A few new pics

We're in another crazy spell and probably will be until July. I think we're in town about a week and a half in June! Here's an update:

The HA Chorus came through a couple of weeks ago and did a very good job. We kept Mr. Jones at our house. He was so sweet to play with Johnathan. Johnathan just loved it and is still asking when Mr. Jones can come play again! After Johnathan went to bed, we stayed up late visiting about just about everything and killed off a 2 liter of Diet Coke and 2 bags of popcorn! Now that's good visiting!





Thank you so much, Mr. Jones for spending that time with us and with Johnathan! You and Jan are in our prayers!!

Last weekend we drove out to Colorado Springs for PPCS graduation. The group of 8th grade girls that started the cheerleading program there with me was graduating. Such special ladies! We stayed with the Goods, Kreg's girlfriend's family. It was so fun to spend time with so many friends whom we hadn't seen in a year! Did I get any pictures? NO. I'm so bad about that. I know Keleigh was snapping pictures here and there, so I may steal a few from her when she gets hers up on Facebook!

John's mother comes in this afternoon. She's spending tonight with us and then heading over to Mineral Wells for Jared's graduation. (Jared is our nephew, Martha's grandson.) So, I'm cooking a really yummy supper. I'm going to try to imitate one of my favorite dishes at Mario's, Chicken Romano. I've pounded the chicken and am marinating it in Italian dressing now. I'm going to saute' LOTS of vegetables (red, yellow, orange and green peppers, onions, mushrooms, zucchini and squash!) in olive oil and yummy Italian spices. We'll have a salad and, of course, rolls. I should have time to make a strawberry pie today, too, but if I don't get to the whole pie, I'll do strawberries and crusties! Having company is so fun!

Kalleigh is really at a fun stage. It's that blessed stage when she can sit up, but can't quite crawl yet. She can play with toys by herself, but can't escape! She has her two bottom teeth now. I'm very glad that first teething stage is over! So, I'd better enjoy it while it lasts because any day now her legs are going to figure out the crawling thing, and life as I know it will change yet again! Her newest trick is "growing." I know I'm biased, but it's just too cute!



I grabbed few pictures of Johnathan and Kalleigh playing together this morning:


This is her weird leg thing she does. She does this when she's trying to crawl. I'm thinking she'll be one of those gimpy, one knee-one foot kind of crawlers!


It's so hard to get them both to smile! Johnathan's like, "Another picture?" and Kalleigh thinks I'm trying to get her to grow!


They're pretty good buds ... most of the time!

We fly out to Pepperdine on Monday for a sacred a cappella music symposium called Ascending Voice. It lasts Monday through Thursday, and then Friday, we're hitting Universal Studios! I promise to actually use my camera on this trip! I'm sure I'll have a CA wrap up post when we return.

Until then!

When I grow up

It seems to be one thing after another this week.

When Johnathan got home from school we were talking about his day. Apparently they had asked all the children what they wanted to be when they grew up. As I was asking him about this he said, "All the other kids want to be doctors." "Oh really?" I said, "What did you want to be when you grow up?" "The Wizard of Oz."

Here's to setting your standards high today!

Blizzards

Yesterday, Johnathan played in the sand at the playground ... a lot. Before I realized what he was doing, he (all sweaty) lied down in the sand on his tummy and just put his entire face directly in the sand. When he got up, he looked like the Sandman, you know, from Spiderman 3. It was awful! Since we were in town, I just took him back to the church building where there are showers and where he had a change of clothes ...

... except socks. So, after the shower, I put on the new clothes. I got to the shoes part, and I told Johnathan that we'd just have to put shoes on without socks. And he asked, "But am I gonna get blizzards?"

I love my job. :)

Happy Smother's Day!

That's what I woke up to this morning. Johnathan's sweet voice with his special words would've been all I needed to have a great Mother's Day! John got up with the kids even earlier than usual on our usually early Sunday mornings and brought me breakfast in bed. Then they all sat around me and watched me eat. :) Johnathan pointed to the grapes on my plate and said, "I like grapes!" I said, "Do you want to help me with them?" "Sure!" he said, and picked one up and put it in my mouth!

After church, we went to Texas Roadhouse (one of my favorites) for a yummy steak dinner. They handed out carnations to all the moms there today, too!

The kids fell asleep on the way home and stayed asleep when we put them down for their naps ... always a good thing.

So, I packed up my saddle and tack and went for a ride! Gallant did very well today. It was my first time to ride him alone out in the field since he threw me almost a year ago. I've been working with him in a round pen and had taken him out with another horse, but not by himself until today. We walked a lot, trotted some and ran a little. That's my favorite part. :) He turns 5 on Tuesday, so he's still pretty young. For no more training than he's had, he's a great little horse, and I love him!

It's been a great Mother's Day!

MOM

This is one of my favorite pictures of all!

Happy Mother's Day to the woman who has had the biggest impact on my life. I want to be like you when I grow up! Love you, Mom!

Johnathan-isms

After breakfast a couple mornings ago: "Mommy, I'm going to put my bowl in the wash disher."

This morning, Johnathan asked John if he could see his big banes. What? He was insistent, "The big banes on your hands!" And he pointed to the veins. Oh!

Yesterday, after I told Johnathan I was going out to mow the lawn (the front yard ... the last post was backyard only!): "I want to go mow the laundry!" I hear you, Son!

On another note, these were delivered to my door today:

Yea, John! Tulips for Mother's Day--my favorite!

You are grass ... but I am WOMAN!

Those were the words I heard my brain think today.

It was treacherous. Who knew what could be lurking in the monster weeds that had taken over our backyard. How I longed for a bushhog! All I had was my city-slicker electric push mower. My brain spoke to the grass, as if it were a new realization, "You are grass ... but I am WOMAN!"

And then I realized how badly I needed to get out of the sun and get some liquids in me.

Hope your day was as empowering as mine. :)

Breathing again

Sorry it's been forever since I've been in the blog world. Here's what's been going on:

John went to the Ministry Summit at ACU the weekend after Easter. The kids and I got to tag along for a weekend out of Tyler. It was nice. On our way back, we stopped at the Ft. Worth zoo ... and we have no pictures to prove it! I had left my camera at home. We stopped in Dallas for dinner and met up with Dad and Maria at PF Chang's--YUMMY! What? Of COURSE we had the Great Wall of Chocolate ... are you kidding?!

The Tuesday and Wednesday after that I was in charge of all the food for the biggest school event at Johnathan's preschool (Little People's School), Rodeo Roundup. It started out a few years ago as your basic cowboy day where everyone dresses up as cowboys, but it has grown to an all day event including games, a hayride, face painting, a petting zoo, an inflatable slide and all sorts of decorations. I was also helping with decorations in addition to my food responsibilities. All in all it was huge success and the kids had a great time. The photographer even offered to take Kalleigh's picture!

That Tuesday night, I went to a crop and got stopped for speeding on the way there! I was actually on the phone with Mom when I saw the lights behind me! Amazingly, he only gave me a warning. I knew right then what I would be scrapping that night:

(The arrow points to the part that says, "This is a warning only.")

This past Saturday was full, but great. It started with me being wide awake at 6 am, so I went jogging. By nine, I was loaded up and going out to ride Gallant, which I did until noon. Johnathan had a b-day party to go to from 1:30 - 3. Then we had a rehearsal for a singing gig coming up, oh right, tonight. Then I took my family home and came back up to the church building to help decorate the gym for the youth auction because the decorating committee was short a few hands. Stayed there until about 10:30 when I remembered I still needed to go to Wal-Mart to get cream cheese (among other things), which I needed to make the cream cheese frosting for the cake I had to make the next day. Got home just before midnight and was still just wired. I checked email, read blogs and then crashed around 1 am. Nuts. Oh my! I just realized that I totally missed Mamaw's birthday. I am so sorry, Mamaw!

Sunday evening was the youth auction, which consists of basically three different auctions: the dessert auction (a tradition and a favorite), the silent auction and the live auction. I made that cake (triple layer strawberry cake with strawberry cream cheese frosting, complements of the Cake Mix Doctor) for the dessert auction. Then a friend and I teamed up and donated a complete 12 x 12 scrapbook of any theme. Meaning, the lady who bought it is going to give us a bunch of her pictures and we're going to make an album for her. I think it will be fun! Anyway, at the auction, I helped register people, taking their information and assigning them numbers with which to bid. It was a good evening and the youth raised close to $45,000!

Tonight is that singing gig I referred to earlier. Our group of eight that has been singing together a few weeks is singing a variety of star-themed songs--mostly vocal jazz arrangements--to fit with the evening's theme. Like last time, the songs are hard, but absolutely beautiful!

Tomorrow I'll be getting ready for the ladies' retreat this weekend. I'm just in charge of games, so that shouldn't be too hard. We're headed to Frisco. It will be the first ladies' retreat for Glenwood in, I think, three years! Hopefully, I can help with making it a more regular event.

Nothing earth-shattering; just life. And I'm loving it!