KJ-52 Baby!!!

That's right!! We got to see Kj-52 right here in little ol Texarkana, TX for $5 each. We saw a flyer advertising the concert at our favorite BBQ place, Smokey Joe's, and on our calendar it went. It was a very small intimate venue compared to Fish Fest where we saw him last. The boys really enjoy his hip-hop Christian music. Before we left for the concert we made this poster. We only had like 5 minutes so it is not the greatest.
The boys were happy to have it!
Before the show, the church had the fellowship hall open with games and snacks while last minute sound checks were being done. Since I was on a date with my two boys, I bought them each 2 pieces of pizza and a soda for $1.50 each. That means we had our "date" on $18!
The church brought in this awesome lighting that really made it feel like a true concert.
He even rapped about our poster. I reminded the boys at the last concert he had a song he uses items from the audience for. I also warned them that he ripped the poster in half at that concert. So when he took our poster, they knew what was coming so we didn't have any issues, if you know what I mean.When the show was all over we bought a little poster of "Tweezie" that he signed and we got this great picture with him! All in all it was a great Friday night out with Marcus and Zachery, a much needed bonding time with mom and sons. If you are wondering where Mark was, he was sleeping, trying to recover from our Thanksgiving travels and no sleep before we worked a 12 hour day.
This is the boys less than 20 minutes after the concert. In PJs, in bed, asleep, with the dogs. All 4 of them in a twin size bed. Why do we have two sets of bunk beds when they prefer to sleep together in 1 bed??? I dont know....

Its decorating time!!

I am really starting to enjoy this whole decorating stuff. There was a time when I was happy with just a tree and nothing else. I think over the years of being married and having kids I have really learned how to love them through creating a warm and festive environment. Our house is all decorated with what decorations I do have. I cant seem to find our stocking holders and stockings. But I will keep looking and hopefully find them.

Marcus got to help with putting the tree together. He really likes doing this part.

Zachery was in charge of separating the lights from the ornaments and making sure they were not tangled and that they worked! He really enjoyed this since he got to do it by himself with no help.

They all still work!!

Here is the finished product! It looks great. Mark and the boys did an amazing job. My job was putting the ornaments on! Our Angel topper is not working so we have to get a new one. I still have the little tree that my sister gave me two years ago. It fit perfectly on the CD stand and it nice to have in this room since we spend lots of time here. I need to get a few more ornaments to put on it. I only have 3 right now, and no topper. Remember, I am a work in progress!

Least but not least, is the dinning room table. Simple and sweet, nothing to big and fancy. That's all I have for decorating. Maybe after Christmas I will have some extra money to shop during the discount days for holiday stuff. We will see what I have to offer this time next year! Hope you are enjoying this holiday season as much as we are. Have you put up your tree yet?

Thanksgiving....bitter sweet

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful. I am so thankful for a God that loves me and gives me all the grace I need. I am thankful for my husband Mark who loves me and has been filling love tank. I am thankful for my boys Marcus and Zachery who have been showering me with extra hugs and kisses. I am thankful for Marks family who invited us down to spend the day with them....that means I did not have to cook. Which was good since my oven is still not working.

This is Momma Betty, Angela and Kimmie's mom, who did all the cooking! Look at this spread! We had two turkeys, two hams, corn bread dressing, mac and cheese, rice dressing, potato salad, corn, green beans, gravy, cranberry sauce, bread rolls. It was all yummy, and I even tried and liked the rice dressing. She didn't tell me what was in it!

We also celebrated Angela's baby's B-day. She turned 1! It was fun to watch her have fun with the little cake that ended up all over her face and hands.

This was at the end of the evening before we all left to go back to our homes. This is Kimmie, Mark, Dad, and Angela. Angela drove 2 hours each way in the am to pick up her dad so he would not be alone for Thanksgiving. His wife was in a coma in the nursing home. We thank the Lord he was with us all this day because Jesus decided this was the day to take his wife to her eternal home. We are SSOO thankful that he was not at home alone when he got the call, with no one to hug and comfort him. Kimmie made the drive to take him back home, she was tired, but a trooper!

Auntie Kimmie loving on her little nieces.

We are so blessed to have our families and be able to visit with them. We were reminded how important our family is to us and now we cant wait to see everyone in Cal for Christmas. Only 3 more weeks!!

Casualty..the only one!

So this was the only casualty of our move to TX. We had a few things get damaged, but we were able to repair them. Unfortunately, our new, big, wonderful, TV was not repairable, per the repair guy. I talked to Mark about it and we decided that before we put it on the street for the trash guys to take we would let the kids open it up and do as they wished with it.
This is Matthew, Marcus's friend having a bit of fun.

Marcus looks like he knows what he is doing. Even Zachery had some fun.

Under normal circumstances, these three boys would be getting into some major trouble. But not this time. They are learning what the inside of a TV looks like. They were amazed at what they saw. By the time they were done, there was nothing left and they had taken every little piece off of the mother boards. It was completely stripped. They had fun and that was the goal!

Trip to Houston

This weekend we went down to Houston to spend some time with Mark's dad. It was a nice drive down the 59 for about 5 1/2 hours. The best part of the drive...it was at night and the boys were asleep. :-) Sunday morning when we all woke up we took his dad for a drive down the Galveston. I really wanted to go down and see what it looked like after the hurricane. It was not so good. However, we enjoyed the outing and got to see the ocean and the boys played in the water, dug in the sand, and collected some sea shells. Today we got up, I helped clean up his house cause it is in pretty bad shape. Mark was able to fix his furnace that was not working. We also changed the batteries in all the fire alarms. When we got there they were all chirping and we asked him why and he said that was the way they operated, they have chirped since he bought the house. Well... we knew that was not normal, we bought some 9Vs and when he went to the hospital to visit his wife, we changed them all. When he got home he noticed the absence of the chirping and I told him while he was gone I changed the batteries!! He was happy, and shocked that he was wrong. All is all, a great weekend. However, when we got home Mark called him to let him know we made it safe, and his dad was already at the bar drinking. Please pray that God would remove the desire in him to drink so much. He is going through a lot right now and really could use some prayers.

I think I am going to crop this pic, blow it up and replace the one from last year with it! I love it.

The boys are having a blast playing in the WARM water! It was chilly and overcast but I let them play anyway because I am a fun mom!!

We took Dad to Denny's for Breakfast. We didn't know that he had lost his bottom teeth and have been eating without them! OH well, what can you do when you don't know???

Look at my handsome men!! I am such a lucky lady to be blessed with them.

Here is all of us at the ocean! Fun times away with family. Next visit is with Mark's sisters in Louisiana for Thanksgiving.

Saving a few $$$ is a good thing!

Hi everyone! In an effort to save money, since I am not working, I am changing emails. I am paying for the earthlink account every month even though I can use the cableone.net account for free. So moving forward, please use the new account afunches@cableone.net. Also please do not add me to any forwarding email lists as I wont have the space. One last request, please send me you mailing address to my new email account. I need to be up to date so I can mail Christmas cards.
Thanks to all!!

Brain Fart!!!

So I completely forgot that I had a laptop I could use while the computer was in the hospital getting well, until tonight. I am sitting in my bed, nice warm sheets that my mom gave us for Christmas a couple years ago. Thanks Mom!! It is 31 degrees out and very cold. This last weekend we bought all the windows for this house and Mark replaced 3 so far. That means 6 to go. We can already feel the difference in our bedroom. We have been very busy the last couple weeks and I have just not had the time to update the blog. I am back on track now. Tomorrow we are leaving for a visit with Mark's Dad who lives in Houston. We will be there till Monday. The boys have a Pack Meeting Monday night so we need to be home for it. Then we will leave on Wednesday evening for a visit with Mark's Sister's mom for Thanksgiving. Lots of travels. Please pray for safe highways. I will be sure to have pics when I get back.

Our tenants have called and said that the dishwasher is not working at the house in California and that they are having some electrical issues. We know an electrician and called in favor and he will be fixing it all tomorrow. Hopefully it wont cost us too much money. We want to keep the renters happy so they will stay in the house at least another year or more....

Oh! We are loving our fireplace!

Computer Infected

My computer is infected with worms and viruses. I will out of action for a week or so. please check back soon to see how I am doing. Computer going to shop.

Too Long

I am sorry it has been almost a week since I have blogged. I have lots to show you from the last week. I dont have any pics of Mark and I but we are REALLY enjoying our Mon. & Tues. together since he is off and the boys are in school. God really is blessing us with lots of time to spend together and build our marriage.

Thursday Mark got home from work and wanted to go to dinner... so we went. Both the boys behaved really well, ate all their dinner, enjoyed desert, and we had a wonderful night out. I was so thank full for no behavior issues!!

Tuesday night we got our shoe boxes for Samaritan's Purse re wrapped and packaged. We actually made them last year while in Cali but for some reason did not get them to the church in time. We kept them and brought them to TX with us. Mark re wrapped and I repacked. I was even able to get a lot more items in each box. It was fun and the boys felt so proud to take them to church for Wednesday night Bible study. We didn't want to wait till Sunday in case we forget again and missed the deadline....

This shows some of the items I was able to get in the boxes.

On Monday the boys had their Scouts meeting. Marcus learned how to do CPR and Zachery's den went to the fire station for a tour. Monday we also went out to dinner with Ozell as this was her last night here.

Last night I put together a gift for a 10 year old girl B-day party today. We will be doing that at 2. We have a very busy schedule today. I am praying for an awesome time with the boys and cooperative behavior from my little man! Another update to come tonight!

Random Fun

The boys got dressed after breakfast to go to the movies. They had no sense of style when they put this wardrobe together. We made them change.
Zachery raked up these pine needles, put them in this box, taped it shut and then told Dad he had a present for him. He said he wanted to give Dad this present so that when it was time to start the fire he would not have to go out in the cold to get the pine needles.

After dinner and showers we all enjoyed the fire and Marcus read his book to us. The only problem is that we do not have a light in this room so that is why Mark is holding a flash light!

Bella loves to be covered up and warm. She slept like this for a couple hours!

Treats!

Momma brought us some treats in her luggage.

She brought Mark 4 lbs of Carne Asada, that we promptly BBQ'd and ate.

She brought me 10 bags a Turkey Jerky from Trader Joe's! Only 1 bag is gone so far.

This morning we treated her to a full spread breakfast! French Toast, Bacon, Hash browns, eggs, and real OJ!

Now we are planning to go to the movies and hang out. We only have her for two full days so we have to make the best of our time.

Mom is here!!

She flew into Dallas, rented a car and drove here in 2 1/2 hrs! She speeds.

She did not even get out of the car before the boys got their hugs.
Even when she did get in the house they are still hugging on her.

The black bag is her travel bag. The red bag is full of stuff we left at her house when we moved here. She said she has some treats for us.... I wonder what they are??

He is Zachery....

...and he is behaving!After we dropped Marcus off at the Preston Hunt Camp Grounds (Boy Scouts) we went to the grocery store! He was in charge of the shopping list and making sure we did not spend more than I had allocated. He did an awesome job.We are so happy that gas in now under $2 a gallon we needed to take a pic and show the world!

When we got home and after we unloaded the groceries, he helped clean the bathroom by scrubbing the toilet. I cleaned the rest of the bathroom.

We went to pick Marcus back up at 2 but when we got there, they told us the classes were not over till 3. So instead of going back home, Zachery took me on a hike of the camp ground.

He was so proud to be the hike leader showing me the way.He even had a big stick to ward off any stray animals that might try to attack us.

Once we got to the top we took a pic of us sitting on a tree. He had been telling me the whole way up that there was a bench at the top. When we got there, I asked where it was and he pointed to the tree that had fallen over. :-) All I could do was smile and sit with him on it.

Once Marcus was done with his program we were driving away and we saw this beautiful tree with the orange leaves still on it. I had to have a pic of them under it. I am loving having a true "fall" season.

Ozell, Mark's Mom, should be here in about 2 hours. Almost done cleaning!

He is Zachery

What would your 6 year old do with the $10 that his teacher gave him to pay for the Boy Scouts Fundraiser product she ordered? One would think he would give it to his mother like he was told to. But no, not my Zachery. He had this great idea that since he had $10 in his backpack, he should use it to buy 40 tokens at the after school program and share them with his friends so they could all have fun playing the video games. Can you believe it? So now he is $10 in the hole in his allowance. It just keeps getting better every day!

Husband Day???

I read somewhere that tomorrow is Husband's Day in the blogging world and that we are to showcase our husbands! Well I would not want my fabulous Mark to be left out so here it goes:
He loves me! I love him! He takes care of our family, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially. He is the best handy man ever. He has a never ending supply of patience to help with the boys. He filled my love tank last night by rubbing my legs for over an hour. He likes to cook dinner for us. He doesn't mind helping to bag all the pine needles when I rake up the piles. And he never complains when it is getting close (or overdue) for a leg waxing appointment. :-) That's my husband of almost 10 years!

God's Daily reminders

Yesterday was a great day of reminders of why God sent us to live in TX, away from California, our friends, our family, our church, and everything we knew as normal. Some days I must be still and listen to Him remind me of the blessings we have and the ones to come. For now we are enjoying the fireplace we dreamed of, I know, shallow, the beautiful fall colors of the leaves on (and off :-) ) the trees, the changes that are coming with a new president, and the quality family time we have come to love.

When I sit out front to read a book or listen to music, this is the view in front of me. A reminder of God's masterful artistry and wonderful use of colors.

How do you like our fancy firewood holder? In addition to a wood holder we are in need of a fireplace utensil set. Is that what they are called? Anyways, we need one. :-) it is on the growing list.....