Austin Art Car

This car was in the ACC parking lot when I went to training. Crazy! Sent it to Sha for fun but it was a little early she texted me back - Morning . . . Yawn! Sorry!

Red Velvet cake

Belle had red velvet cake for her birthday party.

Garden prep

I have a lot of photos to get downloaded off my camera phone. Here are some I took today on the good camera. We finally started cleaning up the backyard getting ready for the garden planting during spring break. Anne was a big help - she liked digging and playing in the dirt. Aunt Christine brought us a list of good things to plant in March and some seeds.

Park

Balcones Park pictures More pictures of the girls at the park. They had fun going down all the slides together. Anne has no fear! The next day we went to the Cedar Park area and went on more slides.

Aidan's birthday

Aidan's birthday party -12yrs old Aidan's party was at Balcones Park. There were a lot of kids running around and they loved the big ball to roll around in.

Book Fair read a coaster pictures

Jamie and Aidan enjoyed the book fair.

Winner

Jamie won 4 bags of Valentine goodies from IBC bank at HEB. She was so excited. There was a bag of sugar cookies, a bag of dumdums and candy, a bag of treats - like bubbles and notebooks, and a craft.

Valentines Day photos

Valentines Day 2011 I woke up to a special surprise - a Vanilla bath basket, butterfly bracelet and earrings on the table from my sister Teresa.! Thank you. Jamie made lots of valentines for everyone. She made a pillow in school for me. We looked at cards and kept picking the same ones so we laughed and put them back. We got a singing MIckey one for Anne. And "Step away from the candy" for Charles. Jamie wanted a bear and Anne wanted a balloon. James bought us all roses. We had friends over for dinner - chicken parmesan and spaghetti. And Marilyn made her awesome chocolate brownie trifle to die for.

True Valentine stories

We have been listening to the love stories on KLove radio station. Matthew West will pick a love story from the listeners and then write a song for them to be heard on Monday for the first time. There were several stories about people who suffer from depression and how their loved ones stay by them and wipe their tears. I was really touched by that.

Book Fair

The middle school had a carnival book fair this past week. I worked full-time Monday and Tuesday to make up hours from last week. I finally made it on Thursday Family Night. We saw Aidan and his mom there. His birthday is Thursday the 17th and they invited Jamie over for a pizza party on Saturday, 19th. We took pictures with the camera phone on the Reading Coaster. The librarian wore a rainbow colored wig; Jamie hopes to win one for fun from the raffle. I had a hard time with the older themes. We could only agree on the new American Girl book - Lanie. She has outdoor genes and her family had indoor genes. Jamie and I are reading it together. We just finished the Total Tragedy of a Girl named Hamlet for the Mother Daughter book club that we went to Thursday night also. Sometimes it's just us and one other girl. But I haven't given up yet. I'm holding on to reading to my girl as long as I can.

We also stopped by Austin Pizza between book events to pick up our free passport pizza!!

Anne's Valentine

This was Anne's Valentine from church/sunday school teachers. The lady makes awesome cards for us every week. This one says - Unforgettable . . . that's what you are! I love songs too!
It was full of goldfish, pretzels, raisins and M&Ms - guess what Anne ate first. haha

1234 I Love you cake!

We cleaned the pantry and found cake flour so we made a 1-2-3-4 vanilla cake recipe we found on the back. We had fun making a 3 layer cake with the top one being the heart pan. It was something like 1 cup of milk, 2 cups of sugar, 3 cups of flour, and 4 eggs (plus 1 tsp vanilla).

Happy Birthday Charles

Charles has almost lost 100 lbs. He really wants to go to Golden Corral and has promised himself he will only eat salad and protein. I bought him Red Velvet cookies even though he can only have 1/2 a cookie!

Pink Hats

Anne found some of Jamie's hats and had fun trying them on.

All Girl Party

Last night, Jamie dressed up for an all girl party at church to welcome the new youth minister's 2 daughters Meredith and Meghan. They had a great time with Valentines and girl stuff - made heart pizzas, decorated heart cookies, made candy necklaces, painted faces and nails. James had to work overtime so I didn't get pictures. Here is a bag she decorated.

Gift of Friendship

My praying mom friend came over on Friday and brought me this lovely teacup. "A sweet friendship refreshes the soul." Proverbs 27:9 The Message

In December at the holiday tea, we decided to pray together again monthly even though Jamie has moved up to middle school. So we can pray deeply about real issues in our lives. Thank you God for a good friend. Found out Wednesday Jamie may need surgery to remove her thyroid this summer. We have been trying to regulate her thyroid with medicine for a few years. Still praying for healing!

House Boat pictures

House Boat Party We had a great time on the house boat last weekend. There was a Superbowl on TV but I was enjoying watching the water and my husband grilling out on the deck. We watched the sunset and took pictures. The kids tried to play UNO but then played games on their phones. We brought bubbles and the kids loved them. And it was Lilly's birthday so we had a fairy cake to finish off the fun.

Church - Super Bowl Party

Feb. 6

Super Bowl Party

Hosted by Paul and Marina Rusch

We will party on the houseboat – you won’t want to miss this!

James really wants to go since we don't watch it at home.

Pancake Breakfast

Feb. 5

Buzz Productions Annual Fundraiser

What: All you can eat pancake breakfast (plus we will see the children perform one of the numbers from the show)

Where: Applebee’s restaurant at Lakeline Mall Blvd. and Hwy 183

Time: 8:30 to 10:00 am

Cost: Donation at the door, suggested $6.00 per person

This company is owned and operated by Katie Brock, one of our own from HBC. Katie teaches children ages 7-18 acting and at the end of the production year they perform in that year’s show. She does amazing work with these children. Marilyn has attended her shows for the past 5 years and has always been entertained and impressed. She holds this fundraiser each year to raise money for her current production, this year is “Shakespeare Comes to Calamity Falls.” She doesn’t turn anyone away and some of these children are on scholarship so the money raised helps to defer the production costs.

Lollipop

Anne loves her lollipop/candy! Jamie wanted me to post it.

Hot Chocolate

Anne really likes my hot chocolate! I love watching her!

Sock ball fight

We used to have sock ball fights in VA when Jamie was little. We pulled out the socks to show Anne how fun it can be.

Snow adventures in afternoon

Snow in Texas pm When Dad came home from work, they made a little snowman in the backyard. We had a small patch still in the shade.

Stuffed Animal adventure

stuffed animal adventure Jamie dumped a lot of our stuffed animals on the big bed and we had a blast playing!

Snow adventures in morning

Snow in Texas Anne liked making snow angels and snow ice cream!

Snow day

We finally got snow! Jamie was so excited. We showed Anne how to make snow angels. Camera battery died so will have to figure that out later. We made snow ice cream but they enjoyed just eating plain snow!

Texas Memorial Museum

Texas Memorial Museum We finally made it to this museum and ran through it and got our passport stamped before it expired Jan 31st! Now to find time to go get our free pizza! Funniest part - Jamie saying does that sign really say Please Touch!

Birthday party

ACM birthday party We were invited to our neighbor's 3rd birthday party at the children's museum. The ball exhibit opened Saturday and it was great! Anne and Jamie both loved it.

Power outage at MMS

Jamie called me on her cell in the morning during school and my heart stopped. She was freezing as there was no heat at school and said please come get me. I had her uncle go and pick her up and it took him an hour standing in line to get a permit for her to leave. But they finally agreed to excuse the absence. We just stayed home today. Hopefully it will snow and be done with it. I have been so sick finally got an antibiotic to help.

Email to Parents - There were many factors in play with our situation today regarding the power outages. I was in communication with my head custodian, cafeteria manager, administrative team and office staff. We experienced four blackouts with most lasting over an hour. At 10:30 my cafeteria manager had enough food for 257 if the power did not come back on. In addition, even when power was restored, the heat was not turning on. With lunches only one hour away, my team made the decision to alert staff, students and parents of this situation. We decided that if parents wished to pick up their children knowing that there may be a heating and lunch issue, we would honor that decision. At no time did we cancel classes. We tried to get the word out as quickly as we could but many of our parents do not have electronic access and power was also out at homes. The message about the situation came mainly from the students calling home.

Of course, the power finally stabilized right before lunches and were we able to have enough food prepared for all just minutes before lunch. However, many parents were already arriving. I immediately went to parents to let them know that we were fully prepared to feed all students. Some parents decided to check out their students anyway since there was uncertainty to the power situation and heating of the school.

We apologize for any inconvenience of the day and hope you realize that we wanted everyone to be aware of the situation to make their own decision as to what would be best for their child. I have been in contact with the district to ensure all will go smoothly tomorrow if we experience such blackouts again. We have food being delivered that does not have to be cooked and teachers have alternate lesson plans ready. We will continue to work on out systems for a more efficient process. Thank you for your understanding.

Kimiko Cartwright
Principal, Murchison Middle School.

Gingerbread house

Gingerbread house We finally had time to decorate our gingerbread house.