Alabama!

A while back, my friend, Karen, asked me to go with her to a John Mayer concert in Alabama.  I jumped at the chance!  Bryon is always so sweet about taking over parenting duty and truly loves me getting friend time.  So I hopped on a plane on a Thursday morning and flew to Alabama!  Karen and I had a great time at the concert and enjoyed spending some with with our friend, Tesney, as well.  Then we went to Birmingham for a fun night away.  After an exhausting day, we decided to just eat dinner at our hotel.  When we were walking back to the elevator, a deep voice behind us said, "Hello, Ladies!"  We turned around, and wouldn't you know that Bo Jackson was standing there!  We shared an elevator going back to our room and he couldn't have been nicer.  He was there doing a benefit on the 2nd year anniversary of the Tuscaloosa tornadoes.

After two days with Karen, it was time to say goodbye, and I spent the next day with my cousin Blair.  I love Blair and had a blast catching up with her.  It was three wonderful days spent with dear friends in my beautiful home state.  Even though I have been a Texan for 32 years, I still call Alabama home in my heart!

Silly boys

I was blessed with three hilarious children, but it is a known family fact that Matthew makes me laugh more than anyone on the planet.  He has my sense of humor to a tee and can start the giggles in me with just a look. In fact, the other two know not even to get mad if Matthew makes me laugh when he is "getting in trouble".  It's just how we roll.

Typical meal at Subway after golf.  I asked the boys what they talked about when they were playing together.  Without missing a beat, Matthew starts talking in a gruff voice, "Manly stuff like wrestling bears and taking out the trash."  Yes, Matthew's dry and quick wit has always been his salvation!

Easter

An addition to our backyard football league

When the weather turns nice, you can bet that we are in the back yard playing a game that looks a lot like football.  Mary Beth has wanted to get in on the action this year and is quite the trooper!  So much fun seeing her join the big boys.

Crazy Rose Lady

Some old ladies are called "crazy cat ladies", but I may be in danger of becoming a "crazy rose lady".  Let me explain:

Matthew is our yard man.  No chore makes him happier than mowing, edging, and pruning the bushes. Around Valentine's Day, he cut back all of our backyard rose bushes just like he was supposed to.  Yay, Matthew.  Anyway, one day when we were hanging out in the side yard, I showed Matthew this annual herb from last year that needed to be pulled up and replaced.  He was playing basketball at the time and barely acknowledged the request.

Then a week later, Matthew came in and casually mentioned that he had pruned the bush that I had asked him to.  This sounded strange to me, as I had asked him to pull out the bush.  The next morning, I went over to the side yard and realized what he had done.  Instead of pulling out the dead bush, he had pruned my favorite rose bush.  That had approximately 200 buds a few days away from blooming.

I lost it.

I get one chance every year to see the first bloom of my Belinda's Dream rose bush.  The most fabulous bloom of the entire year.  Sure, it reblooms sporadically during the growing season, but never at a single time like the first April bloom.

I mentioned to Matthew that I may not let him watch the Super Bowl next year, because it only comes around once a year.  Or the Kentucky Derby.  Or the college national championship. Or the...

You get the picture.

I know that Bryon and Matthew think I'm just a twinge crazy these days.  Matthew gets to see this every time we leave the driveway and I pause momentarily by the hacked rose bush.   It just makes me feel a bit better.  :)

Belinda's Dream seems to have recuperated and is blooming beautifully now.  No harm done.  Love that sweet, hard working boy of mine!

Random pics from the last few months

Just going through my iPhone and finding fun pictures from the late winter/early spring!

Mary Beth's school carnival.  She was the first to win the cake walk and picked out this beauty.  My girl has quite the sweet tooth!

The end of Upwards basketball for the season!  Bryon and Thomas had one more tournament (pictures to follow) but finished the season 7-1.

Waco has a wonderful farmer's market that we have been visiting most Saturdays!  One of Mary Beth's teachers makes crepes at the market, and they are a favorite of ours!

While at the market on Saturday, Mary Beth recognized "Toby and David".  On her G/T days at school last year, the kids skyped with Toby and David all over the world.  It was such a fun part of their time at G/T.  Toby and David now run a sustainable farm near Waco and work at the farmer's market.  They asked MB what her favorite place was that they had been last year.  Without  hesitation, she said, "Thailand!  That's where pad thai is from!"  What can I say?  The girl LOVES thai food!

Every year, I pick something to learn about that I have always wanted to learn.  Some things in the past have been roses, perennial flowers, vegetables, knitting, making homemake pizza and pie crusts.  This year, I decided that I wanted to learn how to arrange flowers!  I have had a ball with it, and Mary Beth loves it, too.  She is offended if I ever go to the wholesale florist without her.  What a fun hobby!

After the last Upwards game, Bryon and his team were asked to play in a local tournament.  They won first place!  What a great way to end the basketball season and to say goodbye to several 6th graders that have always played on Bryon's basketball teams.

One day after dance, we stopped on the side of the road to take bluebonnet pictures.  The bluebonnets weren't fabulous this year,  but I never go a season without snapping a few pics.  This was the best we could do this year!

Spring Break

While Matthew was preparing for his ACDA performance, I took the little two the the Dallas Blooms exhibit at the Dallas Arboretum.  This is something that I have always wanted to do, but never had before.  What a treat!  After walking around for a while, we met Michael, Jilinda, and the kids for lunch.  We had a nice day with them and also had fun watching Mary Beth fearlessly to the ropes course at Main Event.  What a fun day!

There she goes!

A huge goal has been met in the family!  Mary Beth is finally riding her bike!  We never thought this day would come.

Mary Beth broke her wrist learning to ride her bike two years ago. She was just getting the hang of it when she ran wheel first into Thomas in full football gear.  She was definitely on the losing end of that battle!  After that, she had no interest at all in trying again, and we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have a child who couldn't ride a bike.

Around the first of March, Mary Beth approached me and said that she wanted to try to ride her bike again and maybe we could try during Spring Break.  It didn't take long, and she figured it out!  The whole family was so proud!  For the first few days, one of us would ride along side her (like Matthew in the above pic), but she is an old pro now and rides all around the neighborhood.

Mary Poppins!

When we heard that Mary Poppins was coming to Fair Park, Martha Kate and I decided that our two Marys needed a little Mommy/Daughter/Friend date to see it!  We took the girls out of school early on Friday and enjoyed dinner and the theatre.  I love that Mary Beth already loves musicals so much!  Like mother like daughter!

Lady Bears Games and HUGE disappointments!

One thing Baylor is known for is it's incredible Ladies Basketball Program.  The stands are always packed (even more so than the boys) and they rarely disappoint!  Over Spring Break, we decided to drive up to Dallas to watch the girls in the Big 12 Championship game, which we easily won.  We had incredible seats and had such a great time!  Here is a picture of the boys with BU's president, Ken Starr.  It looks like Thomas has a bun on top of his head, but that is a person behind him!  President Starr took several minutes to talk to the boys about their future plans and couldn't have been nicer.

One of our last games with star, Britney Griner.

Knowing that Baylor would at least make it to the Final Four ( and most likely win the championship), Bryon, and 20,000 other BU fans, preordered Final Four tickets along with a $900 nonrefundable hotel stay over three nights in New Orleans.  The boys were going to get to be out of school for three days for the event.  This was such a special year with Britney Griner leaving, and we were beating opponents usually by 40 points.  Well, we got the shock of a lifetime when we watched our beloved Lady Bears fall to Louisville in the Sweet 16.  It was a tough and controversial loss, and we came back from a 20 point deficit to take the lead with a few seconds left....OK, I'm getting sad just writing this and don't want to talk about it anymore!

This left us with $600 worth of tickets and $900 hotel room in New Orleans.  Nice.

Bryon did get on the phone with Expedia and explained why we were needing to unload the hotel room.  The representative felt so sorry for us that she went ahead and refunded the room!  This was a huge blessing since the tickets were never resold.  With 20,000 BU fans trying to unload their tickets, they were going for $5 a piece outside the arena.  Oh well.  We decided to take a day trip to Austin to quell a little bit of the sadness of not going to New Orleans and enjoyed a fun Gospel Brunch at Stubb's bbq.