Long weekend.

It is so nice to have a long weekend but they sure do go by fast. Especially when you are as busy as we have been this weekend. Jenny came in, spent time with Noah and Jonah, then she had a project for us to accomplish. She is doing a diy birthday party decorations that she is selling on Etsy. She provides the artwork, you print it out. Pretty cool, huh! She brought some of the kits home that she had printed out for us to do a photo shoot.
We took the boys to Chuck E. Cheese after Kacee fixed us a great dinner of two different kinds of lasagna. She makes the best lasagna.
Then the boys spent the night with us Sunday night because their parents and aunt were having a bunch of kids over for a movie marathon. We had the boys all day today and then we all had a great dinner and time together.
This morning Noah went with me to  put some flags on my dad's grave for memorial day. He was so sweet. After he placed the flags, he took them back out and wanted to put them in someone else's grave. He just didn't understand. He put them back in the planters and then just played. We enjoyed the boys so much this weekend and also enjoyed being with all of our family that is close. So thankful to God for giving me this wonderful family. I am blessed beyond words..

A Time to Embrace

Karen Kingsbury is a really great author and I have enjoyed reading many of her books. A Time to Embrace was just as good as any of her other books. Although it is a sequel book and I have not read the previous book, I had no problem geting to know all of the characters. A Time to Embrace takes place in a small town where football is king. John and Abby Reynolds, the main characters, portray an average married couple with all of the ups and downs of most marriages. They have their struggles and with God's help decide to stick it out and make their marriage work. The are also
 John is the head high school football coach trying to teach the boys on his team to make good decisions. John is having a difficult season though and trouble with some of the parents. An accident involving John and two of his football players brings the entire team and parents together and closer to God. This is an inspiring story of faith, forgiveness and family.


Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Not again!

Well, another night of bad weather. I started watching online the tornados as they tore through Oklahoma in the late afternoon, some heading towards my daughter in Sand Springs and my nephew in Norman. Both of them are fine, no tornado just lots of wind and rain. It was so creepy actually watching as those tornados destroyed homes and property and knowing that it was happening right then. Someone was losing their home as I watched. I almost felt like I shouldn't be watching. Is that crazy? Then later in the evening these slow moving storms made their way into our area. At first, we thought they were going to miss us going south, then they turned and made their way to us. When the sirens went off, Gary, Jessica and I made our way to the shelter at the middle school which is a gym built specifically as a storm shelter. OMGosh! It was so hot in there, so many people and so many dogs. I think there were probably over 500 people in there. I finally just couldn't stand the heat anymore and decided to move to the front doors. They were open and lots of cool air flowed in. Around midnight we left and I decided I would tough it out at home next time. We have lived in our house for 34 years and always went to our bedroom closet because there wasn't any other place to go so next time I think I will just stay home. Got kind of panicked at the gym. No electricity when we got home but other than that we were fine. That's not the case some miles down the road, homes destroyed, towns destroyed and even loss of life. God we pray for those people in their loss. Comfort them, provide for them and encourage them.

Oh My Gosh!

What a spring this has been. I don't ever remember a storm season that has been quite this distructive what with all of the tornados, buckets of rain and the flooding. There has been so much loss of life and property and it's not just in the south. There were the tornados in Alabama, the flooding of the Mississippi River and all the towns around it, now last night another tornado rained its destruction on Jopin, MO and in Minnesota.  In the midst of this, we know that God is faithful, he will sustain us and provide for us. Those of us that have not been immediately affected by this, let us lift these families up and hold them up in prayer. They are facing months of cleanup and rebuilding. We must be strong for those that can't be strong right now. If you can go and help...GO, if you can give...GIVE but most importantly of all...PRAY.

Something rare for me

I am participating in something I rarely do here and that is recipe swapping. Lifeasmom is hosting a recipe swap today for fish recipes and that is exactly what I fixed for dinner a couple of nights ago. I don't have pictures but...oh well. You'll just have to use your imagination. My recipe is Blackened Tilapia. My family loves it and it is very easy to fix, so here goes. By the way, I don't remember where I got this recipe so if some one out there knows and it is yours, I'm sorry I didn't recognize you. I just don't remember.

8 tilapia filets
1 1/2 cups of milk
1 cup of flour
2 tablespoons of Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning
Large iron skillet
oil

First you soak the fish in the milk for about 30 minutes. Mix the flour and seasoning well. Dredge the milk-soaked fish in the flour mixture. This next part you probably will want to do on your grill. I have cooked this fish in the house and it really smokes up the place. I put my iron skillet on the grill with just maybe a 1/2 teaspoon of oil and get it smoking hot. Really, it needs to actually be smoking. Placed the fish in the skillet and let it cook on one side for a couple of minutes, when it will release from the skillet, it is ready to turn. Do the same on the other side and it is done. If you want it to be crispy, you will need to let it cook a little longer.
My family are not big fish eaters but they really like this recipe and I hope you do too.

Necklaces!!

I was taking some random item to Jessica's bedroom and noticed she had been hanging all of her necklaces on the lamp shade of the lamp on her nightstand. Pretty good idea really BUT she has quite a few and the poor lamp shade was really getting crowded. So...I asked her if she wanted to make a necklace board and after explaining to her what it was, she was all for it. I already had most everything we would need so off we went to make this new way to hold all of her necklaces and even some braclets. We doubled some core board, covered it with some curtain fabric I had kept after having to change the curtains in the living room because of a certain cat (that's another story for another time), lastly we added some ribbon just to snazz it up a little. I had purchased some cute push pins in several different colors and then we were ready to hang the jewelry. Pretty nifty, huh? I know, no one says "nifty" anymore but it gets my point across. Now I think I am going to have to make one for me.

I am linking to abeachcottage for her party.

Brings tears to my eyes

I just read my daughter-in-law's blog post and it brought tears to my eyes. I am so blessed to have such a great DIL and her post about her first born was so sweet. Here is a link  to Kacee's blog, you should go read it. She says it so much better than I could.

Rambling

Nothing much going on except we are really busy. Doesn't really make sense does it? Oh well, trying to get the patio cleaned up and decorated because I want to be able to use it this year. Last year it blew away in a wind storm. Actually blew the patio cover up on top of the house. We like to be outside and the boys like to play outside so this will really be nice for us to finally be able to use it.

I bought the boys an old wagon and hopefully some day soon I will be able to get it restored but in the mean time, Noah and Jonah still like to ride in it. Noah also likes to put as much as he can get in it and then try to pull it. Sometimes it just gets to heavy. Aren't they the cutest.

Yeah! Thanks to my great sweetie pie husband and a little help from two really great nephews, the patio is finished and it looks so great. We were really looking forward to using it tonight for our home group meeting but believe it or not it was too cold. Too Cold!!! That is just crazy here in the middle of May. I don't look forward to it getting hot like it does in the summer but it sure would have been nice to have a spring. I love being outside, even just sitting on the patio looking out across the field, thinking, praying, just enjoying the greatest of our God.

Happy Mother's Day

Just wanted to say how thankful I am to have been blessed to be a mom. What a journey and what an awesome experience. Gary and I along with our four kiddos have made so many wonderful memories together what with all of the football games, cheerleading, baseball games, volleyball games, softball games, band, tennis games, soccer games, basketball games...did I miss any sport? Try hauling four kids to some kind of sport year 'round, lots of miles and gas. I sure am glad gas was a lot cheaper then. We also made memories on the many vacations we took whether it was spending the weekend in Tulsa, which we loved to do and now Jenny lives there, to longer vacations all the way to sunny California to meet Mickey Mouse and other famous movie stars to the east coast at the Outer Banks. We have always loved being together, still do and still take vacations together. We have added a wonderful daughter-in-law and two of the best grandsons ever born. All I can say is...Wow, God. Thanks for it all and I am totally looking forward to lots more great memories!!!

Tornadoes

Today I am providing a link to Christy at Southern Plate because she is talking about the tornadoes that struck in Alabama last week. Some hit here in Arkansas too but not near like they did in Alabama. Please take a look and continue to pray for all of the victims in all of the states where these storms hit. Some people are still without electricity and thousands are without their homes. Those of us that are not experiencing this distruction first hand are going about our lives normally but these people will be a long time before the can go back to a "normal" life. They need our prayers and our help. With everything that is going on in the world, let us not forget these people in the weeks to come.