Our backyard

One of my favorite things about where we live is that there is a cow pasture behind our house. There are no neighborhoods in sight from the back, and we can almost feel like we are living in the country... with Starbucks 1 minute away! Talk about the best of both worlds!

We'll be sitting outside and all of the trees and bushes behind our fence will shake violently and the sound of 50 cows mooing will fill the air! I also love hearing the coyotes at night, and we are woken up nearly every morning to the sound of our owl hooting. Yes, we claim the owl. We have no pets besides the birds in our yard! ;)

One of my favorite things in the winter are the winter sunsets. They are easier to see in our backyard with the leaves off the trees, and the clouds are much wispier. I was reading with Mary Beth yesterday and looked out the window and was blown away by the beautiful sunset. I talk to the kids a lot about the beautiful sunsets that God "paints" in the sky for us. What a beautiful painting last night! I had to take a few pictures.

Upwards Basketball

This is our fourth season to coach/play Upwards basketball. We are so happy that our church is involved with Upwards basketball. In many ways, it is my favorite sport the kids play because of the encouraging, supportive, Christ oriented, and laid back nature of it. Plus, most of my friends' kids play as well, so there is lots of parent socializing in the bleachers! Bryon started coaching Upwards when Matthew was in 1st grade, and he is coaching 3 teams this year!

I took pictures of the games on Saturday, but all my Upwards picture end up looking horrible. Oh well!

Matthew plays basketball like he plays every sport. He is very intense and I always hope that whoever he is guarding is equally intense! Last week, he scored 18 points. His goal this week was 20, and after he made his goal, he continued to pass the ball to the children on our team that were the smallest and least likely to score. He has really worked on his lay up this year, and is always so much fun to watch in action!

I caught one of his lay ups in action!


Thomas's favorite part of basketball is defense. He loves to block shots and steal balls. In fact, he spends a great deal of time on the floor of the gym wrestling the ball away from an opposing player! Here he is guarding his good buddy, Rhett.

I got ribbed for asking Thomas to smile immediately before throwing the ball in! Such is the life of the mamarazzi!
Thomas and Rhett wrestling for the ball! I find this amusing considering his laid back approach to life!



So, this is where we will be each Saturday from now until March. I'm looking forward to a fun season!

January

OK, you are just going to have to take my word on it that our Christmas break was great. I had big ideas about making a long blog about the holidays, but never did, and now it feels like a million miles away in the past. But, we had a wonderful break, great family time, busy holiday schedule, then a nice, quiet week in between Christmas and New Years. I posted pictures a few entries ago, and that is as good as it's going to get! ;)

So other than the holiday rush, here is what we have been up to. We have watched a lot of movies, Baylor basketball, and football. Here are pictures of my kids watching tv. Yes, fun and exciting things to blog about! My brother and SIL got the kids a lot of old school movies for Christmas, and we have enjoyed them.

Over the holiday, I read 2 really great books! I always appreciate a book that I can't put down, and when I do put down, I can't wait to pick it back up again. The Lost Hours and Firefly Lane were great. I am planning to chose one to do for book club and can't decide between the two.

I finished both books up by New Year's Eve. Speaking of that, does anyone else feel like it is crazy that we have started a new decade? That the 80s were 3 decades ago? We let the kids stay up until midnight that night. I remember holding our 6 week old, Matthew, at the stroke of midnight in the new millennium 10 years ago, and what a huge difference one decade made. Now, I am thinking that Matthew will be a sophomore in college at the turn of the next decade! How quickly life is passing by!

I absolutely love January! I love starting fresh. I love my house after it has been decorated to the hilt with Fall/Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas decorations. Everything looks a little stark, but I appreciate that. I like the feeling of starting over. Reevaluating our lives and making changes. I tend to crave making big meals for the family and sit down for dinner more in January. After so many parties and events in December, it is nice to stay home. It's just too cold to go out at night! I also love that our activities slow down so much this time of year. School activities are at a minimum, and we are only involved with Upwards basketball through our church. I also enjoy the cold weather, and I haven't been disappointed this year! 8 degrees yesterday! It hasn't been in the single digits in Waco since 1989. It has been an unusually cold winter.

Here is Mary Beth starting up ballet again after a month off. She asked me what I was going to make her for breakfast tonight, and I realized for the first time, that she is no longer calling it "break tist". She is also stopped asking to put on her "nightdown". So many of her sweet baby expressions are fading away. She has grown up so much this year, I can hardly believe it. I will ask her questions, and she enjoys spelling out her answers. She reads everything in sight. Where did my baby go?

While watching our movies, basketball, and football, I still like to keep busy. Here is my latest project. Of course it isn't finished yet, but I am excited about how it is turning out. I have graduated into putting texture in a scarf, and I have learned to do cables. So much fun!
That's about all going on around our house right now. We are enjoying a slow paced start to the year!

New hobby

I plan to write about our holiday season soon, but I wanted to share with you a project that I completed that I am proud of.

Knitting has been a hobby of at least 5 generations of women in my family. My great great grandmother, Elizabeth Ann, who I am named after, and who moved to America from England, taught my great grandmother, who taught my grandmother (whose husband called her Madame DeFarge, the knitter in A Tale of Two Cities), who taught my mother (and aunts), who taught me. Mom taught me when I was in 6th grade, but I just recently took it up again. My grandmother knitted my Christmas stocking before she passed away when I was a baby, and my aunts have taken over the responsibility of knitting Christmas stockings for all the newest members of our family.

I just completed my first scarf. I loved making the scarf, and am on to my next project! What a great hobby and a neat family tradition!