Trivia Night Totals!

I spoke with the Principal the other day, and the Trivia Night/Silent Auction/Cake Auction night was a HUGE success!! It raised close to $6400, which is $1200 more than last year!!! WHOOO HOOOO!! I'm excited to have contributed to that - buying a basket at the silent auction, attending, and having my cheesecake go for so much money!!! :D

GO DOGS GO!!

Last night I took JA and Z to the Niagara Ice Dogs game. Port Weller School had a night out with the Ice Dogs. Apparently, our grade 8 teacher is also a Scout for the Dogs! We had EXCELLENT seats sitting right behind and a little to the left of the goalie. Lots of action for sure! Unfortunately, we did NOT have a good parking space, and had to walk quite a ways in the cold! Good exercise I suppose :) We lost the game, to the Brampton Battalion (which Zachary referred to as the "Bad Heads" instead of Battalion LOL). There was a huge fight at the other end of the ice, and while we missed it up close, there was wreckage afterwards - gloves, helmets, sticks on the ice... and one guy even got 'jerseyed.' Lots of 10min game misconduct penalties. It was fun tho!! :)

Tomorrow is a big day... well, a LONG day, and busy!! Z has a birthday party, JA has bowling, I have a photography class at The Scrapping Nook which is going to be awesome!!

We are going to FLA next week, and are preparing for that. I'm a little anxious, but I always get this way before going on a trip, be it for a week away or a day! LOL!

Have a great weekend!!

Mmmmm, brownie cheesecake!!

This past Friday night, our elementary school (Port Weller) held their 2nd annual Trivia Night/Silent Auction! What a blast!! We had a table filled with some of our friends, and we laughed and laughed all night long. :)

One part of the evening was a Cake Auction. Several cakes were donated by local bakeries/chocolatiers, and several were baked by Port Weller School Moms. I was one of those moms!! I made the most delightful brownie cheesecake pictured here. It's a brownie bottom, cheesecake middle, covered in dark chocolate ganache, small brownie triangles 'dominoed' around the top rim, and drizzled with caramel! YUM!! I got some crumbs, so I knew it tasted good. My cake sold for SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS!!! I was boggled!! It was the highest selling cake in the place (one item went for 100$, but it was a 90$ fruit 'basket' of sorts from Edible Art, so professionally done!). The bidding was a frenzy!! Our table ended up bidding on and winning a chocolate mocha delightful something or other... VERY TASTY!!! Oh but I'm SO excited that my cake went for so much money!!! :D The ladies that bought it said it was very good... I know them, so they may have just been polite, but I think it WAS good!! :D

....and yes, Mark and John... I will make another one for US!

Crisis?!

I don't know how much more crisis I can survive, even if it's not my own personal crisis, I do seem to take it on as my own...

As most are aware, thru my blog, or because you are my friend... we lost our good friend's father/fil two weeks ago. It's awful. It was so fast. He was so young. Thankfully, he is now with Jesus!! His funeral was amazing, the Gospel presented well, and lots of great memories shared by all. God is good.

We came home from the funeral to the news that our elderly neighbour had died the night before. She was not saved. I am deeply grieved for that. I am grieved that I did not do more to show Jesus to her. I need to work on this!

Today we learned that our good friend (who shall remain nameless for now) was taken to Hamilton for emergency brain surgery (which will take place either tonite or tomorrow morning sometime). He had a spot on his brain. A spot of what? I don't know. I have no details. I mean really, do you just walk into the doctor and say "can you just check my brain today, I think something is not right!" We just got another phone call saying it's a tumour. They think it's malignant. That's the bad kind. He's a paramedic. He takes good care of himself. He was in the process of phasing out plastics in his life to avoid this kind of crap. He has two little boys and a lovely wife. His dad just had his own battle with the monster known as cancer. I have no details. I await further confirmation from the family.

Life is not fair. Nobody said it was. And still, God is good.

Blog spam?!

What is up with that?! Ugh. I've got two comments in my post about Zachary's birthday... SPAM!! One is a lovely comment from my friend Joan, though, so that's good :D Thanks Joan!! :) *J*O*A*N* is a fun blog to read...

Happy Birthday Zachary!!

Wow, my baby boy is FIVE today! I can hardly believe that just 5 years ago, we had only the wee JA. I remember a few weeks before Zachary was born, that Mike and I were relaxing on the couch... and JA toddled in. I said "are we crazy to do this again!?" I was thinking that JA could do almost everything for herself... and here we were starting all over from scratch. Of course we weren't crazy, we are parents! Zachary was a BIG baby (10lb .5oz) and he has stayed big!! He's among the tallest in his class at school and in Sunday School. He's active, and cannot wait to start playing soccer this year!

We had a little friends party for him on Saturday. He had a lot of fun! I made a Lightning McQueen cake which was a huge hit! We played Pin the logo on the L McQ poster, the kids spent a bit of time colouring some Cars pages, they made their own 'wheel' pizzas on english muffins, and Michael hid a bunch of puzzle pieces around the living room, and the kids found them and assembled the puzzle :) The kids were quite well behaved, which was such a blessing!! :)

Day 2

Of Zachary being sick. Ugh. Yesterday he fell asleep in the hallway at school while waited for JA to be released from class (it was early release day). It was so cute, and I so wish I had my camera! So we came home, he whined. He got his jammies on, and crawled into my bed to watch TV. He skipped lunch. He slept. He came down and flaked on the couch. He barfed. On my bed. On my pillow. On his jammies. On the floor. He missed Cubbies. He was generally quiet (and for those who know him, that is SO not him! LOL). He barfed again. Inside the girls 'front' door. Inside the girls 'back' door. In the toilet. He slept all night. He woke up, he said he wanted to go to school... and later skipped breakfast and went to my bed. He missed school, and his Valentine's Day party. I will send the treats I made to school tomorrow.

Saturday is his birthday party. I hope he's better by then. I suspect he's almost fine now, as he's been a bit more lively in the past hour or so.

Happy Valentines Day to me! LOL! Here's hoping nobody else gets this!!

In Christ Alone

I love this song. It says so much. We sang it today in celebration of the life of Mr. C. Bruce Lockey.


Here are the lyrics:

In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
'Till on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost it's grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Brought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life's first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
'Till He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand

by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty

To get organized - MAKE A BIGGER MESS!!!

I did it well then!! A couple weeks ago I ordered some Tupperware Modular Mates on sale. They are awesome!! I finally got them on Saturday, and today, I got to putting them into the cupboard. Boy oh boy, though, did I make a mess before it was finally done! I also found that I had no less than 8 bags of oregano and basil (put together) and many were opened!! Ugh, it's a good thing I use lots of both of those particular spices (or are they herbs?!). So now I have it all organized in my cupboard, and even have one modular mate left over, for which I am sure to find a use for soon!

But on to the mess... there are old containers, bags, misc stuff to be tossed, and a wire rack that needs a new home. Hmmm... poor JA tripped on the wire rack, and really scraped up her elbow :( So I'm off to find a bandaid...

Hannah Montana!

So, since Michael and the kids could not go ice-fishing this weekend, I told the devestated JA that I would do something special with her on Saturday. I was going to take her out for supper, and then on to a secret surprise!! We ended up going to the USA for the day, so we opted out of supper out. Then she got sick. Oh the tragedy of it all! I had tickets to see Hannah Montana at the movie theatre. She found out by accident that it was that movie we were going to see. Sadly, she wasn't excited (she was in her heart, but her face and her body didn't follow suit!). She was so tired, and so not feeling well, but we decided to go see it anyway! Poor thing, she slept through about half of the show (She must have been really sick and tired, as it was LOUD!!).

I have to say though, that the show was pretty good!! It was in 3D and was so much fun! We've saved our glasses for when the show comes on to DVD (soon, right?!?)

So today, she's still not well, she is laying on the couch... watching TVO Kids and in a bit, I will put on High School Musical 2 which she absolutely LOVES!! I like the music too... :)

A sad post today

After being a 'bad blogger' and not posting since December, I kick start with a sad posting :( This past Wednesday our dear friends lost their Father/FIL/Husband to an illness he only endured for a week. It's been a trying time for them, as they adjust to life without him, and make arrangements for the folk in their world to say one final good bye. My own heart hurts for their loss, and I can't even begin to imagine the sadness they are feeling. We know that he is now in the arms of Jesus, and thus grieve with much hope of seeing him again!!

To Rob, John & Mahlah and girls, Mrs. Lockey and Grandma Lockey, we are grieving with you, we love you, and we're praying for you. May God's grace be all that you need and sustain you as you adjust to this new path of life God is leading you down.