By the Numbers

4 - babies I held and loved on in the church nursery on Sunday.

56 - Years young was Aunt Charlene this weekend.

20 - persons who joined us for Aunt Charlene's birthday party on Sunday after church.

1 - Yummy cake - German Chocolate - from my favorite bakery - yes, it was that good.

10 - days until school starts

4 - boxes of crayons on the school supply list

2 - new pairs of shoes for school .. pink and brown

3 - age of the majority of members in my new Sunday School class

3 or 4 - weeks until aforementioned Sunday School class begins

3 - adults who've signed up to help in this new Sunday School adventure - Hi Gary and Cherry!

And one final funny story ...

On Sunday night, Emily was eating a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich at the kitchen table while I was cleaning up the kitchen. I had a regular old bottle of cleaner that I was getting ready to spray onto the kitchen island. Emily asked me what that was and I said "It's some spray cleaner." And Emily says "Oh, I have seen that on TV." Ha! Is that the only place she's ever seen spray cleaner? SURELYNOT!

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Topsy Turvy Tomato Planter Update - 3 Months

I had to move my Topsy Turvy Tomato Planter to hang in the tree because it was getting too long for it's previous home. It was nearly dragging the ground.







My tomato plant has beautiful green leaves on it, but no flowers right now. And obviously no tomatoes.



I am beginning to think this experiment is going to be a failure. What do you think?

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4-Layer Delight

Last night, Emily helped me make 4-Layer Delight. We didn't plan to cook together. The opportunity just sorta presented itself so we took full advantage of it. I must say the result turned out really good. It was delicious.

I thought I'd share the recipe with you guys. Here goes ...



4-Layer Delight

Layer 1: 1 cup flour, 1 stick margarine (melted), 1/2 cup nuts, chopped. Press into greased pan. Bake 325 degrees for 25 mins.

Layer 2: 8 oz cream cheese, 1 cup powdered sugar, 1/2 large bowl whipped topping. Mix and pour into cooled crust.

Layer 3: 2 small boxes instant pudding, 3 cups milk. Mix together and chill.

Layer 4: Top with remaining whipped topping. Garnish with nuts or cocoa, if desired. Chill before serving.



I make mine the "lower fat" way - just substitute in equal amounts "lite" whipped topping, 1/3 less fat cream cheese, and 1% milk. I have tried using lower fat margarine in the crust, but it doesn't really work so I stick with regular margarine.

I was going to take a picture of the final product, but we ate it for breakfast. Not all of it, but it just doesn't seem right to take a picture of half-eaten food.

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Someone's Been Sneakin 'Round My Back Door

This morning, I went outside to take out the trash and I immediately noticed some muddy footprints on our back steps. There were lots of little footprints all over the steps!

I'm thinking raccoon. I saw a big fat raccoon running across the yard a couple weeks ago when I was out watering. I'm thinking he's been sneaking 'round my back door.

What do you think? Does this look like raccoon footprints?

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Prayer Requests

Tonight, I'm coming to you with a few prayer requests.

Heather Chandler - Heather is a friend of mine from high school. She was diagnosed with appendix cancer a few months ago and is currently undergoing treatments. She is only thirty years old and has two adorable children. Please pray for Heather to keep her energy and recover quickly from the chemo treatments while the cancer is destroyed! You can visit her website @ http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/heatherchandler or her Facebook group @ A Prayer For Heather Chandler.

Kennedy Grace - Comedian Kenn Kington came to speak at our church last sunday. He told about his young daughter's battle with ALL Leukemia. She recently completed treatments. Please pray that she'll remain cancer-free. You can visit her website @ http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/kgk.

Kate McRae - Five-year-old Kate was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor and just started chemo treatments yesterday. Please pray that she will have minimal side effects from the treatments and that the treatments will totally eliminate the cancer cells. For the type of cancer that she's battling, it's important that the surgery and chemo gets rid of every single cancer cell. You can visit her website @ http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/mcraekate or her Facebook Group @ Pray for Kate McRae.

If you have any other prayer requests (related to illness or anything else), please post them in the comments or email them to me at jenviolet@gmail.com and I will try to get them posted. I pray that God will use THIS BLOG to His Glory and to bring people closer to Him.

My God is bigger than cancer!

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I Don't

• I don't like making lists. But I make a lot of lists.

• I don't like to have idle hands. My hands usually have to be doing something. I used to cross-stitch and crochet while watching TV, but it's too hard to manage with a child around. Now I blog.

• I don't cook anything that takes more than about 30 minutes on weekdays. If it has to go into the oven, it will probably take too long.

• I don't like folding laundry. Sometimes I let it "rest" on the sofa for several days before I fold it.

• I don't often get to work on time. I used to get there early every day. But now nobody seems to care. So I no longer seem to care. I always think I should care more about that.

• I don't like to eat cold pasta. No pasta salad. No cold pasta anything. Ever.

• I don't drink root beer ... or coffee. Diet Coke or water are my drinks of choice.

• I don't have much willpower when it comes to sweet stuff ... especially ice cream. Yum yum!

• I don't know why I like sleeping with a pillow over my face.

• I don't see the glass as half-empty. I see it as half-full.

• I don't know what I would do without Jesus Christ my Savior.

• I don't ever have to find out. Thank You God!

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Chicken Spaghetti

I thought I would share one of my favorite recipes with you. It's yummy Chicken Spaghetti.

Boil large fryer or 6 split chicken breasts (bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts). Cool then debone. Cook spaghetti (about 10-12 oz.) in broth until tender.

Add to spaghetti:

• 1 can mushroom soup
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 1 can cheddar cheese soup
• 1 can Ro-tel tomatoes

Add chicken.
It's just that simple. This recipe makes a big pot of chicken spaghetti and it is soooooo good. You can freeze the leftovers. It is making me hungry just thinking about it.
Try it! You'll like it!

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For Oklahomans Only

Have you heard about this?

As you may know, the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety (DPS) quit sending Driver’s license renewal notices a few years ago. They now have an option on their web-site that you can use to sign up to receive an e-mail notice 45 days before your license expires.

It’s easy and free! Check it out. www.dps.state.ok.us/renewal/

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Back to School Shopping

This weekend, we started our back to school shopping. In just a few short weeks, Emily will be going to full day Pre-K. She's excited about starting back to school and I'm excited for her, but why is it so hard on me?

Emily picked out a Barbie backpack and a butterfly lunch box. It was such a special time to be able to go with her and help her look through all the selections and pick out the items she'll be using at school.

We printed off the school supply list for Emily's school. Soon, we'll go to the store to get all the boxes of crayons, markers, pencils and scissors that she'll need. We'll buy a nap mat, headphones, baby wipes, plastic baggies and playdoh too. And that's not all!

I remember how much I enjoyed back to school time when I was a young girl. (Yes, it's true!) It was so fun to get all my new school supplies and look them over and organize them and think about where everything would go.

It's unbelievable how much goes into this school thing. I am fully prepared to sign up to be one of the homeroom mothers. It will be hard to manage that while working full-time, but I think it's worth it. I have to do what's best for my family. That's the only way I know how to do it.

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Refreshed and Renewed

Tonight after supper, Emily and I went outside to water the flowers. I inadvertently forgot about my plants while I was away on vacation and so they are all looking pretty sad right now. All the daylilys have lots of yellow leaves on them, smallish flowers. Even the sweet potato vine was withered and near death.

Emily used her watering can to help me water some of the flowers and then we played in the sprinkler. Emily got soaking wet and had a blast. When we were getting ready to go inside, I put the still-running water hose in the flower bed. I turned around to gather up our stuff and Emily picks up the hose and turns it on me!

Just like the water refreshes and renews the flowers, my vacation has refreshed and renewed my spirit. It has really helped me be more patient and just enjoy spending more time with my family.

We should do that more often. (Just not in Memphis!)

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Home Again, Home Again

After a busy and fun week, we finally made it home last night at about 8pm. I was so glad to be home, but I hated the thought of having to go back to work today. In fact, I was so disappointed about the end of my vacation that I failed to do my laundry last night and was struggling to find something to wear this morning. Ahh!

So I thought it would be fun to do a little backwards recap of our vacation. First things first ... well, last things first ... I was so so excited to see Emily on Saturday afternoon. She was still taking her nap when we got to my parents house. I had to sit on the couch and patiently wait for her to wake up. When she saw her dad, she was so excited and she gave us such sweet hugs. Last night when we got home, she said "I love our house!" Then a minute later "I love you too, Mama." Ha!

I was so glad that Emily had a good time while Mike and I were in vacation. That made it even easier for Mike and I to have a good time in Memphis. And we did have so much fun. It was fun to just laugh at all the things that happened to us while we were in Memphis. We liked exploring the city "off the beaten path" and people watching too.

I will admit that the trolley cars on the streets in downtown Memphis really freaked me out. They drive right down one of the lanes of the street. The vehicle traffic shares the same lane. In fact, the cars have to cross the trolley lane to get to the center turn lane at times. I don't know, it all just really freaked me out and I'm pretty sure I screamed at Mike more than once while we were near the trolley cars. (If you recall, Mike was the full-time designated driver.)

And ... I will say that I really missed home. Memphis is not like Oklahoma.

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Graceland Tour

Today was our Graceland Tour day. Mike said we couldn't go to Graceland until we visited the place where Elvis' career got started - Sun Studio. So we got up (relatively) early and headed over to Graceland this morning. But ... first things first .. breakfast! We found a Krispy Kreme near Graceland and pulled in for a doughnut. Yum-O! I have been wanting one of those for so long and it was worth it.

We walked over to the tour center to purchase our tickets and wait for the bus to take us over to the mansion and grounds. We were in hour 9, group 8 and we had to wait about 40 minutes for our turn. Who knew that it would take so long?

But we finally got our tour headphones and made it over to the house.



The home has been declared a National Historic Landmark.

We got to go inside the house and look around on the lower level. The picture below is from the front rooms. The stained glass is so pretty. We got to go through the dining room, kitchen, basement, jungle room, etc.

We also went outside and toured a few other buildings. Some of them were more like museums that housed Elvis's gold records and memorabilia from his life and career.

I enjoyed seeing some of his outfits that he wore. See the eagle on the back of the jumpsuit below?

This tiger one was pretty fancy too. They had a lot of information about his acting career too.

Last stop on the mansion tour was the meditation garden. This is where the graves of Elvis and his family reside.

Then we went back to the tour center and went through the car museum. I thought this section was really neat. They had signs that described when Elvis had these cars and how he used them.

Of course, the pink Cadillac is one of the most well known of Elvis' cars.

We also got to tour Elvis' airplanes. This is a picture of the smaller plane. I forgot to take a picture of the big one, but it was very fancy inside.

We ate lunch at one of the restaurants at the Graceland tour center. It was a very cute place set up like a 50's diner.

This afternoon, we visited Bass Pro Shop and looked around at some shops around Memphis. We ended up eating dinner at a really good restaurant called Chow Time. The guy at the hotel actually told us about this place when we checked into our hotel. He said it served "stick to your ribs" food. Turns out, it's a buffet and grill that serves Chinese food and country cooking. Sounds weird, but they had good food.

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"I don't sound like nobody"

Today was our first full day in Memphis. First things first, we visited the Visitor's Center to pick up some brochures to find out what all we should try to see today.

We found this very large statue of Elvis. It had a sign that said "Please do not touch. Protected by alarm." It was true. No, we didn't find out the hard way.


After that, we drove around a bit to figure out the lay of the land and see what all we could see. Eventually, we found Sun Studio where Elvis got his start. Apparently, our little GPS was a little confused by the downtown Memphis streets. Mike eventually figured it out though.



At Sun Studio, we got about a 45 minute tour of the studio. The tour guide gave us a bunch of information about the studio, Elvis, and a lot of other people.

Mike told me I had to post a picture of this secretary's office. This is where Elvis delivered his famous line "I don't sound like nobody."

This old fashioned pop machine was in the outer office too. After that long tour, I was wishing that thing was loaded.

After the Sun Studio tour, we went down the street to find the Peabody Hotel. It was very fancy and posh inside and out, but we didn't get to see the ducks. They had already done their little march by the time we got there.

I wanted to sit on the Peabody's couch that was near this fountain, but it had a sign on it that said it was for Peabody guests and bar patrons only. Denied!

I thought this player piano was pretty cool. Again, I wasn't allowed to touch it. I didn't get to touch anything in that place.

Then we went next door to the new Peabody Place shopping/eating/play place. All the shops and restaurants were not open yet.

It looked to be two or three stories, but the first floor was the only thing that was open. It was a very fancy place. It looked like an outdoor setting even though we were in doors - potted trees everywhere, looked like you were walking down the street next to tall buildings. They even had "street lamps" and lights along the "awning" over the shop windows.

The restaurants in Peabody Place were not open so we went back to the car to go find something to eat.

This afternoon, we decided to go down to Tunica, Mississippi to ride the Tunica Queen Riverboat. Tunica was only about a 20 minute drive, but we could not find where to get on the Riverboat on the GPS. The only address we had was not found by the GPS. The GPS had a listing for a Tunica Museum so we figured that might be close to the boats.

We found the museum, but the boats were nowhere to be found. So we went back to where the Tunica Casinos were and finally found the way to the Riverboat docks. At this point, it was just about time for the riverboat to depart. We ran into the museum/aquarium and asked the lady at the desk if we could still get on the boat. She said yes, but we would have to hurry! So she radioed down to the boat and said she had two more people coming out of the building right now and then they were "all clear."

So we pay and run down to the boat just as it's undocking. The guy checking the tickets said we were lucky that the refreshment guy needed to get more beer before they left. Ha!

We went up to the deck to check out the view. Mike said I needed to take some pictures of the river. But I said I was not letting go of this railing. Something about the boat moving in the water .. I don't know, I just didn't feel very stable standing up there. So Mike took the camera and took some pictures for me. It was so hot up there that it didn't take us long to find our way back inside the cabin where we enjoyed listening to the commentary and seeing the sights out the window.

While on the Tunica Queen, we enjoyed pina coladas and a moon pie. I don't know .. it just seemed like the appropriate thing to do in Mississippi.

After the hour and a half riverboat ride, we headed back toward Memphis. But we couldn't leave our trip down the Mississippi River without finding some good catfish to eat. We looked online and found a good restaurant in Olive Branch called .. ironically, the "Olive Branch Catfish Co."

The food really was good. It was not the cornmeal breaded catfish fillet that I am accustomed to, but it was mighty tasty. For dessert, I had the lemon ice box pie and Mike tried the peach cobbler with ice cream. Both were good, but I ate too much of the catfish AND too much of the pie.

So after dinner, we went back to our hotel to hang out. We were going to go swimming, but there were too many kids down at the pool. So we watched the season premier of Big Brother instead. (I didn't even ask Mike if we could watch it. He just turned it on. Sweet!) I wanted Jessica to go back into the house.

What will we find in Memphis tomorrow? You'll just have to wait and see!

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Jon and Sherry Rivers Update

Jon and Sherry Rivers have posted an update on K-LOVE.

You can use this link: Jon and Sherry Rivers Update to read the entire letter.

The update answers some of our questions about what has been going on, but it does not address if and when they will be back on K-LOVE. I hope to hear them back on K-LOVE very soon. My morning drive is just not the same without them.



Be sure to check out their update and KEEP PRAYING for this sweet family. Emily has been singing one of her Vacation Bible School songs lately ... "I will pray and things will change."

Prayer changes things!

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Celebrity, Music, and Water

Well today was the big day. This morning bright and early, Mike and I headed out of town for a few days of vacation. We headed east to Memphis, TN. Mike did most of the driving, but I did take a little turn later in the afternoon. I think I scared Mike a little bit so now he is the designated driver. In my own defense, I did deliver us safely to our destination! Truth be told, I am more than happy to give over the control of the vehicle to him.

After we got in to town, we went to have dinner with the Neelys. You know the Neelys, right? Hosts of "Down Home with the Neelys" on Food Network? Friends of Paula Deen? Turns out their restaurant is fairly close to our hotel. We didn't see anyone famous, but the food was very good. We shared a sampler platter and they brought out a ton of food! Mike really really really liked the potato salad. He said the BBQ sauce was not as good as Head Country.

I was more concerned about the service ... or lack thereof. I was beginning to wonder if we would EVER get our check so that we could leave. Mike quipped that they were trying to keep us inside the restaurant as long as possible so that they could take everything out of our car. I will admit that the sign out front did not give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

"Neelys Bar-B-Que is not responsible for any items left in vehicles. Customers are responsible for securing any valuables. Please lock all doors. Thank you, Management."

After dinner, we went looking around for a movie theater. We found one close to our hotel that looked pretty nice. It was a quiet night, as you would expect on a Wednesday night. One other person was in the theater with us, but he was gone by the time the movie was over. What movie? Oh, we went to see Pelham 123 (not sure of the exact title .. something similar to that). It was a pretty good movie. I would give it three stars ... mostly for star power. It had Denzel and Travolta in it. How can you go wrong with that pair?

We're not sure what we will find to do tomorrow, but we are having a good time so far. Have you ever been to Memphis? What activities and/or restaurants do you recommend?

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Since When

Since when did Blogger.com get a spell checker on the post creation box? Has that always been on there? Because if so, I just now noticed it. Please tell me it's not true!

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Twenty First Century

Over the past few months, Mike and I have been working on getting up to speed for the 21st Century. Our latest improvement is a DVR. The dish company came out today to hook it up for us. We've already paused live TV and fast forwarded through commercials.

Next step is to set it up to record the season premiere of Big Brother on Thursday night. Since we're kidless this week, we can't promise that we'll be at home to watch it. And I really don't want to miss it! I look forward to this show every summer and I'm so glad it's finally starting!

Besides all the excitement with the new DVR, we've got a lot of things going on this week as we try to get our plans for this week off the ground. We do have something special planned. We haven't been out and about as a couple in a long time so I hope our plans work out.

And I just want to say ... I am SO glad Jillian finally sent Wes home on the Bachelorette tonight. It was so painful to watch him deceiving her week after week after week. I promise you I will never ever buy one of his records. He is so crooked and deceitful. Just disgusting!

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Happy Independence Day!

I hope you all had a happy and safe Fourth of July.

We had a good one. This morning, my mom was kind enough to meet us in Paris, TX to pick up Emily for "Farm Week 2009". This is the week where all the Hughes grandkids (all three of them) meet at Grandmother and Grandaddy's house for fun in the sun and lots of hugs!

Mom told me today that she was going to try to post pictures on her blog "every night". You can go here - Our Family Connect - to see what the kids are up to this week. I can't wait to see! I didn't cry or even get teary when Grandmother and Emily drove off this afternoon, but it is always hard for me. Emily is just so sweet and I'm her mother. I want to be there for her if she needs me - at all, for anything.

When we got back home, we went over to hang out with Mike's family for a while. A line of heavy thunderstorms was headed our way so we did not stay long. Long enough to get some (err, too much) good food though!

Mike and I have some other things planned this week, but more on that later ...

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Rhyme Time

During bedtime the last few nights, Emily and I have been talking about words that rhyme. I don't recall how we got onto this subject, but I started making Dr. Seuss-type rhymes. Sorta nonsensical, but totally hilarious to Emily.

I kept trying to get her to give me a rhyme. I would say "paper" and she would make up "palinety". I would say "salt" and she would say "pepper". I would say "finger" and she would say "finkle!" And so on and so forth.

So tonight, we were making up body part rhymes. She said "eyes" and I said "surprise!" She said "hair" I said "bear!" Then I tried to turn it around ... I said "chin" and she said "win!" She's finally catching on to our little game.

Dr. Seuss is the master of the rhyme. One of my favorite Seuss books is "There's a Wocket in My Pocket!" I'm so glad I don't have a noothgrush on my toothbrush or a zillow on my pillow! The Seuss books are such classics. We have a bunch of the smaller ones and then a few of the big ones like "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish."

So I was wondering ... Which Dr. Seuss books do you have? Which ones would you recommend for small kids?

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Jon and Sherry Rivers - 3 months

It's been about three months since Jon and Sherry disappeared from KLOVE radio. It's apparent that their fans are still concerned about them and are still awaiting their return. As far as I know, they have not been spotted anywhere since they left KLOVE. I have heard that they have not updated their Facebook group page either.

There are a lot of rumors floating around that Jon and Sherry are going through a difficult divorce. I hate to think that this is true, but you just never know. Marriage is not always easy. Sometimes it's hard to live with someone that you don't always agree with. Even if you love someone, you don't always see eye to eye on things. It's even more difficult when you add children to the mix.

It's all about how you react and respond to what happens in your relationship. Will you get mad and shut down and call it quits? Will you forgive and forget and try to work things out? Marriage counseling is a great option to help you work through issues.

Having said all that, I do not know what is going on with Jon and Sherry Rivers. It certainly could be a divorce, but it could be any number of other things. I still pray for them and their family every week and I hope that they are okay and will be back on KLOVE soon.

If you have any other information, please leave a comment and let us know. There are literally hundreds of people every day who are looking for Jon and Sherry and praying for their family. If you would like to leave prayers or concerns for the Rivers family in the comments section, please feel free to do so as well.

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