Maggie Moo trip....

We had a great time on our latest field trip to Maggie Moo's. The children got to make ice cream by pouring cream, vanilla and other stuff into the machine. Ten minutes later....they had vanilla ice cream. They were also able to go behind the counter and scoop ice cream, choose a mix in and then with careful instruction, blend the two...just like the employees. Of course, I think eating it was their favorite part. Afterwards, some of the kiddos enjoying hanging around the fountains at Bridge Street and playing in the water and having a slice of pizza before returning home to finish up school work.our group leader explaining a few things to our group..and the group behind her is making a waffle cone
Abigail pouring the cream mixture into the ice cream machine...
..gotta love those samples...she tried "cake batter" flavored ice cream and said it was very tasty....
...scooping her chocolate ice cream with the help of our group leader.....they were SOOOO nice to the children....
Abigail with her friend "E" trying the ice cream they had just blended...Abigail added cookie dough to hers and E's had Reese's pieces

Ukranian Eggs

I know Easter is past, but I wanted to post these eggs Abigail made at a class at Burritt Museum. Using various techniques similar to those used in the Ukraine, they dyed eggs. Each of the techniques had a name...some I cannot pronounce :) I thought they turned out quite pretty :)

Birthday dinner and gifts unwrapped

On Bruce's ACTUAL birthday, we headed to dinner at TerraNova's, a local Italian place that is quite tasty. He got his usual, Shrimp Scarfo, which I have to admit, is probably about the best dish they make. I usually try to get a different thing each time I go, but I don't think I have had anything better than that there yet. It certainly did beat the manicotti I got. Abigail's 'old world' pizza was good too as were our salads and the bread.

Once we got home, we gave him our gifts. It was SO hard to know what to give him...but after a lot of thought, we decided on a new Bible, a giant print NKJV. He likes his his KJV which I learned was also giant print, so he may not start using the new one for a while...but...oh well..... But, I do think he appreciated the other gift...a book of blessings. I had contacted friends and had them write notes of encouragement or memories they had of Bruce, then I compiled them into a book. He sat and read the whole thing last night..laughing and smiling a good bit. I think it did make his day. I encouraged him to turn to that book if he ever doubted that he makes a difference in people's lives:) us at the dinner table at TerraNova's
Daddy opening the birthday card Abigail made with Auburn on the outside (but Alabama on the inside)
Bruce holding the 'book of blessings'
..and here he is reading the book....I think he enjoyed it a lot...

Happy 50th birthday Bruce!!!

Well, today he is officially 50 years old!!!! So far his day has been good. He got a free coffee at Starbucks (they did not have any decaf brewed so since he had to wait, they gave it to him for free..how nice:) One friend is taking him to lunch and then we'll go out for dinner at Terra Nova's, an Italian place he really loves. We'll also be giving him his two special gifts tonight. I'll post what those are (and photos) after he has them in hand....just in case he happens to read my blog before we give them to him.

HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!

the almost birthday boy.....

Tomorrow..............April 21, marks the half century mark for my beloved hubby. We began the celebrating by having a party with mostly family and a couple of friends on Saturday with lunch at Greenbrier BBQ. We had a great time! I post more photos tomorrow. You'll have to see if he looks older then :)Bruce's mom, Abigail, and his niece and nephew look on as he opens a gift....
my parents, Bruce's sister and Abigail and Maddie listen and Bruce tells some silly story about his childhood...or adulthood :)
...blowing out the candles....the cake was yummy thanks to Sam's Club...
...our little family....after a great meal :)

Saturday Morning's Fun

On Saturday morning, we headed out to West Huntsville Elementary School, just behind our church. There was an opportunity to minister to some local neighborhood children as well as our own kids. We started with a coloring contest, then moved onto a story with the resurrection eggs thanks to Mrs. Warren. This took up the first hour. At this point, we had to leave to get to Abigail's soccer game, but a very kind 'grandpa' suggested we pick up a few eggs on our way out since Abigail did not get to hunt eggs before we left....so she did.

This is Abigail trying to stay warm while listening to the story. It was quite damp and cold and windy on Saturday morning.
Here she is picking up an egg or two on the way back to the nice warm van.
Silly, silly Abigail.....as usual, she is doing something to make us laugh at her.....
Sienna, 'needs' Mr. Bruce to help her color. It looks like she is eating a mouth full of candy while Mr. Bruce does all of the coloring.......
Abigail and one of her good friends from church......the big sister of Sienna (above)

Soccer girl.....

Abigail is definitely NOT a girly girl. She can play dolls and dress up if she has to, but she'd just as soon be wearing soccer cleats and wearing a pony tail :) Here she is playing in the first couple of soccer games of the season. The first game (gray jersey) was so nice...warm and comfy outside. We actually got a bit sunburned...of course we did not figure it out until that evening. The second game (blue jersey).....cold and damp...not raining, but it felt like it could start any minute....well, we were happy to have the final whistle blow. By the way, her team is co-ed and is made up of 3rd thru 6th graders, but amazingly, it works pretty well. Abigail is the youngest on her team, but fits right in size wise.

Easter 2009

What a BEAUTIFUL celebration of our Lord's resurrection we had yesterday! From our church service at West Huntsville Baptist Church to time with family in Huntsville, we enjoyed the day. This is Abigail opening her Easter basket before we headed to church. She got several nice little things, including a dvd she had been wanting.
This is mommy and Abigail before we headed to church. We both ended up with green and brown dresses :)
Abigail and her cousins are at the "kid" table at Grandma's about to enjoy some Italian food. Afterwards, they enjoyed an egg hunt inside Grammy's apartment.

Weight update

I just weighed in and my latest update is 34.4 pounds lost since I got serious about getting healthy last July. Someone was asking me recently how much I had lost since the first of the year. Based on my scales (which I am using as my official guideline since those are the ones I am consistently using), I have seen a little over 17 pounds lost in the last 12-13 weeks. I still have a ways to go, but I am encouraged that I will get there.

Another 20-25 pounds would put me at a point that would make me very healthy I think.....so that is my goal.

God and my family and friends have been so helpful to me in this journey....and I am so grateful to each of them. By choosing to become physically healthier, I know I can serve my Lord and my family and minister to others with more energy and stamina (and hopefully have a longer earthly life in which to do so).

Princess and slimfast......

Our sweet Princess has had quite a week!! She has been acting strange...waking me up anywhere from 3-5:30 a.m. each night needing to go potty...which is very odd for her. Well, on Wednesday morning, I noticed a great deal of bleeding so I called the vet and took her in yesterday. After some testing, he determined that she was not in heat (we had her fixed when she was a pup, but sometimes a little piece of ovary is left and starts producing estrogen and cycles a few years down the road), but that she had a super nasty recurrent urinary tract infection. The values of blood and bacteria were so high, they simply wrote "WOW" on the chart as the numbers were off the charts.

While there he mentioned her weight..that she was heavy, then glanced down to see her last weight. In just two weeks she's lost 15 pounds!!! Sounds like a slimfast commercial to me. He then said, maybe they'd weighed her incorrectly. I suggested that we reweigh her since the previous visit had included 2 or 3 weighings since I could not believe her weight was 126. Well, in the one hour since they'd weighed her and they re-checked her, she lost another three pounds!!!! He then suggested that maybe his scales were in need of repair. I had to agree that maybe they were not quite accurate :)

I do think she may have lost some as she has been very good about eating only what is offered (except for the time she got into Abigail's purse and stole two bags of M&M's before I caught her). Thankfully, she only ate a few before I found out what she was up to. And, with not feeling well, she has not really wanted to eat all of the food offered to her....so she probably has lost some weight.

Due to my being under the weather, neither Princess nor I have gotten in our regular exercise this week, but hopefully next week will be better.

Maybe I should put her on TV......

exhausted....

What a busy week this has been......You have to remember we are normally busy, but on our 'own' schedule. This week, we have had to be up and out the door early....breakfast fed, dressed, dogs fed separately (and in Princess's case, I have had to hand feed her every morning because she is so distracted she won't eat if I don't), showered, snacks packed, bags/totes packed (gotta have reading material...just in case). Because we have been taking (Abigail) and administering (me) Stanford Ach. Tests at the school, we have been out the door by the time Abigail is usually just getting up and eating breakfast on a normal day. To top it all off, Bruce was in Oklahoma (he got home about 11:30 p.m. last night) and I have had a major sinus/allergy problem and the meds have taken a while to start working at all. So, I....am.....exhausted!!!!!

Today, like most other days this week, is filled with activities AFTER testing that will require us to be gone for a good part of the day. If things go smoothly, I will be home about 4:15 p.m. Thankfully, I should be able to STAY home then.....I hope.

Wish us well as we 'finish strong' today with testing and then 'wait patiently' for results.

Dog day

Yesterday, Abigail and I hung out, as Bruce was busy with work. After her soccer game, we headed out for a full day of errands. After stopping by Target to pick up an item Bruce needed that I have only been able to find at Target, we noticed LOTS of dogs/puppies available for adoption outside Petsmart. So, we stopped to look....JUST TO LOOK. Well, I am a bit partial to beagles and there was a beagle mix (beagle, blue heeler and some other hound type) there that immediately won my heart and Abigail's too. Oh, if only we did not already have two dogs...that 'baby' would have been very likely have become a family member of ours if we could have convinced Daddy. Abigail just sat there talking to her and petting her for a half hour. She named her "Freckles" and what a perfect name...she was covered with the black ticking marks and had the long black beagle ears....what a doll! She had such a great temperament...like almost all beagles I have ever met, but unlike our own Allie.

We also had a long talk about our Allie. It was a sad talk, but we said that if she keeps on acting the way she does, Princess may get frustrated and really hurt her. I felt that Abigail needed to realize this. Allie is very aggressive towards other animals (we finally have the people behavior under control thankfully).

We finished the day off with a 'dog' movie....so we had a great day that revolved around a topic we both love....DOGS!!!!

April Fool Joke

Our dear daughter decided to put Daddy's underpants in Mommy's drawer and some of Mommy's most colorful ones in Daddy's drawer. And yes, I DO like using my label maker....go ahead and make fun of me!!!! She even made a little card for each of us to help us understand the joke!!

My new "DO"

I am SOOOO overdue on getting a haircut, so I decided to get my money's worth today--LOL!! When I was supposed to go in originally, Abigail was very sick, then when I rescheduled the appointment, my van was in the shop and I had no transportation. So, this was my second 'reschedule' and it was a long time in coming. I like it....and hopefully I can fix it to look something like this, as it looks pretty simple to do.