and a quarter pounder WITHOUT CHEESE, ketchup and pickles only. Anyone who knows me knows my huge disgust at the sight and smell of cheese. ESPECIALLY the cheese those little squares of cheese they put on hamburgers. I am starting to gag just thinking about it. Well, the girl took my order and I saw it on the screen:

Quarter Pounder With Cheese
no ketchup
no pickles

I explained to her again what I wanted. For some reason, McDonald's is the only restaurant that I have to explain multiple times, "No cheese!". I might as well have asked for a hamburger without meat and bun.

Well, I get up to the window and asked the girl to check and see if any cheese was put on my hamburger. She assured me that all was good. She hands me the package, and I open the burger only to see two slices of cheese on it. I hand it back asking again for no cheese. I wait a minute and she hands me a new one and apologizes. I open it again and THE NEW ONE ALSO HAD CHEESE ON IT! Wow. They ask me to pull forward and they would bring it out. In the meantime, I reach in ME's happy meal to give her her hamburger. I look in the bag and see fries and a toy. No hamburger. I finally get my order right and ask for a hamburger for my happy meal. Mama's don't let your babies grow up to be McDonald's employees...

*Matthew's teacher called me yesterday to explain a low grade Matthew got on a test. They were studying about plants and one of the few questions on the test was, Why do humans need plants? Matthew's answer? To make their backyards look great! Now that's a gardener's son's answer! Unfortunately, that wasn't one they had studied in school! ;)

*Thanks to Alyssa's recommendation, I read The Last Town On Earth this week. I am always a sucker for a good tragedy, and this one fit the bill. It took place in 1918 during a horrible flu epidemic. Over 100 million people worldwide died as a result of it. One town decided to shut itself off from the world in order to keep the flu at bay. Very interesting! I even used a few hours of precious mother's day out time to finish it.

That's all folks! Have a great weekend!

Back from our Ladies Retreat

I just got back from a wonderful ladies retreat in Salado. Our church has an annual ladies retreat, and this one was on Beth Moore's Loving Well. I enjoyed it so much! I feel energized and motivated to be a better "lover" to all people...even the ones who aren't as easy to love! I also had such a great time with my friends on the retreat. I feel so blessed by my friendships at church and could have spent several days hanging out in our room talking and laughing!

I was so surprised when I came home last night to a perfectly clean house, three happy children, and one super husband. I always joke that when I go away, I hope it is hard enough for Bryon to appreciate my hard work, but not too hard where he doesn't want me leaving again! As Beth Moore would say, "Can I get an amen?" ;) I know he loves me and loves having me around, but I think secretly he likes alone time with the kids as well. I left him with quite a busy Saturday. The boys had games at 10:30, 12:00, and 1:30 at different areas of town! Rumor has it that he even did Mary Beth's hair on Sunday morning. What a guy!

Here are a few more shots of what is blooming in my garden at the moment. This might totally bore most of you guys, but I will enjoy looking at pictures of my beautiful flowers when they start wilting in the 100 plus heat in August!

Wednesday

Have you heard the news? This is the official "Elizabeth stays in her pjs all morning long day"! I am celebrating it big time today. Last night, we had the honor of having missionaries from Croatia over for dinner. My parents came over as well and mom and I split the food preparation. Weeknights are hard nights to make entire meals and have the house clean!

When I was telling Mary Beth that she was going to have a friend come over, she asked who it was. I said, "It was that sweet little girl in bible class the other day, who had pretty yellow hair." She said, "Mommy, that was me!" I had to explain to her that it was the other sweet little girl in bible class with pretty yellow hair! Self confidence isn't a problem with that little one!

We really had a great time. Remarkably, Bryon and I had a lot in common with Mislav and Snjezana Ilic. Mislav and Bryon are the same age, Snjezana and I are the same age (she is also an avid gardener). Thomas and ME are the same ages as David and Lana. I am so moved by their story of finding Christ and leaving very good jobs to devote their lives to their church in Zagreb, Croatia. I loved watching our kids play together. The children spoke no English, but that didn't stop our four from having a great time. (Matthew was at baseball practice all evening, so I was minus one.) In the last picture, you can see David going to town on Tostidos. He ate nearly the entire bag over the course of the evening! Meanwhile, Lana and ME had a fabulous time watching Barbie's Twelve Dancing Princesses and dressing to the nines. Dress up is the international language of little girls. What a great evening!

But after a few crazy days, I am savoring every single second of this quiet, rainy, nothing to do until after school day. I am planning on reading and playing with ME Lou as long as I can. I am listening to her in my bath tub at the moment doing her best Ariel impression. Priceless!

Why I did what I did.

I finally made myself sit down and log in 75 email addresses into my computer to finally make it private. So, here is why I did it...

I am always a little wary to put up any personal information on my blog....my last name, my kids' school, when I do certain p.t.a. activites, because it could clue someone into which school we attend, where I work, where Bryon works, etc.

As many of you know, Bryon is an attorney. I wish the 32 year old Elizabeth could go back in time and tell the 17 year old Elizabeth that watching the movie, Cape Fear, is not a great movie to watch if you are going to marry an attorney. You remember that one? Criminal gets out of jail and takes out revenge against his former attorney and his family killing their dog, terrorizing them, and trying to kill them, etc. That film pops into my head from time to time, unfortunately!
As God is my witness, Bryon will never represent anyone who even slightly resembles Robert DeNiro!


After Easter, I got an anonymous comment saying that ME had beautiful eyes. For whatever reason, it really creeped me out. That was the final straw. This comment could have been from a sweet neighbor, and it could have been from Jeffrey Dahmer's biggest fan trolling the internet for his latest victim. Who knows?

I don't fault anyone for keeping their blogs public. I will miss randomly finding people from my past. In fact, one woman wrote in on my last post and I figured out it was the woman who bought our house in Abilene 17 years ago! For me, I just feel like it is the right move.

Please keep commenting! I feel a little cut off from the blog world by doing this and would like to feel like people are still reading.

Gardening and Food

I said last week that I was going private this week, but I have had a crazy week, and just haven't felt up to spending an hour on my computer typing out email addresses. Maybe this weekend?

I had a brunch/jewelry show at the house yesterday. My friend has started selling jewelry and I agreed to host a show. It was a blast! I love making fun food, and enjoyed hanging out with my friends at the house.

I had so many sweet people email me to be put on my blog list, and many said they liked reading about food and gardening. I am dedicating this post to you, sweet blog readers!

On Gardening:
I went out to my back yard today and took a few pictures. Every year, I am just amazed at how quickly everything goes from bleak to blooming. My Japanese maple (the last picture) was completely bare two weeks ago. The whole process is such a miracle to me. I have always considered myself a rose fanatic. I have them all over. Over the past two growing seasons, though, I have come to adore my irises. I watched that beauty in the first picture open up yesterday. I only wish they bloomed longer than a few weeks!

On Food:
I love reading cookbooks. I just recently purchased a new one and was reading through it. One recipe happened to catch my eye because of its unusual ingredients. East Texas breakfast cake is basically a cake batter mixed with sausage, blueberries, and pecans. I had to try it! My whole family gobbled it up and it was a big hit at my brunch yesterday. It is great to make for breakfast for kids going to school, and it lasts for several days. Enjoy!

East Texas Breakfast Cake
1 lb pork sausage
2 C flour
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1 stick butter, softened
3/4 C sugar
1/4 C brown sugar
2 eggs
1 C sour cream
1 C blueberries
1/2 C pecans (optional) I used more. How can one only use 1/2 pecans?

Blueberry Sauce
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C water
2 T cornstarch
2 C blueberries
1/2 t. lemon juice

Cook sausage until brown and crumbly. Drain and set aside.

Mix flour b.p., and b.s. together, and set aside. Cream the butter in a mixing bowl until light. Add the sugar and brown sugar, and beat until fluffy. Add the eggs 1 at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition. Add the flour mixture alternately with the sour cream, beating just until moistened after each addition.

Fold the sausage, blueberries and pecans into the batter. Spoon into an ungreased 9x13 baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until the cake tests done.

To prepare the sauce, combine the sugar, water, and cornstarch in a saucepan and mix well Stir in the blueberries. Cook over medium heat until thick and bubbly, stirring constantly. Cook for 2 minutes longer. Stir in the lemon juice.

Cue the cake into squares and serve with the sauce. Store in refrigerator.