Coon Corner

Where does time go?

2009-12-15T08:51:00.000-08:00

I wish time would stand still sometimes! The days go by so fast and time seems to slip away. Emory is growing up so fast and i feel like im missing so much time with her. Chris found a memory card from one of our old cameras and had some pictures of her on it. They were only 2 yrs old but when your child is 3 and a half thats alot of time.This picture we took while she was suppose to be taking a nap....she had other plans and wanted to look outside.
I cant believe that this was 2 yrs ago. I remember exactly the day we took this picture. Since this picture we have had a birthday, found out i was pregnant with Dax, bought a house, had another birthday, had Baby Dax, and Chris has lost his job twice. Where does time go?
Dax turned 4 months old yesterday. Now is when i want to stop time and just watch him be little. He has his own personality now, he is the most laid back, calm, happiest baby i know. He is total opposite than his sister was. Emory was a very good baby but she just never seemed occupied, or settled. She never was the cuddle baby, she is her Gammas girl (my momma) and always has been. She thought about smiling but you had to work hard to get one. Shes has always been smarter than me and still is. Shes so smart, i think she is one of the smartest 3yr old i know. Things 4yr olds don't know Emory knows, shes a thinker....she most definitely didn't get that from me! She amazes me and Chris everyday with the things she says and does. Dax on the other hand, he's a momma's boy. I love saying that. He loves people though. Not shy at all. Emory at this stage would think about giving you attention and maybe give it to you if she was in the mood. Daxton will look at you and if you make a funny face or noise, you will get a reaction, most likely a smile! He had been like this since birth. He came out smiling and hasn't stopped. He very rarely cries. If you don't get there in time to fill that empty stomach or needs to be cuddled to go to sleep. Its never a whaling kind of cry but mostly little grunts getting your attention. The only time he has really just cried is the couple days after his shots, we think he would have a bad dream and remember that he was poked and get his feelings hurt. LOL! There is nothing more that i like than taking naps with him or juts cuddling. Like i said Emory never wanted to be cuddled. I think she is too much like me and didn't want any part of it. She does like cuddling but just not with me...mostly her daddy and her Gamma. Dax likes to cuddle with me and my momma when he gets the chance. I haven't really left him a lot. I leave him when i need to with either Chris's parents, my brother and his wife and over night with my mom and dad (which has been twice). I love both of my children very much but they are total opposite, but i didn't want them to be the same, that wouldn't have been very much fun. I say i cant wait till he is running in his sisters room stealing her toys and running down the hall way with his little trucks and cars but i can. I want him to stay small as long as possible, but i cant wait to hear his first words, watch his first steps and watch his little personality grow. I'm sure he will be complete opposite from Emory and I'm sure there will be many fights between them. I think i should start working on our time out chairs! haha! But i guess since we really cant stop time that i better enjoy the time i have with them both now.

O by the way, Dax now weighs in at 18.8lbs and is 26inches long. He's growing like a little weed. He's in 6-9month clothes and size 3 diapers. He's on the same path as his sister(who wears a size 6 girls), even though he is a little shorter than she is growing, boys grow taller later and i'm sure he will catch up! I will be looking UP to both of them soon enough.
This is by far one of my favorite pictures of Emory...im sure i will have one of Dax also!!
Happy Holidays!

Elmo, Shoe Boxes, birthdays, turkey, christmas...all in the same WEEK

2009-11-23T07:54:00.000-08:00

Its been pretty busy around the Coon house this past week, well week and half almost! This weekend was the only weekend Chris and I had felt like we didn't have anything to do and we were totally OK with that! We felt rested and thankfully Chris's didn't dread going to work the today. We both had got some needed naps, him because he works 12 hour shifts and is fighting a Upper Respiratory Infection and me because i have stayed up a lot the last 4 days with a very unsettled teething baby!!

So last Saturday the 14th Mom and I took Emory and Dax to see "When Elmo Grows Up", and we also took Cason, Emory's best friend and his momma Laura Beth. It wasn't as bad as it thought it was going to be. I'm impressed that both kids were so good the entire time. Cason got to hug Elmo, Zoe, Cookie Monster, and i believe Abby. Emory was not going to get that close, she liked looking and listening to them but she is a lot like me and preferes to just hang back!There are many more pictures but my mom has some and there were to many to choose from!

That evening Chris and I had the Youth coming to the church to fill Operation Christmas Child Shoe Boxes. If you don't know what those are, its an organization that takes filled shoe boxes full of bathroom necessities, coloring books, toys, candy etc, and ships them over seas to children that wont have a Christmas. We did 20 shoe boxes, i shopped for them and the Youth filled them, some how i didn't get pictures of this happening i guess it was because we were to busy trying to get them done. But i did get pictures of the end while we were playing with Dax..hehe

He is so sweet! I love that little face.

Sunday we had Casons birthday party to go to, hes 4! I kept Cason from 8 weeks old till he was a little over 2 yrs old. He was my first child i say, my first little boy. He's Emory's best friend. They have grown up together!This next is called..."How many guys does it take to put a toy track together........?"

Apparently 4!!!! Haha!
This week we did a lot also. I have found a great website thanks to Carla Hutchins its www.kraft.com, its absolutely amazing.I have made 6 recipes so far and none of them have went wrong. they are easy and affordable! They taste really good!

I also tried making Dax and Emory Thanksgiving shirt. Thanks Kathryn Bilberry ! She is the person who gave me the idea. Here is how they turned out!

This is Emory's!

Here is Daxtons!

Pretty Cute i thought!
This weekend we put up most of our Christmas things. We put up our tree and the 2 lonely Christmas Village buildings i have!

The house on the right is a bakery. My parents bought this for me on Wednesday and you will see why!That's right i have a bakery with my Maiden name on it! Yes it came that way! I was so excited!

So there is a little Catch up on what we have been up to i will leave you with some pictures to enjoy!!

Many more Years to come!!

2009-11-06T18:35:00.000-08:00

So 5 years ago today Chris and I were married at 2:00pm at Mt.Carmel Baptist Church. The weather was the same as today, sunshine and mid 70's! A bride couldn't ask for a more perfect day. I remember our wedding day like it was yesterday. I remember my bridesmaid taking me to breakfast, then getting my hair done, getting to church to see my girls getting ready, to my mom helping me put on my dress and my father walking in to see me for the first time in my dress. The look on my dads face was priceless. I'm a daddy's girl and probably has and always will be. Before i walked down the isle my dad pulled out a penny that he had found the day we told them we were getting married. it was a very sweet story because Chris and I told my parents, who i know was scared to death because we were so young but also knew that we were meant to be together, they had just wished we would have waited, But anyways while leaving the church that day my dad found this penny heads up with my birth year on it, he took that as a sign that it was going to be OK i guess because on my wedding day he took it out of his pocket and placed it in my clear Cinderella shoe. It was so sweet. I think my dad held on to my hand as long as he could walking down the isle and giving me away. There is a picture of my dad holding my hand and hes gripping so hard his knuckles are white. I cant imagine what goes through fathers mind as he gives his daughter away.One day Chris can try to explain it to me. i can remember making myself laugh so i wouldn't cry during the ceremony and the first kiss as Husband and Wife......Since then my life has never been the same. We have had our good times and our hard times but i cant imagine not going through those with anyone different. Chris is my rock. He's the person i can talk to about anything and EVERYTHING! I thank God everyday for putting him in my life and being a God loving Husband, it makes life so much easier when both of you rely on one person before each other and that's God. God is always first in my life, which thankfully makes me a better wife for my number two person, my husband. Chris and I have being hold hands in our walk with Christ as husband and wife for 5 yrs now, 6yrs as a couple and 7yrs as best friends. I wouldn't be the Christian i am now if Chris was not in my life. I would not have our two beautiful children with out Chris. We are still on a journey in life. God knows our path and we both are ready for what ever he puts in our way, whether it be a mountain, a hill, a boulder, or just a stone, whatever he gives we will move and conquer with only his help and us side by side. I'm in this journey for life and cant wait to see whats ahead. Thank you Chris for 5 wonderful years and 2 perfect children, i cant wait to see what 5, 10, and 20 years has to offer for us. I love you!

1 Corinthians 13:7
-----"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

Happy Halloween!!

2009-11-02T11:08:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a great Halloween weekend! Ours was full of plans of course and lots of first!

So Friday we sent Emory to Gamma and Papaws because we had plans Saturday, and it was just easier with out her there. So Friday night we were 3 yr old free, we of course went to the Whitehouse VS Nacogdoches football game, we won!!:-) There was a ton of Mt. Carmel members there because we were doing the concession stands this week, i was able to do it this year because of Daxton but there is always next year. We had dinner at the Kirkpatricks before the game, Papa Murphy's Pizza was on the menu...it was so good! Its great to have friends to sit out on the back porch, eat pizza and laugh for hours at a time. We were having so much fun that we had to make ourselves get up and go to the game! They are wonderful people and we consider them to be family, what more could a person ask for than great food, great family to laugh with and a victory over Naco! It was a wonderful start to our weekend.

Saturday...wow was it LONG!! So Chris, Daxton and myself headed to the church around 11:15. We were having a youth fall party from 12-4. We didn't have many kids so up but the ones that did had a blast. Chris started off with some silly little relay games and then gave them some riddles to figure out like...what do you get when you have a Dracula and a snow man...frost bite! Lame we know but it was suppose to get them in the spirit! Our big game we had was a scavenger hunt, we gave the kids 10 bible verses to look up then they had to figure out the "Key" word then take a picture of the key word or someone doing the key word, and they had an hour to do it in. It was pretty funny seeing the pictures they came up with, i wish i still had them but they got deleted! I had pizza and drinks waiting on them when they got back to church and also all the fixings to make Carmel apples, they were pretty tasty! After all the fun was complete we helped with the finishing touches of the Church Fall Festival. There was a lot o people there this year and a good amount of new faces, which is always good! Here are a few pictures for you to enjoy!

Emory the "Super Helper Girl"- not super girl! BAHAHA!

Daxton, my little puppy, he was so stinking cute!! His pawpaw Don told me the only other time i can put make up on him is if its the black under the eye junk football players put on.

He was very content in his stroller with his pacy! Or talking with his Gamma and Nana!

After the Fall festival we headed to my brother house to go trick-or-treating. This is were we created a monster, Emory finally figured out what Halloween was all about,....dress up, be cute, say "Trick or Treat, Happy Halloween" and you get FREE candy! and thank yous get extra sometimes!!!! Going to Uncle Shawn and Aunt Lara's House!

TRICK OR TREAT!!

This is were she figured it out.....Uncle Shawn took her over to his neighbors house and she said ...."Can you take me to more house's?...I want more candy!"

Daxton of course wanted nothing to do with the whole visiting trick or treat thing.

Give him a few years he will figure it out!!!

So it was a pretty long night after my brothers house we went to both of Chris;s grandmothers house's and to his parents house, so we could say that Emory did go "Trick or Treating." We got home and Chris asked me about 9:45 what time it was and i said 8:45..DAY LIGHT SAVINGS TIME, lets just say our be was very comfy an hour earlier that day...HAHA, but unfortunately the kids don't realize your suppose to sleep that extra hour, not get up and hour earlier. Hopefully they will figure it out!! Well anyways i will leave you with one last picture.. of all the grand kids(for my parents that is!)

Thats Riley he's my nephew! Until next time, hope you have a good one!

The Boot

2009-10-28T17:46:00.001-07:00

So today at about 2 i was asked to do a cake for a birthday party for this evening at 7:30! I didnt get the actual cake supplies till 5:15 and finished it at 6:30! I think its so stinkin cute!! So i had to share it! I'm thinking you can tell what it is!!

So what do you think????

Introducing Bella Ann

2009-10-28T11:11:00.001-07:00

So as i posted last time we were getting a puppy,instead i think we got another human being.
I introduce to you Bella Ann Coon!

So Bella is a cocker spaniel and precious! Shes a little spoiled, she sleeps with us at night, this is because Chris and I both need our sleep and as soon as we put her in her kennel she barks and HOWLS, if you have ever seen Lady &The Tramp, she does exactly what Lady does the first night they got her, but for us its every night. She seems to be very attached to me, I'm not sure why usually all the animals we have ever gotten have been Chris's. She doesn't leave my side at night, and she wants beside me on the couch or at my feet. My dad is thinking that she realizes i am nursing and is replacing her mommy with me, i don't know. All i know is she wont leave me or Dax alone.

This is what happens when i leave the room for 10 seconds! Right up into his lap! We have a little problem with her biting him, mostly on his toes, u can see how they look nice and tasty, they hang over his seat right at her level, but she bites everyone so i just have to keep a close eye on her! But as you can tell he doesn't mind her! We have been trying to house break her but shes not doing very well, thankfully we don't have carpet in the house! We are kennel training her but that isn't going very well. We put her in it, in our bathroom, with the fan on and the door closed then our bedroom door closed, thinking that she would stop barking after 5-10 min but nope, shes goes for hours at a time. But she goes potty in the house, even if i have just took her out and she went there she comes right back in a goes on the floor. I have no idea what to do... guess we will figure it out. Its really funny when we get her out of her kennel because she will step out sit down look straight up at us and bark as loud and as fast as she could, we say she is cussing us out! Nice to say i know but if you could only hear her!

Emory does really good with her! She still doesn't realize that she just wont come on demand so i have to explain multiple times a day that Bella is going to do what ever she wants! Emory helps out a lot with Bella, feeds her, tells me she peed in the floor she even took her out potty for her daddy! I took this picture to show you what my life looks like....

Emory being a typical 3 year old...Dax I'm sure asking what the heck was going on behind him..and Bella in her bed on the couch beside who else but me!!!

Life has been a little hectic lately, not much sleep for mommy and daddy (he takes Bella potty during the night), short naps for both kids and lots of cleaning of the floors!! I cant wait for Friday night high school football and Saturday Fall Festival at Church. I'm sure this will be the last post for the week unless something happens to the kids and they both fall asleep at the same time..:-) Today is suppose to be the only day this week that its not suppose to rain so I'm thinking we may go for a walk! We all need some vitamin D! Until next time, Have a Safe Halloween!

Our crazy house hold!

2009-10-21T12:34:00.000-07:00

So Mondays are one of those days where i have certain things i need to get done for the rest of the week to go pretty steady! I usually go to the grocery store and get all the groceries for the week, pay any bills that aren't mail-in, Internet or over the phone payable and do whatever else needs to get done! Well i had it all plan 1. go to Church to get Chris's paycheck, 2. Go by Target to get a few things, including Halloween Costumes, Emory Got Super Girl(she calls it Super Helper), this isnt Emory of course, but she isn't wearing it till Halloween or she will want to wear it every day till Halloween!

and Daxton will be a puppy..there isn't a lot of selections for 0-3month babies...o well its still cute. and this isn't Daxton either..lol

So we got our shopping done at Target and headed to the bank, well as soon as we entered it Lil' Man started squalling! It was lunch time! so i hurried up and decided to take Emory to McAlisters (Mataliters, as Emory says) so she could eat and i could feed Daxton, and everyone could be happy! By the time we got done it was almost 1 and neither one of them have had a nap! Knowing that i skipped out on Walmart, the bad thing...no food for dinner!! Thankfully i live 20feet away from Chris's parents house and Don came over to watch them while i ran to Brookshires! Hes a good person to have around!! :-) So around 6 o'clock i got a phone call from Chris, who was still at work, explaining me how a Mommy cat had dropped three kittens in the plant where he works and that he has been watching them and that she hasn't been back in almost 12hours. Well of course I'm thinking that hes talking about three 8week old cats that were being weened. But know he tells me that he believes them to be about a week old and he was afraid that if he left them there over night they would die, what was i to say "NO", yeah right, my parents never left a cat in the cold or a dog! :-) So i told him to pack them up and bring them home. I got on the Internet to prepare my self for syringe feed kittens and waking up every 3 hours to feed them. He brought them home in a shoe box, that tells you how tiny they were. 2 of them were calico and about 3 oz and the runt was black and white and weighed about 2 oz. They were so cute and tiny, they squeaked, instead of meowed, they could barley walk and their eyes were barley open! I'm thinking they were 10-14days old! So i took them in for then night but was determined that i was not going to foster these kittens. We are getting a puppy this weekend, i cant get a puppy when I'm bottle feeding three cats!

Anyways the Klein Animal Shelter in J'Ville took in 2 of the kittens, the runt and the biggest calico(who didn't eat very well), because they had a surrogate mommy cat that would feed them. The other calico went to a guy at Chris's work. The kids and I meet my Dad for some lunch since he was working at Chris's work that day! Then the kids and i went home for some much needed rest! So we rested for a little bit and when Emory woke up we decorated her pumpkin, I picked up this decorator kit for it at Target and its like the old Bright Lights we had when i was little. You scrape out the pumpkin trace your pattern then poke the little pegs in the holes, put a light in the pumpkin and see your creation!! Its really cute i will post a pic as soon as i get my camera back. Well Emory decided she wanted to put it on PawPaw and Nanas front porch where everyone could see it. So i put Dax in is pouch, grabbed the pumpkin and headed to pawpaws. We dropped it off, talked to him for a little bit then headed back home. Well as i went to turn the door knob, it didn't turn. I was locked out of my house, no keys, no phone, nothing! Just me and the kids! Didn't even think about taking my keys i live 20feet away from where i was going. I looked at Emory and asked her if she locked the door, with a cute little smirk she said "NO..."giggle giggle! UGH!! So back to PawPaws house we went. This was at 4, Chris's didn't get home till 8:30! Thankfully i dint have to worry about formula and Nana had some size 4 diapers that we wrapped Dax in when the time came to change him. It was really funny! Thankfully we survived the day!

Well i said earlier that we are getting a new addition to our family, crazy we are, i know, but that's just who we are. HAHA!! We are getting a 6 week old black and white Cocker Spaniel. This is a picture of some of the puppies from the litter. We don't know which one we are getting but we get to pick HER out on Saturday! We still haven't chosen a name so if you have any suggestions we would appreciate it! Leave us a message and let us know what you think!!

Its Wednesday..the week is headed downhill!! Yay for the weekend!!

Bye For Now!

Long 4 Days

2009-10-19T07:43:00.000-07:00

So i haven't been on the Internet very much the last four days, so that's why i haven't posted anything. I was kind of busy with my first wedding cake. Exciting.... i know!! Well for me at least! I actually started on Tuesday by making icing and Wednesday i make cake batter(i ended up with 8 batched of it!!)

Thursday was a fun full day of baking 12 layers for the cake and icing. 3 layers for each tier, which means 4 tiers for all you math pros out there! I started at 9am baking and got done baking them around 3 i believe. I iced the tiers, till i ran out of icing, until about 10:30 Thursday night!

Friday i started around 9:30 after i let my sleepy husband sleep in for a while. I put the fondant on, and piped the dots until about 11pm. But thankfully by then i had finished it. My hand was looking a little limp from piing and using a rolling pin all day and my arms and back were pretty sore, i think the bottom tier weighed in around 25-30lbs. It was a MASSIVE cake. I didn't end up going to bed till 2am then got up at 5am and fought with a 3yr old till 6:30 and by the time i got in bed at 7 and closed my eyes dax woke up around 7:45! Thankfully Chris knew i had a rough night trying to get some sleep he got up with the Kids and let me sleep till 10! I've not done that in a while!

Saturday was just a crazy, i took the cake to the reception around three just to show Mrs. Jamie and Mr. John and then came back around 5:30 just to get it all set up for the reception at 7! It was a beautiful reception and i have pictures but forgot my camera there. So later this week i will post pictures of it! But for now i have 2 pictures of the cake that i can show you. I was really nervous the whole night. I sat at the closet table just to hear what people were saying about it! Paranoid...i am!! SO here it is!

Well there it is! Im off now to go Grocery Shopping! Fun Fun! I will post more pictures later!

My worry of the week "The Cake"

2009-10-13T13:17:00.000-07:00

So about a year ago my best friend Amanda introduced me into the world of cake making! I absolutely love it! It is my time to relax even when then fondant starts to sweat and tear I've never just gave up on it! I would say I'm a crafty person, i love to make Mums for homecoming, baby arrivals, i have decorated 5 rocking chairs for baby gifts, I'm a scrapbooker (Ive not done it in forever) and I'm in charge of Vacation Bible School Decorations at church. But making cake has taking my craftiness to the extreme. I catch myself DVRing every cake making show and re watching them to see how they did certain techniques. Here are a few cakes that wither i have made or both me and Amanda have done.

Cant really see this one, but this is the first cake me and Amanda did, it was for a baby shower. I can see all the imperfections. But it was good for our first.

This was my first attempt at piping! It was for my mother in-laws birthday!

2nd attempt..Tuckers first bday! The baby shower cake was for him also, a year ago! Time flies!

This one almost ended up on the floor, but i was a fast catch!!

This was Tuckers personal cake. He ate the entire cake!! He wore a 1st bday shirt that had monkey on it so i made him a banana!

The cake i am most proud of is Emorys 3rd bday cake. Amanda helped me out on the bottom tier but had to go back home to Waco that weekend. I was on my own! Amanda is my partner in cake making and i miss her not being in Tyler. This means I'm doing cakes by myself now, unless i can get her down here! HAHA! Back to Emorys cake! I think this is the coolest cake. I'm so proud of it!

Don't mind the plastic wrap in the bow loops, it
kept them from collapsing before the gum paste set.

So as you can tell i got better through out the last year! But this week I'm embarking on something HUGE! I'm doing my first wedding cake. Not just a cake that only family will see and say "It's so cute", because they don't want to hurt my feelings, when i know its not the cutest it could be, but for a wedding reception, the most important time for a girls life. A wedding reception where supposedly 100 people will be there looking at the cake. Now its not a super hard cake, it probably will be the simplest cake i will make. Its going to be a 4 tier white fondant cake with sot accents to give it texture. It will have a ribbon around each bottom of the tier and a fall cake topper. The only fear i have is that this weather will be horrendous. I'm praying that its not 100% humidity or the fondant wont do well at all, and when its just plain with no decorations the flaws will be noticeable! I'm super excited though, to be asked to do it was a jaw dropper for me! I couldn't believe it! The cake is for this Saturday, so starting tomorrow i will be elbow deep in batter and icing for the next few days! Friday will be fondant day! DUM DUM DUM!! We will see how this goes! I will definitely post pictures!

New Start

2009-10-12T11:55:00.000-07:00

I've been reading tons of people blogs and decided to try it out!

I have tons of family that live in Virginia, and I don't always have the time to call them or email them back, considering i have a 8week old and a rambunctious 3 yr old, so hopefully they can keep updated through my blog.

So this weekend was very hectic, both Chris and i look at each other around 7pm Saturday night and was surprised that it was still Saturday. Here's a little look at our Saturday!

So we both got up around 8am, i feed Dax, got Emory feed and dressed, and got myself ready for the day. Chris got his shower, put on his MCBC (Mt.Carmel Baptist Church) Mission Work t-shirt, and was ready for a full day of work. We meet each other in front of the dinner room table and said Love you, have a good day, see you later, not realizing that we had both been up for and hour and a half and not said a word to each other till right then. Its amazing how you get caught up in life and not stop to tell each other good morning until you are going separate ways. I hate that! :-)

So i was off to take Emory half way to Nacogdoches which would be Reklaw,TX about 45 mins from Whitehouse to meet up with her Gamma and PawPaw (my parents). She hadn't seen in about 2 weeks and it wasn't her asking to go see them it was my Mom calling me at the WHS vs JVill Football game (we won 27-22, nerve racking game!) asking is i could meet them half way on Saturday morning..."Only if Emory wanted to", what three yr old doesn't want to go to a grandparents house, where she gets all the attention since little brother isn't there, and mostly anything and everything she wants. Of course she wanted to go! So i packed up the kids meet them around 10:30 to drop her off, ended up staying with them (sitting in the car) till around 11:15, Dax had to eat and Gamma had to get her baby fix. After saying our goodbyes me and Dax headed home. I had a Bridal shower for a good friend around 2! So we got home around noon, i got a shower while Dax was sleeping, did my hair which i haven't done since he was born, put on make up and totted him to nana and pawpaws (Chris parents) for them to watch him until Chris got home. I headed to the Bridal shower! It was for Taylor Rogers, we've been friends for 8 yrs now, we've had our ups and down but its always good to have friends you can count on. It was a very nice shower saw Megan Eades there, it was a nice time to catch up with each other!

Don't mind the pastiness of my skin..i just realized my face didn't hit sunlight the entire summer because of the pregnancy! Other than that..i love this picture of Me, Taylor and Megan! As someone said as we were taking this picture- "Best Friends All Grown up". I ended up staying till 4:45. That's the longest I've left Dax since he was born! It was refreshing!

As i was taking kids to meet grandparents and enjoying some much needed girl time. Chris and his Youth group were at the East Texas Rescure Mission cleaning for our Faith in Action series at church. our church adopted ETRM and have provided a bunch of clothes, necessities, food, manual labor(fixing walls, floors, planting flowers, etc.) and cleaning. He took 7 youth and meet up with an older group of men that were doing some handy work and also the 1st & 2nd grade, 3rd and 4th classes that were doing curb appeal! Chris said that every 10 minutes or so they were asking the guy heading up the cleaning what they could do next, they got some much needed cleaning done!

Chris and Perry Samples headed to the ETRM

The Group for Saturday!- the little one on the left hitched a ride to meet up with his class!

Chris and Emily helping out the first and second graders. That's Nell on the left with the white shirt, (shes my mentor and youth mom and 1st &2nd grade teacher..lol) and Carolyn is the one with the red shirt (Youth mom & 3rd and 4th grade teacher)

This picture Chris's mom took...LOOK CHRIS CAN CLEAN!! Thanks momma i have evidence that he really can.

Cleaning out the Clothes Closet!

Representing MCBC YOUTH!!

After a hard day of cleaning and getting dirty it was off to CiCi's Pizza.. YUMM!!

This next picture you will notice the entire buffet line is full of MCBC T-Shirts!

I have to add this last picture, this is where my family and I call Home! This is the perfect house that i could ever have! It has the best family, best friends and the best FOOD, all in one place!!

Mt. Carmel Baptist Church

I think this day was a successful day! We ended it with a nice dinner at Olive Garden and then a long visit with my brother Shawn and Sister in-law Lara. We didn't end up going to bed until 11:30 that night but it was worth it! A day full of reuniting friendships and doing Gods work! I cant wait till i can get back on the band wagon and help the youth again!

"You cannot truly love God if you do not truly love people! Do you truly love the people around you or are you just playing nice?Remember, playing doesn't cut it with God."-Chris Coon

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. Mark 10:45