I ♥ Hands

This is one of my new favorites, compliments of Joe. He snapped it, I snazzed it up. That's how we roll. This picture is of me and Emery without a care in the world on a cool February day at the beach. If you ask me, life doesn't get much better than that.



If you want to check out some other great entries, head on over to I ♥ Faces and check out this weeks hand entries!

* Day Trip *

Every once and a while, Joe and I get a wild hair to get out of the house on a Saturday and do something fun. Part of the challenge is to not spend a whole bunch of money. Today we had a little incentive.

It's no secret that we are a 1 car family...rub your eyes, yes you read that right...2 kids, a coach, and a teacher/photographer, have successfully shared 1 car since July. We are finally starting to look at getting Joe something just to get him to work and back, and to give him some of his freedom back. :) He wants an 80's Bronco...he holds those near and dear to his heart...Moving on, b/c this has a shot at being a super long post. He found one, in Brazoria, so we decided to make a day of it. Well, until we were 5 minutes down the road, and he got an e-mail that it was sold an hour ago. Hmmm...we could pack it up and go home, or head south and go see my grandmother. We went. Had a great time. Visited 'Nana' and then decided to take the kids down to the beach for a bit. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking...


Here's Trey, digging for his underwear.
He flushed them down the toilet, a week ago.
He thinks they went to the beach.


I think Emery would have gone in.
If we would have let her. We wouldn't.


See...she says she wants to GO!


With this face, it's hard to tell that girl no.


Speaking of faces...Here's Trey's silly face.


And, his sweet face.


While we were there...
Trey & Emery met Gertie the Garr...
And decided he/she needed a proper burial.
Emery supervised.


This is Emery's 'Who me? Couldn't be?' pose...
It works. Most of the time.


Joe win's best picture of the day...


Whew...marathon post. That should get me thru this week. We are hosting our first small group bible study tomorrow night. I'll have to keep you posted on that. We are using the iMarriage series. I'm looking forward to it.

* New Recipe *

It's Wednesday, and I've cooked twice this week. Write. That. Down. I really do like to cook. Most of the time. However, let it be known that Friday nights are not one of those nights...my mom taught me well, you do not cook on Friday nights. You drink. A margarita. Moving on...to tonight's recipe. I found it this blog...she has super cute stuff and ideas, you should check it out.

Okay, okay...the recipe.

I'm gonna call them Spinach Lasagna Roll Ups. {SO easy!}

You need 6 lasagna strips, boil them like the box says.

In a bowl, mix the following{while the noodles are boiling}
1 package of frozen spinach - thawed
2 cups shredded mozzarella
1 tbs grated parmesan
2 eggs
some salt/pepper to taste...I also added some garlic powder

When the noodles are finished boiling, lay them out flat and then spread some of the spinach mixture down the noodle. She took good pictures of this...I didn't. Roll the lasagna and set in a casserole dish. Pour whatever spaghetti sauce you like on top and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. We had this with a piece of Texas toast, YUM. I made 6 roll ups, and still have 1 1/2 left for lunch tomorrow. I will be the envy in the teacher's lounge tomorrow!

Fail.

So, last night I decided to try a new little appetizer for the Super Bowl. By the title of this post, you can guess where I'm going with this. It sounded VERY easy, and it really was. Joe even pitched in to help me. I wanted to make the Bacon Wrapped Smokies that I've seen on several blogs. They look something like these... {and yes, I hijacked this image from Google, because I'm being too lazy to get the ones off of my camera that are in RAW.} Anyway, moving on. Here's what they're supposed to look like:

All the recipe calls for is:

• 2 packages of lil' smokies
• 1 package of bacon
• brown sugar
• butter

Joe got all of the smokies arranged, I cut the bacon and he wrapped. Simple enough. Cut the bacon long ways down the middle and then cut them long enough to wrap the smokie...make sense? Sprinkle brown sugar over the smokies and then pour some melted butter over everything. Butter makes everything better, not last night though. The recipes that I saw had said bake at 375 for 45 minutes...perfect, time for a shower while they cook. When I got out of the shower, I could smell them cooking and thought to myself, "YUM". Not so much...Joe went down to get them out of the oven. My first clue that this wasn't going to work out was when the smoke detectors started blaring. We had BLACK little bacon wrapped smokies. There was no salvaging them. Not a one. Oh well, I'll try again...but maybe cut the baking time in half?!

Question: Is it Friday yet? My weekends lately, are just teasers...I am ready for Spring/Summer!
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Would you do me a favor this week? Keep these 3 families in your prayers?

Connor - Connor's mom is a sorority sister of mine and his dad is a fraternity brother of Joe's. I can't imagine the pain they're feeling right now. Sweet Connor is fully healed now, but there are a lot of sad hearts missing him this morning.

Stacey - I do not know Stacey personally, but have friends that are dear friends with her. Stacey is battling cancer, and is in the hospital right now struggling either with an infection or failing kidneys. Her friends/family could really use prayers for strength and comfort.

Emery - Emery's mom ran track at SFA while Joe and I were there. One of her best friends was one of my last roommates at SFA. Obviously this lil' girl is sweet as pie, and hits a little close to home for me...especially because of her name. She is 2/3 months old and battling neuroblastoma. Doctors are hopeful and we are praying like crazy that she knocks this out now, and can go home to Amarillo and be a happy, healthy little girl.

Finally.

Update at the bottom...

For my birthday, I told Joe that come 'heck' or high water, I wanted pictures of Trey and Emery. They tend to fall to the back burner when it comes to pictures. Lately, I've had at least one shoot a week, so I get caught up in editing all of those pictures. The stars aligned, and the clouds parted Sunday afternoon when we headed to Tomball. I'm still pretty sure that the sun didn't shine at our house.

Trey was making sure we know that he is 4


This girl...is a mess.


Her personality is really starting to come out...and we're lovin' it!


The other day Grammy said that she was pushing Trey and taking his toys.

Most parents might be disturbed, but we think it's funny that
she is finally handin' it back to him.

He's not lovin' it though.




He's resorting to alternative measures to defend himself...


Yesterday at the Dr., Emery measured 2'10" tall...
signing her up for club vball this week. Ha!


Last week, this guy said "Oh yeah, tough guy"
when Joe asked him if he needed a spankin'...
We are in trouble, I know...


I thought that when I had my boy and my girl, that I would have 2 totally different kids. I have twins born 2 and a half years apart. I swear. When Trey was Emery's age, he sucked his thumb so hard it got callus and swollen, and had to be treated at night with heavy duty lotion and a sock taped on. Guess what we had to do with Emery yesterday? She is on an antibiotic to keep her thumb from being infected, and had to sleep with a sock on it. She cried for 40 minutes when we put her to bed. Poor baby.

Trey was supposed to get his shots yesterday...the district insurance had other ideas. Apparently, our PPO plan does not provide immunizations for kids from ages 3 to 7. They cover the well check-up, just not shots. Make tons of sense, right? I checked it, and the Cigna lady checked it. She said that it didn't make any sense and was passing it along to the account specialists. I can just see me taking Trey to the county clinic. Oh, goodness. I could take this time to give the district a tongue lashing, but I'm going to save that for the poor lady over at insurance when I call this morning. Maybe. I'll chicken out, don't you worry.

UPDATE:

Cigna yesterday: From ages 3 to 7 not covered...

Cy-Fair today: That doesn't sound right, if the American Medical Assoc. says that 4 yr. shots are suggested, then it is preventative care and that is 100% covered...let me look into it more and I'll e-mail you this afternoon.

Me not giving up, called back to CIGNA this morning: That doesn't sound right, let me look...she {lovely Imajean}, saw what we & the first CIGNA lady saw, that it appears that it wouldn't be covered. However, she then discovered that under Annual Routine Physical for ages 3-7, preventative care and immunizations are covered.

In a nutshell, CIGNA did not organize the plan very well to show that, and even its employees aren't looking at it correctly.

Trey's immunizations ARE covered.

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P.S. There are only 5 more basketball games left for Joe. Hallelujah!

This brings the world's longest post to a close, and if you're still reading...Bless your heart. :)