2010: Some Retrospective Lists

The beginning of a new year is often a time of reflection of the past year and thoughts of changes in the new year.  The beginning of our year was just survival mode.  Paul went to Passion on New Year's Day.  The girls and I tried to recover from staying up WAY too late on New Year's Eve!  Then we started the routines of school, dance practice, and piano lessons.  And I washed dishes by hand because our dishwasher is still broken!  All that to say that it's already January 7th and I'm just now thinking about 2010.

2010 had a lot of lasts for us:

*Last Daddy/Daughter Valentine banquet.  (It would have been the last even had we remained at that church; they'll be too old this year.) 

*Last time to watch my younger 3 girls sing at the children's musical at our old church.

*Last AWANA award ceremony.  

*Last time to go to camp with our old church.

*Last Sunday at our old church.

*Last time for me to teach high school girls there.

*Maybe our last swim lessons.

*Last time to have to make overseas calls to talk to my sister.  (I hope!)


It also had some firsts:


*First time to plant a church!


*First year of middle school for Hope!


*First time to see the Riverwalk in San Antonio at Christmas time!


*First time to host all of my family for Christmas!


*First time to go to Disney World!!! (Which will get a whole post of its own very soon.  Even though it happened way back in May and June.)


And, of course, many things remained the same:


*Dance practices


*Piano lessons


*Recitals


*Our crazy dog


*Our sweet cat


*Homeschooling


I'm kind of hoping that 2011 is a little more predictable than 2010.  Well, except for the awesome vacation part!  That was not something that was on my radar in January of 2010.  But I know I can trust God when things change or when they remain the same.

A Lot of Words and a Few Pictures about the Last Couple of Months

The last few weeks, I've been so busy living life that I haven't had time to blog about it!  So, for posterity's sake, here's a brief chronicle of the end of November and December.

* I attended a terrific women's conference at our old church.  The speaker was wonderful, and I really enjoyed seeing friends I haven't seen in a while. 

* I celebrated my 40th birthday.  I can't believe I'm that old!  Paul and the girls took me out for Tex-Mex and made me a cake.  Some of the sweet ladies from church made a video for me, too.

* We had a small Thanksgiving celebration with just our family.  We watched the Macy's parade, ate a fabulous meal, and then one of Paul's brothers and his family came over for a while.  We also put up our tree and our indoor decorations!

* One of my birthday presents was a trip to San Antonio!  I've never seen the Riverwalk all decked out for Christmas, and was so happy to finally get the chance!  We ate great Tex-Mex, took in some history, visited with some new and some old friends, and saw the zoo.  I didn't realize how much I needed a break until I got one!

* I had a fun evening at a cookie exchange with some of my friends.

* I helped Faith and Hope with their presentations for 4-H Demonstration Day.  They won first place on the demonstration they did as a team and Faith won second and Hope won third on their individual demonstrations.

*  The girls and I went to see Tangled and absolutely loved it!  Paul joined us when we saw The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  It was another great movie.

*  Hope did an excellent job at her piano recital!  She played some the teacher version of the duets in her piano book and did such a good job!  I'm so proud!

*  We had fun with our Christmas traditions:  making gingerbread houses, looking at Christmas lights, lighting our Advent candles.

*  We opened our gifts the Tuesday before Christmas since my Mom was coming the next day.  The girls loved their presents, and I love my new Pandora bracelet!!

*  My Mom and my sister and her family came to our house for Christmas.  We had a full house, but we really did have a good time!  (And it motivated me to get my house cleaner than it's been in a while!) 

*  I spent lots of time bringing the Faith, Joy, and Grace to ballet practice for their performance in the Nutcracker!  To their great disappointment, we even had practices over Christmas break.  But those practices paid off!  All the girls did such a good job, and my three were fantastic!!  My Mom, my sister, and my niece got to come to the performance.  It was so much fun watching my ballerinas perform and do so well!!


* We hosted a fun Christmas party at our house for our church family.  (It would have been even more fun if my dishwasher weren't broken!)

Never Say Never!

While I do have some serious stuff I'm mulling over, I'm still tired from last weekend's garage sale, the time change, and ALL THE COUGHING (Allergies are no fun!) so I'm going for lighthearted and fun today.

Today I did something I said I would never do:  I bought a pair of skinny jeans!  Until a few days ago I thought skinny jeans only worked on slim teenagers or those enviable women who somehow managed to escape childbirth without the typical hip expansion.  I am neither.  My daughter tried some on, and they looked cute on her, but she wears a size 0, so she can wear just about anything and look adorable!

I got a pair of boots at the garage sale that are really cute and that I thought might actually look good with skinny jeans.  So on Monday I tried some on with a really cute long top.  I tucked the jeans into some black boots I had, and it did look good.  I was surprised.  I got the great shirt, but wanted a second opinion about the jeans.  So last night Paul and I went to Kohl's where I tried some on.  He really liked them!  I was hoping to find a more comfortable fit, so I passed on that particular pair.

I went back to Kohl's today.  And tried on a different pair.  They looked good.  They were comfortable.  And, to top it off, they only cost me $6.72 plus tax!!!  Which totally makes it okay that I bought a great shirt to go with them, right?  

Week(s) at a Glance

Wow!  Life has been full these last couple of weeks!  Our schooling has taken more time, we've had several extra-curricular activities, and my allergies have been overactive!  

We had fun carving pumpkins in late October. Faith did a pretty floral design; Hope did a Border Collie; Joy did a cat face; and Grace did a fleur de lis.  It was fun and messy!

We also celebrated Paul's birthday.  I cooked one of his favorite dinners and we had Italian Cream Cake (minus the coconut - I'm allergic!) for dessert.  I tried a new recipe, and we all enjoyed it.  

Some friends of ours hosted a "Retro Prom" on October 31st.  Faith wore my old prom dress.  Hope found a formal at the Salvation Army store for $5.  And Joy and Grace wore some cute 80s-inspired skirts and shirts from Target that are still fashionable enough for them to wear again.  I wore my old Coca-Cola shirt from high school, and Paul wore his leather pants from back in the day and eyeliner a la Billy Idol!  Everyone had a terrific time!

Last weekend we did something we said we'd never do:  We hosted a garage sale.  The money went to help the college students at our church go to Passion 2011 in January.  The students did most of the work, and we made enough money to be a help to them.  And I hope to never host another garage sale again!  (The late night of getting ready and early morning start time wiped me out!!) 

We also started offering a children's church during Paul's talk time.  One of our families lives right across from the clubhouse where we're meeting, so we bring the children there after the singing time.  I think it's going well and will only get better!

I have some thoughts rattling around in my head about being a pastor's wife and hope to blog about them soon.

Happy Saturday

It's late Saturday night, and I'm waiting for Faith to come home from a friend's house.  Joy and Grace have been asleep for a while, and so has Paul.  The friend that Hope has over tonight is sleeping on the couch, and Hope is waiting for all to be quiet to try to sleep.  It's nights like this that not having to be at church as early comes in handy!

After hearing so many good things, we went to see Secretariat today.  And we were not disappointed.  It really is a great movie!  I knew Paul would like it, and I was confident that Faith and Hope would enjoy it.  But I wasn't sure if it would be able to keep Joy and Grace's attention.  I needn't have worried; they LOVED it!  We don't see many movies as a family.  With four kids, that would be too expensive, but this movie was so worth it!  And I really enjoyed seeing a movie the whole family really enjoyed and that was so inspiring.  

This evening we were pleasantly surprised by a group of young singles from our church displayed a row of jack-o-lanterns that spelled "Go Jesus!" in our front yard.  Today is Paul's spiritual birthday:  twenty-one years ago he began his relationship with Jesus.  To mark that occasion, these great people decided to gift us with one of Paul's catch-phrases in such a fun package.  It was so much fun!  (Except for the mosquitoes;  those were no fun at all!)  I'm so glad our friends love us so much!

And to top it all off, Baylor won!!!

 

Why People Have Two Dishwashers

Somehow Fridays have turned into "Try Cooking Something New Day."  Two weeks ago I tried my hand at Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls.  They weren't that hard, but they were messy to make.  I realized that I need a silicon mat for rolling dough.  I had an old Tupperware one that melted when a certain daughter, who shall remain nameless, set a pan from the oven on it.  I made the first batch of rolls on Friday but didn't put the icing on.  Saturday morning I warmed the cinnamon rolls in the oven and made the frosting.  YUM!  I only used half the dough, so I got to perfect my cinnamon roll making skills on Saturday.  (We actually decided we like less butter and cinnamon than the recipe calls for.  And we like the cinnamon and sugar mixed first.)


Last week I finally made PW's Mozzarella Sticks.  I remember wanting to make these at home years ago, but I couldn't find a recipe.  These were also very good.  Except we didn't eat them right away, so they weren't as fabulous as they could be.

Today I made PW's doughnuts.  Hope has been begging me to make them ever since we saw the recipe.  And she was not disappointed.  They're really good.  And easy.  I had to stand in front of the fryer for a while, but it wasn't difficult.

And I've even tried a couple of new recipes during the week:  oven-baked Panko breaded chicken tenders and a barbecue chicken tender dish.  Both were very good.  

And with all this cooking and with six of us eating all this cooking, I've come to understand why people have two dishwashers!  Because, lately, mine is always behind.  But we sure are eating well!

Signs of the Times

A group of us are having a "Retro Prom" themed costume party at the end of October.  So today, in the interest of retro research, the girls looked through my old high school year books.  Joy and Grace just like looking for pictures of Mommy.  Faith, however, was amazed disturbed by all the big hair!  And the high pants!  And the tucked-in shirts!  (I guess the shoulder pads weren't as obvious.)

And really, those pictures do look so dated.  "Why?" I ask myself.  "Why the big hair?"  (OK, that one's easy; there were no flat irons, and I have curly hair.)  "Why the baggy jeans, especially when I was so thin?"  (No answer for that one!)  "Why the puffy sleeves?"  (Maybe we needed them to balance out the hair!)  "Why didn't my hair dresser prevent me from getting bangs?"  

And I comfort myself with the fact that in twenty years, Faith will be asking herself similar questions.