December 22 & 23rd

December 22

Our visitors starting arriving on Monday, December 22nd. We were all excited to see everyone. The house was ready... all the bathrooms were cleaned! :-)

On Monday, Dec. 22, my parents (Meme & Poppy) arrived at our house. Laila & Justin also arrived but were staying in town and having dinner with other family members that evening.

John took the kids shopping that morning. He's a last minute shopper kind of person and took the kids to do some shopping for their Mama! I like that idea.

Meme & Poppy arrived and were treated to some warm cheese wafers fresh from the oven and some great Christmas music. I bought three new Christmas CD's this year with really good music - Casting Crowns - Peace on Earth; Natalie Grant - Believe, Selah - Rose of Bethlehem. These are some really good CD's with some very poignant songs to help you remember why we celebrate Christmas.

Dinner this eveing was a fabulous mexican dinner at our favorite mexican restuarant - Los Ramirez. It was yummy!

December 23

On the 23rd, we awoke to a lovely site in our front yard. One of Rachel's hoodlum friends covered our trees/yard with toilet paper. Wouldn't have been so bad except it had rained over night so it was yucky wet toilet paper all over the yard. I was oh so happy about this. Rachel has some work ahead of her today. If we knew who did this, I'd get them over here to help clean it up. Poppy tried to help but hurt his back in the process.

We noticed the wrapping job on our way out to take Rachel for her EMG-Nerve Conduction tests which came out normal, thank god. Although, the neurologist has ordered a couple more MRI's - brain and spine. Why not? We'll just MRI everything from the waist up and just see if anyone can see anything. We're thankful nothing is showing up that is bad, but we're also frustrated to not know what's causing her pain. My insurance company loves us this year.

After the doctor's appointment, Mom and I went to the HEB with the rest of Friendswood! It was quite crowded but we knew what we wanted and were pretty organized so it didn't take tooooo long. We're getting our supplies for the next few days worth of great meals. And man... they were good too!

Laila & Justin, Ariane & Steven joined us this afternoon/evening for a great meal, some great wine, and fun gift opening.

I also try to have a Christmas puzzle going throughout the year and it was fun to see so many folks take some time to work on it. Just a fun thing to do and it's a really pretty puzzle this year!

John treated us to a great dinner tonight - BBQ chicken & sausage, his famous BBQ beans, and some very yummy Risotto made with some of Dad's Viogner. Dessert was one of my Dad's favorites - Apple Pie. This one was made by the HEB but was sooo good! Steven and Ariane brought a couple bottles of wine and I believe we drank those two plus a couple of more between all of us. They were all good!

Gift exchanging happened after dinner and there were lots of DVD's, gift cards, and a really cool pair of Nike's for John! Check out all the pictures!

I just love having family around the house!!

Christmas Baking & Other Fun

The weekend before Christmas was a fun weekend for the kids and me. I was officially off work and the kids were out of school. John was up in Dallas at the Cowboy game, so it was just us. It was a Baking Weekend!

But first.... one of the fun things about living in a community like Friendswood that still thinks and acts like it's a small community, is the Friendswood Fire Department comes around each year with a ladder truck and Santa on top throwing candy. You can usually hear them long before you can see them as they are sounding their sirens throughout their trip around to all the streets in Friendswood! It's fun. They loudly make their way down the street and Santa tosses the kids candy. I will say that this year, I think the driver was thinking he was speed racer (or he really wanted to get home) because they were flying down the street. So fast - I could hardly even take pictures. I managed to get two... but they aren't great pictures!

After the firetruck fun, I pulled out our favorite cookie recipes, got all the ingredients from the store or pantry and we tackled the kitchen! This was probably the first time Stephen really was serious about helping this year. He did very well! He pretty much made the monster cookies all by himself. Rachel made the Sandtarts. The kids were into it for the first couple of recipes, after that... well, let's just say the ADD caught up with them. I think I lost them on the repetitive 8 - 10 minutes between each batch. They moved on to more "fun" things to fill in the time and Mom got to finish much of the baking. But, it was fun while it lasted.

What was on the Baking Agenda you ask? Well, even if you didn't ask, I'm going to tell you because they were so yummy!!

The cookie list was:
SandTarts - little balls of powdered sugar w/nuts goodness. These are my Mom's favorite cookies! We have had them around the house at Christmas time for as long as I can remember.

Toffee Snickerdoodles - one of my favorites cause I love the toffee and I love soft yummy snickerdoodles. The kids like them too.

Monster Cookies - I made this one a couple of years ago and I made a note that it was good. The kids like it. I don't think it's one of my favorites. It has oatmeal, M&M's, Peanut butter, chocolate chips.

The savory treat list was:

Roasted Pecans - another family tradition that Mom made most every year. These are addicting!

Cheese Wafers - LOVE these .... REALLY... make the logs ahead of time and refrigerate or freeze. Then slicke and bake them when you want them because they are really good fresh and warm. You'll be lucky IF THEY EVEN MAKE IT OFF THE COOKIE SHEET!! Which, it turns out, they did not around my family! Literally..... If you weren't standing in the kitchen when they came out of the oven, you were likely not to get ONE... seriously! It was quite humorous!!

Paprika Cheese Roll - When I was a child, my Dad used to make this cheese treat periodically and I loved it. It's really simple but it tastes so good on crackers. We haven't had this in a very long time - probably at least 15 years that I can recall. I decided it was about time to make this to enjoy again. The recipe made two balls or logs and both were gone by the time the family left! It was yummy!

That was our baking extravaganza for the weekend before Christmas..... check out all the fun pictures!

More to come......

Oh - I can't figure out how to post the video so until then, you'll have to wait to hear the 6th grade band concert. I'm sure you were missing that one..... :-)

Love MA!

Leading up to Christmas.....

I'm backing up a little bit because we've skipped over some of the events that occurred before Christmas. I just ran out of time and energy to keep blogging during last week so have to catch up now. It may take me a few blogs to get us up to speed.

The week before Christmas held several band concerts and school christmas parties.

One in particular was Stephen's first ever band concert - the 6th Grade Band Concert! He plays the Euphonium. What is that, you ask? It basically looks like a mini tuba. He's doing very well with it.

There looks to be a lot of kids up on the stage and the really wild thing is that's only half of the 6th graders who signed up for the band here in Friendswood - 250+ kids! More than exists in the entire high school bands and more than can fit on any stage in Friendswood.

For those of you who were in band, do you remember what 6th grade band sounded like? Probably not - although I bet your parents do. In case you have forgotten, I have a video but it's bigger than the limit I can upload. I'm going to try to figure out how to edit it and then post. It's something to hear... :-)

Merry Christmas!

A Merry Christmas blessing to all of our family and friends.

It's been a wonderful few days around our house. Various family members have visited and we have many new memories! I hope to get to pictures and journalling about the fun over the next few days!

Merry Christmas to all!

December 22nd!! Only 3 days left!!!

It's getting closer!! We finally have some colder temperatures here to make it actually feel like Christmas should be coming closer. Unfortunately, as Houston weather goes, it won't last all the way to Christmas - even just 3 days!! LOL.... Wacky weather. We had snow earlier in December (a first!) and now, 3 days before Christmas, our high will not get above 45 degrees, yet on Christmas (in 3 days), we'll be close to 70! Gotta love Texas weather!

It's Monday --- I don't have to work... YIPPEE!!! John doesn't have to Teach!! YIPPEE! We have a few last minute things to pull together - well, John more than some of us! But, most of our wrapping is done and it's time to just enjoy this season.

We baked over the weekend - the kids and I. I'll post pictures afterwhile. Was fun and now we have lots of yummy treats for the week and our visitors. Monster cookies, Sand Tarts, Toffee Snickerdoodles, Roasted Pecans, Cheese Wafers and my Dad's famous, Paprika Cheese Roll!! Aren't you hungry now?

John and Rene froze their tooshies off up in Dallas Saturday night at the game. John said it was the coldest he's ever been with the wind. Unfortunately, Dallas didn't win the game so the last game at Texas Stadium didn't go out with a win. I'm so glad I wasn't there.

Our visitors begin showing up today and we're ready for them. All of us and the house!! My Mom and Dad are coming in later this afternoon. Laila and Justin are coming in late tonight and we'll see them tomorrow as well as Ariane and her beau, Stephen, tomorrow afternoon/evening. My sister Perry will then join us on Christmas Eve.

We will miss Stacey terribly and are sad she won't be able to join us this year, but she'll be delivering all those Christmas Eve & Christmas Day babies up at the hospital!! Are you wearing a christmas decoration for these deliveries??? Do you all have little Santa Hats to put on this precious little ones? Remember... when Rachel was born on Halloween, they nurse put a little halloween hat on her. It was so cute

More to come..... Merry Christmas!

It's FREEDOM FRIDAY!!

Oh - it feels so good to be FREE!!

FREE from school work.....
FREE from homework......
FREE from teaching......
FREE from driving downtown .....
FREE from Scouts....
FREE from soccer....

Just FREE ... FREE... FREE....YIPPEE!! YIPPEE!! YIPPEE!!

Ok... perhaps it's for only two weeks, but oh it feels SOOOOO good!! We get to have some fun and relaxation for awhile. We all really need it!! We're pretty tired around here!

John and his friend Renee went up to Dallas today to make sure they are at Texas Stadium bright and early for tailgating activities for the last Dallas Cowboy game at Texas Stadium Saturday night against Baltimore. This was on John's wishlist for Christmas so with the wish fulfilled, he's off on his adventure! He'll really enjoy this and let's all say a prayer that Dallas pulls out a win tomorrow.

That leaves the kiddos and me here this weekend all alone! LOL... We're starting baking projects tomorrow to ensure we have all our favorite cookies and snacks, we have gifts to wrap and a few projects to finish. Plus... cleaning up for our expected guests to begin visiting on Monday!

Have a GREAT FREEDOM FRIDAY!!

MA

On Dasher, On Donner to the Doctor we go.....

Ever feel like you spend a span of time in one place? That's what we feel like right now over at our house. Between my physical therapy three days a week and Rachel's still unknown issue, we're spending a great deal of time paying money to doctors and missing a lot of school or work between the two of us.

Let's cover Rachel first because it's the most interesting of the bunch. She had a MRI on Monday afternoon (in the middle of the day) on her right scapula and thoracic (sp?) area. It's early and I'm too tired and lazy to look up the spelling of that word. Anyway.... our follow up with her doctor was Weds. morning at 10:30 am which, Thank the Lord, was not a 2 hour ordeal like some of our other appointments with him. He informed us that that MRI showed everything was normal. Hmmm.... she has a healthy rt shoulder, healthy rt shoulder blade. Now... he's thinking that this pain she is suffering on her right lower shoulder blade is probably nerve related and may be stemming from a neck issue or something we haven't quite found yet. So... off we go to another MRI for a CSpine mri and then to the neurologist for an EMG/Nerve Conduction test (like I had) on her neck/back shoulder area to try to pin down the nerve that's causing the problem. He told us he'd like to have this done prior to Christmas! LOL... ok, let's just see if the other doctors/clinics can accommodate that request.

We were VERY lucky that the MRI clinic had a cancellation last night so we got Rachel over there for a 7:00 pm appointment. These people have to make a fortune - they are open every night until 11:00 pm!! AND they are booked solid and even on the weekends. Craziness. Typically takes us a week or so to get in there to the one that our doctor likes to use.

With the MRI done (no.. we don't know the results), the earliest we could get the EMG scheduled for was next Tuesday (12/23) morning. She's going to the same neurologist I see for my neck issues.

Again - a wait and see process. He mentioned nerve blocks at some point in the future when we finally determine what is causing the pain.

He hasn't put her on any restrictions or anything yet, which is good. High School Soccer season is just starting and she's playing goalkeeper and a field position so she's not interested in sitting on the bench. She wants to be crazy and let people kick a ball at her all season long. Hopefully, nothing he finds will prevent her from playing, but I suppose it's a possibility.

As for me... nothing terribly new. PT three times a week and I think maybe this week I'm seeing a little bit of results as my right arm/hand are not quite as numb/tingly as it has been, but it's only marginal really. It seems the traction apparatus at PT office seems to work the best for relief so my insurance has approved a home kit which I'm supposed to see sometime this week. Not sure what this will look like - guess I'll be hanging from a door!! :-) LOL... can't wait for a picture of that one. Geez.......

Have two big proposals at work to present/finish this week and then the Christmas break really begins for me! I CANNOT WAIT!!!!! And chanting it over and over is the only thing getting me through this week. The kids are excited as they get out of school half day tomorrow, John's excited as he gets out half day tomorrow as well AND goes to Dallas for the Cowboy Game on Saturday and I'm excited because the kids and I are going to be doing Christmasy things this weekend!! It's been a stressful couple of months. It'll be nice to have a rest!

Have a great Thursday!

MA

Things don't always go as planned in our world.....

Today was THE DAY!! The day to get all the Christmas decorating items OFF MY LIST!! We had 2 trees to decorate, Secret Santa presents to by for Stephen's class, items to hang around the house, teacher gifts to wrap, and a few other items to complete.

We were up early this morning and started with the decorating of the tree. You will see the kids were helpful, but Rachel wasn't quite into it and her brother captured it quite nicely in the pictures! We got the trees decorated...... eventually.

Went to Walgreens to get the Secret Santa items for which we were successful. Some young lady in his class will be quite happy with the results!

We get back to the house and head out front to fix our Frosty the Snowman who doesn't seem to be able to standup very well these days - it's also really windy here today. Stephen decided to come out to help me and on the way out, the wind caught our front door (the backdoor was open creating a little wind tunnel apparently) and it slammed onto his right hand fingers!! YIKES!!! Emergency Clinic here we come!! Right into the house, ice and then decision time to determine if a trip is necessary. Fingers started swelling and you could see the line where the door hit his fingers - the pinkie, ring and middle. We have this really cool 24 hour Emergency Clinic right around the corner that we've been to a few times with various ankles, cuts etc. So... off we go to see if he has any broken fingers. They got us right in with very little wait and took an xray, which by the way, we have on a CD which is pretty cool. Anyway, it doesn't appear as if there are any fractures, although the doctor said he thought there may be a small crack, but the radiologist did not confirm it. Just a lot of swelling and bruising. They splinted it and said to continue the ice and see how things go for the next couple of days. He can bend them, they just hurt really badly and are turning black/blue.

On to the fun part.... finally finished the decorating today!! It's about time right?? LOL.... Anyway, took some pictures of my favorite ornaments and such around the house tonight which was kind of fun. We did two trees this year. One in the living room with all the main ornaments and not as many lights as normal. Just really hate putting the lights on the tree so I just decided to not too quite as many this year!! I did a second tree in the study which is my Texas Tree and has white lights and red jalapeno lights on it with a lot of Texas/Western ornaments. It's really cute!! We also put Stephen's special State of Texas ornaments on this tree so they can be seen and they are Texas!

The kids were playing around this evening so I snapped some of them as well. Doesn't look like his hand is bothering him too much in these (could be the Tylenol w/codeine they gave him!). And they are laughing with each other .... not yelling! It was quite funny.....

Watching the Cowboys right now play the Giants. They are leading at the moment and let's all say a prayer!!

We have an ULTRA busy week coming up before the holidays begin on Friday!! Rachel has her MRI tomorrow afternoon, flute lessons tomorrow night, her band concert on Tuesday night, doctor's appointment on Weds, and a Soccer Event on Thursday evening. Stephen has a Math Benchmark and Scouts on Tuesday, band rehearsal on Weds. and band concert on Thursday! Whew...... and that doesn't even include my work stuff!!

Have a great evening!

Aw Darn... Friendswood Lost .....

It's with a traitorous (but conflicted) heart that I write this blog entry.

We made our way to Aggieland yesterday for a very onesided game in which our beloved Friendswood Mustangs were playing against the Lake Travis Cavaliers. A little background on the matchup is in order. First, Friendswood rarely ever gets out of our district for playoffs. We have several other division rivals with larger and faster players normally that typically wipe our white boys out. However, this year, we have a great quarterback and several very good receivers and a good overall team. It appears in High School football, clearly, if you can score more than the opponent (i.e. your offense is better than theirs), then defense is kind of secondary. Anyway... so we had a good offense this year. The other interesting thing is football games, whether a winning season or not, is a community event here in Friendswood. You go to the games whether you have high school students or not. Alumni attend and alumni parents bring their little children from the time they are small so they grow up going to the games on Friday nights. The epitome of Texas High School Football. With this in mind, it was amazing to see the entire side of the Aggie stadium filled with Friendswood supporters all in blue. Literally, from corner to corner was filled. We don't have that many people in the high school and I know for certain there were folks there who have no one in high school as their youngest were in the elementary!! Tailgating and everything..

The Friendswood Quarterback has committed to Texas Tech (there ya go Stacey) to play. He's good.

However...... Lake Travis and their QB were better!! Their Quarterback is just awesome and a big guy!! Lake Travis is considered the #1 - 4A Team in Texas and they won last year's State Championship as well. They have beaten every team they have played this year by typically large margins and high points. The game last week in the playoffs they beat Kileen 71 - 9! So.... beating Friendswood 56 - 22 was nothing!! (Oh and our last touchdown was against their 2nd and 3rd string team in the 4th quarter with our 1st string, so it was worse than it looks). NOW, here is the GOOD NEWS!! The Quarterback at Lake Travis, Garrett Gilbert, is the number one recruit in the country and he committed to .....................wait for it..........................

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS!!!! GO HORNS!!!!

YAY Horns, we should have a really good QB coming in behind Colt McCoy when after his last year.

The other REALLY good news.... we don't have to travel to another football game next week and actually get to experience a little Christmas instead of football!!! hee hee hee!!!

Later... we're still working on decorating the tree around here!!!

MA

Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

How timely for the holiday season!!

It snowed in Houston tonight!! Such fun to see the white stuff falling from the sky! It was pretty light at first mixed with sleet but right now (about 10:15 pm) it's coming pretty good and covering everything with a beautiful white layer of snow!! Fun Fun!!!

Lots of pictures in the photo gallery!!

A little early in the process, Stephen made a very small snowball!!

The front of the house at about 10:00 pm!

Backyard about 10:00 pm!

Trees & Bushes...

Just livin life....

Nothing much is going on with us right now besides the normal normal and working on Christmas stuff. Spent the better part of the weekend decorating the house - both the inside and outside! Rachel and Stephen were with their dad for the weekend so John and I just did what we wanted, slept late, and just enjoyed some quiet!

School is back in the swing after the Thanksgiving break with homework, tests and quizzes. Work is slowing down a little and I'm looking forward to my vacation starting the 19th!

High School Football is still going for us ..... Friendswood is STILL in the playoffs. Friendswood played Beaumont Central on Saturday evening and won again. Next game - Saturday, 12/13 in Bryan/College Station playing on the Aggie Field - Kyle Field at 2:00 pm against Lake Travis which I hear is ranked the #1 4A team in the State. They beat their most recent opponent 71 - 9 or something silly like that and their quarterback is going to UT (Our QBack is going to Tech). We'll see how Friendswood handles this!! Logistically, we're trying to figure out how we're going to swing this. Stephen has a Boy Scout service project this weekend helping distribute 10,000 wreaths on graves as a part of the Wreath's Across America project at the Veteran's Cemetery in Houston on Saturday morning/early afternoon.

Rachel had a follow up appointment with the Orthopedic today and will have to have another MRI next Monday (or earlier if a spot opens). I really hate it when I'm right ... and I was again. When they originally did her MRI, I asked the technician if he was going to be looking at her right scapula as well as the bilateral shoulders. He told me at that time that he wasn't - that the doctor didn't order it. I thought it was strange given that's where her pain was and really felt they should have done it at that time. However, the doctor had mentioned that sometimes an injury in the shoulder might cause the pain to be in the scapula. Who am I to know? I'm not the doctor (although that doesn't stop me from asking all the questions.) Well.... guess what??? Today at the doctor's Rachel explained there hasn't been any improvement since we were there last and when he gave her cortisone shots. So, he started to explain the next step would be to go into her shoulder with a scope to see what they could see. At that point, I felt it necessary to mention to him they did not perform a MRI of her scapula where the pain is and he thought they had. He reviewed the document again and it didn't specifically state they had so .... back we go for specific pictures of the right scapula!! He mentioned they wouldn't scope that area because it could make it worse. If nothing shows up on the MRI, the next step will be to see a pain guy to put in some nerve blocks to try to determine where the pain may be originating. Stay tuned!!

Tonight (after the doctor's appointment) we went and got our Christmas trees! We decided to go for live trees this year after our fake one died last year. I love the smell of real trees but in the past haven't bought them because Rachel was allergic to the one we bought a long time ago. I'm hoping she's grown out of it but I've got some Claritin on hand in case she hasn't!! :-) I'll post pictures at some point.

Did you notice I said "trees"! I bought two beautiful Noble Firs. One a lot taller than the other! A big one for our main tree in the family room and another smaller one for my fun Texas Tree in the study! I'll probably start putting the lights on the trees tomorrow and hopefully, Weds night we'll decorate the trees!

Thursday, Rachel and I are going to see Beth Moore at her Convergence Event with CeCe Winans and Travis Cottrell!! I'm very excited because I LOVE her messages!! I think Rachel will enjoy her as well!

For those of you who know.... John survived yesterday's defeat of the Cowboys! He didn't speak for a couple of hours and basically, went to sleep, but today's a new day and next Sunday is another game! We're praying for a win!

Later,
MA

Finally getting to Thanksgiving... :-)

HAPPY TURKEY DAY!!!

From Texas Stadium where the Cox Family and Perry were watching the Dallas Cowboys defeat the Seattle Seahawks!!

This is just a sampling of our experience this fine Thanksgiving Day! At least we got some turkey!! Hee hee hee

Now... on to the experience ......

We arrived at the Texas Stadium parking lot a little later than normal this year - about 8:15 am!! And much to our surprise, they were letting us in the parking right then!! There was only one other car in line and I think for a minute John thought we might just have actually gotten there first (and it's some kind of sadistic hope he has), but alas, there was another car in front of us when we got to the gate. But the really exciting news was that we didn't have to wait for 2 hours in line!! This nice man let us in right then and there in exchange for our $30 parking fee! Yes.. $30! We were so excited I took his picture!!

On we went to our parking spot to setup our tailgating tent, table, BBQ, etc. It was a tad on the cool side this morning but not snowing like last year!! Just needed a lite jacket and perhaps a Dallas Cowboy blanket. You can see lots of our pictures in the gallery!! We read the newspaper, played games and chatted. John labored away cooking us all a fabulous lunch of pork poppers and chicken wings. We also had a some pasta salad which was really good as well. Perry baked cookies and brownies which we started enjoying somewhere before 9:00 am!! Reminds of me of Bill Cosby and the chocolate cake. Perry is Great! She feeds us Chocolate cookies/brownies!! Chanted over and over!!

We basically just hung out and had fun. The time went pretty quickly. Stephen found a friend and they threw the football around for awhile while we played games or just simply did some people watching which is always amusing at this sort of event.

After lunch and cleanup, it was time to make our way into the stadium to find our seats and watch the game. We posed for various pictures on the way in.... It's this whole camera thing I have going right now. Pictures all the time!!

We had a fabulous time and I think Perry did as well. The Cowboys won which we were all thankful for on Thanksgiving as it means another day with a Happy Cowboy Fan!!

Cowboys were Victorious!! 34 - 9

We made our way home to watch more Football!! My Texas Longhorns were facing off against our rival Texas A&M!! We stomped them convincingly this year!! Go Horns!