Hannah Playing Hoops!

Tuesday night basketball...one of my favorite nights of the week! We only have tonight, Friday, and the next Tuesday.  {Sigh!}  It's been so fun to cheer for our baby girl and to watch her use her God-given talents and abilities on the court.  To say that I am a proud momma would be an understatement! Go #50!  We are so proud of you!!!!

Last Tuesday the girls were winning by quite a lot, so Hannah and her buddies got to take a little break and had fun cheering for their teammates and watching from the sidelines.  I shot this image on the very last play of the game. Love those smiles!

And then we played another game Friday evening.  The girls won that game too!  Delight!

Way to go team! Way to go Hannah! I'm looking forward to tonight!!!!

College Friends

(Hannah took this picture with her i-phone)

This weekend, Rachel came home from college and brought three sweet friends with her.  Our home was filled with lots of giggles, college-pranks, blow-up mattresses to accommodate our guests, sounds and smells of delicious home-made meals, and the sound of my dishwasher.  I think I used my dishwasher three times on Saturday. 

Our house and our hearts were full this weekend and we enjoyed every second!  This morning, as I had my quiet time with the Lord, I thanked Him once again for both of our daughters being home this weekend, and for the joy and laughter we shared, and for sweet friends who came too.  My prayer is that they feel like they can come back again any time and that our home was somehow a refuge for them....a place to feel loved, to be well fed, to hopefully get caught up on a little sleep (breakfast was served around noon on Saturday morning), a place they know that they are always welcome.  What a gift to have our home flooded with joy and laughter and new friends this weekend!

Snow and Shutter Speed

As I am typing this, the forecast is suppose to be 83 degrees today.  Oiy!  It's January. and while we normally don't have snow, we normally don't have 80 degree temperatures either. 
I didn't get the chance to post my favorite snow pictures yet. So, on this balmy, windy, Texas day, I'm choosing to reflect on the wonderful two days of snow we had during the second week of January.

I had fun playing with my shutter speed.  I slowed the shutter speed way down to capture the motion of the snow.  I love this effect:

Here is the same angle and composition, but with a faster shutter speed.  See the difference?

Here are my raised vegetable beds covered in snow.  Once again, I slowed the shutter speed to capture the motion of the major snow we were receiving:

Here it is with a faster shutter speed.  The snow was really coming down!

Snow, snow, come again please!!



Snow Ice Cream!

The second week in January brought record snow to our part of Texas and we were thrilled! We have been praying for rain and God blessed us with glorious snow!  I love snow.  Even the mere mention of it in the forecast, and I am donning my snowflake pajamas for the night and dreaming of snow.  What fun to wake up to snow and snow and more snow!  And the early out and late start the next day at school was awesome!

Our Rachel was still home on Christmas break! As soon as Hannah and I got home from our early out, we made snow ice cream.  It reminded me of childhood days in Wichita, Kansas, when my mom would make snow ice cream.

I found a Snow Ice Cream recipe from Paula Deen. Seriously! I knew it would be delicious and it only required 3 ingredients.  Here is the recipe:

Gather 8 cups of freshly fallen snow....and throw a few at your daughters just for fun!

add a can of sweetened condensed milk and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Have a sweet helper mix it together.  I adore Rachel's hat.  She bought it from Krochet Kids International.  Here is a link to her hat:  http://www.krochetkids.org/shop/the-lucille/
Krochet Kids is a wonderful ministry and I just love it that my mission-minded daughter

purchased two hats from them. 

I added some fresh blueberries and some Reddi Whip to mine~yum!

Hoping it snow again so we can make more snow ice cream!

First Snow of 2012

The second Monday in January arrived with glorious snow! Oh, what a blessing. Our area of Texas received more snow in the country than New York and Minnesota. Pretty cool! And so fun to watch the snowflakes gently falling to the ground. Snow is peaceful when you are warm inside your home watching it fall.

I love the snow!

Chai Tea Latte?

Yes, please!  I found a sweet recipe for Chai Latte and made a few for family and friends.  Whenever I visit Starbucks (I feel like there should be some angelic music playing at the mere mention) I skip the coffee of the day version, and the teas, and head straight for a Pumpkin Spice Latte....yum!

But my man likes the tea.  He mentioned to me that he really liked Chai Lattes.  So, I did a little surfing and found a recipe.   You can click here for the easy recipe.  It makes a lot of tea!  I discovered that I like it too.  I run some hot water through my Keurig and enjoy a cup. 

I put the mix in Mason jars (love mason jars-don't you?) and tied the instructions with rafia.  It's super easy and delicious.  I just noticed my island has something yellow on the bottom cover.  Oops!  Ya'll have a blessed day!

If Computers Were Like Cars

I received this by email and it made me giggle several times.  Supposedly, this email has been circling for the past year.  While the premise is that Bill Gates was at a recent computer expo and he reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "'If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.'





GM responded: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:


1. For no reason at all, your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left-turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, and you would have to reinstall the engine.

4. When your car died on the freeway for no reason, you would just accept this, restart and drive on.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought 'Car95' or 'CarNT', and then added more seats.

6. Apple would make a car powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would run on only five per cent of the roads.

7. Oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single 'general car default' warning light.

8. New seats would force every-one to have the same size butt.

9. The airbag would say 'Are you sure?' before going off.

10. Occasionally, for no reason, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed the radio antenna.

11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of road maps from Rand-McNally (a subsidiary of GM), even though they neither need them nor want them. Trying to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50 per cent or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.

12. Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

13. You would press the 'start' button to shut off the engine.

Snopes.com explains that this email is false, perhaps Bill Gates didn't make this comment, but regardless, I like the 13 things list.

It's a Balmy 79 Degrees Outside

...and it's January 19th. That's crazy! I realize we live in Texas and crazy weather is to be expected, but last week we had 11 inches of snow! Snow, I tell you! Delightful snow!

Which reminds me of this little snowman. I took his picture in front of our Christmas tree....love the beautiful bokeh in the background. I heart snowmen!

Don't you?

My Favorite Tuesday Night Activity!

My Rachel went back to college yesterday {sigh!} and I already miss her like crazy!  So much for my resolution to try to attempt to eat a little better.  With Hannah still at basketball practice and One Act Play practice, and Mr. Incredible at work, I came home to a very quiet house...so I drowned my sorrows in a bit of left over mac and cheese and a few bites of chocolate. 

I checked on my Rachel via text and she was doing great and enjoying being reunited with her friends and that makes this heart of mine so happy!  And then I watched the movie Valentine's Day, watched KU beat Baylor, picked up Hannah from One Act Play, Mr. Incredible surprised me with a Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks (he speaks my love language), and went to bed.  I've been up since 4 this morning.  We have a full week ahead, it's good to be busy this week.

Tonight is one of my favorite nights of the week;  I get to watch my baby girl on the basketball court.  Go #50!!!!

Lucy Says:

I came across this image this week and thought it was pretty cute. The presents don't always have to be wrapped in a tiny box, they can be wrapped up in acts of love....like emptying the dishwasher just because, offering to pick up something for dinner, stopping by Starbucks on his way home from work to pick up my favorite Pumpkin Spice Latte (he speaks my love language), or sending me a sweet text to let me know that he is thinking about me and that he loves me.  I love those gifts even more than the fancy-schmanshy ones.

I rather like Lucy's line of thinking....don't you? And it makes me wonder what kind of week we would have if we caught ourselves thinking of "presents" of love we could give our spouses.  Don't wait for Valentine's Day....why not today?

Happy 2012

It's already the 4th of January...and I have yet to write a blog post for the new year~so sorry! I hope that you and your family had a wonderful Christmas!

Our family was blessed to spend time together, with my family, and with Mr. Incredible's family. My Uncle, the pro-bass fisherman, came down from Oklahoma to be with us and we were so glad to see him.

Our Texas Palm tree in the snow (taken with my Iphone)

 

And it snowed here on Christmas Eve. We actually had a white Christmas. Delight! It was fun to carry presents and the food that we made for Christmas Eve dinner back and forth between our house and my parent's house in the snow.

Our Christmas tree (taken with my Iphone)

We woke up Christmas morning to even more glorious snow on the birthday of the King. On Christmas Eve, we told the girls they could sleep in Christmas morning because due to the snow, our Christmas Day services were cancelled. They slept until 7:30 because this momma could not wait for them to get up! I tried to be quiet as I made my coffee, read the newspaper, and turned on the Christmas tree lights, but then I couldn't wait any longer. By this time, my man was awake and he and I together woke up the girls. They laughed at both of us and reminded us that we told them they could sleep in...and then they remembered it was Christmas morning and bounded out of bed!

We watched a few hundered episodes of Fez in That 70's show (one of Rachel's gifts in her stockings-she loves this show)and then got dressed to celebrate Christmas with Mr. Incredible's family. What a blessed Christmas Day.

The girls and I spent the rest of the week trying to sleep in, we spent an entire day in our pajamas watching movies and that was fun, haircuts, manicures, having lunch out (after all of the traditional delicious Christmas dinners we were ready for Mexican food), and even catching a movie with Mr. Incredible after work. We saw "I Bought a Zoo" and loved it. Have you seen it?

The week flew by as New Year's Eve quickly arrived. New Year's Day found us celebrating and singing at church that morning, we celebrated Mr. Incredible's mother's birthday that evening, and then put up all of the Christmas decorations. Whew! Then it was time to go to bed and back to teaching Monday morning.

I woke up early Monday morning and asked my man if he could hear that? He listened and asked me what I heard. I told him it was the collective groans of teachers and students that had to go back to school the day after New Year's Day. He felt no sympathy. My sleepy students greeted me Monday morning with sleepy, half-hearted smiles...and I totally understood.

I'm thankful for a new year, a fresh start, new ideas swirling in my head for photography this year, my drive to get things de-cluttered and reorganized, and a Saviour who is the same yesterday, today, and forever!