HC Spring Show '11

Justin's end of the year spring program at school.  We woke up the morning of the program to find that I didn't have a good outfit picked out.  After going through all the plaid shorts, we stumble upon some hand-me-downs that have some sort of red paint on the back of them.  I try to scrub the red out and send Justin to school with dampened (and red) shorts.  Next comes the shirt.  I hadn't switched to the next size shirts, so I grab an XS and decide it fits.  Which it really didn't.  I cram his feet in his brown "dressier" shoe and send my little man off to school.  Not bad considering the boy never wears nice anything anymore. 

Justin loves to sing.  His tummy looked like it was singing too as often as we got a glimpse of it.  Next time I should plan a little better with the clothes.

At VBS this week Justin said his favorite part is the singing.  I think he might grow up a choir boy which would make this momma very happy.  Sing it for the Lord, sweet boy.

We have started taking classes at Arrow Child & Family Ministries to straight adopt through the foster care system.  After having dessert with the Kleins, who are in charge of our adoption ministry at church, we both felt led to go this route for adoption.  So we need to take 12 classes, get a home study and a fire inspection (fire extinguishers here we come) and then wait for a call for some kiddos.  We would love siblings younger than the J man.  So this family photo of 3 will hopefully change in the next year to much larger. 

Justin and Jake

Justin & John (lots of alliteration going on here)

Justin was a part of a pre-K basketball team that consisted of 3 pre-K kids and JT.  Zachary was on his two-some team and they were fast friends.  We will miss Zachary next year!

Our buddy and neighbor, Ellery

Acting like boys with the boys.  Jonathan was a role model to Justin as every time he plays pretend his name is Jonathan.  As well as he wants a brother named Jonathan.

Mrs. Thigpen has been the headmistress at our school for 37 years.  She retired after this year and will be greatly missed!  We have a young new face coming in.  It won't be the same without Mrs. Thigpen who we dearly loved!

Peace out, Holy Cross.  See you for one last year in September!

Shane turns 30

My youngest brother is now joining the ranks in the third decade of his life.  Welcome to life as a 30 year old.

My parents and brother, Aaron, drove in from Waco for the actual day of Shane's birthday.  He said he wanted a Furer cookout.  We grew up swimming at this family's house that would cook hamburgers, hotdogs, chicken, and some other meat at times for our entire meal.  So we had a meat fest.  Gourmet hamburgers from Whole Foods, ribs, hotdogs (Shane wanted to try the buffalo ones), etc.  Let's just say we ate leftovers for days.

Justin playing Sorry with a football player's cap with Papa & Aaron while Daddy grilled.

Justin and Birdie had a 9 way battle going on.  Not sure if the cards were rigged?  It was nuts.

We stuffed out faces with meat and then settled in to old faithful.

The proverbial Happy Birthday was sung.

Candles were blown.

Trick candles were blown again.

Elise stayed back in Waco with Daniel and celebrated via Skype as we opened gifts.

Elise knew that one of Shane's love languages was words of affirmation, so she got letters and words of description from the family and put it together for a frame to encourage Shane.

My mom included this cut out of Shane in her homemade birthday card.  Justin was loving it.  Shane has never been a quiet golf dresser.

Siblings at their finest.

Growing up I always wanted a sister.  But each year that goes by, especially after having a son of my own, I love having brothers.   Shane is no exception to the rule.  Younger brother, the Lord has great plan for you in this next decade of life.  You have been blessed with the gifts of creativity, laughter, encouragement, seeing God's creation in color, and completing our family.  Thankful for you and looking forward to a great year ahead!

Easter 2011

Let's see if I can do something with this blog.  What better place to pick up than Easter.  

Easter this year was different in many ways.  We as a family prepared differently.  I anticipated it like never before.  It was deeply personal, and Justin was just as excited as we were.

We did the Resurrection Eggs 12 days leading up to Easter Sunday.  Justin loved telling his friends when they came over the entire story leading up to whatever egg we were on.  He always wanted to peak to the next egg, but we would have him wait in anticipation for what was next.

Good Friday was three days after my laproscopy.  I thought I would be jumping around like a little kid.  I was very wrong.  But thankfully Derek was off Friday in order to help out with Jaylen being at our home.  We decided to do an Easter egg hunt.  Jaylen had never done this before, and at one point thought a plastic golf ball was an egg itself.

It was fun watching the boys race around, especially since Jaylen had never done this before.  He was equally surprised that there were treats inside as well.  And he got to take them home - extra bonus!

One of their goodies were cars that changed colors according to the temperature of water they were in.

Justin is always so patient in showing Jaylen how to do certain things that are new to him.

We went inside and talked the real meaning of Easter.  Derek then shot hoops with the boys while granny took a seat on the couch to catch my breath.  Then we let Jaylen paint.

He painted a picture of me - sweet thing!  Jaylen loves me loving all over him - it's good for both of us.  Me bending over in this photo was the temporary position I held for the next 3 days. 

Derek and Justin went to Galveston after taking Jaylen home and I stayed back an extra night by myself.  I went to rent The Passion but instead had to buy it because it was all checked out.  I watched The Passion for the first time in years.  It was horrific - it was moving - it was true.   I cried, I worshiped, I thanked the Lord for His sacrifice.  


The next day I rode up with Shane to Galveston with the rest of the Morby clan.  Valerie is always so great with Justin.  They were just chillin' and looking at the water.

Some of the rest of the bunch sat back and watched the water balloon rally going on in the corner of the yard.

All the cousins in town for the weekend.

Water balloon sling shot.  It happens all the time.  This time the guys were shooting at the same boat as it went in and out of the canal.  On the final lap back, they hit the driver's wife's shoulder, who collapsed to the floor of the boat.  The driver gave a big thumbs down as all the fellas ran for cover with embarrassment.  Let's just say no more water balloons were shot that day.

Easter Sunday - Amy & Justin looked for Easter eggs.  We don't do the bunny at our house (heck, we don't even do Santa), so Derek went to hide the eggs for the big race.

Justin was gracious as an encourager as he would help Amy find eggs versus run and get all of them himself.  He sees the value in having a buddy over doing it solo.  Though this photo might show otherwise.

I love this photo for many reasons.  We are all in purple, casual for the service we were about to attend, and I could barely stand up to take this photo.  We go to a Presbyterian church down the road at Pirates Beach.  I knew a 1/3 of the church attenders from Houston for some reason or another.  They had a new pastor, new music director, and a sense of the Holy Spirit running through the revamped choir.  Justin liked sitting up close and hearing the choir really sing.

Me and Aim.

Michaelis meal.  So we made some tomato noodles and breaded pork tenderloin and had Shane over for dinner.  Then we pulled out the cascarones.

Never can get enough of these things.

One of the ways we prepared as family for Easter was this from Ann Voskamp's blog.  It was short, to the point, and made you stop and linger on the Word.  I loved it, and we used it as a family devotional every night.

I read about Reliving the Passion  on Sit for a Spell.  This book changed me.  It took the book of Mark and used the the first person as if you were there during the last week of Jesus' life.  There were 40 days, all for the length of Lent, and hands down I will read this every year in preparing my heart for Easter.  For His Sacrifice, for His Resurrection.





This Easter this year was different for me.  I want to be purposeful like this in the future.  It's not about giving up chocolate for a brief time in your life.  It's about being forever changed and forever grateful for the life I could have lived in exchange for the one I have now.

Let's write a little something....

So I can't seem to keep up my own blog these days, but happened to help my cousin, Ginger (aka Gingi) keep up her professional blog by writing a guest entry.  The assignment was to write to a younger self about learning from the past and looking to the future.  So check out my ramblings (and nonsense, let's admit it) here.