Hodges Happenings

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

2011-10-17T12:54:00.000-05:00

I took Bison, our almost 10-year-old pug, to the vet today. He's overweight, as always, we need to brush his teeth more and cut his nails, as always. The new development today was that he had a fatty tumor on his side that had to be tested. Thankfully, it was just that, a benign fatty tumor, that causes no problems and needs no treatment. His heartworm test also came back negative. Good deal. Prevention works.

So we head home. Bison is riding in the floor of the passenger's side. I drive into the garage, as always, hop out and toss my keys in the seat, as always, and as I'm walking around the front of the car, I hear this all-too familiar "CLICK." I freeze, then look at Bison. He had hopped up into the seat and put his paws up on the door and, you guessed it, locked the door.

You've got to be kidding me. "I'm sorry, I can't come pick up my kids from preschool. My dog locked my keys in my car." Who's going to believe that?!

Try as I may, I could not get Bison to UNlock the door. He was, however, successful at locking the door a second time. Amazing.

I called John, who is riding in a car full of the church office staff, as today is staff lunch day. They were finishing up lunch and graciously agreed to drive down to Flint to rescue Bison and enable me to drive back into town to get my kids, which I will do in about 20 minutes. The looks on their faces as I raised that garage door was priceless. Big grins, big waves. I was mortified. And poor Bison couldn't figure out why I was just now letting him out of the car!

Oh, Bison ...

Well, this is embarrassing ...

2011-10-08T00:17:00.001-05:00

My lack of presence in the blogger world is not because of how busy we've been, or because of any injury or illness, or because of technology issues. There is no good reason.

And y'all are just gonna have to love me anyway.

Please?

The summer was great. We didn't do just a ton of things. No camps or sports or even very many friend play dates. I really felt like a mother hen gathering all of her chicks under my wings and just spending time together. I think it's what we needed. It's what I needed, apparently! We did do lots of fun things together, so I'll try to highlight those.

Mamaw and Mom came down over Memorial Day weekend! We shopped and cooked and played. What could be better? But no pictures. :(

But HERE are some pictures from our family photo shoot on Memorial Day!

Those are my favorites!

Glenwood hired a new preacher! We are so excited to have Wes Crawford on staff. We are getting to know his family, and they are just precious. God had worked through this long process, and now, finally, we are seeing what He had been up to!

Here's Kate in here "little black dress":

So it's a onesie, but it was perfect for all occasions.

John's sister Laurie, and daughter Brenna, came for a visit In June! We enjoyed eating at Daniel Boone's (a cultural experience) and also Orange Leaf (better than TCBY).

Flat Stanley also made it into the picture. Johnathan did this project over the summer ... And the 2nd grade teachers haven't mentioned it yet. Guess Flat Stanley fell right off the priority list!

Johnathan turned 7! For his birthday, he took his friend Silas to LegoLand in Dallas. They boys had a great time, of course. We also learned our lesson (during the 2-hour line to get in) that it's best to arrive before the doors open!

Clearly Vocal finished up recording our one song over the summer! "Pulse," one of our originals, will be available on iTunes soon! Stay tuned for more info on that. And baby Camdyn was born to Andy and Stefanie. Kate and Camdyn get to spend a lot of time together at rehearsal!

Kalleigh and John went on a Daddy/Daughter date at Chick-Fil-A close to Father's Day. CFA came up with the whole idea. They had to make reservations and everything! There were roses on each table and a take-home goodie bag. What a great idea!

I'll just be posting random pictures of cuteness (RPC), too. :)

I had heard that the Moby wraps were the best in the world. I also knew they were quite pricy. Then I saw a lady wearing what I thought was one, except the material had a cute print. I asked her if it was a Moby, and she told me no; that it was $1/yd fabric from Wal-Mart and that she had looked up on the Moby website how to wrap it up! Brilliant! So I did the same thing. I also found that there are LOTS of ways to tie up a baby! Wait. That came out wrong.

This was a fun game. You freeze like this until somebody laughs. Good times. :)

Our big family trip was going to Colorado to meet Kreg and Keleigh's newest addition, Baby Tucker. Our trip overlapped Mom and Craig's trip out there, so it was fun to see them, too! We hit Estes Park for a day:

The cousins had so much fun together!

We conquered the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and met up with some friends from when we lived in COS! It was so good to see Amanda and Kisti and their children. Looks like everyone was busy since we left!

We also got to see Tiffany, Todd and River for a few minutes! We put the Curtis babies together as proof that we did actually see them! River, Tucker and wiggly Kate.

RPC:

Later in July, the kids and I ran up to AR while mom had a little surgical procedure. I love this picture of Johnathan holding Nana's hand right out of surgery. He was reading her the story he wrote while we were waiting in the hospital. He's so sweet and thoughtful!

While in AR, we spent a day at the farm. Mamaw and Kate got some good snuggle time in! Mamaw also taught Johnathan a thing or two about playing Jacks!

RPC: Priorities :)

Johnathan is now in second grade, Kalleigh is in Pre-K and Jonas is in the 3-yr-olds class. Both Kalleigh and Jonas go to Little People's School MWF. Everybody is doing well!

Meanwhile, I use that time to run. Yes, I'm back at it again. It is just so effective for me. I'm already below where I was when I got pregnant with Kate. Not my littlest, mind you, but I'm on my way! Running is my "me time." time for processing, planning and praying. Alliteration intended.

The big kids are playing soccer this fall! They are both enjoying it. Yay!

Mom and Craig came down this past weekend to see the kids play. Craig was just 4 weeks out of open heart surgery, and looked GREAT! I was so impressed. They also brought down a bedroom set that they weren't using! So Kalleigh got a new bed. Not all of the pieces fit in the girls' room just yet with the crib and the changing table still in there, but we got the bed and the desk to fit! Kalleigh just loves it.

Mom and Craig got to hear Clearly Vocal perform on Saturday night, and then went with us to hang out at our favorite restaurant, Julian's, for John's 37th birthday! What a fun night!

RPC: Bath time!

Kalleigh's 5th birthday was Sunday. This was a "friends party" year for her, so we doubled up with her best buddy, Abby, and had a joint party at Jumpin' Jack's! They requested a ballerina cake, so Barbie was up to bat:

The girls had a blast!

And so did Jonas.

Obviously.

There is so much more, but this will have to do. Surely I won't go another third of a year without posting anything ... Surely.

Another Pictures/Captions Post Eliminating the Need for a Real Title

2011-05-23T14:12:00.001-05:00

May has been a good month in many ways. It hasn't been nearly as hectic as April was, but probably more so than June will be. Kalleigh and Jonas are done with Little People's School for the year and Johnathan has six more days of first grade. It's had its ups and downs. Some days are like this:

Others like this:

And when we're lucky, they're like this:

We've grown food:

And made food:

We've driven places some:

And stayed home some:

We've read:

And slept:

And kissed:

And hugged:

And sung:

(That's Andy. CV is recording!)

And swung:

And best of all, we still love each other!

The past five weeks ...

2011-04-21T11:43:00.001-05:00

... have been absolutely insane, but SO fun! I'll need to refer back to the calendar to remember it all. Sorry for the delay in posting.

Way back at the end of March, the kids and I took John to the DFW airport on a Friday so that he could represent Clearly Vocal at the VoCAL Nation A Cappella Festival in NYC. While we were in Dallas for the day, the kids and I decided to go to the Dallas Arboretum. Oh, it was beautiful! All of the tulips were out, my favorite. Kate was just four weeks, but she did great!

That night, my brother Kreg, his wife Keleigh, and their son Westin came all the way from Colorado Springs for a visit over a weekend. My mom and her husband Craig drove down from Searcy as well. It was nice to have some help! The cousins had so much fun playing together. So wish we could see each other more often!

Westin meets cousin Kate. That face!

Nana and Pops and the grands.

Silly Uncle Kreg!

Sweet Kalleigh.

While playing on the Brookshire's playground, Keleigh and I were watching the kids play on the monkey bars. I was saying that I was getting so much more confident in Johnathan's climbing abilities and that I just didn't get as worried about him falling as I used to when he was younger. At that moment, Johnathan came running over to us, screaming, with blood dripping from his mouth. He had bitten his tongue--badly! Thankfully, he was missing his two front teeth already, so he didn't bite all the way through. He bit a nice chunk out, though. Sheesh. I felt so bad for him!

We got one last picture in the Texas bluebonnets.

The next couple of weeks, we spent getting ready to host the third annual East Texas A Cappella Celebration. It was on April 9th. We had four other groups sing in addition to Clearly Vocal representing choral music, contemporary Christian, gospel and barbershop. It was a great evening!

John always does such a good job making the programs. :)

I tried jogging some when Kate was 6 weeks. I made it a mile, then walked a mile. Then just gave it up for a while. What was I thinking?

Then began the craziest week of all. After the concert on Saturday my friend Chelsea and I began getting ready for Rodeo Roundup at Little People's School where Kalleigh and Jonas attend. I was in charge of the kitchen again this year, which means feeding about 300 people over two days. Oh, and my friend Stefanie and I were in charge of the Glenwood ladies retreat that was the following weekend. No bigs.

Monday was probably the most hectic day. I dropped the kids off at their respective schools, helped Chelsea decorate the gym for RRU, sent information letters out to all of the ladies telling them what to bring and how to get there, went to Sam's and bought the food for the 300 people and unloaded it into the kitchen, picked up K2 and J3 from preschool, got them plus K3 down for naps, assigned roommates for the ladies retreat and called the camp coordinator with my final numbers, got J2 from school, helped him with homework, loaded all four kids (that's Js 2&3 and Ks2&3, because John and I are J1&K1, of course!) into the van, picked up some Bueno and then went to Clearly Vocal rehearsal. Well, I left out feeding Kate every three hours, but that's a given. Whew!

So, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings were spent in boots and bandanas serving hot dogs and chili to the preschoolers of Little People's School and their parents. That's always fun! I had a good crew of parents helping me out, too!

Thursday was spent doing last minute ladies retreat stuff: buying & stuffing folders, making copies, and most importantly, preparing for the entertainment! I decided that I would do a presentation Saturday night before the bonfire on how to roast the perfect marshmallow ... as Beth Moore! It was too fun. Our Ladies Bible class had done her study on Daniel, so I spent one of the video sessions writing down all of her funny phrases. I incorporated them into some flowery instructions on roasting marshmallows that I had found online, and it was done. Oh, and I made a fill-in-the-blank handout. :)

The ladies retreat was Friday - Sunday. The theme was "Talk Amongst Yourselves," focusing on our speech. We brought in a group of five ladies from Abilene called The Coffee Group to be our speakers. I really appreciated all of the preparation they put into their lessons, and we had some GREAT discussion time in our small groups.

Saturday night for the Beth Moore marshmallow thing, I wore a blondish wig, a bright green jacket with a sparkly yellow scarf, khaki pants, and huge heels. It was so fun, and the ladies were in stitches! Wish I had a picture or a video!

Sunday morning, we had to do a sunrise service with breakfast following. Stefanie and I had to get back to Tyler to church because Ronnie White, our interim preacher, had asked Clearly Vocal to sing a special song after his sermon. I think many of the ladies, especially the elders' wives, enjoyed being back at Glenwood for services anyway.

Now we're caught up to this week-Yea! Monday, Kate had a check-up. She's up to eleven pounds! Such a cutie.

Tuesday was my first Tuesday home since January. I guess I was a little bored, so I made Kalleigh and me matching dresses. It was SO easy. I don't even have a sewing machine any more! I bought this bolt of dress fabric for $1/yd with the intention of cutting off the top and making a Moby wrap for Kate.

When Kalleigh saw it she asked, "Mommy! Are you making a dress for me?!?" She was just too excited, and I realized how easy it would be. So I did. And then I made one for me, too. And I still have enough fabric for the wrap.

Tonight, Clearly Vocal is singing for a local retirement center's Passion In the Park celebration. Then we're heading to a Mercy Me concert tomorrow night with friends while the three big kids spend the night with the Deans. And then it's Easter weekend and Kate will be eight weeks old!

Happy Easter!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

3 weeks

2011-03-19T22:27:00.001-05:00

How in the world has three weeks gone by! Everybody says the same thing, but it's so true. It's so hard to imagine that Kate was still inside of me three weeks ago today.

We've had a very good three weeks. Of course Mom was here when Kate was born that Sunday, but then had to leave on Monday afternoon. John took off work most of the rest of that week, and that was really nice! Then Dad came over that Saturday, spent the night (after grilling some fabulous venison-YUM!) and went to church with us the next morning. It was Kate's first Sunday morning!

Dad headed home after treating us to lunch and then John's mother came that evening. I was grateful to have her help since that was the beginning of spring break! She stayed through Wednesday before heading back to Searcy.

The weather was absolutely fabulous during that week, so we spent a lot of time outside.

On Friday, we went to Faulkner park for a picnic! PER. FECT. WEATHER. I love spring time in east Texas!

Saturday night, the Deans kept the older 3 kids while John and I (and Kate) went on a date, courtesy of our friends the Rambins! Chelsea coordinated people bringing us food 3x per week all through March, and Saturday was her night, so she sent us on a date! What a great idea!

This week has been all about getting back into a routine and figuring out our "new normal." It's been both challenging and refreshing, frustrating and encouraging. Going from 3-4 kids really isn't that big a deal. It's having a newborn that takes all of your time whether or not you have any other kids in the picture or not!

Johnathan, Kalleigh and Jonas love "loving" on their little sister. Johnathan, my talker, uses his talent and just talks to her while he holds her! She is so content to listen to him. Kalleigh talks about how they will play together when Kate gets bigger and showers her with kisses. Jonas keeps asking to "pet Baby Gate," and so we have the opportunity to teach gentleness. :)

Last night Kate went with Clearly Vocal to restaurant night. She rode in her sling and did great while we sang for a couple of hours!

Today my Aunt Karla and cousin Alissa came to meet Kate. They had been staying at a bed and breakfast nearby and made some time to swing by! It was great to spend time with them. The boys got out of the house, so we had some good girl time.

Tomorrow will be the first time that John and I will get all four kids ready and to church by ourselves. We'll see how that goes!

We're looking forward to next weekend when my brother, Kreg, and his family come to visit as well as my mom and her hubby!

Kate Evelyn: A Birth Story

2011-03-03T17:12:00.001-06:00

She's here! Finally, thankfully, she's here. Kate was born on Sunday, February 27, at 11:46 a.m. weighing 9 lbs., 12 oz., and measuring 21 in. long. My biggest baby! We're doing just great, and in my own biased opinion, she's perfect. :)

The rest of the story ... for those who want ALL the details:

Mom had driven in the previous Tuesday and had planned on staying until Kate arrived. This was going to be just perfect since she had never been able to make it to one of my births before because of how quickly my labors have been! And since I was sure I was going early, Tuesday seemed like the best time.

Saturday night I had pretty much given up on Kate arriving while Mom was here. We had spend Wednesday shopping, Thursday housekeeping, Friday walking and working on Ladies Bible Class and her pharmacy admissions work, and Saturday we all went to the zoo. I had eaten strawberries every day that week, since I had eaten strawberries the day before I went into labor with all three other kids. I had done everything I knew to do to get labor going, and it just wasn't happening. She wasn't dropping. I was going to be pregnant forever.

I began making my list of clever remarks back to people who would see me at church the next day. "You're still here?" "I can't believe you haven't had that baby yet!" "Are you sure there's only one in there?" "Every time I look at you, it just makes me miserable!" "I thought you would've had that baby a long time ago." "Oh, your face is really swollen. You've got 'the look.'" "Any day now!" "Are you sure you're pregnant? I'm starting to think you made this all up as an excuse to get fat!" Aren't they funny?

When I saw my cousin Deborah when she saw pregnant for the first time, back before I had ever been pregnant, I felt at liberty to say, "You're huge!" Deborah, I'm so sorry. That was awful!

Thankfully I didn't have to use any of the comebacks I knew I would've regretted saying. About 5:00 Sunday morning, I had a distinct cervical change, to put it tactfully. At first I thought my water had broken, and I dashed to the bathtub expecting "the gush" I had when my water had broken with Jonas. But there was just almost nothing! Not even enough for a steady leak.

But it was enough to get labor going. Sure enough, some little contractions began about 30 minutes later. I called my midwife, who agreed that I was headed that way, and then I took a shower. Because everyone knows you should take a shower when labor begins. (?) Then I woke Mom up to give her some time to get ready before we left. The bags were packed, and had been for about 3 weeks now, Kate's car seat was in, even my snack bag was ready. So I got dressed and put my makeup on, which is what I was most concerned about. There would be pictures, of course. We got the kids up and dressed for church and headed out the door! It was baby day!

On our way we texted friends and family, including Jerry Frazier, who was on call to lead worship for John! We dropped the kids of at the Dean's house around 7:00. What would we do without church family? They were ready and would take them on to church. And of course we kept Facebook updated!

When we arrived at the birth center, I was already dilated to a 6! But sure enough my water had not broken. Contractions were coming consistently, but I had good breaks in between during which I could rest and even joke around a little. :) We used one of the breaks to take a "last pregnant picture ever."

My "labor team," as I call them, arrived one at a time. The line up was as follows, in the order of arrival: My midwives, Vicky and Sarah, John and Mom, Chelsea (friend and photographer!), Terry Dean (my Tyler mom), and Kaulie Keele (the kids' favorite babysitter who is on the health track at REL HS and plans to be a neonatal nurse). I was so thankful for this team who each contributed in their own way! What a blessing!

I labored in one of the L&D rooms for a while, moving around as I pleased from the bed to the birthing ball to just walking around. I kept my water bottle close and took small sips between contractions to stay hydrated, since I wasn't hooked up to any IVs.

After a while I moved into the birthing pool and enjoyed the relaxing warm water. As suspected, I think it did slow my labor down somewhat, but it was worth it! I was so relaxed between contractions that I was actually dozing off! It was nice and warm, and sometimes a little too warm. I called for a cool rag for my face and neck and proceeded to wash off the afore mentioned makeup. Pictures shmictures.

Not long after I was an 8, finally, finally, my water broke with a noticeable "POP!" causing everyone to jump up and see what was going on! It was the last comical moment for a while!

Warning: Birthing a child is not for the weak or the faint of heart or stomach.

Contractions picked up. Boy howdy, did they. I felt like I needed to change positions, so I moved from being reclined in the tub to over on my hands and knees. Then had a huge contraction, almost to the point of pushing. Vicky checked me and said that my cervix was starting to swell and that I needed to get back to my back. Having heard horror stories about that happening, I quickly obeyed!

Two contractions later, and not wanting to risk pushing on a swollen cervix, I "calmly asked" if I could push. Yes! was the answer, and with the next big contraction I pushed Kate's head right out! I was hoping to wait for another contraction to push the rest of her out, but her head starting retracting, causing her circulation to be cut off. She started turning blue. Bad blue. At this point, Vicky charged into the water, shoes and all, got me to my feet and yelled, "Call 911!" as she drained the tub. I was now standing/squatting, bent over with my hands on the side of the tub. Everyone was "calmly encouraging" me to continue to push. I was SO tired by that point, and wasn't having another contraction to help! I was pushing as hard as I could, but she was stuck!

Then Vicky just did what she needed to do. She reached up "in there" and pulled Kate on out! I think Papaw Curtis would've been proud! How many times had he had to reach up in a cow and pull out that big calf?! Ha!

Now she's behind me, having just pulled the purple, non-responsive child out, and she plopped her up on my back. All of this was very surreal, as I was still bending over the tub with my child on my back. No sounds other than the chorus of "Breathe, Kate!" being sung behind me.

Then John said he saw her eyes flicker open, at which point, he stopped calling 911. Obviously all of this happened within a matter of seconds, since the call had not even gone through yet! And then we heard that precious gurgly cry. Praise God! They suctioned out her mouth and nose and the crying became stronger. Yea!

Now my crying child is still on my back and still attached to "my innards," so Vicky hands her to me through my legs and I sit back down in the now-drained tub to examine my new daughter. She was just perfect! We had a nice long cuddle time while we waited for another contraction for the placenta to make its adorable entry into the world. It took its sweet time, but that was okay. I love that they don't rush that at the birth center. I knew that Kate was getting every last bit of goodness from the cord! Having completed it's job, it decided to come on out, and John did his traditional daddy duty of cutting the cord.

Over the next couple of hours, we cuddled and took pictures and all of those fun things. Kate and I had an herbal tea bath, soothing and healing. Amazingly, I did not tear. Sarah and Vicky were both amazed. Sarah even said, "You have, like, I super-perineum!" I was like, "Yeah, that's going on Facebook!" jk ;) Looking back, I'm so grateful for being at the birth center for that somewhat chaotic delivery. If I had been in an hospital and she had gotten stuck like that, they would have given me an episiotomy before I could've blinked. I would still be in a world of hurt today instead of playing outside with my other kids! I'm so thankful to Vicky and her midwifery skills! And for my super-perineum. ;)

We went home a couple of hours after Kate was born. It was nice to recover in my own bed. Mom was Super Nana that afternoon and evening taking care of the other three kids, fixing supper, and keeping the laundry going.

We did it! And I never want to do it again! I will do whatever I can to keep our family of 6 a family of 6 and no more!

I know, famous last words, right?

Please, no.

Maternity Photoshoot

2011-02-08T16:42:00.001-06:00

I had the opportunity to have a free photo shoot this past Saturday! Here's the story of how that came about.

I finally sold my cowboy crib bedding that I had used for Jonas. Yea for Craigslist! So, I was on Craigslist deleting my post when I noticed another post that said, "Free Maternity Photo shoot: Email me and I will choose 2-3 people from the responses." Uh-huh. What was the catch?

Very hesitantly I responded with an, "I'm interested, but I need more details. People don't just give away free photos without wanting something in return." My guard was up big time! She responded saying that she knew it sounded strange, but she really was just building her portfolio. She had plenty of wedding, engagement, senior, family and kid pictures, but no maternity, and she needed some for her website. She then said she'd add me on Facebook and we could go from there.

I got her friend request and looked up her information before accepting! Turns out that she is married to the son of the preacher of the Lindale church of Christ just 10 miles north of Tyler, which is where they also attend! Immediately my guard dropped. We were sisters!

We scheduled the shoot for Saturday morning when the weather was supposed to be mid-fifties. However, as so often happens, the forecast quickly changed to snow for Friday and highs in the low 40's for Saturday! Of course we were supposed to shoot early in the morning, so it ended up being 25 degrees! Brrr! At first, I was tempted to reschedule, but then I thought about how special it would be to have the memory of the snow in East Texas as I approached Kate's due date. I'm so glad we went ahead and took the pictures!

The photographer's name is Shanna-Kaye Fancher, and she did a really nice job. As Shanna-Kaye and I were talking, I learned that she is the oldest of 10 children, had been married a few years and is expecting her first. She asked where I was delivering. I told her I would be delivering at the Labor of Love Birth Center, and she said, "No way! Me, too!" I've never known anyone else personally who had delivered there! What a neat connection we had. To see some of her other work, you can visit her website.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Sunday marked 37 weeks. Won't be long now!

Location:Tyler Railroad Yard

Ready!

2011-01-30T15:37:00.001-06:00

I'm 36 weeks along with Miss Kate Evelyn and am entering the "Miserable Phase." It's all normal stuff, so I don't really have much room to complain, but each time I have gotten to this point in my pregnancies, I have remembered why I have no fear of delivery. I will do anything to be done being pregnant!

This pregnancy, more than any others, I have been humbly reminded how blessed I have been to have four healthy pregnancies with only one early miscarriage. During the past year I have had three friends from church with ectopic pregnancies, and two who have had to be on bed rest for a huge chunck of their pregnancies! Several other friends and even family members have miscarried as well. It seemed like a healthy pregnancy was the exception. I don't know why God allowed it to happen this way, but like I said, I have been so thankful for that.

I have an appointment with my midwife tomorrow morning. It's hard to believe that we're already "checking" to see if I'm making any progress! This pregnancy has absolutely flown. In some ways it's hard to believe that February is just a couple days away. But then it also seems like it couldn't have gotten here quickly enough!

So I did the whole pink girl room thing with Kalleigh. It was adorable and I loved it, but I was ready for a change with Kate. Her nursery is zebra stripe and red! There are tons of cute baby girl zebra and pink things, but not many zebra and red, so I have improvised. My favorite nursery bedding set I found online was a mere $400, so that was a no-go. It did give me a place to start in my thinking and planning, though. Here are a few pictures of the finished nursery:

Crib, using red sheet from Jonas's cowboy nursery, white dust ruffle from Johnathan's Peter Rabbit nursery and zebra pillow I bought at Sears. :) The bear on top is the one we got at Kate's first sonogram that when you squeeze its tummy, a recording of her heartbeat plays! Also, you'll notice the diaper bag stuck in the crib for now, safe from the other children and dogs, and packed for the birth center.

Rocking chair with side table and Kate's name. The rocking chair is navy and pink ... yeah, that wasn't going to do, so Mom got me this incredibly soft throw to go over it! The table was a $5 clearance find at Bed, Bath & Beyond. It's just particle board, and it's amazing what a little spray paint can do! I got the little lamp at Canton as well as the wooden block letters that I, again, spray painted and tied bows onto.

Close-up of Kate's name.

Wall art that I made with raw wooden pieces, again from Canton.

Curtain that my friend, Stefanie, made.

More wall art, made by Jonas (left) and Kalleigh (right) at Little People's School. I love what these add to the room!

And art on the left from an artist I have admired for three years at the Denton Arts and Jazz Festival. They remind me of my boys! And then the picture frame on the right that John's sister, Laurie, gave us. I'll put a picture of the girls in it when Kate gets here. The obligatory monitors sets safely up on this shelf. The ribbon is to hold that blanket that Terry and Cara Dean are making for me! Uh, for Kate, that is. :)

Oh, I forgot to take a picture of all her little clothes hanging in her closet! Even that's all ready to go. Speaking of closets, I moved Jonas's clothes from the nursery into the kids' room and moved Kalleigh's clothes from the kids' room into the nursery. That way when Kate is consistently sleeping through the night, I can move Kalleigh in with her and we will have a "girls' room" and a "boys' room"! I feel like I may be a little too giddy about this new organization, but I know some of you understand. ;)

Now all I need are the disposable things that you can't keep from child to child: diapers, bottle nipples and liners, pacifiers, etc. and we really will be completely ready! Hard to believe.

Please pray for a smooth and easy delivery and that Kate and I will continue to be healthy through it all!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Recent conversations with Jonas (2 1/2)

2011-01-16T20:30:00.001-06:00

Conversation 1
John: Jonas, are you getting sleepy?
Jonas (turns to me and asks): Are you getting sleepy?
Me: Yes. Are you getting sleepy?
Jonas (comes right up to my face, stares for a while, and finally whispers): No!

Conversation 2
John: Did you brush your teeth, or did you just eat the toothpaste?
Jonas: I eat the toothpaste.

Conversation 3
Me: Jonas, you must put the balls away.
Jonas, not putting the balls away, slips on one and bonks his lip.
Jonas (fake crying): I hurt my lip!
Me: Well that wouldn't have happened if you had been picking up the balls like I said, would it?
Jonas gets this goofy grin on his face, walks straight over to John, giggles, and says: Mommy called me a Widdit!

So silly! :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A series of pictures and the stories that go with them

2010-12-31T08:54:00.001-06:00

Long ago, like November, Kalleigh had her Thanksgiving feast. This is her little class singing their turkey song. (Kalleigh's all the way to the right.)

They feasted in the traditional way with turkey, pumpkin pie and KoolAid Jammers.

If we have an hour or so to kill in town, many times the kids and I will go to Barnes & Noble to "read books." Here we are with the kids' favorite "books."

One morning, we were about to get in the car on our way to school when Kalleigh tells John that her tummy hurts. Overhearing the comment, I very sympathetically rolled my eyes and said, "Don't worry. You'll be fine." John, however, decided to grab a big plastic bowl and put it in her lap. As we pulled into the school parking lot, the bowl served its purpose and only a little vomit got on her cute outfit. This picture was taken on our way home. She slept the rest of the morning and felt much better that evening!

We had our Christmas church family dinner again this year. The kids gave a little program, we introduced our new Children's Minister (yea!), and even Santa showed up for the occasion. Jonas's smirk in this picture cracks me up!

And finally, a series of pictures that I took in hopes of capturing the essence of the children when there are only three. Probably the next series of kid pictures will include Kate! Only a few tears were shed in the taking of these pictures. :)

"Ring around the rosy!"

This was the one I ended up handing out to family at Christmas. Happy Holidays!

SoJam 2010

2010-11-16T16:01:00.001-06:00

Oh my. Where to start? I guess I'll just try to tell the whole story. Skip as needed.

Thursday
By 5pm, we had dropped off the kids at the Deans, loaded up all of the equipment and picked up all the members of Clearly Vocal and left Tyler. Here's the crew in front of our CVmobile ready to hit the road:

(Ben-sound, John-baritone, Don-bass, Kim-alto, Stefanie-soprano, Andy-tenor)

Since there were six of us driving and approximately 18 hours to drive to get to Durham, NC, we made a driving schedule, complete with driving buddies, three hours each. John and Ben started us off. We picked up supper in Shreveport, LA and then stopped somewhere else in LA to change drivers. Don and Andy were up next and took us the next leg of the trip, and then Stef and I took over to drove the 11pm-2am shift. And on and on we drove and switched drivers and filled up with gas and grabbed snacks and tried to sleep. Some big cities we went through were Shreveport, Birmingham, Atlanta, and Charlotte, all until we finally reached Durham at 1pm eastern time on Friday. We also included a Crackle Barrel stop, which added an hour to our overall travel time.

Friday
So 19 hours after leaving Tyler, we pull into our hotel to check in. The guys were gracious to go unload our equipment at the Carolina Theater, where we would be performing that night, while Stef and I slept!

By 4:30 we were all dressed in concert attire and ready to go through our relaxation/visualization exercise that Stefanie had created for us. Then we loaded up to head to the theater to begin our sound check by 5:30.

When we got there, Sonos was having a sound check/rehearsal. They were one of the professional groups performing that weekend. Wow. Truly amazing.

Running sound for everyone at the theater that weekend was Tony Huerta, probably the absolute best sound guy in contemporary a cappella today. He regularly runs sound for Nota, Take 6, m-pact, Sonos and others. He was also the guy who ran the sound at the Rocky Mountain Harmony Sweepstakes in which we competed last year. I just think it's pretty cool that we can claim Tony twice as our sound guy! Ben, our sound guy, was in sound engineer heaven watching over Tony's shoulder, learning, but also helping Tony know what was coming up in our songs!

We hit our sound check and worked out our inner-ear monitor kinks and other little things. It really felt rushed and we couldn't keep a consistent pitch and we were having tempo issues and hearing issues and we were getting irritated with each other, yadda yadda yadda. And suddenly our time was up. Next on the schedule was the Contemporary A Cappella League (CAL) reception, which was upstairs, but before we ran up there, we took a minute to regroup, to remember to think as a group and to breathe and de-stress. Thankfully it worked, and our shoulders relaxed back into their proper positions.

We headed upstairs and enjoyed reconnecting with the other CAL groups as well as the directors of SoJam and of the Contemporary A Cappella Society (CASA). Also in attendance were the members of Sonos and Basix, the other pro group that was performing Saturday night. What an honor to rub shoulders with these people! Other "big dogs" included Dave Brown and Christopher Diaz, the hosts of the Mouth Off Show, Bill Hare, the producer of many pro, CAL and college cd's (Nota, Straight No Chaser, The Red States, On the Rocks, etc.), and Ed Boyer, one of the arrangers for the show The Sing Off. The place was packed with talent!

Friday night, the show consisted of six college groups who were competing against each other. After they all sang, we performed for 40 minutes while the judges' votes were being tallied. The theater was JAM PACKED! About 1000 in attendance. Probably the biggest audience for which we've sung.

We wore our black outfits, accented with purple and blue, like we wore in Denver, for those of you who saw that look. Of course Stef and I didn't wear our exact outfits, as we are both pregnant, so we had some wrap shirts made. I was pleased with how they turned out!

Overall, it was the best show that we five have ever done! "The Moment" of our show was when we put our mics down, stood in a semicircle a the front of the stage and sang "And Can It Be." I was really nervous about doing this song, because there were some pretty anti-Christian people in that crowd! But after the show, the two most talked about songs were Java Jive (of course--always a crowd pleaser--blows me away) and And Can It Be! They were impressed that 1. we would put down our mics, and 2. that we would be brave enough to share our faith with everyone! Seems they really appreciated both things. To all of you whom I know have been praying for the hearts of those listening, THANK YOU! I believe hearts were touched and that God was glorified.

Before our last song, I thanked Tony, of course, and then gave a little motivational speech especially to the college kids encouraging them to keep singing! Most think that if they don't plan to sing professionally, that their singing days are over after college. Our goal was to show them that they can keep singing at a high-quality level, if that's what they love to do. We can't NOT sing, and so we began Clearly Vocal.

After the show, we signed autographs, passed out business cards and received a flood of congrats and great jobs. What a night!

But wait, there's more! From the theater, everyone went to an after party where we all got to interact with other groups and more fans and relive the evening. We met a guy from NYC whose job it is to match groups with events, sort of like an agent, but more of a consultant as he's not tied to any one group. He was very complimentary, wanted a card and said he would look for opportunities for us! Of course, people in this industry are famous for their promises, but not necessarily their follow-through, but still, the compliments were appreciated, coming from someone who sees a lot of talent.

We made it back to the hotel around 1am and just crashed!

Saturday
We were out the door by 8:30 to grab some breakfast at Chick-Fil-A and get to Duke University to attend our first classes that began at 9. We tried to split up the classes so that everything was covered!

My first class was called "Organic Arranging," by Christopher Diaz. He focused in on the importance of communicating the emotions of a song through the music, as opposed to just "putting together a cool arrangement." He gave examples of both poor arrangements that failed miserably at accomplishing this concept as well as ones that were very good about being intentional about it. What a difference! We were to ask the question, "What pictures are my chords and note movements painting, and does that picture line up with the words?" I was inspired. :)

Interspersed throughout the day were mini-performances by the other CAL groups. First up was Euphonism, a group based out of Washington DC. It's just neat to see other "real people" doing what we do!

Next class for me was Advanced Arranging, by Charlie Forkish. Charlie is kind of child prodigy of sorts. He dropped out of college because his arranging and recording gigs were so demanding and rewarding! Admirably, though, he is finishing his degree, recognizing its importance! Again, some amazing tips about chord building, digital arranging and arranging for recording vs. arranging for live performance.

Up next for the CAL groups was Treble, a 13-member all-female group from NYC, that we had met last year. Their director is pregnant, too, and due about a month before I am. That was fun to reconnect with her and them. Only half of their group was able to make it, so I was impressed that they performed at all!

We ate lunch on campus as we tried to process everything we had learned!

Then it was off to the class called Sell Out, by .... huh-oh, I forget. But she was a reporter for a local newspaper who has an a cappella background, She gave us some fantastic tips on how to market ourselves and communicate efficiently with the newspapers. Great dos an don'ts for Twitter and Facebook as well as for what to put into our media kits and what to leave out. I learned huge amounts of information in that class!

The last CAL group to perform was The Red States. They are also from NYC, and have the best recording of Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" that I've ever heard. Seriously, you should buy it on iTunes, it's that good. It's on my running playlist. :) Unfortunately their female soloist for that song wasn't there, so they chose other songs to sing instead. I was able to talk to the guy who arranged it, though, and learned a lot of fun facts!

Then it was off to a class called "Lady Power," which was a panel of women in various groups that discussed specific issues that women, especially all-female groups, deal with in this a cappella world. It was mostly wardrobe, costumes, stereotypes and discrimination issues. I was disappointed, though, because no one ever addressed the issues of singing while raising a family and juggling other real-life responsibilities that women have while still trying to sing. I think I'll make that suggestion when I fill out my SoJam survey. Something tells me there's a good chance I'll be on that panel next year, since not a lot of those present were currently challenged by that issue, but I still think it's important for them to think about as they plan for the future. A cappella life doesn't have to end when you begin a family.

In between that class and the next, all of the CAL groups, both partial and full, were supposed to meet together to sing three songs in a jam-session sort of format. Yeah, I don't think that went as well as it was intended to go, so I think there's a good possibility that it won't happen next year. :)

The last class of the day that I attended was called "The Cool Factor," by Claude McKnight, the founder of Take 6, and older brother of Brian McKnight, the famous R&B singer. It was fantastic. The bottom line, the take away point that Claude made is that cool=authenticity and integrity. Be who you are, sing like you do and have your own style rather than always copying other people. I certainly struggle with this since I love The Real Group so much! But I'm determined to work away from that. I'm inspired to write more original stuff and come up with original arrangements. Anytime a song or arrangement comes from the group, the group can just be who the group is and will put themselves into the song more passionately than when we're singing a song that is not ours. Great class.

We raced from there to supper where we ate with the other CAL groups. Actually, we scarfed down our food as quickly as we could so that we could make it back to the theater to change and get ready for our last performance, which was to open for Sonos and Basix.

Saturday night, we went with all black and white. We hated to upstage the pros, you know. ;)

Kind of small, but you get the picture. That's me singing "Fever," our closer.

There was only one little glitch on Saturday night. Tony did not have our inner ear monitors turned on for the first half of our first song! (Words, by The Real Group.) All we could hear was the bounce-back from the back of the theater! Therefore, our tempo was a little slower than usual! We managed, though, and when we finally did get our ears back, thankfully we were all in the same tempo and key! Ha! The show must go on!

We were told to do two songs to open for the other groups, and as we walked off stage, Thomas King, who was running the groups backstage and one of the judges for the CAL Showcase, said "That's it? You had 15 minutes! That was the first we had heard of it! Oh well. Better to leave the crowd wanting more. Plus they were really there for Sonos and Basix that night!

Then we got to join the crowd and watch as Sonos and then Basix performed. Here's Sonos:

Boy, when Basix took the stage it was an obvious step up in class and professionalism, of course from where we were, but also a step up from Sonos, which really shocked me when I realized that. I also love that Basix, who brought their own sound guy (who ran their entire system through a Mac Book Pro!), not only thanked him, but had everyone turn around and wave at him! Very classy.

As Basix was singing, I leaned over to John and asked, "Are those our mic stands they're using?" He grinned real big and nodded. If you look closely, you can see them in the background of that picture! Again, I geeked out. After the show, I asked Chris, one of Basix's members, if they enjoyed using our stands, to which he replied, "Those were yours? Oh, thank you, thank you! They were so ease to slide up and down; much better than ours!" All the members of Basix were just so nice. Chris and I are Facebook friends, you know. ;) He's the one in the middle.

The Saturday night after party was a blast, too. We had so much fun hanging out with new friends one last time and reliving the evening. We got back to the hotel at 1:30am. I had to have a shower, since I was just nasty, so I finally crawled into bed around 2.

Sunday
But Sunday morning we were up and at 'em again to go to one more class and finally our master class. We got all checked out of the hotel and headed to Duke one last time.

Our first class that most of us attended had to do with the physics of the voice; what is actually going on in your body when you sing, and how we can use that information to help us sing and blend better. GREAT info in that class. We were temporarily embarrassed and ultimately honored, though, because the instructor motioned to us and said to the rest of the class, "This is Clearly Vocal in here, by the way. They already do all of this stuff I'm talking about, which is why they sound so amazing. I don't really know why they're in here!" So sweet.

And finally, we went to our master class with none other than Claude McKnight himself. The man. Of all the SoJam attendees, he most likely has the best trained ear, especially for jazz. Who more qualified than the founder of Take 6 to coach us?! What an honor.

He appreciated that we do actually make an effort to listen to each other and think that tuning is important! He kind of harped on the college and CAL groups for their lack of attention to that. Yes, we had a few tuning issues, but we knew them and he knew we would continue to work on those. His main focus was on presentation. The most flattering thing (for me) that he said to the group was, "When I watch this group, I want to watch (pointed to me) you! I like to watch you perform. You know your notes, so you can relax, have fun and let your personality shine through!" I died. Right there. Melted into a puddle. It was all I could do not to cry!

Claude also gave us some very practical tips to use on each song and worked with us on how to accomplish those things. Things like grabbing the audience from the first word, standing and moving with a purpose, conversing with the audience in-between songs rather than giving speeches, and other things like that. Those seemingly little things made a huge difference as we worked. I can't wait to apply those principles to the rest of our show!

See? We're pretty much best friends now.

Several other people sat in on our class, including Dave Brown.

I'm kind of embarrassed at how much whiter his teeth are than mine. Hmmm.

Our class was supposed to be an hour long, but since it was the last think on the schedule, we actually went about an hour and a half! Other than performing on that beautiful stage, working with Claude was my favorite memory!

One other amazing thing we learned during our class was from the photographer, Michael Elderidge. He is known for picking up on people's antics and habits. Here's what he said to Stef: "You sing up here (motioned upwards about a 45 degree angle) because that's where you look to talk to your husband." To me he said, "You sing right here (motioned straight ahead with knees bent) because you're keeping your kids' attention!" To Andy he said, "You sing down here (motioning to the ground) because you're thinking too hard, and also where you look to talk to your wife." To John he said, "You sing like this (standing up tall and motioning one arm out to the side with his palm facing upward) because your leading your congregation!" And to Don he said, "You lean forward and raise your eyebrows as if your were teaching." (Don's an 8th grade math teacher!) Amazing and so telling! Still geeking out about all of that.

We took one last picture in front of the beautiful Duke chapel before hitting the road:

After grabbing lunch, we drove out of Durham at 2pm, rotated drivers through the night, hit a traffic jam in which we were stopped for a little over 30 minutes, and rolled into Tyler at 7:30 Monday morning so the boys could go to work. Crazy.

It was so strange to be treated basically like rock stars! Everyone knew who we were! They acted nervous to come talk to us. They whispered as we walked by. One funny story was that Andy walked into one class and sat down by a guy and his friend. The guy said to Andy, "Now what's your name?" His friend slapped his arm and said in a harsh whisper, "That's Andy from Clearly Vocal!" The first guy turned red and said, "I am SO sorry! Of course I know you are! You guys did awesome last night!" Andy laughed and was like, "Dude, it's totally fine!" We are not used to that kind of treatment! It was good for us to get back home where no one knows or cares who we are!

What a weekend. So physically exhausting, but so rewarding. So many connections made or renewed. We were encouraged, had our egos stroked, inspired, humbled, challenged, refreshed and refocused. I can't wait for rehearsal tonight!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Duke University, Durham, NC

The Fishing Trip

2010-11-07T15:21:00.001-06:00

My grandparents, Ted and Evelyn Kell, have been going to Jack's Fishing Resort in Mountain View, AR, for 30+ years. They live in Brownwood, TX, but make the 10-hour trek twice a year. They stay several weeks in the summer and then another couple of weeks in October. It's just another Kell tradition that I have grown to love.

As I've mentioned, John had several conferences this fall, and as good and necessary as they were, I was beginning to feel a little left out on the whole "taking trips without kids" game. So, in my selfishness, I asked John when it would be my turn to take a trip without the kids, and that I would really love to go up to Jack's when Grammie and Papaw would be there and fish and shop and do all the other things I love to do there. In John's graciousness, he said that we could probably work that out. :)

That whole conversation happened before CV was chosen to represent CAL at SoJam. With all the adding in of rehearsals and gigs, I had pretty much given up on making it up to Jack's.

Papaw called me to ask if I was going to be able to make it up there, in code of course, because speaking cryptically is just so much more fun. So, "the Championship Trout Fishing Bureau" called to see if "one Ms. Kimberly Joyce Hodges was planning on competing in that rodeo." Heeheehee. Love my Papaw. I was so sad when I called back to say that I just didn't see any possible way that I would be able to make it up with our crazy schedule and our one-car-ness. We chatted a bit and then he gave the phone to Grammie. While we were chatting, she mentioned that Karla (their daughter, my aunt who lives in Dallas) was thinking they say way--that there just didn't seem to be a way up there and that her window of opportunity was from a Sunday through a Tuesday and because she would have to go alone, it might not work out.

Interesting. We had a gig on Saturday and rehearsal Tuesday night, but no CV commitments in between.

So, I texted Aunt Karla to see if she was still thinking about heading to Jack's. She calls back to say, "Seriously?" As I had, she had just about closed that door and asked God to make it happen if He saw fit. She needed a riding buddy and I needed a ride. It just so happened that our timing was identical!

CV sang at the Golden Sweet Potato Festival that Saturday afternoon and then drove over to Dallas to enjoy P.F. Chang's (what else?) that evening. John dropped me off at Aunt Karla's and drove back to Tyler by himself--what a hubby!

Early Sunday morning, Aunt Karla and I hit the road that would wind us through the Ozarks and finally arrive at Jack's.

The weather was perfect that day. We took a nice walk when we arrived, stretching out our car legs. Then we just relaxed in our room that opened up into Grammie's and Papaw's room and visited with them. That evening we went to church where my great-aunt and uncle go. This is my other Papaw's brother, the Papaw that finished his earthly race a couple of years ago. My Great-Uncle Frank looks so much like his brother, my Papaw! It's like hugging my Uncle Frank is about as closest I can come to hugging my Papaw. So good to see them.

Early Monday morning, Papaw cooked breakfast for me before we bundled up and hit the river. It's those simple times around the table swapping stories that are some of my most favorite times!

It was chilly out on the White River, but we had prepared and stayed warm.

This is "Ship Rock." My iPhone picture just doesn't do it justice, but you might be able to see that as you're motoring up the river, the rock looks like a big ship emerging from the river bank. It's one of those iconic scenes that you look for each time to you go up the river.

We fished that morning, caught a few, and Papaw had me back at Jack's by noon so that I could get cleaned up.

'Cause my mom came up to see us for a late lunch! Eating at Wood's Pharmacy is also a tradition. Wood's is a working pharmacy, but also a soda shop where they have the best lemonade, the best chicken salad and the best chocolate shakes of just about anyone.

After that, we shopped a little, and we all found things that we liked "A LOT" or that we just really "NEEDed!"

Mom headed back to Searcy after the shopping trip, and Grammie, Aunt Karla and I headed back to Jack's to rest a bit before supper.

Supper was at the traditional JoJo's Catfish, there at Jack's. Mmmmmm, so good!

Tuesday morning, Aunt Karla joined Papaw and myself out on the river for just about an hour and a half or so of our last chance to fish. The Lord held off the forecasted rain, for which we were thankful, and we pulled in a few more fish, again, for which we were thankful!

We booked it back to the rooms to get cleaned up, packed up and checked out so that I could make it back to Tyler in time for the tail end of CV's rehearsal.

It was a whirlwind of a trip, but I'm so thankful that it worked out! Aunt Karla and I had some great conversation during our 14 hours in the car together. I'm kind of hoping we can make this happen every year!

I also must mention that while I was gone, John's mother stayed in Tyler and was a HUGE help, not only to John and to the kids, but also to me! When I got home, the laundry was done, beds were made and evidence of healthy eating was left! Amazing, and thank you, Martha, again.

I love spending time with my family. This was such a special trip!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Mountain View, AR

Clearly Vocal Happenings

2010-11-02T14:18:00.003-05:00

First of all, I promised an updated CV pic after taking some new ones back in September. Here's our new promo pic:

Second, we've had a couple of gigs in the past couple of weeks and three more in the next couple of weeks! Sometimes it's tough being a jazz group in East Texas, though. It's hard to fit in at the Edom Festival of the Arts, where the belly dancers followed us, or at the Golden Sweet Potato Festival. Exactly as it sounds. But we try our best to force a little class into our neck of the woods, no matter how blatantly we stand out. :)

Those gigs have paid off, though, as we've already booked a couple of Christmas parties because of them!

But our most exciting news, and this is third, is that we are headed to North Carolina next week to represent the Contemporary A Cappella League at the nation's biggest contemporary a cappella festival: SoJam! CV went to SoJam last year and made a ton of great contacts and found out that there were people "out there" who loved to sing just as much as we did and strived for excellence like we did! So we had already made plans to be there this year.

Side note: the Contemporary A Cappella League (CAL) is made up of groups across the country who are out of college, but not professionals. As in we have lives and real jobs and kids and other responsibilities. We joined this league about 2 1/2 years ago.

Well, a couple of months ago, the folks planning SoJam announced that they were going to have a CAL video competition. The winners would be the headlining group for the Friday night concert and then open for the two professional groups Saturday night. We sent in our video, not really expecting much ........... AND WE WON.

So off we go to pull this crazy stunt. After the initial panic and denial stages, we decided we had better get to work. We've stuffed in several more rehearsals and even a practice concert for friends and family. We have our show order and our outfits (almost) ready. Now it's just time to polish.

We've also added a full-time sound guy, Ben Crawford. Woo-hoo! Ben and his wife Leana also go to church with the rest of us. It's amazing the difference he has made in just under a month. He'll be going to SoJam with us as well and will get to attend sound classes under the master of a cappella sound, Tony Huerta (just the sound guy for Take 6, m-pact, Sonos, and has even run sound for Nota a time or two! No bigs.).

Needless to say, we are all so excited and quite nervous. Prayers would be greatly appreciated!

One more side note: I wrote a song for CV. It's my first one ever. Just finished it last night. Actually, I have been singing the melody for about 2 years, as it was what I sang to Jonas as I nursed and rocked him. Therefore the title is "Lullaby for Jonas." The group hasn't even heard it yet, so I'm a little nervous to put myself out there like that! But hey, it's something different. We won't even be able to get to it until after SoJam, and maybe even after Christmas. We have a lot of work to do in the next two months! But someday ...

Schedule: tonight, rehearsal. Friday night, rehearsal. Saturday night, family and friends concert. Tuesday night, rehearsal. Wednesday night, private party concert. Thursday, drive to NC. Friday night, big show! Saturday, classes and concerts all day. Saturday night, open for Sonos and Basix. Sunday, drive home.

It's going to be LEGEN ................ DARY!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Pumpkin Patch ... Almost a month ago

2010-10-30T17:07:00.003-05:00

On Kalleigh's birthday we went to the Flower Mound Pumpkin Patch. John was flying into DFW back from his last conference of the fall late that afternoon, so the kids and I had the day to enjoy the pumpkin patch.

I don't know how many pictures it took to get one where all three were looking at the camera. So many of you have been there. :)

Johnathan thought he needed to take a picture of our newest little pumpkin. :)

But this one just might be my favorite photo of the day:

You can see the face painting that the kids got. All of the activities at the patch were free! In addition to face painting, there was a tractor-pulled hayride, a train ride, bounce houses, a playground, two different hay mazes and more pumpkins that I had ever seen in one place at one time!

After the pumpkin patch, we ran over to John's sister Laurie's house for a quick visit with her, cousin Brenna and Aunt Elisa before going to pick up John. After swinging by DFW, we all enjoyed a Laurie/John/Kalleigh birthday dinner at P. F. Chang's. Where else?!

Good times. :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

SOLD! SICK! SMILE! And Something Else!

2010-09-18T14:37:00.000-05:00

SOLD!
On Craigslist! And the Consignment Sale! This whole week has been about getting rid of things that we no longer need. I LOVE getting rid of things. Admittedly, I'm a trasher. I throw old toys away without blinking. We haul stuff to Goodwill about four times a year. But this time, I made the effort to organize and put up for sale everything worth reusing! I've already talked too much about the CCC sale, but today I'm going back to pick up my leftovers, if there are any. I figure if they are all hung up and organized, surely I can sell them on Craigslist.

Speaking of, this weekend I have sold crib sheets, a Bumbo and a box of boys clothes on Craigslist! These were things that were just up in the attic, not being used. The box of clothes was one that I had missed when I was tagging all that stuff for the CCC sale! Of course, while I was selling, I was also shopping. But I still think I'm going to come out ahead in the end. :)

I think cousin Elizabeth said it best when she said that consigning is being a good steward with what God has given us! You should do it. It's worth it!

SICK!
I love animals, but I don't like spending money on them. Especially when it's because of their own stubbornness and stupidity that they are sick. Bison ate something again. A few years ago, I posted about Bison getting sick because he ate something, and I graciously posted a picture of what it was ... After it came out. :) Well, he's back at it again. This happens a few times a year, but it usually passes by itself after a couple of days. Oh Bison. It's been a week now. We just got some medicine to help with the complicated IBS. But he's just pitiful. I'm going to have to take him back in on Monday if he doesnt have the "guts" to "get through this" on his own. Stupid dog.

SMILE!
Clearly Vocal took new pictures today! These are the first ones with our new tenor, Andy, in them. It's about time; he's been performing with us scince July! I'll make sure and put some up when they're ready. Of course, they will also appear on our Facebook page and our web page!

Something Else!
I just couldn't come up with anything clever that summed up, "I never tried PW's mini brownies," so I just said "something else." If any of you try them, you'll have to blog about it, and I'll do the same.

Kate Evelyn

2010-09-14T12:15:00.000-05:00

Most of you know by now, but we are having a girl! And Kate Evelyn is her name, named after my Grammie Kell, Evelyn. She represents strength, confidence and a fierce love for family that I hope will be passed on to this sweet one!

I can't remember if I've mentioned before, but John and I did a lot of research before trying for this baby. We read many articles on how to naturally increase your chances of having a boy or a girl. Well, it worked, I guess. I mean, we got the result we were hoping for. Of course it's a 50/50 chance, so maybe nothing we did mattered at all! Sometimes I wonder if it makes God chuckle when we think we made something happen. Like the baby lion scaring the hyena away, when in reality his daddy is standing behind him! Either way, we're having a girl, and if anyone is interested in the methods we learned about, I would have so much fun telling you all about it!

Sorry for the delay in the blog announcement. We found out on Saturday, and of course this is Tuesday. What happened was that I got such a rush of excitement after finding out that we're having a Kate that I spent the rest of that night and any time I had Sunday, Monday and this morning pulling out, hanging up, safety pinning, tagging and labeling all of the boy clothes I had size 0-2T to take to the big consignment sale! No suppers were cooked and no laundry was done during this time, either! But at last, everything is in its place at the Harvey Hall Convention Center, and I can't wait to start pulling out all the little girl things!!

I was 16 weeks on Sunday. The baby books say that Kate will go through a major growth spurt over the next couple of weeks. I'm STARVING.

I will reluctantly post some belly pics. Eventually. When I'm having an emotionally stable day. I have WAY too much estrogen in my system.

And now for a change of pace

2010-09-09T14:29:00.000-05:00

Wow, my last post was really depressing! But like Tiffany said in her most recent post, it really does help to get it all out from time to time. It helps me put things in perspective and sends me running back to God to thank him for so many wonderful blessings that always outweigh the frustrations in life.

So sorry to all those who were afraid that I needed medication or therapy ... or even a chili-cheese coney. I think I'm okay without all of that.

For now. :)

So, today I'll let you faithful readers (and apparently there are a lot more than I realized based on the fallout from last week!) in on some of the near-perfect things about my life right now.

I buy a cantaloupe about once a year. My kids will eat it okay, John doesn't really prefer them, but I'll get a "hankerin'" for one about once a year. So I bought my 2010 cantaloupe at the Buckly Farms farmer's market in downtown Flint just yesterday. Cantaloupes are like watermelons. Mostly they're pretty good, but occasionally, they're amazing. The Hodges 2010 cantaloupe was AMAZING. That ought'a do me until next summer!

I just like to say downtown Flint to see if anyone laughs out loud. It's the four-way-stop.

Speaking of the farmer's market, while I was there, I just happen to let a jar of pear preserves jump into my bag. They are my favorite, and if anyone ever wants to make some pear preserves for me, I will gladly award you with a million points. Did you hear that? A MILLION.

Terry Dean, my other mom, surprised me with a phone call a couple of days ago saying that she wanted to take me to Stork Vision to get an early look at the gender of this new baby! I am so excited! We're going on Saturday, which will be the day before I'm 16 weeks. If this baby cooperates, it will be the earliest I've ever gotten to find out the gender of any of my babies!! It's really for practical purposes, though, since that consignment sale is next weekend and I need to turn in my stuff by Tuesday, and if I know the sex of the baby, I can get rid of all of my other baby gender stuff, too! See how practical we are? ;) Of course I will keep all of you up to date as to pink or blue!

Speaking of baby, I'm feeling the first little flutters of this child! This, for sure, is going to be our last child. We're going to take drastic measures to make sure of it. We, of course, means he. :) So, I have just been treasuring each day. This is my last time to do this, and instead of being sad like I always thought I would be, I'm just enjoying it! I don't want to be pregnant again and I don't want any more children than these four. This is a great place to be, mentally!

And speaking of consignment sales, of course I'm going to sell my stuff, but I'm also going to get to take advantage of some really great deals! It's such a good way to clean out those closets and fill 'em back up again. Um, that didn't come out right. Anyway, I can't wait!

John does NOT have a meeting tonight or tomorrow night! These days, two nights in a row without a meeting of some kind is almost unheard of. So we're going to make the most of this time at home together as a family, because it will be another week until we're all home together for dinner again! Right, focusing on the good. Tomorrow is also John's day off, so we'll get Johnathan and Kalleigh off to school and just have Jonas at home with us. Very nice.

Speaking of Kalleigh, she got her little cast off yesterday! She's still limping around as if she had the cast on, and the Dr. said she would do that for a week or two. Poor thing. Limping without a cast makes people worry more about her than when she had a cast on! But this morning, she was begging me to let her jump on the trampoline again. Of course I let her! She did just fine.

Tonight I'm making PW's pan-fried pork chops and I might try those little mini brownies that she had on her page yesterday. Anybody else try them yet? They look so good!

So see? No need to worry about me any more. I'm just me. Plain, happy, hormonal me. :)

Feeling compelled to write

2010-09-02T14:17:00.000-05:00

Except I don't know what to write about. Is that so weird? I mean, I dropped my second major in college because I didn't want to write the 50-page paper. Seriously, that's all I lacked to complete that major. And I still don't regret it.

But why now do I feel compelled to write? Perhaps the purpose will unfold if I just keep my fingers moving.

Maybe it's just the two cups of coffee I drank that makes me a little manic.

I feel like a little bipolar today. In some ways I'm so very bummed. The preacher search is not going at all like I would prefer. But then again, I'm not in charge. The committee isn't either, but sometimes they forget that. I'm speaking in harsh generalities, but it is how I feel today. The bullies have won. And they're going to get away with it, too. Man. I'm really sorry if I've offended anyone. Please come talk to me about it if you feel that way.

On the other hand, my coffee did fully kick in and I'm ready to conquer the world. The Children's Clothing Consignment Sale is in two weeks, and I have a load of stuff to tag and sell! The organizing of that stuff will get done today. Tagging, tomorrow. That's exciting!

John has a meeting tonight, so I'll see him just before bedtime. I'm also car-less, which feeds my feelings of helplessness. Thankfully, I have Tina who runs with me in the mornings and takes Johnathan to and from school, so I don't really have anywhere I need to be.

Jonas is wanting to potty-train. He's giving all the signs that he's ready, and I've been dragging my feet for months. Well now, the Pull-Ups have been purchased and he's been keeping them dry as long as I initiate going potty, which he is glad to do. Except for the poopy part. That's still a little scary for him. The first time he actually pooped in the potty, he jumped when he saw it fall in! I guess he wasn't expecting that! We'll see what happens.

Tuesday was a rough day for the kids. Someone was crying at least 80% of the day and I had had it. When I picked John up from work at 5, he said, "You okay?" He got "the look" and I proceeded to whine to him the same way my children had been whining to me all day. Wonder where they get it. Anyway, rather than John pointing that out to me, he said, "Sounds like you need to get out of the house tonight." I just nearly cried right there. We ate the supper I had prepared, and after I pulled the dessert out of the oven, I went to Starbucks. I drank a smoothie, I talked to my mom, I read my book for ladies Bible class and I played games on my phone. About an hour and a half later, I was a totally different person! When I got home, the kids were bathed and in bed. I do love my husband. God, thank you for blessing me and our children with John!

The laundry sits on the counter, almost all folded, the coffee pot is empty, the younger two children are napping and Johnathan will be home in a little over an hour.

Thanks for letting me get all that out. I don't know what the purpose was for that string of nonsense, except that I do feel better. I'm hormonal and if I could just have a foot-long chili-cheese coney from Sonic, the world would probably be perfect. Sounds like I was a little more down than up today. Time to count blessings: John, kids, this precious new one growing inside, a house, rain, church family, blood family, God providing for us always, a God that understands and listens and loves anyway. And coffee. And chocolate. And coffee and chocolate.

Firsts

2010-08-26T13:25:00.000-05:00

First day of school

All three kids are in school this year! Woo-hoo! Johnathan, first grade, of course goes everyday. Kalleigh goes MWF. Jonas just goes MW. Everyone was excited and ready to go! Interestingly enough, in each of my kids' classes there was one or more children crying on that first day. In Johnathan's class, it was the little girl sitting next to him. He whispered to me, "Mommy, what's wrong with her?" Not using this as a lesson in compassion as I probably should've, I said, "I don't know, Baby. Just be nice to her." Similarly, in Kalleigh's class, a child was crying. Kalleigh looked at me and said, "Mommy, she's hurting my ears." Oh, we need to work on that compassion at home! Jonas just ignored the crying kids in his class and went about his business of playing. I'm thankful that my kids are pretty independent. I'm sure this 4th child will be "THAT" child.

And we should be compassionate. Not my strong suit.

It's okay to call your first grade boy "Baby."

Just had to show this comparison of Johnathan and Jonas on their first days at Little People's School. :)

Obviously I had more time for photo editing when Johnathan was 2.

Obviously I had an actual camera when Johnathan was 2.

First time on the Praise Team

Kalleigh "sang" with me on the praise team this past Sunday! Well, we turned her mic off, but she thought she was! I thought it would give her a way to feel more involved and responsible rather than coloring or eating the whole time, which is what we usually do. For the most part, she did great! She got a little tired toward the end and started scratching the top--it just feels so weird, you know--so I'm glad we had it off. :)

First time ever to see a picture like this:

Okay that's a lie. I just think it's so funny when Bison sleeps upside down. Forgive him for his lack of modestly. He just doesn't care.

I doubt you've seen this kind of picture with a Batman Croc in the background.

I always try to have shoes in my pictures. It makes it them so much more real.

First Ladies Bible Class

Our assignment for the first day of LBC was to read the introduction of the book we will be studying this semester. We were also all supposed to bring salads for our salad luncheon. Also, at the beginning of each class, we all meet together for a devotional before we break into our groups for our book study. I was asked to do the first one.

The day before, I remembered one of the three things: my devotional. The night before, after my children had gone to sleep, I remembered the other two: salad and introduction. Introduction, no problem. Got it read. Salad, problem. Kids were asleep (with John out of town) and I have no lettuce, no spinach, no cabbage, no salad-y things of any kind. What do you do when you need the perfect recipe with only the ingredients you have? Go to Mamaw's cookbook, of course! Found it: potato salad. Who cares if I had never made potato salad in my life? If Mamaw says it's good, it's good.

For my devotional, I had decided to share the forward of Mamaw's cookbook. It's a devotional thought for sure as it compares the need for both physical and spiritual food! Then, as I was chopping up my ingredients for the potato salad, I thought, "Why don't I just bag up the separated, pre-measured ingredients and stir this potato salad up while I'm reading the devotional?" Sounded great, so that's exactly what I did.

It was a lot harder than I had originally thought. I was READING, people. I couldn't look at what I was putting into the bowl! Thanks to half-decent peripheral vision and a little luck, I got that thing made about the time I finished reading the forward. The ladies loved it, I plugged Mamaw's book, my salad for the luncheon was made, and I'm done with devo-duty for the semester. :)

Of course, I had to call Mamaw right afterward to tell her all about it!

Hope everyone else's "firsts" of the semester are going well, too!

Two Big!

2010-08-12T11:43:00.000-05:00

Jonas turned two a week ago. For our little family/Deans celebration, Jonas wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese.

This is nothing new. If we are within 5 blocks of CEC Jonas starts looking out the window, quietly saying, "Chuck E. Cheese? Chuck E. Cheese?" I think he's been once that he might remember. At the end of the school year, Johnathan's class had a party there. Anyway, as soon as CEC comes into view, Jonas, in an excited/panicky scream yells, "CHUCK E. CHEESE!!! CHUCK E. CHEESE!! CHUCK E. CHEESE!!" until he can no longer see it. So of course, when asked where he wanted to go for his birthday ... exactly.

With as much energy and motivation as I could scrape up that day, I made chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting, and "decorated" them by spelling out Jonas's name a couple of times across the cupcakes and then slapped a "2" candle in the middle. Poor 3rd child! For Johnathan's 2nd birthday, we had two different celebrations for some reason and I made two cakes: Big Bird and Tigger. And we went to CEC. I just hope and pray that Jonas will not need therapy because of this discrepancy.

Anyway, we had a great time, ate all of the pizza and cupcakes and Terry and I had some great conversation while the rest of the grownups took the kids around to play games! Perfect!

Backing away from the flame and still trying to blow it out. Heehee. We might have helped him a little.

Jonas's biggest reaction was to new clothes. That's my kid. :)

Speaking of clothes, Sunday morning, Jonas decided to outgrow all of his 2T pants. Luckily I had pulled a 2 & 3T box down from the attic some months ago and we found an outfit for church. So, it was time to go through his clothes. I had 6 boxes already out in the garage of clothes that all of the kids had outgrown over the past year that I had just piled there to sit until I could no longer put off putting them up in the attic. The time had come.

Tuesday I had a burst of energy (Woo-hoo!!!) and decided to get it done. The plan was to pull down the couple of 3T boxes and store the others. When I got up to the attic, I remembered when I saw them that a friend had given me FOUR boxes of 3Ts a year ago. Add that to my two, and I suddenly had SIX boxes of 3T clothes. People, Jonas is set. After putting away all I could, I still have 2 full boxes of 3T winter clothes and another almost full box of 3s that looked big or were actually 4s. Crazy, but I'm so thankful!

So my barely-2-yr-old is square into 3s. Bless his heart. What can I say? We make 'em sturdy. :)

Happy birthday, my sweet big boy. You were the perfect labor & delivery. You made our 8-year anniversary extra special that year! You do everything in your power to keep up with your brother and sister. You love your blanket and your thumb. You entertain yourself quite well. You are a clown and a half, doing anything for a laugh. And I love you so much!

The Broken Leg ... oh, yeah, and the family reunion

2010-08-10T16:06:00.000-05:00

Bless her heart. Kalleigh broke her leg almost 2 weeks ago. She was jumping on the trampoline and from what I can tell, it just buckled underneath her. Our orthopedic surgeon said that this kind of "buckle break" is common for her age! Crazy.

She broke it around 1pm on a Wednesday. I had said she could go jump on the trampoline for 5 minutes before nap time. Brilliant. I went out when I heard the screaming, but had no idea what had happened. I carried her in, examined her leg, and couldn't tell anything from looking. No bruising, swelling, nothing. So I told her to go ahead and go potty and she could rest it during her nap. Well, she took a few steps and then just collapsed, screaming. So I helped her take care of her potty business and went ahead and put her down for her nap. Thankfully, she fell right asleep.

I made the phone calls for advice to John and Mom, then spent a little time reading about broken legs in children and came to the conclusion that it warranted an x-ray. I called my pediatrician and the soonest we could get in was 4:00. Thankfully, "Miss Terry" was ready and willing to watch the boys while I got Kalleigh to the doctor!

The doctor mashed around on her leg while she and I both cringed and he said his best guess what that she had hyper-extended her knee because she winced the most when he put that backwards pressure on her knee. But if she had a broken tibia just below the kneecap and he was trying to hyper-extend it, of course that would hurt like ... a lot!

We sneaked into the x-ray place just before they closed. Since I'm pregnant, I couldn't be in the room where the x-rays were being taken, but instead of having me wait out in the hallway, they just brought me around the corner where the x-rays were being scanned in! I could see that something was not normal, but of course the technician wasn't allowed to say anything. They said they didn't know when the radiologist would be in to read the x-rays, so we should just wait for a call either that evening or the next morning.

Needless to say, church was a bust for us that night. I took the kids home while John took care of church duties. I wrapped her little leg with ice and an ace bandage, propped it up and let the kids watch a Veggie Tales before bedtime.

Thankfully, I did get the call that evening saying that, yes, the leg was broken and that I needed to call the pediatrician's office first thing in the morning to set up an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon, because of course our insurance requires a referral ... more to come on that ...

I put Kalleigh in the now-vacant crib, since we moved Jonas into the other kids' room into his big boy bed. I could just see Jonas trying to climb into Kalleigh's bed early in the morning with her broken leg. That would be fabulous. Thankfully, Kalleigh didn't object to the crib, and thought it was kind of cool for one night.

By the way, we were supposed to leave the next day for the Curtis family reunion up in AR. Timing ...

First thing in the morning, as instructed, I called the doctor and asked if an appointment with the Orth. Surg. had been made yet so that they could cast my daughter's leg. The poor, uninformed receptionist was defensive immediately. "Well, we're going to have to call over there to set that up, and a lot of times they don't want to cast it for 2-3 days." Seriously. Okay, I could understand if we already had a soft cast put on, but my baby's BROKEN leg had been COMPLETELY unprotected for 18 hours now, and we were leaving town that day. Oh, how the momma bear comes out. I filled her in on the crucial points of our situation and asked her to call me back as soon as they had an appointment.

Well, whaddya know, but just ten minutes later she called back and said that we had an appointment at 1:00. Thank you very much. :)

Now 24 hours after the breaking had occured, we get to see only the best pediatric orthopedic surgeon in the world, Dr. Mayfield. He and his staff are like NORMAL people. Caring, understanding, practical, all those things that most doctors office people usually are not! Yes, of course the leg was broken. We'll get a full-leg cast on it right away. We'll take it off in 3 weeks to re-x-ray it and probably get a short cast put on for another 2-3 weeks.

Kalleigh chose pink for her cast, of course, and while it was still sticky, we picked up the boys from the Deans and drove to AR!

My poor family had to deal with me tense and on edge and just worn out. Kalleigh was still in pain most of the weekend and so very frustrated that she couldn't run and play with her cousins as much as she wanted to. I was frustrated that my hands were tied up either carrying her or pushing her around in the stroller! After this whole mess, the reunion seemed to fall to the back burner.

BUT ...

I'm so glad we went ahead and drove on to AR! It was sooooo good to see so much family.

And this is, what, 1/2 of just the Dean Curtis family? And we just keep getting pregnant. Thanks, Deborah for the pic. :)

One of the best things about having a cast at a family reunion is that everyone gets to sign the cast!

Oh! Mamaw got her cookbook published! It's called "Recipes for Body and Soul," and you can order it on Amazon right HERE! I think I'm going to get rid of all other cookbooks. What's the point? It's not like I'm going to use them anymore now that I have my very own signed copy of Mamaw's book. Everything that people repeatedly ask me to make here in Tyler is in that book. You just need one.

My favorite tradition: singing together.

Blessed Assurance--oh, what a foretaste of glory divine! Indeed!

It took Kalleigh a week to start walking on her cast. Dr. Mayfield said that whenever she was okay with putting weight on it, that it was safe. Truly amazing.

She now walks, runs and even jumps with that silly cast on. Poor baby! It will be great when she gets a shorter cast so that she can walk more easily on it.

A huge THANK YOU to the anonymous donor who felt led to help us financially during this minor crisis. We have a massive deductible that we probably will not reach, and I don't know if these people knew that or not, but obviously God was a huge part of that. Whomever you are, we did receive it and are so very grateful. Praise God for providing!

How did we get halfway through July already?

2010-07-16T13:08:00.000-05:00

Didn't the summer just start? And here we are with a month left until school starts again!

We had a wonderful trip to AR at the end of June for Mom's wedding. Time spent with family is just so precious, and I cherish every second! The wedding was wonderful. Very meaningful and "real." My children behaved shockingly well. I'm going to put together the wedding scrapbook, so I look forward to getting the pictures! I took very few pictures the whole time, but here are some:

Uncle Kreg and Johnathan with their spiked hair.

The ONLY picture I got at the wedding: Jonas, Abby and Kalleigh.

That night after the wedding, all of the "new siblings" hung out together at Rees and Shanna's house for pizza and games. We had so much fun, and I look forward to more sibling time in the future! We are so blessed to be combining families who already know and love each other!

We stayed with John's mom the next couple of nights and the kids got some good "Momo" time in. We went to a great used book store at the River Market in Little Rock! It had a fun kids' section with a tent, that coincidentally was made out of the same fabric as Jonas's nursery. This is one of my favorite pictures, though such poor qualilty! It's everybody in the tent. Poor Johnathan had Roseola that day. Yeah, the kids passed it around during the trip, but didn't seem to suffer too badly. Johnathan was the loudest complainer. :)

Then we drove over to Mountain View to spend some time with the Kells. That afternoon we did the Blanchard Springs Caverns tour. I love that big cave! We saw several bats this time!

Johnathan's highlight, by far, was going fishing with Great-Papaw all Thursday morning. Papaw would hook the fish and let Johnathan reel them in! I even bought a license and brought in a few myself. :) I could've fished all day and the day after that and the day after that ...

After the fishing morning we drove up to Branson. The children were blown away by the Dixie Stampede and the Cirque Montage show kept the older two's attentions while Jonas fell asleep.

The next morning we slept in, swam in the hotel pool and then drove all they way home. We packed in a lot in a short amount of time!

Child Labor

Since then I've been trying to catch up on laundry and housework while being slammed with early pregnancy exhaustion! So basically the laundry is done, but the cleaning ... hmmm ... call before you come over!

We moved Jonas into Johnathan's and Kalleigh's room! He's now sleeping on his big boy Nemo bed, while all of the toys are now in the nursery/playroom. He's so proud of his new bed! Every time he wakes up after a nap or sleeping all night, the first thing he says to me is, "Leep Nemo bed!" He loves it, and thankfully it was a smooth transition.

Keep our church family in your prayers as we continue the search process for a new pulpit minister. It seems these days that the most obvious choices are the hardest to make.

That's about it for our family! It's been a nice lazy summer since the wedding, which is exactly what I've needed!

Don't worry folks. He's sleeping. :)

In Case You Haven't Heard ...

2010-06-21T10:18:00.000-05:00

I'm pregnant again!

Here are the answers to the most FAQs:

Yes, it was planned.

Yes, we're excited.

Yes, it would be nice to even up the score with another girl, but of course, healthy is the most important thing.

Yes, we're going to find out if it's a boy or a girl. I'm way too impatient to wait unnecessarily!

Our favorite names are Jack and Kate. Are we LOST fans or what? Our last two children's names are from TV shows. Why stop now? A little embarrassing, but we still like those names!

I'm only 4 weeks along.

I'm due March 1, which means I'll probably deliver toward the end of February, if my delivery history is an indicator for the future.

I feel fine. Morning sickness will probably hit next week.

Yes, it's okay to tell people. It's "Facebook Official." ;)

Yes, I'm still running. Did 4.38 this morning! I'll keep running until it starts hurting my tummy, I guess.

I'm REALLY looking forward to being big and pregnant in the winter for the first time!

No Longer a Kindergartener!

2010-06-05T10:50:00.000-05:00

This was the last week of school for Johnathan. We've had a great year at Owens Elementary! Here are a few pics to document the last day. Sorry for the poor quality. Maybe someday we'll actually get a camera.

Marching in. But my favorite is the look on the kid's face in front of Johnathan! Ha!

All six kindergarten classes. And we actually had pretty good seats!

Kalleigh's having a blast.

Jonas did remarkably well! Whew!

Getting his diploma.

Not sure what this face is ... :)

Johnathan and his fabulous teacher, Mrs. Miller. We love her!

The "after party" at Chuck E. Cheese's:

Jonas watching Chuck E. Cheese from a safe distance. ;)

Johnathan and Mrs. Miller going head to head in air hockey!

The loot!

It's been a great year, but hooray for the lazy summer schedule!!

Girls' Weekend!

2010-06-02T12:56:00.000-05:00

This past weekend, Kalleigh and I drove up to Searcy to spend the long weekend with my mom. As you know, Mom is getting married in less than a month, so we had some things to do!

We went to a dinner hosted by one of mom's friends. It was kind of like a shower, except it's like it was just the hostesses there. They gave her a joint gift: A beautiful wall decoration with the end of Joshua 24:15 on it. Kalleigh did her best to be a big girl, but the child took over and she excused herself from the table to go play while the grown-ups visited. ;)

We did a LOT of shopping. Mom has a beautiful dress for her wedding. Of course, two weeks ago, when I hadn't seen it yet, I bought a beautiful dress to wear to the wedding (way on sale!). It was mostly a champagne color, knee-length with shutter pleats. The problem was that when I sent a picture of it to Mom she said, "It's beautiful! It's just like mine!" Oops. We have such similar tastes! So, she was on a mission to buy a new dress for me. Hard to say no to that! And we succeeded. I now have a beautiful black & white summer dress to wear to the wedding, with a great necklace to match!

Kalleigh ended up with two dresses as options for the wedding, as we took advantage of the fabulous Memorial Weekend shopping deals.

We also found several more things that we "really needed." It took us two full shopping days to do it, but we successfully conquered Little Rock.

While we were there, we also did some work on Mom's house. She and Craig plan to sell both of their houses and start together in a new one. Great idea, I think! We got up on the roof and found that there were more than a few leaves and pine needles that needed to be removed from the roof as well as the gutters! We also cut down some limbs that were hanging over the house. I only got wobbly once. :) No injuries, save a small scratch on my hand. It's healing quite nicely, as I'm sure you wanted to know.

And, of course, we had dinner out at the farm with Mamaw. There's just nothing like being out at the farm, and you cousins know exactly what I'm talking about! What a special place.

After a fabulous dinner (as always, including fresh cherry pie--I died), we spent a couple of hours out on the porch while Kalleigh had a very successful first firefly catching experience. She managed to catch a tick, as well, and rather than being scared or grossed out by it, she was fascinated that he wanted to go home with her! She is my animal lover, for sure!

So, we had so much fun. Kalleigh hardly knew what to do with herself as the only child, but she caught on pretty quickly. ;)

Thanks, Mom, for being you! For teaching us how to play, work, cook and shop like pros! I love you!

PS *Pearl of Wisdom* Mom sent home our old Slip 'N Slide with us. It's not made for adults. I sure was the coolest mom yesterday afternoon, though! But I can hardly lift my arms today.

Field Day

2010-06-02T12:22:00.000-05:00

Johnathan had a blast at his first Field Day! Here are just a few shots to document the event.

the baton race

"Hula-hooping" I didn't even know he could do that!

Cheese! Love the hand/iPhone shadow? I thought so.

What a fun day!

The Chapter 6 Experience

2010-06-02T11:35:00.000-05:00

About 2 1/2 weeks ago on a Friday night I went to a Chapter 6 concert here in Tyler. They, like Clearly Vocal, sing contemporary a cappella, with an emphasis in jazz. John was at Pepperdine at the Ascending Voice Symposium, so I went with some friends, Andy, Stefanie and Mary. Andy and Stef are in CV. Man, they were so good! We took notes and came away with some good things to add to our show.

After the show, we hung around to meet the guys and pick their brains. :) We mentioned that we sang in a vocal jazz group, too, and they thought that was cool. We talked so much about the contemporary a cappella world; it was nice to talk to people who "spoke that language" and knew the other groups we knew! Toward the end of our chit chat, I said, "You know, if you guys are ever back in the East Texas area, we would just love to open for you!" One of the guys said, "Well, we're in Irving (just outside Dallas) next week! Are you serious? Are you available?" DUH. They said they would go online and listen to some of our stuff and get back with us.

Here we are with them after the concert:

Well, that was cool, but I really thought that they were just being nice and that we probably wouldn't hear from them. But later that night, one of the guys emailed us saying that he really hoped it worked out and that they would check with their Irving venue. He also gave us his cell phone! On Sunday he texted saying that they hadn't been able to contact the venue yet, but they were still trying. Hope was fading. Monday night, he said again that they venue wasn't getting back with him and that he was afraid that it might not work out. Bummer. But then Tuesday around noon, we got the text that said they finally got in touch with the venue and they all thought it was a great idea! They just hadn't been open all weekend or on Monday! Ha! We were going to Irving to open for Chapter 6 on Thursday!

We drove to Irving that afternoon and got to the Irving Performing Arts Center about the same time that Chapter 6 did. We had some sound technical issues (as the IPAC people weren't the most helpful), but Mark, Chapter 6's sound guy worked out the kinks and the show went on! The house was beautiful, and almost full. We sang for about 700 people, CV's biggest audience yet! We sang well, and the audience responded well, too.

After the concert, one of the board members from the Irving Concert Series came up to us and wanted our contact information! He said that he really enjoyed our 5 song set and would love to see us back in Irving! That right there made the whole night worth it!

Dad and Maria as well as Uncle Randy and Aunt Karla were gracious enough to buy tickets and come see us! We were pretty proud that we brought 4 fans. :) Chap6 said that they had 1 fan that they knew of coming to that show. Haha. Ironically, that fan just happened to sit right behind us when we went out in the audience to watch the rest of their show! I was so glad that John and Don got to see their show, since they weren't able to go to the one in Tyler.

After the fans all left we all (CV + Chap6) went to Waffle House for a late supper and just hang out time. Man, that was fun! These guys are so nice. They're my age, but have been singing together since college. They have accomplished a lot as individuals as well as as a group in the professional world. It was nice to be able to have that much down time with them.

Wow, so fun, and a huge thanks to the Chap6 guys for letting us share their stage!

Old Hymns, New Words

2010-05-13T08:43:00.000-05:00

As I shared in my Ladies Retreat post, I enjoy rewriting some of the older songs into words that I can connect with a little better. I had my high school girls do this last night in class, and I just loved their interpretation of some of the songs! Here was mine:

Wouldn't it be awesome to have the kind of faith that stayed strong even when picked apart by every angle? A faith that wouldn't get rattled by earthly troubles?

I'd love to have the kind of faith that would keep me from complaining when God used difficult situations to make me stronger. That in those times of sadness or pain, I'd turn to God rather than gripe about him.

I want my faith to be a light that pierces through the storms of life without any fear or doubt!

Lord, please give us this kind of faith, so that no matter what our earthly life brings, we know that we'll experience the eternal joy of living with you!

--O For a Faith that Will Not Shrink

Picture recap of April and beginning of May

2010-05-10T10:46:00.000-05:00

First off, I apologize for the lack of blogging this spring. Also for the lack of pictures. So here's what we've been up to, in so many images.

We've done a lot.

We Eastered,

Hunted,

Found,

Maybe Hoarded a little bit,

We Played,

A lot,

We broke things,

And baked things,

We dressed up,

And took time to smell the flowers,

We followed directions,

And Rounded Up,

And we took naps,

Whenver,

And wherever we could!

And ............... MOM GOT ENGAGED! Love you both, Mom and Craig!

Ladies Retreat, yes, almost a month ago

2010-05-10T09:05:00.000-05:00

This year Sherri, Stefanie and I planned a silent retreat. Most people made fun of us saying that there was no way that a group of women could be silent all weekend! But we did have eight hours on that Saturday to communicate with no one but God. It's not the kind of retreat that just tons of women go to, but it's exactly what I needed! A break from home life, responsibilities, expectations, singing, groceries, laundry, meetings, friends, children and even John. I am almost never alone, and it was time!

We went back out to the Lakeview Baptist Assembly and Conference Center like we did last year. It's a beautiful camp set on the "Lake O' the Pines" in Lone Star, TX. The food is always fantastic and the motel-type rooms are always clean! That's my kind of camping. ;)

One of the greatest blessings of the weekend was having Dr. Karla Hale Gerdes as our speaker. Aunt Karla, to me! We were lucky to get her for our retreat as she had a busy retreat-speaking schedule this spring!

Now it does seem rather odd to have a speaker at a silent retreat, but I wanted to bring someone in who had been a part of a silent retreat before to be able to "sell" the idea to our ladies. But Karla did so much more than that. Friday night, she walked us through what to expect during our time of silence. She prepared our hearts to be in the presence of God and prepared our ears to hear his voice. Her counseling talents were put to use as women opened up to her with questions, sorrows and joys. Sunday morning she honed in on the reciprocal joy that we and God feel when we are in each other's presence! So many women, including myself, were blessed by her words. She truly directed our attention and focus to God and he was glorified!

Saturday night, after spending the day in silence, we had a time of sharing. I wanted to give the ladies an opportunity to share the exciting or mundane, painful and/or healing, disappointing or fulfilling, sorrowful or joyful experiences that they had had during their times of silence. Women shared how God used books to speak to them exactly where they were. How being in the beautiful outdoors gave them a greater sense of his presence. They shared words that God put on their hearts for themselves and for others. We grieved with Chelsea on her recent miscarraige. (You should definitely read about her experience!) We celebrated with the "Top 10 Joys" of Lori's life. We laughed hysterically with Sherri when she told of how she felt God calling her in one direction of the camp, but she went the other and then a bird pooped on her head!

For me, God put a song on my heart. An old hymn that I could have sung the alto line perfectly on, but not realized the words I was singing. I love rewriting the lyrics of the old hymns so that they are a little easier to understand, so that's what I did with this one. Here are my lyrics:

Speak to me, Lord, so that the words I say reflect what you have said to me.
In the same way that you have repeatedly sought out this lost sheep, give me eyes to seek out the last, the lost and the least of these.
Lead me, Lord, so I can learn how to be a leader.
Feed me, so I will remember to feed others.
Give me the strength I need while standing on you, the Solid Rock, so that I can then reach out to pull others out of sinking sand.
Teach me, Lord, so that I can teach others. And give my words wings to fly as far as they need to go to reach the people who need to hear them.
Give me your rest, so that I will be ready to speak gently, but powerfully to the right person at the right time.
Fill my heart, Lord, so that it overflows with love and praise in my thoughts, words and actions.
Use me however, whenever and wherever until that blessed day wen I see your face and experience your rest, your joy and your glory!

Of course, those are the revised lyrics for the hymn, "Lord, Speak to Me." "Faith & Praise" doesn't have all of these lyrics, but these were the original ones, revised, of course.

After the retreat, I felt rested. Amazing, right? Usually after a ladies retreat I'm exhausted, wiped out, depleted ... in need of a retreat. :) But after this weekend, I was energized, rested and filled!

Please go on a silent retreat. Plan one if you have to. You and God need a long date!

Oddly at Peace

2010-04-14T22:47:00.000-05:00

This is one of those weeks when I could be up to my neck in stress. I'm not complaining. I'm actually having a blast! One day I'll look back on my life and ask, "How did I do that?" The obvious answer is that my strength is not my own. That would be impossible. I fully believe that God is giving me strength and peace during this hectic time! He's also blessed me with a quick nap each day this week. :)

This week's schedule (starting with last Friday):

Friday night
Mom gets in. Yea! She's here for the East Texas A Cappella Celebration that Clearly Vocal hosted on Saturday. We eat supper with cousins Jeff and Becky and head to the house while John goes to the office to print the programs for the show. John's home around 9 and we hit the sack around 10. Not too shabby.

Saturday
Big breakfast. Then we head to the park to let the kids burn off some steam. Light lunch back home; still recovering from the huge breakfast! After lunch, we leave the kids with Mom and head up to the church building to prepare for the ETAC. Six a cappella groups sang with genres ranging from gospel to barbershop to contemporary Christian to choral to jazz. The concert is a huge success that night. We get home by 9:30 and fall asleep around 11.

Sunday
Mom's here, so we get to sleep in longer than usual while John goes to praise team rehearsal!
9:00 Should be class, but I'm typing up and making copies of a map and schedule of the ladies retreat on a copier that is acting up!
10:00 Church
12:00 Due to Jonas's pitiful behavior, we decide to let Mom get on the road; we pick up Jack-In-The-Box tacos and go home
I get my afternoon nap!
3:30 John goes to elders/staff meeting
6:00 We all go to the Gathering. I should do a whole other post about The Gathering, but basically it's the Glenwood-run inner city church where we also serve a meal. I teach the teenagers, and it has been amazing.
8:30 Home

Monday
6:00 run
8:00 Johnathan to school
9:00 Kalleigh to school, John to work
9-12 Make copies of info for ladies retreat, work out most room assignments, talk to camp director about our last minute schedule changes, etc.
Lunch
1:30 Pick up Kalleigh and go home
3:00 Pick up Johnathan and go home to do homework/write thank-you cards for those who helped with the ETAC
5:00-8:00 Clearly Vocal rehearsal
Sometime during rehearsal, John's mother arrives. She was in town for her brother-in-law's funeral that was in the DFW area the next day.
Home around 8:30, Kids down by 9:00, visit 'til 10, and then of course we watch 24.

Tuesday
6:00 run
Not my day to carpool Johnathan, so thankful "Mr. Zack" picks him up!
8:00 John and Martha leave for DFW
9:30 Ladies Bible Class
Lunch at home with Kalleigh and Jonas, and then they go down for naps.
Marinate steaks.
It's bread baking day for my Amish Friendship Bread, so I get them in the oven.
Quick nap until the bread is done.
3:00 Johnathan gets home
4:00 I give a voice lesson.
4:30 John and Martha get home.
5:00 Supper is on the table
6:00 Baths for kids
7:30 John and I meet the rest of Clearly Vocal at Starbucks to talk about a replacement for Danny. He's dropping out. :(
9:30 Home to visit some more and then of course we watch LOST.

Wednesday
6:00 run
8:00 Johnathan to school
9:00 Kalleigh to school, Martha heads home, John to work
Jonas and I hit Wal-Mart and then head home.
"We" put the groceries away and then Jonas settles down with Miss Patty Cake while mommy catches the much needed quick nap.
12:00 Head back to town to get John for lunch.
1:30 Pick up Kalleigh and head home
3:00 Pick up Johnathan and head home to finish thank-you cards and do a load of laundry and make the kids eat something healthy (okay, PB&J) for supper
6:00 Praise team rehearsal
6:30 church
8:00 home
Put kids to bed, make guacamole dip for John's all-day staff retreat tomorrow, start taxes and blog. :) Obviously not in bed yet.

Plan for Thursday
6:00 run
7:35 Mr. Zack picks up Johnathan for school--yea!
9:00 John to work
10:00 Conference call with Stef, Sherri and Aunt Karla to talk about final ladies retreat stuff and pray
Thankfully nothing is scheduled the rest of the morning and afternoon, so hopefully I'll get some more laundry done, clean a bit and sneak in my nap!
3:00 Johnathan gets home
5:30 Sing at KE Cellars with Danny
10:00 Home to crawl in bed and watch The Office

Plan for Friday
6:00 run
8:00 John's day to get Johnathan to school
9:00 Kalleigh to school
Pack for the retreat at some point.
Go with Stefanie out to Lone Star to set up the table decoration for the ladies retreat and get our stuff in our room. From there we drive a couple of hours to Athens, on the other side of Tyler, for a Clearly Vocal Concert.
8:00 CV Concert for the Henderson Performing Arts Center Fundraiser--A Big Deal
12:00 Probably get back to the retreat.

Saturday--A Much-Needed Ladies Retreat Only Day. It's a silent retreat, and boy do I need that.

Sunday
8:00 breakfast
9:00 church
11:00 hopefully leave on time
1:00 hopefully arrive in Edom, TX on time
2:00 Clearly Vocal sings at "April in Edom."
5:00 pick up children from the Dean's
6:00 back at The Gathering
8:00 crash

The rest of this week/weekend is just going to fly by, but oh, it's going to be so fun! Do not feel sorry for me! Some prayers for continued strength would be appreciated, though. :)

Now ... off to bed!

Favorite Current Jonasisms

2010-03-18T09:31:00.001-05:00

Blotz = Blocks
Ah-noons = Cartoons
Lallow = Yellow, yes, but it also means he wants to color
Blap = Lap
Wet = Bread
Me Mean = Green Bean
Ah-ee = Sorry
Izzit? = Where is it?
Ayiz! = There it is!
Ninich = Chicken

"Izzit?"

"Ayiz!"

THE Competition

2010-03-16T13:30:00.000-05:00

Well, we didn't win. No sense in building the suspense! But read on if you want to hear about the whole trip.

Wednesday morning, we did sing that birthday gig for a detective here in town, and then John and I and the kids began our drive to Colorado Springs.

If you've ever been on a road trip with me, you know the rules. It's not that I don't enjoy the drive because I do. I like to see if I can get to Point B faster than I did last time. I like to see how many cars I can pass in one minute. I like to predict the speed traps and be right. And most of all, and this might not be that nice, but, I LOVE passing the car that flew by me a couple miles back as he's getting a ticket from the nice police officer that pulled him over. >:)

You combine your potty, gas and food stops as much as possible, and always get food to go. One parent takes the child/ren to the potty while the other fills up with gas. Then you switch. The you go through the drive through and get back on the road.

I completely understand how this might not be everyone's favorite way to travel, and I don't take offense. But I love it! Especially when we had so far to go this time.

TX was a breeze to drive through, as well as most of NM. The snow started in Dalhart, TX, but wasn't too bad ... until Raton, NM. Then came Raton Pass. Terrible snow. Of course it was dark which made the car lights reflect off of each gigantic snowflake. It was near white-out conditions! I couldn't see the white lines on the road 80% of the time. I just kept looking for those occasional reflectors on each side of the road and made sure I was in between them!

Crazy snow. Until Pueblo, about an hour south of Colorado Springs, where it turned to light rain. And by the time we entered Colorado Springs, it was finally, beautifully clear. I was so thankful that we made it safely!

Kreg and Keleigh welcomed us into their beautiful home. Mom had flown in earlier that day. We spent Thursday just spending some quality time with family and I was also able to run by Pikes Peak Christian School for a bit and see a bunch of friends from when we lived there.

That night Kreg grilled burgers and brats for dinner. We were joined by the Goods as well as Todd and Tiffany! Yummy burgers and s'mores!

Friday morning, we left the kids in COS and drove up to Denver to meet up with the rest of CV. We found them at the Starbucks close to the hotel. No big surprise there. :)

That day we spent our time just playing in Denver. We cruised up and down 16th Street Mall, ate at Hard Rock for lunch, caught an IMAX that afternoon and had PF Chang's for supper. We managed to find some rehearsal time in there and also sang on 16th and drew a crowd! And we only lost Danny one time! ;)

Saturday was great. Leisurely breakfast wherever we felt like it, then went to a park to rehearse! After a great last rehearsal we ate at Maggiano's. Oh my. That meal was the best of all of them. Then we had our "not-so-perfect" sound check that afternoon. I think we had just never heard ourselves that loudly before! It threw us for a loop, but really prepared us for that night.

Supper was completely unnecessary after the late, huge lunch. We headed back to the hotel, got ready and went to the show! Mom, Keleigh, Tiffany and a friend of hers also were able to go to the show as well as Stefanie's husband and parents. What loyal fans!

We were the first group after intermission. Man those spotlights felt good! We sang so well and we were pretty pumped up after our little 10 minutes was up.

Unfortunately (I guess) jazz was not what the judges had in mind for the winners. They chose a local, all-male vocal pop band to win it all. I don't know if it was just coincidence at all that the judges were all also members of a local all-male vocal pop band, but I'm trying not to put too much weight on that. :) John said that if The Real Group themselves had been in the competition, they wouldn't have won! What matters is that we know that we can walk into an unfamiliar, high-pressure situation and do great! We did what we do very well, and we are so pleased with that.

I also need to say that the group that won, Confidential, was SO good! We didn't get to hear them do their set because we were warming up at the time, but we did hear their encore song, and it was tight! I'm happy for them and hope they do great at the finals in May!

We dropped Mom off at the airport after about 4 hours of sleep and had a good trip home, beating our first trip time by 30 minutes. Not surprising, though, since you pretty much coast all the way home from Denver to Tyler! Oh yes, we did go ahead and pick up the children from Kreg and Keleigh, though there was some debate about leaving them there. We got that worked out. :) I think they got some good cousin time in with Westin!

CV decided to take Monday's rehearsal off since we all needed rest, both vocally and physically! But we do look forward to a busy April! I'm so blessed to get sing with such talented and dedicated people!

Thanks to Kreg, Keleigh, Mom and Tami for helping out with the kids. We couldn't have made the trip without your help!

Much love to our CV fans!

I'll have an order of Ketchup with Bullets

2010-03-09T14:09:00.000-06:00

SO sorry. So very sorry. I have had little to no motivation to blog for whatever reason. Things are great, though, so no worries!

Here's what we did in February:

Continued to plan the Ladies Retreat. Aunt Karla is our guest speaker ... at our silent retreat. What? It's going to be awesome. April 16-18. Be there. Theme: "Can You Hear Me Now?"
Sang with Group Therapy at KE Cellars every other Thursday. Good crowds lately! Lots of fun.
Finished up Johnathan's basketball season. Wow. 5-year-olds with a basketball. Now that's funny stuff.
Sang with both Group Therapy and Clearly Vocal at the Women's Convention in Harvey Hall.
Survived the stomach bug that ran through our house. Literally.
Shoveled snow off my driveway for the first time since we moved here.
Sang at 3 Valentine's parties and did 30 singing telegrams with Clearly Vocal in 3 days.
Took Jonas to the doctor and Johnathan to the dentist; both regular check-ups.
Ran (at least once a week). :)
Continued to facilitate my Ladies Bible Class group.
Got the news that both our preacher and women's/children's minister were leaving.
Sang at Caffe' Tazza again.
Drove with Stefanie to Searcy to lead worship with Mom at Harding's WINGS conference. Talk about a quick trip! Up Friday, back Saturday!

And now it's March! So far we've ...

Continued getting ready for the Harmony Sweepstakes by rehearsals every Monday night and had a send-off concert last Friday night. So very fun!
Sent Kristi's 28th birthday present, albeit late, but sent!
Gone on an actual date Saturday night. Dinner at Jake's where Danny was playing and went to see Alice in Wonderland!
Taught the children's class at The Gathering (downtown service at West Erwin benevolence center each Sunday night). I'm doing that through March, but we may find a home there on Sunday nights! What a ministry to the less fortunate of downtown Tyler.
Had an amazingly low-key past couple of days where I could clean house, do laundry and cook.

And now we're ...

Having one last CV rehearsal before the competition.
Singing a surprise birthday telegram at 8:15 in the morning.
Leaving for Colorado tomorrow immediately after that for the Harmony Sweepstakes! We'll get into Colorado Springs late tomorrow night and get to spend all day Thursday with Mom, Kreg, Keleigh and Westin.
Friday morning, John and I will meet the rest of the group in Denver for some fun group time!
And Saturday is the competition! Craziness.

I'll be sure to let everyone know how it goes!

(The pics of Kalleigh and Jonas are random. Just didn't want them to be left out!)

The ACA-Weekend

2010-02-02T14:44:00.001-06:00

What a trip! The Los Angeles A Cappella Festival (LA-AF) was a huge success. John and I had so much fun, learned some crucial things, networked like crazy, ate some amazing Thai food, heard some inspiring groups and attended some very beneficial classes.

LA-AF was held on the campus of UCLA. My first time there. It is beautiful! It's very hilly, though, so I think it's safe to say that there were just as many, if not more, steps on the campus as Asains. Who knew?

(hmmm ... my washer is making very strange noises ...)

(I think I may have Adult A.D.--hey, what's that over there?)

Back on track. My first class was with Julia Hoffman, the president of the Contemporary A Cappella Society of America (CASA). She is a licensed psychologist, so she taught the "Group Dynamics" class. Now most of the attendees and singing groups were from colleges, just like they were at SoJam, so it was nice to see that we had moved past a bunch of their group issues (i.e. inappropriate inter-group relationships, "I Want All the Solos," being a distraction in rehearsal, etc., ad nauseum.). My takeaways from the class had more to do with group motivation than conflict resolution.

Then I had an improv class with Moira Smiley that was very "organic and evocative," which, apparently is the highest compliment an a cappella singer can receive. She gave us some great exercises for groups to do in rehearsal that get us out of our comfort zones and develops all kinds of different sounds the voice can make. Really fun.

We networked a bunch at lunch. Said 'hi' to all the aca-big dogs, and some of them had either heard of us from the Mouth Off Show or remembered us from SoJam. Very Cool! We also reconnected with some of our fellow Contemporary A Cappella League (CAL) people and groups. It's nice to know that others are in the same boat as we!

Went to a class called, "Solo Like a Rock Star," taught by George Hoffman, husband to Julia, and in the all-male aca-rock band, Hookslide, based in L.A. Again, some great advice and reminders.

Next was a class facilitated by Amy Engelhardt, of The Bobs. This was basically a master class for any group that wanted to sing. I REALLY wish all of CV could have been there for that! The groups got some good stage time and some practical advice as well as encouragement.

My last class was with Mister Tim, who excels in marketing for aca-groups, and performs in a few himself. So Valuable in learning more about how to better market an aca-group, getting and keeping fans, posters, business cards, venues, equipment, etc. We WILL be putting these into practice. ASAP.

John also attended a class about competitions, of particular interest to us now that we'll be competing in just a little over a month! He also went to a class talking about the best sound equipment. That was taught by a guy who does sound for m-pact and SONOS, with his next group being Nota! Yeah, he knew his stuff. John ate it up. I was clueless when he was describing it to me.

The concert that night featured a UCLA group, Bruins Harmony, that did very well.

THEN CAME SONOS.

SONOS is the new sound of a cappella. Go hear their stuff. It's not all covers like most groups do. It's not jazz. It's not rock. It's a sound unique to them, which is very cool. Now they do "cheat" by using pedals to put some really cool effects on their voices, but they use them well. Seeing them perform was my highlight of the weekend.

m-pact closed the concert, and they were great, too. The "Jingle Bells" that CV sings is their arrangement.

But John and I had to leave before it was over to catch the midnight flight out of L.A. to arrive in Dallas by a little after 5:00 a.m. to drive to Tyler to get to Glenwood to change clothes, freshen up and be at praise team practice by 8:00 a.m.

I am fully aware of the lack of sanity on our part. But it was SO worth it!

We missed the rest of CV terribly! The weekend was amazing, but it would have been 10x better had we all been there together! I really hope we can all go next year!

Dude. That just happened.

Just so excited

2010-01-28T11:35:00.003-06:00

Here's why:

It's Thursday, my very favorite day. A day without a car, allowing me to be home ALL DAY!
Clearly Vocal is going to Denver!!! We were officially invited to compete in the Rocky Mountain Harmony Sweepstakes coming up on March 13. We need groupies! Click here for tickets. You can also find a link from our CV website. They sell out every year! Here's the link to the competition info.
Tomorrow, John and I are flying out to Los Angeles to represent Clearly Vocal at the Los Angeles A Cappella Festival on Saturday! We look forward to reconnecting with people that we met at SoJam and keeping our name out there! Don't worry Glenwood peeps; we'll be back for church Sunday morning. We're taking the midnight flight out of LA, so go easy on us if we look a little bleary-eyed!
I'm making good progress on getting rid of the Christmas around my hips using the Lose It! app. FYI, Christmas weighed about 10 pounds this year! Ouch!

Hope each of you has a good Thursday, too!

Thoughts and Updates

2010-01-22T16:29:00.000-06:00

Not thinking particularly linearly today.

Peder Karlsson is amazing. He's the baritone from The Real Group, and we (Clearly Vocal) had an hour and a half webcam workshop with him this morning. We got out of our comfort zone. He gave us some great exercises that will apply to our entire repertoire. He said we were good! He was very impressed with the technical side of the workshop; said it was the best audio/visual he had ever seen/heard when doing one of these webcam workshops! Big thanks to John who set it all up and to Andy Luster who helped with that. We "found the floor and ceiling" in dynamics and nasal vs. covered sounds. Sang our most beautiful, quiet song loud and ugly and learned that some of that technique can and should be carried over into the softer version! We felt the groove and he wouldn't let us continue a song until we all felt it together. We sang our original song, Pulse, and he liked it! He doesn't like competitions or American contemporary a cappella staging. Good. Neither do we! He said to be who we are, sing what we want and how we want to sing it, and we will feel the most rewarded. What a great morning.

The weather is absolutely amazing today. Have been so ready for this for what seems like a long time.

Cut back on the running, sort of. Instead of 6 or so miles 3x per week, went to 3 miles M-F. Found Thursday to be the hardest day this week. Not used to running every day. Wanted to be able to be done running by the time the kids woke up. Not willing to get up before 6! The stars have been amazing these past couple of clear mornings. And the God whose hands created the stars did not spare his son for me? I scarce can take it in!

Bison will be 8 tomorrow. He's so fat.

Group Therapy played at KE Cellars for a great crowd last night! Sang Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats" for the first time. One of the country songs we've worked up to be ready to go back out to Ben Wheeler tomorrow night. It was a little too fun to sing. :)

So yeah, we play out at Moore's Store tomorrow night from 7-10, $5 cover, for those who are coming. Clearly Vocal will do a 30 min set beginning at 8. Very much looking forward to putting into practice what we learned with Peder today!

The Rocky Mountain Harmony Sweepstakes selection committee meets tomorrow morning to decide which groups will be competing in Denver in March. We sent in our audition, so hopefully we'll know something in the next few days. I'm only a little nervous!

Clearly Vocal is also doing singing telegrams for Valentine's again this year! You can actually order and pay for them online! Head on over to our website for more details.

OH. Have you seen our new website? If you haven't you've GOT to go see it. It's way cool, if I do say so myself.

We're heavily planning for this year's ladies retreat! It's a silent retreat and my Aunt Karla (Dr. Karla Hale Gerdes, Ph.D.) is going to be our guest speaker! It's the weekend after tax weekend, for you planners, and info will be posted at church soon!

We still have three children, I think. Johnathan, Kalleigh, and ... um ... right, Jonas. We are blessed to have wonderful babysitters to take care of them while we're out singing. We also try to schedule our gigs on bath nights. It's been a while since I've given my children baths. I have a night with all three of them to myself while John has a dinner meeting to run, so I think we'll try to do something fun. I don't know, make a memory or something. Ideas?

Johnathan has been playing Upwards basketball. The first game was ... oh my. The second game was much better! He's a great defensive playing, even while on offense. ;) And I most certainly did not promise him a toy from the dollar store for every basket he scored. (We got a toy!) Game tomorrow at 9! Go Zips!

I feel I'm on the verge of something big. Maybe nothing. Maybe something. I'll keep you posted. Ever get those feelings?

No, not THAT big. I'm not pregnant, and I don't plan on being so any time soon. Probably ever.

Good afternoon world. If you've had a day half as amazing as mine, you've had a great day!

Jonas's "S" words

2010-01-14T10:39:00.000-06:00

I think it's pretty common for toddlers to have trouble with their "S" sound at the beginning of words, but Jonas has taken this to a level I've never experienced. He's putting the beginning "S" sounds at the end of the words! I've already mentioned "oosh," for shoes in my recent "Jonas Words" post, but my other two favorites are "poose" (spoon) and "weese" (swing). Illyse boy. :)

Christmas and 2009 Wrap-Up

2010-01-01T15:13:00.000-06:00

Christmas was so special this year. We started off in Searcy where we stayed with Mom and got to see John's mother as well. Santa, a.k.a. Craig Jones, also visited the house and delivered presents to everyone!

Christmas morning marked the one-year anniversary of Papaw Curtis's death, so we went out to his grave and sang some of his favorite songs. We didn't stay long, since it was about 29 degrees, but I think he would understand that!

Mom cooked and cooked while we were there, so naturally, we ate and ate! Christmas only comes once a year, right? ;)

We headed to Dallas next where we did Christmas with the Kell family. Monday night was especially meaningful as we lit the traditional lantern and welcomed Keleigh and Westin into the family.

Karla cooked and cooked while we were there, so naturally, we ate and ate! Christmas only comes once a year, right? Wait ... did I just say that? Okay, maybe twice. :)

I am really enjoying these days at home since all of the festivities. We're doing a fair amount of playing and resting, and not much else!

2009 has been so good in many ways. Here's a photo journey through the year:

January -- Kalleigh

February -- Ladies Retreat

March -- The nasty hole in our yard that was a lot bigger deal than we thought!

April -- Easter

May -- Meeting nephew Westin!

June -- Father's Day

July -- The addition of Benson to the family

August -- School days!

September -- Family Vacation to Galveston

October -- 1/2 Marathon

November -- Clearly Vocal "discovered" at SoJam

December -- The year of the flooded roads! What should've taken 5 1/2 hours to get to Searcy took 7 1/2!

What to expect in 2010? Lots of singing, for sure! Clearly Vocal just entered the Rocky Mountain Harmony Sweepstakes in Denver, March 13! Johnathan will have his Kindergarten graduation, the kids will turn 2, 4 & 6, and John and I will celebrate our 10 year anniversary!

And I will do my very best NOT to get pregnant.

Many blessings to you all for 2010!

Recognized Again on the Mouth Off Show!!

2009-12-29T20:26:00.001-06:00

Clearly Vocal was awarded Runner-Up for "Where Did They Come From?" (a.k.a. best a cappella newbies) on this week's Mouth Off Show! We're in the segment beginning around 34:20. You might notice that the other runner-up was Voices of Lee. Then you might also notice that the winners were Sonos and Nota, and they both have label contracts! Just to be named among those groups is such an honor!! Thanks, Dave and Christopher!

Are YOU watching?

2009-12-15T11:58:00.000-06:00

The Sing Off: a special 4-episode reality show on NBC similar to Idol. The difference? It's all a cappella! Not your "typical old-school boring a cappella," which is what so many people think when they hear that term, but exciting, new, and all different styles of vocal singing. Oh, the amazing power of the human voice! What a gift!

Here's a clip about the groups competing:

Here are some things that make this competition so special to Clearly Vocal:

We know Courtney Jensen, the beatboxer in the all-female group, Noteworty! She was at SoJam, taught a class, and said she loved hearing us sing! And she's the nicest person in the world.
We saw Voices of Lee live in Nashville a year and a half ago when we went to go hear The Real Group. They were some of the college winners at that a cappella competition who opened for TRG.
We know Deke Sharon, the main guy who is working with the groups and doing the arranging for the new songs. He arranged the opening act, "Under Pressure!" Deke is the president of the Contemporary A Cappella League, of which CV is a member. Deke went out of his way to compliment us in front of everyone in one of his SoJam classes! We sing several of his arrangements. He sings with the vocal band, The House Jacks.
The intro and transition music you hear throughout the show is performed by The House Jacks! They also performed at SoJam and are working with each Sing Off group on their performances.

My biggest concern about the show is that I'm afraid groups are getting voted off because of bad mixing. Several of the judges' comments had to do with not being able to hear the soloist. That's a soundman error! I wondered if the mix we were hearing through the tv was better than what they were hearing live, sitting right in front of them. I could hear the solos just fine.

Yes, of course, Clearly Vocal is dreaming of The Sing Off, 2010. We'd have to learn to bust a move out there, though! That could be a stretch for (some of) us! ;)

Tonight is night two of The Sing Off! I'm so excited! This is a great thing for contemporary a cappella singing!

What do YOU think?

Since then ...

2009-12-10T13:45:00.001-06:00

... we've been doing a lot of singing! From restaurants, to school choir concerts; outdoors, indoors; full shows and guest appearanes, for young people and old people; we've been doing a lot of singing!

We kicked off our December singing at the Bullard Middle School/High School Choir concert. Their director is Cindi Galletly, a friend of ours who sings on the praise team. She asked Clearly Vocal to make a special appearance at "halftime." That was fun, but I think it was more fun to watch Cindi direct her choirs! I really appreciated the mutual respect that Cindi and her choirs had for each other.

And we did awesome. And here's what they sky looked like that night:

Our all-female singing group from church, The Blessing, sang up in Hawkins, TX for their annual Christmas in the Park. It was the absolute worst singing conditions I had ever sung in. Outdoors, 39 degrees, a cold wind bouncing off the lake, using someone else's sound equipment, monitor levels incredibly high, and a train that ran past every few minutes, blowing its horn. Imagine trying to give pitches 1/2 step higher than the second note in the train's own little chord. Wow. HOWEVER, it was worth it, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Those ladies are troopers!

Clearly Vocal then trekked out to downtown Ben Wheeler to carol for a couple of hours. They have this guy out there who I think is trying to single-handedly grow Ben Wheeler from the ground up. He told me that he wants to turn Ben Wheeler into a Mountain View, AR, kind of a place, and then snickered, assuming I had never heard of the place. He was totally taken aback when I told him that I have been to Mt. View almost every year of my life since I was 12! Then I was taken aback when he told me that he had never actually been there! Ha! I think they're up to ... maybe five or six stores? Including the restaurant, Moore's Store. You'll be hearing more about Moore's in future posts.

Anyway, we bundled up and sang outside for a couple of hours. Chelsea also came with us and took some pics! Aren't we cute? :)

The very next day, we performed our full Christmas show for the Meadow Lake holiday party. Meadow Lake is the newest retirement community being built in town. Looks really nice ... family? ;)

Tonight, The Group Therapy Band will be gigging at KE Cellars from 6-9!

When we're not singing, we do see our children from time to time.

See? Here they are reading books. Wait, that's only two of them ...

There's the other one! He's wearing an outfit that was John's! Thanks, Momo!

Here's this one, singing at the top of her lungs. (Never take pictures while driving.)

And here's this one. Trying to tell me something, Jonas?

And here's what happens when you try to organize all of Grammie's recipes:

You get some AMAZING boiled custard and leave the rest of the recipes to be organized another day!

Thanksgiving

2009-12-10T10:39:00.004-06:00

I'm a little behind, but alive and well! Here is the Thanksgiving post.

Kalleigh had her little Thanksgiving feast at school. Each class sang a song for the parents, but I couldn't get a good picture of them with just my iPhone. (Remember, I dropped my camera on concrete while in Galveston. Yeah, been without a camera since September. Bleh.) So, here's Kalleigh enjoying her feast in her Indi- ... uh, Native American head gear. :)

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving break. The kids and I got all the Christmas decorations up on Monday and Tuesday while John was at work.

Ahhh, my tree. In front of the window that faces the street. The determining factor in the choosing of this house!

Johnathan put up the kids' tree all by himself! All he needed help with was the bow on top!

JohnaClaus. :) If you can't tell, his mustache/beard (that he made by himself) is held to his face by tape. Because as you know, tape is the answer to so many problems.

Wednesday was full of baking desserts and bread for the next day. Thursday morning we drove to Bonham to stay at Jay and Tracy's beautiful bed and breakfast, Granny Lou's.

We enjoyed a yummy traditional Hodges meal with Martha, Jay, Tracy, Kevin, Laurie, Brenna and our five. We were lucky to catch Jayson and his wife Ashley before they had to go. They're expecting their first in May!

Uncle Kevin takes on the kids in Monopoly.

We came on home that night. I nearly took a six point buck home on the front of our car, but thanks to good breaks, we "missed out on that opportunity!"

Friday, we played the Wii, snacked all day and avoided the crowds! We also did some work. John worked hard on a video editing project for a friend and we did all the filing that had been piling up.

Saturday, we drove over to Ft. Worth to Kevin & Laurie's house to be with the Hodges crew again. This time, Martha's sister Marilyn also joined us. John and Kevin played with the kids in their beautiful backyard while lunch was cooking.

Laurie had asked us to bring the Wii, since they were thinking about getting one for Christmas. I think their decision was finalized! Tracy tore us all up bowling, but Johnathan proved hard to beat!

Thanks Jay and Laurie for hosting Hodges Thanksgiving! We had a great time!

Jonas words

2009-11-20T19:54:00.000-06:00

I love when the child starts speaking enough words that he can actually communicate what he wants. It's just so pitiful when all they do is cry and scream and you play this hysterical guessing game until the child calms down either because you successfully guessed what the problem was or because he got distracted by something else so that he forgot what he was upset about in the first place.

"Words, a letter and a letter on a string, will hold forever humanity spellbound." --Anders Edenroth, The Real Group.

So Jonas is beginning to string letters together to form words and a couple of words together here and there to make "sentences." It's so precious to a mother, and I don't want to forget his little language. Here are my favorties right now:

Mbvoo = balloon
Bah-boo = dog (originally Bison, but now he calls all dogs bah-boo)
Bah-bah, Daddy
Hah deh! = Hi there!
Ooo-wee! = Shewee! (as in poopy diaper)
Ot = hot
At = hat
Oots = oops
Hah-oh = hello
Ra-ra = Dora (the Explorer)
Ah-ro = Mario
Deh! = There! (when he accomplishes something)
Oosh = shoes

Again, these are just my favorites in his list of words he can say, or uh, communicate. :)

Sweet Kalleigh "reading" to her baby brother.

Love those kids!

SoJam

2009-11-16T14:32:00.002-06:00

Not this past weekend, but the one before that, Clearly Vocal went to SoJam.

"SoJam is a weekend-long a cappella extravaganza brought to you by The Contemporary A Cappella Society (CASA). Held in North Carolina and now in its 7th year, the festival is jam-packed with Concerts, Competitions, Master Classes and hands-on workshops led by some of the biggest names in the vocal music universe! SoJam has quickly established itself as one of the most exciting a cappella gatherings in the world." --SoJam.com

We had no idea what to expect, but whatever we thought, it exceeded our expectations! Things I took away from SoJam:

We are not the only group out there singing contemporary a cappella music.
We hold our own in comparison to the other semi-pro groups.
We are very professional in some ways and relatively amateur in others.
Some of the nicest people are gay.
We need a CD, but only if it's done well.
I can do vocal percussion if necessary.
I can blow raspberries on pitch, and therefore "sing" bass if necessary.
We had the tightest harmonies of any group there.
Apparently, we need to be much more organic and evocative.
Contemporary a cappella is almost completely missing from the state of Texas.
We do not have the same style as everybody else, and we're good with that.
My big toe can be pretty articulate if I would breathe deeply enough to listen to it.
I need to be arranging and writing original stuff.
Eclipse and The House Jacks are now two of my favorite a cappella groups, but I will never abandon The Real Group.

We had so much fun together as a group. We ate, sang, joked and laughed a lot!

AND we got mentioned on the Mouth Off Show! How exciting!

"Mouth Off is the weekly podcast show that brings the world of contemporary a cappella right to your ears. From news to reviews to personal views, Dave Brown and Christopher Diaz dish it out every week with characteristic sarcasm and wit." --mouthoffshow.com

"They were just so spot on! Their pitch was so good!" --Dave Brown
"Not only are they the nicest people in the whole universe, they can really, really sing!" --Christopher Diaz

Click here to listen to their entire wrap up, or just go to 17:50 and listen for about 1 1/2 min to our little time in the spotlight!

We made a lot of new friends and there was a ton of good networking that took place. SoJam was SoGood for Clearly Vocal!

Keepers

2009-11-13T08:29:00.001-06:00

Oooh, sorry! That took way too long to post the good set of pics! It's been a little crazy, but such is life.

Anyway, there were so many good ones, thanks to Chelsea, but these are my favorites:

Tune in next time when I'll do a full recap of Clearly Vocal's weekend at SoJam!

Rejects

2009-11-05T09:31:00.001-06:00

I love when Deborah posts her picture rejects, so I'm going to do the same thing. You just never know what you're going to get when taking pictures of kids!

You will put your arm down if I have to tickle your armpit to do it!

Apparently Jonas was the only one who was "Sure." The other two are checking.

Mom! Isn't this a cool thing I can do with my leg?

Johnathan's not sure if squishing Jonas is the best idea. Kalleigh has no problem with it.

We'll call this, "mid-sentence."

"Mid-blink."

"Lah-Doh!" (Water. He's looking at a pond.)

Kalleigh, plotting against her brothers while Johnathan realizes, "That's cold!"

Are we done yet?

I'll post the "real ones" in a few days. Clearly Vocal is going to SoJam tomorrow for the weekend! See you Monday!

Trunk or Treat '09

2009-10-28T21:36:00.002-05:00

All ready to go! Mario, Cinderella and Mr. Pumpkin. All 3 kids have worn that pumpkin outfit!

Silas & Johnathan, a.k.a. Luigi and Mario

Abby & Kalleigh, a.k.a. Miss Kitty and Cinderella

Claire and Jonas. Isn't that the cutest girly Zebra costume?!

John is dealing with acute sinusitis, so he missed out on the evening's festivities. But no worries; we brought home enough candy for us all!

Saturday night, we're playing at Breakers, so we have a faithful babysitter coming to watch the kids. I think I'm going to steal Tiffany's idea and encourage all three of us to dress up like rock stars! Yes, we'll take pictures ...

Happy Halloween!

A Visit from Colorado

2009-10-27T20:34:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, Lindsey, one of my basketball girls from Colorado Springs, came to Tyler to visit for the weekend! I couldn't believe that she flew all the way down here just to visit! This was her first time in TEXAS, much less Tyler.

I took her to the Rose Garden first. They don't have too many roses in CO, especially this time of year!

Stopping to smell the Tyler roses!

The sign says, "Tyler Rose Park."

Then I took her to eat some mighty fine southern cookin' in an atmosphere that'd make a horny toad feel at home. We went to Daniel Boone's. I tried to link it to their home page, but I don't think they even have a web page! A super-southern environment makes this place a classic to take guests from out of Texas. And the waitress did it just right. She walked up to the table, and in the best East Texan she could muster said out of the side of her mouth and with a sly grin, "Welcome to Texas." THAT's the picture of Lindsey I wish I had taken. Her reaction was hilarious. A shocked, jump-back-from-the-waitress, is-she-for-real-? look. I laughed so hard!

In thinking of places I should take Lindsey, it became clear to both of us that I really value our food because those were the only places I could think of that I really needed to take her! Other than Daniel Boone's, we hit Kickers, Breakers, Stanley's BBQ and even Brookshire's. That's a whole other story!

I took her to Brookshire's for two reasons. One was for her to experience grocery shopping in the south, and also to find a candle from the Tyler Candle Company that Brookshire's always has. Would you believe that 1.) They did not offer to carry our groceries out (!) and 2.) They did not sell any Tyler candles anymore. Not only that, but I talked about how I ALWAYS see someone I know at Brookshire's, but of course not that day. Sorry Brookshire's. I'm usually a big fan, but you let me down.

Friday night, Lindsey came with John and I to our praise team party. She did know this ahead of time and had the option of going with us or staying home and babysitting! Ha! She was fascinated by the "properness" of the casual party put on with much expertise by Linda Carey. Yes, she did get to rub shoulders with some of the classiest southern ladies I know!

Saturday morning we all went to the Caldwell Zoo. The big cats were active that morning, so that was fun. See? I knew our family pass would come in handy eventually! And it was a beautiful morning, too.

Saturday night, Lindsey came to Breakers with us. She plays bass in her worship band, so I told her she should've brought her bass and jammed with us! Lindsey ordered THE CRAB. That thing must've been a foot wide and about 6 inches deep! Really cool presentation. She was a trouper and stayed with us there for 7 hours! We played until 12:30. Brandon, the owner, was so nice and gave her a Breakers t-shirt to take home with her. That ended up being her only souvenir since the Tyler candle thing crashed and burned!

Then we were out the door by 7:30 Sunday morning to drop John off for praise team practice. The kids had spent the night with the Deans (yea!!), so Lindsey and I hung out at Starbucks and drank our caffeinated beverages in an attempt to wake up before church! She helped me teach cradle roll that morning, too. :)

After church, we ate at CiCi's. I wanted to take her over to Atwoods for the full East Texas experience but we ran out of time. It was already time to take her back to the airport!

What a fun weekend! Thanks, Lindsey, for making such a huge effort to come hang out! Love you, girl!

Race Day

2009-10-21T21:46:00.001-05:00

For some reason I could not sleep the night before. You know, the night you're supposed to get a really good night's sleep. By the time it was time to actually get up, my mind had already run a half a marathon!

So, at 6 a.m. I got up and made some oatmeal. I put on my fabulously cute running clothes, which we all know is the most important thing about running. As long as you look cute, right? :) By the way, Mom, my running jacket that you bought me while you were down here worked beautifully!! My iPhone went in the appropriate pocket and I was protected from the 44 degree weather early that morning! Thanks!

John got the kids ready, thankfully. I was so nervous/excited that I could hardly function! We drove off right around 7:00 to get to UT Tyler where the start/finish line was.

It was so exciting to be there with so many other runners. Well, a little strange, to be honest. For some people, running is their life, and it's obvious. There were all kinds of people warming up by sprinting across the parking lot or meditating under trees or stretching. It was then that I really felt out of place. What in the world was I doing? I'm not like them! I warmed up by, together with John, keeping the children in sight. I loved seeing other moms there with their children cheering them on! Then I didn't feel quite so alone!

I signed in and watched other people put their timing chips on their shoes before I attempted to put mine on so I wouldn't be so obviously a rookie! There was music playing and water and Gatorade and bananas around. I took three bananas and gave them to my children for their breakfasts, since I'm not sure they had eaten anything that morning.

Then we headed on over to the starting line. I kissed the fam goodbye hoping that I would, indeed, see them again. I figured I'd live, but there was just a little bit of doubt! Still, it was pretty exciting. I was amazed at how many people were running with a group or at least one or two people that they knew. I did know two other guys from church running, but one was Matt Madison, Mr. Marathon-Super-Triathlete-Dude, and I figured he wouldn't want to hang out at my pace! The other was David Bailey, who is also an experienced half-marathoner. Both guys did great, by the way.

And so that left me to face the 13.1 miles on my own. But by that point, I was so psyched up for the race, I didn't care! Bring It On!

I guess the gun went off, for people started running, though I didn't even hear it! But that's when it got even more exciting. The first part of the race sort of wound back and forth so that we got to see those in the front of the pack; those we would never see again after the path straightened out! Wow. I had heard that it's a cool thing to be running with so many other runners, but I had never really experienced that. Until then! I must've looked so stupid because I couldn't stop smiling for like the first 4 miles!

It also helped that the first 6 miles were basically downhill. Right before we got to the 6 mile mark, we went down a nice long hill. There was a beautiful view, and although I think it was Katy Perry's "Hot 'N Cold" blasting in my earbuds, I was worshipping!

Then came The Hill. The Hill that everyone talks about before, during and after the race. It's a steady, steep incline for a full mile. That's where I saw, and passed, the first walkers. Thankfully, Flint is pretty hilly, too, where I had been running all summer, so I managed to keep up the pace okay. It was hard, but I just kept going.

After mile 7 came, though, I felt like I could conquer the world! I was over halfway there, and the hardest hill was behind me! What I hadn't remembered, though, was that the rest of the backside was mostly uphill and some down. Nothing much level at all! That made since, though, since those first 6 were downhill and we were ending where we started! In this case, what goes down must come up!

At mile 8, I called Kreg. No, seriously, I did! My fantastic phone can use voice commands to call people. Kreg and I had talked about how past mile 8 had been new territory for him when he did his 1/2, and so it was an exciting marker. I was feeling great, and was so encouraged! It was at that point that I started passing a lot more people than there were people passing me. "If I can just get past those people ..."

Miles 9-11 were sort of a blur. I did a lot of thinking, since I had all that time. The crowd had really thinned out by that point, so I was running by myself a lot of the time. I was starting to get a little tired, but not too bad. I thought about Papaw Curtis, who would've turned 83 the day before, and about all the running he did hunting rabbits and raccoons through the night! I bet he could've run 13.1 miles in his hunting days! See? Even after he's been gone almost 10 months, he's still encouraging me to do my best!

John called around mile 11.5, and I really needed it. That's where I hit my wall. I knew I could finish because I only had a mile and a half to go, but my legs were burning pretty good! So John called and played on of my favorite songs from the Real Group for me. Then he let Johnathan talk to me and tell me that I was doing a good job! That was definitely a highlight of the race.

At mile 12 I called Mom. I just needed to hear one more person I loved say "Run, Kimberly!" Kristi was with her, so they both cheered me on!

But we were STILL going uphill! And I couldn't see the finish line. I think there's something about that extra .1 miles that just does played with my mind! But finally I did see the finish line, and I ran it in strong.

I was so excited to have finished! My time was 2:11:17, which put me just barley over a 10 minute mile. I was kind of hoping that with adrenaline and all I might break 10 minutes, but I keep reminding myself that I'm 30, have 3 kids 5 and under, and had never run a race longer than 800 meters in my life!

So, all in all, it was a great experience. I was super tired, but still was able to function. I didn't cramp up while on stage with Clearly Vocal just 2 1/2 hours later, so I'd call that a success!

Here are a few little pictures of poor quality that I snagged off of the photographer's website. I did order a couple of prints to scrap!

Toward the beginning of the race with my goofy grin!

Feelin' good!

Mile 12. I'm pretty sure I'm on the phone with Mom!

Big finish! I'm looking over at John and the kids who are cheering me in! Thanks guys! You were a welcome sight!

5 Gigs in 3 Days

2009-10-20T21:45:00.000-05:00

I'll get to the race post when I have pictures, so for now I'll share about all of our singing adventures this past weekend.

As if the race weren't enough for the weekend, we performed a total of 5 times Thursday, Friday and Saturday. All of the gigs were with Group Therapy except for one on Saturday, which was Clearly Vocal.

So, Thursday at noon, we played a couple of hours for a luncheon honoring the new president of Texas College. We were mostly background music, so it was pretty easy.

Thursday night was the official Grand Opening for Breakers, so they invited us to come play for that. It was very busy, so that made it fun. We played until about 11:45 that night.

Friday night we played for a party out at the Pinecrest Country Club out in Longview. This was the BIG band which, in addition to us, included Mark, Todd, Darrin and Harold (Danny's 87 yr-old dad!) on the bass, guitar, drums and saxaphone, respectively. Playing with all of those guys is always so fun! We played until 10:00 and got home by midnight.

Saturday morning, we left the house by 7:00 to get to the race, about which I will write later.

We did not stay for the awards ceremony because we had to get out to Edom to sing with Clearly Vocal at the Edom Festival of the Arts at 1:00! We were told to be there by noon, so my time was a little short! We made it, though my hair was still wet. From the shower, not sweat. :) We had a great crowd all sitting out there on hay bales! There were two women, especially, who just really seemed like they were enjoying the music. They were my "go-to" people whenever I needed some encouragement! We sang well and had a blast.

Then that night we were back at our regular gig at Breakers. I wore my Tyler Half Finisher's medal around my neck. Yeah, I did. I was pretty tired, so Danny let John and I go home at 10:45, rather than our usual quitting time of midnight! I was SO thankful.

To make the weekend even more challenging, I was having sinus issues, that thankfully didn't affect my voice until Sunday. I sound pretty bad today, though I'm feeling mostly better! The biggest problem was the congestion, but what's one of the best ways to vibrate those sinus cavities and keep everything loose? Singing!

And so it all fell into place as it was supposed to. I'm glad that just every once in a while my plans and God's plans seem to be on the same page! I am so grateful for healthy bodies, singing opportunities and beautiful weather that made this past weekend so wonderful!

T-5 days until the Big Race

2009-10-12T15:02:00.002-05:00

Saturday is the Tyler Half Marathon. And I'm running it.

I never thought I would be able to do something like that, and yet here we are. Of course I've never run that far in my life, so perhaps I should save the celebrating until AFTER I finish, that is, assuming I do!

People that know what they're doing when it comes to stuff like this have told me that to be ready, I should be able to run 10 miles about 2 weeks before the race, and then start tapering off my mileage to be good and rested before I do 13. Well that would've been great back at the end of August when I had gotten up to 9.3 pretty comfortably. And then my foot started hurting. A lot.

"Plantar Fasciitis — The most common condition of heel pain. This condition occurs when the long fibrous plantar fascia ligament along the bottom of the foot develops tears in the tissue resulting in pain and inflammation. The pain of plantar fasciitis is usually located close to where the fascia attaches to the calcaneous, also known as the heel bone. Correctly pronounced it is 'plantar fash-eee-eye-tiss'." -- plantar-fasciitis.org.

The proper treatment? Ice, rest, Ibuprofen and cutting back on mileage. Nice. So, I tapered off. It just happened to be in September.

I'm back up to 8.5, which I ran this morning and it felt pretty good. So I think the 13.1 will be doable, that is, I think I will finish. I may feel terrible, but I will finish, and that is a good thing.

But that's not all! Between Group Therapy and Clearly Vocal, we have FIVE gigs in three days. Two on Thursday, one on Friday and two more on Saturday, AFTER the race. Sunday is, well Sunday for a minister's family, so I plan to eat whatever I want and sleep on Monday. That's just one week from today!

If you had asked me yesterday how I felt about this, and some did, I would have told you that I'm dreading it.

But not today. I'm refusing to be anxious about it any more. It's a waste of time. These are things I LOVE to do, so I'm just going to take it one step at a time (literally!) and have a BLAST!

On your mark, get set, GO!

Two Kid Funnies + Walking

2009-10-04T16:40:00.003-05:00

1. "Jonas is getting so big! He's going to be two before Kalleigh was!" -- Johnathan

2. Me: "Johnathan? Kalleigh?" getting their attention, "Which sounds better: ..." but before I can say Jack-In-The-Box or Chicken Express, Kalleigh says, "Me!"

And yes, Jonas is walking. Oh boy. Here we go. It is pretty stinkin' cute.

Cardboard Testimonies at Glenwood

2009-09-28T10:36:00.002-05:00

Thank you to everyone who put this together for Glenwood. It was so powerful!

Restaurant Night a Success for Clearly Vocal

2009-09-26T14:22:00.003-05:00

We've started what I call "Restaurant Night." This is where Clearly Vocal goes around to different restaurants and pops in a sings a couple of songs at a couple of tables. Wherever we end up last is where we eat.

Last night was our first Restaurant Night, and I think it went great! Danny has so many connections around town that he knew someone influential at each place we went. We hit Old Bullard last night and hit Breakers, Sonoma Grill, Bernard and On The Border, in that order. We handed out all of our business cards and got so much good response!

I've been working on posters. This has been our standard one:

We've used it mainly as an 8x10 photo for the inside of our press kit. I noticed that most band posters were vertical, though, so I wanted something different. Here's what I came up with:

John thinks the girls should be in the front, but I didn't have beg enough full length pictures of anybody to work with. John's was the best, so I put him out front. Maybe we just need some more pictures made. Especially since the last still photos we took, I was like 40 pounds heavier! That was nearly a year ago! I like the idea of action shots, though, rather than a standing pose. We need new ones of both. Chelsea? :)

I'll keep working on it ...

A Much-Needed Vacation

2009-09-24T08:53:00.008-05:00

If you have a close relationship with your mom, you need to go on vacation with her.

Backing up a bit, this week-long trip to Galveston started out in my mind as just a weekend in a secluded cabin or B&B by myself. That's what I wanted for my 30th birthday. A responsibility-free weekend where I could take my Bible and scrap stuff and not worry about anything else. Sound like a good weekend to anybody else?

I started planning back in May and then pondered the idea of going to the beach instead of a cabin.

John had the brilliant idea of using our timeshare to go to the beach. That would be much less expensive. Of course, our timeshare is for a whole week and I didn't want to leave the kids with John by himself all week, plus I wouldn't want that much alone time anyway. Then another thought popped into my head. Why not take Mom with me? She loves the beach almost as much as I do and I would love that one-on-one time with her!

We went about the business of finding an available place and time. Too bad all the resorts for our timeshare in Galveston (best beach within driving distance) were completely booked until the second week in September. My birthday is in July! But then we thought, what a perfect time for the beach! No crowd, still plenty warm. Perfect. I chose to put off my birthday until September. 30 could wait.

The plan was set. Mom would drive down on Friday, pick me up and we'd check in that night. Then John would bring the kids down on Monday night and we'd all go back Thursday night. I still got my responsibility-free weekend plus the bonus of having my mom there, and John and the kids would get a vacation at the beach, too!

So that's what we did. We stayed at the Silverleaf's Seaside Resort on the southwest end of the island. Fewer crowds down there than in the main part of Galveston. So nice! My only complaint was that there were tons of mosquitoes around the condo. Once we crossed the street to the beach, they were gone, but we literally ran from our door to the car to avoid getting bitten. Then once we were safely inside the car, we'd kill the 5-7 that sneaked in while the doors were open!

Saturday, Sunday and Monday mornings were all the same. Sleep-in (you know, like 7:30!), fix ourselves breakfast, take our coffee to the beach, lay around the beach until around noon. I couldn't think of any better way to spend my vacation! I brought my Ladies Bible Class study (Beth Moore's Esther) to the beach each morning and got two weeks done without any interruptions!

We had everything we needed: camera, towels, pillows, sunscreen, coffee, water, snacks, Bible study, other books to read, and each other! Thankfully, there were beach chairs out there that we claimed each morning!

Saturday around noon is when we saw our only rain. Other than that it was either sunny or overcast. Both were perfect.

We almost always went into town for lunch. We'd clean up after being at the beach all morning, put on something cute and head into town. We tried to find the very best seafood around, and I think we decided that Gaido's won that contest.

We also ate at Avery's Cafe, The Spot, Rainforest Cafe' (when the kids got there--more on that later), Nate's and a Mexican restaurant whose name eludes me at the moment. I'd recommend them all except Nate's.

Afternoons were nap and scrap time. Between the two of us, we did a lot of both! When the kids got there, we kept nap time, but alas, I had to keep my scrap stuff picked up for obvious reasons.

We also got plenty of shopping and sightseeing in, hitting the Strand and the Moody Gardens Aquarium.

Most suppers we cooked in our condo or ate leftover from our huge lunches! Or just snacked because of our huge lunches!

So we saved going to the Rainforest Cafe' until the kids got there, knowing they would just love it. All the sights and sounds ... we knew it'd be perfect. See?

Enjoy the few other pictures here. The rest are on Facebook, in case you haven't seen them already!
Again, I highly recommend taking a vacation with your mom. I wouldn't trade the time we had together for anything!

Filler

2009-09-09T18:38:00.002-05:00

There's just not a lot going on that seems blog-worthy these days. Maybe it seems that way because Mom and I leave for Galveston on Friday, so that has sort of overshadowed everything else. I am SO excited!

And now, a paragraph for those who want to kill time clicking on all the links:

Group Therapy, the band, has been singing at Breakers every other weekend, which has been a blast. Best dinner crowd we've had in a while! In fact, Clearly Vocal is singing there tomorrow night to help promote the United We Dine campaign.

Johnathan must be feeling more and more comfortable with school, for his behavior has worsened. One week ago today, his teacher called just to tell us that he was doing so well in school, making good choices and being so polite. But it seems that since that phone call he's forgotten how to behave. Please say this is a phase. I have spanked for disrespectful and hurtful behavior. That doesn't seem to communicate. I have rewards promised for good behavior, but they don't seem to be doing the trick either. I'm wide open to suggestions.

Kalleigh is doing so much better with potty training. As long as I stay in tune with her poop schedule, we're usually just fine.

That may have bordered on TMI. Sorry.

She's been sort of croupy the past couple of days with a fever, so I've kept her away from most people. With Ibuprofen she seems fine, except for the seal bark. Her fever stayed down this afternoon, though, so that's good. Here we are staying home from school:

Jonas is spouting out more and more words these days, which is so nice. That whole communication thing is a lot easier that way!

When I come back from Galveston I should have a bunch of good pictures and stories.

Until then ...

Bragging

2009-09-03T11:14:00.002-05:00

It's my turn to live sort of close to family! I haven't lived this close to anyone on the Curtis side of the family since college! And now Deborah and Pat and their kids live just 2 hours away.

So Tuesday, while our big boys were in school, Deborah and I met in Terrell for some yummy Tex-Mex and a little Tanger Outlet time. So fun!

Good first week

2009-08-30T14:09:00.002-05:00

These are some of Johnathan's newest pictures of himself:

He's had a great first week of school. Mrs. Miller is wonderful! I really thought after only going to school MWF mornings last year that he wouldn't want to go back to school EVERYday, but I was so wrong! His alarm went off at 6:30 every morning, he put on his clothes that we had laid out the night before and he made his bed all before coming out of his room. And he couldn't wait to get to school!

With all that playing and learning and getting up early, he's so tired by about 6:00, even after an hour rest time right after school.

Really tired!

(sorry about the blurry picture -- no flash -- you get the idea!)

School Days!

2009-08-25T15:31:00.005-05:00

The first day of school is always exciting. The morning prep included lots of eye rubbing, egg eating, bed making, dressing, potty going, teeth brushing, backpack packing, lunch making and picture taking!

The drop-offs went well. Both kids were perfectly comfortable in their new classes. Johnathan even told me, "You can go now, Mom." :) And I did just fine, proud of the kids for being so independent!

They both had good first days, aside from Kalleigh's poopy accident. They love their teachers and were eager to go back! Thank you, God, for good schools and teachers!

Like Mother, Like Daughter

2009-08-23T15:03:00.002-05:00

Kalleigh and I painted our fingernails and toenails yesterday. We took two pictures and I couldn't decide which I liked best. The first shows the main idea of the post--just the fingernails and toenails. But I couldn't help but love Kalleigh's little face and her sunglasses from Aunt Laurie in the second picture!

We've made big steps in potty training the past few days. Right now we're coming up on her being dry for 48 hours. That doesn't seem like a lot, but for us, it's huge!

She's going to be in the Purple Room at Little People's School starting tomorrow! This is actually the younger 3's class, so she'll be one of the very youngest, as she won't turn 3 until the beginning of October. But Mrs. Carys, her teacher from last year, said she's definitely ready for their curriculum. I'm also thrilled that she'll go MWF rather than just MW like last year!

Mrs. Melissa is the teacher in the Purple Room. Johnathan had her when he was 3 and just loved it! And all last year, Melissa would say to me, "You're going to put Kalleigh in my class next year, right? I want her in my class!" The catch was that in order to go in the Purple Room, the children had to be potty trained.

So I had Kalleigh signed up for the Red Room, the older 2's. Well, at "Meet the Teacher" this past Friday, we visited the Red Room, and then I walked over to the Purple Room to say 'hi' to Melissa. She said, "I have room for one more on MWF!" I then told her frankly where we were on the potty training issue, and Melissa said to bring her on anyway! I really think that seeing all of her other friends going potty frequently at school will help her a ton. And like I said, we're nearly two straight days dry and in panties! Go girl!

Johnathan & Mommy Date

2009-08-15T21:19:00.002-05:00

I learn so much from my blogging cousins. From house decorating to fun kid projects, photography to gardening, new ideas, new recipes, new jobs, new homes ... thanks guys!

This was one of those great ideas that I thought I'd copy. Johnathan and Mommy Date Night. It's where just the two of us go out and buy school supplies and eat wherever he wants.

So we printed out our list, dressed up and went. Johnathan picked an Indiana Jones outfit and I wore khaki pants, a blue halter and a multi-strand necklace. Johnathan, being my little fashion police, noticed that my pants were just like his and he liked that. While in the car, though, he suddenly asked if I was wearing a shirt because he couldn't see any back or sleeves. I thought, "Who are you? My dad?!" Later he looked at my necklace and said, "Mommy, that's too many necklaces." Thanks, kid. What's high school going to be like?!

Wal-Mart was our first stop and had everything but the right kind of glue and the #2 pencils. They were sold out of both. Johnathan also wanted a Star Wars backpack, but Wal-Mart didn't have that either. I told him we could look at Target when we went to get the other school supplies. But we were hungry, so we decided to go eat supper and finish shopping later.

Of all the places in Tyler we could've gone, Johnathan chose McDonald's. No matter how much I told him how good the food at Breakers was, we still went to Mickey D's. I had to remind myself that this evening was for him, not me. :)

Then we hit Target, where we found the pencils, but not the glue or the Star Wars backpack.

So we headed to Michael's where we found the glue, but of course not the Star Wars backpack.

Next door to Michael's is Big Lots. It's hit or miss there. They had some pretty cool Batman backpacks, but that would not do.

We crossed the street to Toys R Us. Success! We found the Star Wars backpack there. Plus they were having a "buy 1 backpack, get 1 lunchbox free" sale, so we grabbed a Star Wars lunchbox as well.

Then we finished the night off at Braum's and each got a junior cone; chocolate for Johnathan and chocolate almond for me.

On the way home I asked Johnathan what his favorite part of the night was. He listed every single thing we did! I guess that means he had a good time!

So did I, little man. So did I!

ENFJ

2009-08-13T15:52:00.002-05:00

Probably the most popular Facebook quiz right now, at least among my friends, is the Myers-Briggs personality test. I am fascinated by personalities and how it says so much about why we do what we do, so I was eager to take the very long test. Here's my result:

You are warm, empathetic, responsive, and responsible. You are highly attuned to the emotions, needs, and motivations of others. You find potential in everyone, and want to help others fulfill their potential. You may act as a catalyst for individual and group growth. You are loyal, and are responsive to praise and criticism. You are sociable, facilitate others in a group, and provide inspiring leadership. Famous people with your same ENFJ personality include: Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, Dick Van Dyke, Diane Sawyer, Peyton Manning, Pete Sampras, Johnny Depp, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Johnny Depp? Really?

What is interesting to me is that almost every time I take a Myers-Briggs-type test I come out with a different result. Last time (maybe a year ago?) I was an ISFP. Go figure. Back in college I was ISTJ. Either I have huge mood swings which makes me answer totally differently depending on the day or I'm really close to the middle on all of them. Or I didn't understand the questions very well or just didn't take the time to read them closely enough to really understand them. Anything's possible. :)

I clearly remember getting this particular result the very first time I took the test back in 7th grade. What does that say? I'm regressing? Ha! I wonder if the extrovert part just means that I have too many children and will do whatever I have to for any kind of adult interaction!

Now I just need to get John to take it. I think it's been a while for him, too.

The redo, the birthday and the anniversary

2009-08-11T14:38:00.009-05:00

I just haven't been home, okay?

Today was the first day I've checked blogs in about two weeks. I should be cleaning house. I'm not.

We have been having so much fun! Two weeks ago tomorrow, the kids and I headed to Mom's for a week to help redo her bedroom and bathroom. The project was a huge success and Mom and I got a lot of good visit time in while we were painting! I forgot to take "before" pics, but here are the "after" pics:

Just imagine flowery pink wallpaper with a pink ceiling. I'd say this is a big improvement!

This pretty furniture belonged to Great-Grandma Curtis.

Mom had someone come in to replace the counter top and mirror, but I refinished the cabinet! It used to be a lovely country blue! I painted it dark brown and brushed a light coat of metallic copper on top to match the new handles and knobs! The guy still hasn't been back to finish the mirror ...

The project wore us all out. :)

Thankfully the kids drove home so I could sleep.

I think the quote of the weeks goes to Johnathan. The conversation between him and Mom went sort of like this:

Johnathan: Look Nana! I can wink one eye! (demonstrates)
Nana: Good job! You know, you need to be careful with all that winking. If you wink at a girl, she might think you want her to be your girlfriend! So you might not want to be winking at girls!
Johnathan, totally serious: Oh, okay. So only boys?

We got back last Tuesday, had gymnastics that night, church the next, with Jonas's birthday party to follow, and Thursday night the band sang at KE Cellars. The days were filled with laundry and errands!

Yes, Jonas's birthday! Hard to believe it's been a year! We celebrated with the Deans, who have unofficially adopted my kids as their grandkids. :)

This is what happens when you decorate a ball-shaped cake in a 78 degree house with 100% humidity.

Jonas figured out the drill pretty quickly!

Ta-Da!

J. C. & Terry with the two older kids. Johnathan's attempt at a sly grin.

The fam.

Friday, we drove to Dallas to celebrate our 9-year anniversary! We dropped the kids off at Dad's for the evening (thank you!!) and went downtown to eat at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant called Five-Sixty up in the Reunion Tower. It was beautiful and the food was fabulous!

The view from our table.

I'm always impressed by the food presentation! My salmon was SO good.

My handsome date!

When we were checking out of our hotel Saturday morning, Danny called us to see if we could sing at Breakers (the amazing new seafood place I've mentioned before) THAT NIGHT. Sure!

Of course we had to get back to Tyler for a quick Clearly Vocal rehearsal where we sang for an engaged couple in whose wedding we'll be singing in another month or so.

As soon as we finished there, we rushed the kids home with the babysitter, changed back into the clothes we had worn the night before at Five-Sixty, loaded up our instruments and rushed back into town to Breakers. We sang from about 6:30 until MIDNIGHT. There was a big crowd the whole time and people still there when we left!

The table of people right in front of us was especially animated and shot requests at us all night. After we finished we found out that they were the parents of the owner! They told us that they really enjoyed us, so we'll be back in a couple of weeks!

This morning I went on my last run with Kristin before she and her family move to Rwanda tomorrow. I'm sure going to miss her!

I'll try to be better about keeping all of you faithful readers updated as we get started with school and ... and ... KINDERGARTEN!

Long-Lost Friend (Runner's Madness)

2009-07-24T09:58:00.002-05:00

Dear Rose Rudman Trail,

Sorry it's been so long. We used to spend every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9:00 am together, but since the kids have been out of school, my daily routine just hasn't allowed that. However, I'm so grateful for the time we got to spend together this morning. I really enjoyed it.

I'm jealous of your daily view of the sunrise! It was gorgeous today, and I'm glad we got to share that moment!

I noticed that several of your regulars greeted each other as they crossed paths. I used to be one of those, but sort of felt like the outsider today. Nonetheless, they're your friends, so your friends are my friends and so with much effort I said, "Good morning!" with a smile.

On that note, thanks for having so many friends. They made the run go by faster, as I enjoy people watching. Also, with so much traffic, the critters stay away from you. This was very nice, as it's been a long time since I went on a run and didn't see any roadkill or live critters.

Sorry that the guys who made you didn't account for the possible mud that would collect in the low spots, especially under the bridges. It made me want to just wash you down with a power hose so that you'd be nice and clean like when they first made you.

Your trees were especially welcoming this morning. Most arched over you to make a leafy green canopy under which I ran. This shielded me from the sun, which had long since risen.

So, thanks for a great morning. Hopefully I'll come visit more often. Don't forget about me!

Sincerely,

Kim, the occasional runner

Another random assosrtment of things

2009-07-23T15:10:00.002-05:00

Our July has been so slow, and I have just relished every moment of it!

Yesterday I ran 9.34 miles. This was the longest I'd ever run in my training for the Tyler 1/2 marathon in October. I kept my pace just barely under a 10 minute mile. It gave me a boost of confidence that I really might be able to run that 1/2! Tomorrow morning I'll do a shorter run and go for a faster pace. I'm really starting to like this running thing. Kreg has hinted at coming down to run the 1/2 with me, and I really hope he can! Mom has hinted at coming down to support me (us), and I really think she should. :)

Benson is blending in beautifully with our family. It's hard to believe that we've only had him for 6 days! He's definitely a puppy still--finding everything he can to chew on--but that is good incentive for the kids to keep their toys picked up!

Johnathan continues to excel at any Wii game he plays. Since he jumps up and down the whole time he plays, it's hard for me to think that he's just "sitting around playing video games." He's played a lot recently.

But I do try to lock the children outside from time to time. Right now they are in the backyard playing in the sprinklers, on the swings and in the baby pool. They keep taking turns coming up to the door, knocking on it and saying, "I'm done!" To which I reply, "You can come in when the sprinklers go off." Mean ol' mommy!

We got Kalleigh some Dora panties to try, since the Pull-Ups did nothing to help. Whoever said girls were easier was totally wrong! (No offense.) It has to be a personality thing. We tried the "big girl panties" out today. By noon, she had gone through 3 pairs. We're putting the whole potty training gig on the shelf for another couple of weeks. I'm not even going to talk about it. She'll be 3 in October.

Tonight we're making chicken fajita pizza, one of my favorites! I'm using 2 red bell peppers that I grew right in my front yard! Of course it's the only fruit or vegetable I've ever grown in my life, so I have to make a really big deal out of it.

Jonas is still working on those teeth and running the obligatory fever that usually accompanies that. That's just another reason I'm glad we've been taking it easy these days.

Right now I'm reading Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies. I'm just barely into it, but it's already better than her other book I read this summer, Blue Shoe. So depressing! Several people told me that Traveling Mercies would be much better, which is why I gave her another shot. The book "on deck" is Francine Rivers's The Scarlet Thread. It's just hard to go wrong with Francine Rivers!

John and I have been transcribing The Real Group's "It Don't Mean a Thing." It's probably the hardest song I've ever tried to transcribe. John's amazing, though. We're doing it so that Clearly Vocal can sing it. It's one of TRG's songs that you can't get sheet music for, and that's a real bummer! It's such a great song! It's going to be so fun!

The kids are going to spend the night with the Deans tomorrow night. We'll probably go see a movie and maybe hit Breakers, the newest, bestest, yummiest seafood place in town. Can we say fried avacados? Oh yes. We can. I haven't had anything on the menu that I didn't like. Go there. Then we'll come home and keep transcribing! We're such nerds! But we're nerds together, and that's what counts!

This coming Wednesday the kids and I will head to AR for about a week to help Mom redo her bedroom. It's going to be GREAT, and I'll be sure to take before & after pics.

And my baby will be ONE in just a couple of weeks. Bless his heart. I have one page of his first year scrapbook done. There's a third child for you. I WILL get it done ... eventually.

I've promised to help Johnathan make a Mr. Incredible mask, so I'll get to it. Then fix supper.

I really love slow months!

New Addition

2009-07-18T13:10:00.003-05:00

We did it. Two weeks to the day after Belle died we found a new buddy for Bison. Bison has been so happy today! Much closer to normal than he had been!

In keeping with our Harding "B" names, meet Benson!

I found him on Craigslist, of all places! His previous onwner said she needed to find a new home for him because she was having to go back to work and didn't feel it was right to keep a puppy cooped up in a crate all day without a playmate. They also have an older cat who is her husband's baby, and since they had had the puppy, the cat had gone from 12 - 8 pounds and never came out. So the pup had to go. She said in her ad that she really preferred that he go to a home that was familiar with the pug breed. That would be us!

He's a 10-month-old fawn pug, AKC registered with a 4-generation pedigree documented, house-trained, microchipped, current on all vet visits/shots, etc., very clean, great with all three kids, hilarious and absolutely beautiful! Well, for a pug!

And she just GAVE him to me. I couldn't believe it. Her ad said that she wanted a small re-homing fee, but when Bison and I came over to meet the puppy, she said that she could see how happy he would be to have a playmate and that she didn't need anything but the reassurance that he would be well-loved. No problem!

I'm not sure where Kalleigh got this, but she is convinced that we got her her "very own puppy," in her words. I can't count the number of times she has said, "I love Benson, Mommy!" today. The "very own puppy" phrase came when she told John that she was so happy to have her "very own puppy!" And Benson has played along beautifully. He just follows her around and lets her love on him.

We hope Benson is a part of our family for a really long time!

Jonas & Bison

2009-07-17T18:41:00.004-05:00

Jonas is cutting four teeth right now which makes for low grade fevers, some nasty diapers with accompanying rashes and one very fussy baby. To remind myself and everyone else how sweet the child CAN be, here are some recent pics of him:

Snuggling with Daddy

Oreo face

How most of the shots I try to take of Jonas turn out.

And poor Bison, without Belle, is just a little off these days.

With the exception of these things, well, and Kalleigh's refusal to potty train, life around the Hodges house is pretty laid-back. I've cooked a lot at home, we've had company, the laundry is mostly under control and we're doing some fun things.

Yesterday was especially fun. The kids and I went over to a friend's house to swim. She just got a new Beautiful pool, and we just really had a good time. Johnathan is trying his very best to swim without floaties, which scares this momma to bits, but he's doing pretty well. He swam the width of the pool for the first time, which was a big deal!

Then last night we had our next-door neighbors over for dinner ... finally. We've lived here for almost 3 1/2 years and we had NEVER had them over! They're such sweet people who would do anything for us. We had a great time visiting as we munched on marinated grilled chicken, carrots, green beans, salad, rolls, peach cobbler and chocolate cake! I even pulled out a tablecloth, cloth napkins and napkin rings. I don't think my children had ever seen the napkin rings before.

We'll enjoy these slow days while we have them. School will be here before we know it!

Princess Day Out

2009-07-11T15:54:00.004-05:00

This is one of those things I said I would never do. I did not want to promote entitlement or bratiness of any kind.

And then I had a daughter.

A daughter who loves girly things.

A daughter who one day will be in junior high and struggle with self-esteem.

A daughter who one day will be in high school and choose her own friends.

A daughter who one day will marry someone and will only love him as much as she loves herself (Luke 10:27).

And I decided that she needs as much esteem-building, reassuring, princess-feeling, lovin' and hugin' from her momma that she can get!

So today Mom, Kalleigh and I had a girls' morning out. We shopped at the mall and then saw that they were having princess makeovers! Kalleigh was star-struck as she saw Cinderella, Jasmine and Aurora walk around and taking pictures with the little girls. The makeover included a princess hairdo, tiara, bracelets, a ring, makeup, and a personalized purse! Here are some of the pictures, thanks to Mom having her camera!

Kalleigh and Cinderella -- before

Fixing her hair

A look in the princess mirror.

Princess hairdo.

Putting on her makeup.

The lady kept saying, "Look at her lips! They're such pretty lips!"

Princess Kalleigh!

Cinderella and Kalleigh -- after!

Kalleigh, I pray that you will know that you are God's princess with grace, wisdom and strength as your inner beauty! May your confidence and self-worth come from Him! He adores you!

Goodbye, Sweet Belle

2009-07-07T14:17:00.002-05:00

Lady Harding Belle Tower Hodges, 7, died July 3, 2009, at her home in Tyler. Belle was born on June 13, 2002 in Camden, AR, to Buster Lee and Bossie Mae Coke. She was the smallest of five pups.

Sold to John and Kim Hodges in late July of '02, Belle moved to Colorado Springs, CO.

In September of '02, she was registered with the Universal Kennel Club International as a fawn female pug, but her vet discovered additional information. While performing her spay, Dr. Albertson, of Colorado Springs, discovered that she had female parts on the exterior, but male on the interior. Belle had to be both spayed and neutered. We were charged double. It was the first case of a hermaphrodite at that clinic. Ever.

Belle soon learned to sit, shake, roll over and lie down. We learned that she also had skin allergies and hip dysplasia. She was particularly good with the babies and liked to bring toys to them to try to get them to play with her. She never snapped or scratched or played too rough with any of the children, even when Jonas crawled into her food dish to "share" her food.

Belle is survived by her best buddy, Bison, with whom she lived her whole life.

Slow week -- stream of consciousness

2009-06-26T11:01:00.008-05:00

We played a gig last night for the Chamber of Commerce ... outside in 100 degree weather! Thankfully we were in the shade and had a fan, so it was better than I was afraid it would be. The band played from 5 - 7:30 or so and Clearly Vocal made an appearance in the middle and sang 4 songs. Fun times.

CV has been rehearsing in the mornings this week, so several of our nights have been open!

Gymnastics are going well. Both kids enjoy it. I haven't gotten a good picture of Johnathan yet, but here's Kalleigh in her cute little leotard.

Jonas had his first haircut and did just great. Bye-bye baby curls; hello big boy!

He also is cutting his top front two teeth. They poked through yesterday!

I love my new Asics Gel Nimbus running shoes. They're just awesome. Kreg says that they're going to be my birthday present from Mom and him ( I just haven't talked to Mom about it yet! Ha!)! I just helped them a little by going ahead and picking them out ... and trying them out. :) Thanks!!
On my runs in the mornings I usually see a lot of road kill. This morning I saw a nice sized bass out in the middle of the road ... that had been run over. Odd.

Belle turned 7 the other day. She's down to 3 front teeth on the bottom. Bless her heart.

Our weekend is completely open. How fantastic is that? I hope we're not forgetting something!

Favorite thumb.
Favorite blanket.
Straight out of the dryer.

Best Daddy!

2009-06-22T09:40:00.003-05:00

Happy Father's Day!

(Yesterday!)

Subtly Sweet Cherry Treats

2009-06-21T13:42:00.000-05:00

I had the urge to experiment with fresh cherries. Here's what I came up with ...

Yeild: 18 treats

Crust:
2 c flour
1 t salt
2/3 c + 2 T shortening (I use Butter Crisco)
5 T COLD water

Filling:
2 c Splenda
5 T cornstarch
Dash salt
2 c water
2 T butter
4 cups fresh, pitted cherries

Prepare crusts: Combine flour and salt in medium bowl. Thoroughly cut in shortening. Sprinkle in water and stir with fork until dough "cleans the bowl." May add up to 1T more water, if necessary. Shape 18 balls about 1 1/2 in diameter. Roll each out to 1/4 inch (should be about 5 inches in diameter). Or you could roll it all out and cut 5 in circles however you like. Press dough circles into muffin tins. Generously prick bottom and sides. Bake at 425 10 minutes, or until desired browning. Let cool until easily handled. Place each crust in a muffin liner and set on serving tray. (I suppose you could just press the dough into lined muffin tins and bake it that way, but it might be harder.) Set aside.

While crusts are baking, mix Splenda, cornstarch and salt in large saucepan or deep skillet (I use a wok skillet). Add water, butter and cherries cook on medium heat, stirring until thickened. May need to add more water if mixture gets too thick.

Spoon filing into crusts and refrigerate, covered until cooled completely. Before serving, sprinkle with powdered sugar (optional for those who want it completely sugar-free). If you are too impatient to wait until they cool completely, the powdered sugar will dissolve on top of they cherries, as demonstrated in the following photo:

Mmmmmmm......

Oh my, they were good! Yes, WERE. They're gone.

If you try these, I'd love for you to tweak, and let me know what you did and how they turned out!

Big 5 year old

2009-06-20T09:40:00.004-05:00

Right now, 5 years ago today I had just received my epidural and that anesthesiologist was my new best friend. It was a Sunday morning in Colorado Springs -- Father's Day! What a great way for John to spend his first Father's Day! Thankfully his back-up song leader was ready to fill in at Eastside! Johnathan arrived at 2:30 that afternoon weighing 8 lbs. 5 oz. My smallest baby!

Here's a walk down memory lane ...

Birth Day, June 20, 2004

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five!

Love you, my sweet Johnathan! Happy Birthday!

Kalleigh Elizabeth!

2009-06-16T15:02:00.003-05:00

Inspired and reminded by Elizabeth to write these things down, here's another round of Kalleigh-isms.

While sitting on the potty (and we have a long way to go), she says to me, "Mommy, you can take a break." Not really knowing what to say or what she meant, I just said, "Thanks."

Passing by an M&M machine: "What are those?" (knowing the answer, of course)
Me: M&Ms, of course.
Kalleigh, looking wistfully at them: "I don't need those."

At Starbucks, after finishing her steamer and then taking a sip of my mocha, "Ooohh, wat's good!"

Kalleigh trying to get my attention: "Mommy? Mommy. Mommy! Mommy Elizabeth!"

And in a weak mommy moment, I allowed this to happen:

She's so very proud of them!

Love you, little girl!

"God wants us to be sore."

2009-06-10T17:04:00.004-05:00

Johnathan: God wants us to be sore.
Me: What? God wants us to be sore? I don't think he does.
Johnathan: He does! God wants us to be sore!
Me: Where did you hear that?
Johnathan: On "A Snoodle's Tale" (from Veggie Tales). God wants us to be sore like the eagles!

Those poor eagles! :)

Headinng into the summer

2009-06-03T13:08:00.004-05:00

We're heading into the summer with some new and exciting things for the kids. It's already starting to pick up speed!

At church, we sort of kicked off the summer with a Ministry Fair that I got to help plan. Click here to see pictures and a good article by Donna LaRue. This was the first one for Glenwood in several years--the first since we've been here--and I really think it was a huge success. Plus, it's another thing to check off my to-do list. Whew! That was a big one!

Sorry. Kalleigh's potty training days are here, and those last two comments sent me to that world.

Getting back on track ...

Yesterday we got Johnathan all registered for kindergarten. He seemed pretty nervous about the whole thing, but I'm sure he'll do just great. Er, I'm sure I'll do just great. I'm sure.

And today I got the oldest two signed up for gymnastics for the summer. They're both VERY excited about this, so I hope it's a good experience for them. That's our big summer thing for the kids. (Who knew how expensive a 3T required leotard could be?! Good grief!)

The kids have a calendar that hangs in their bathroom that we update every month. Johnathan loves this because he really feels like he needs to know what "the plan" is several days in advance. :) He got so excited as we added each activity: gymnastics, zoo camp, VBS, Father's Day and of course, his birthday party!

He'll be the big 5 this year. Our family has decided to do big "friend parties" every five years or so (5, 10, 16), so this year is the first big one. We're heading to "Jumpin' Jacks Party Shack" on his birthday, which conveniently falls on a Saturday.

And in between all that fun, I'm sure we'll head to the pool, play in the sprinklers, go to the spray park and anything else we can think of to stay cool. We had a mild winter, so I'm guessing it's going to be a hot summer!

Happy June!

Note to self:

2009-05-26T15:40:00.003-05:00

The problem with the mixer is

that the egg whites whipped up so beautifully

that I forgot it WASN'T meringue.

And took a big lick.

Around the house

2009-05-22T09:52:00.005-05:00

Your know you're a good daddy when you have a sword in your pocket while shaving ... just in case. :)

My big boy pulling up to standing. Way to go, little man!

Found this little mess outside the other day.

I'm muddy, Mommy!

When in doubt, take a bath.

Daddy lovin'!

The dogs ... chillaxin'.

Westin Wayne Kell

2009-05-19T15:24:00.003-05:00

6 lbs., 7 oz.
20 1/2 inches long
Born Thursday, May 14, 2009
6:15 p.m.

Keleigh was induced Wednesday evening and 24 hours later and NO epidural, Westin was here! I'm so proud of my sister-in-law! Yeah, and Kreg did great, too. ;)

Isn't he just beautiful? All that hair!

This one might be my all-time favorite! This just has to go in his senior slide-show!

The Kell Family

Kalleigh's most recent funnies

2009-05-18T14:56:00.002-05:00

I'll get to my PA trip in the next post after I've stolen some pictures from the people who were smart enough to take them, and I'll also show you pictures of my newest nephew, Mr. Westin Wayne Kell, but this post is for Kalleigh and for me. A "so-I-don't-forget" post.

1. We went to P.F. Chang's after John and the kids picked me up from the airport last night, and as is our custom, ordered the Great Wall of Chocolate. Kalleigh, with her mouth full of chocolate cake, a ring of chocolate around her mouth, and another large piece on her fork, grins ear to ear and enthusiastically says as if on a commercial, "Das a bvig bvite!" (That's a big bite!) That one is a "you had to be there," one, but lucky for me, I was. :)

2. She also was especially concerned about getting to eat the blueblerry that garnished the cake.

3. Not long ago, Kalleigh held up her thumb and said, "Daddy, my scum hurts! Can you kitch it?"

4. Identifying shapes: "Dassa square, dassa trine-tangle (triangle), and dassa, uh, uh, (obviously searching for the word) dassa squirrel (circle)."

We try not to laugh at everything she says so she won't get TOO self-conscious and stop trying new words. But we certainly have to turn away to hide the smiles sometimes! This is too fun!

Lapped, among other things

2009-05-13T14:24:00.007-05:00

This morning ... just one of those mornings.

Though I slept great, it was all I could do to drag myself out of bed. The children were more than willing to "help" with this situation. I put on my running clothes, tying Kalleigh's bandana from Rodeo Roundup around my head, and got with it.

John has the morning task of fixing breakfast for the older two kids, which he did. Of course, as soon as he got in the shower they finished their bowls of cereal and needed some more, so I did that.

I adamantly deny using bacon grease to fry my healthy egg whites. Johnathan then declared that he'd please like some eggs, too, so I fried him one, too. Then made John's scrambled, just like he likes it.

As I started to sit down to eat my healthy egg whites, Jonas woke up and was especially fussy. So, leaving the healthy egg whites I fixed his bottle and took it into his room ... which smelled AWFUL. He had pooped out of his diaper, and it was everywhere. I stripped him and put him in the tub.

I got him back to the changing table all clean and called John in to watch him while I took the sheets and put them in the washer. While I was in there, I heard the phone ring, but didn't think much of it. I grabbed a few more things from the laundry to fill the load and got it started.

When I got back to the nursery, the phone was off the hook and John said, "It's for you." I grabbed the phone, knowing it had been quite a while since the phone had rung, but they had already hung up. Nice. John said it was one of the moms in Johnathan's class. We've been playing phone tag for several days now, and I really needed to talk to her. I called back, but no answer. I'm sure that was because she was on her way to drop off her child at school because it was already time to go!

I got Jonas dressed and set up with a bottle and started getting Kalleigh dressed. Thankfully, she did not put up a fight about her outfit and was content to just wear shorts and a t-shirt rather than a "boo-ful dress." But then I had to fix her hair that had milk in it. Painful tangles, even though I tried to be gentle. One pony-tail, a bow and several tears later we were done.

We loaded up the van and were out the door. I had told my friend that I would pick up her son on the way to school. Seeing that it was already 8:50, I knew we would be late. One mile down the road, I realized that I had left the jogging stroller back home. Knowing I couldn't run while holding an infant and not having another option of where to put the child, we had to turn around.

We made it to school by ten after and I headed to the park. I felt tired even before I started the 5-mile trek, but figured I would "get into my stride" eventually and feel better. Yeah, that didn't happen. A stroller + wind + hills = bad idea. But I trudged on fighting all the negative thoughts along the way.

About 3.5 miles in, I saw a guy wearing a neon green shirt and running pants. Looked like he had just started. As we got closer, he looked at the stroller and said, "Your tougher than me!" Now I don't know if that was just a sympathy comment or geniune encouragement, but I took it as the latter, said 'thanks,' straightened my shoulders and went on.

Then the big hill came along. I have to run it or it won't be a full 5 miles. Thankfully, someone was sitting on the bench at the top of the hill so I wasn't tempted to curse out loud. He called out, "You're a glutton for punishment!" I grinned as I topped the hill and headed down the other side. "No, I just want a new wardrobe," I thought to myself.

Then the green shirt guy lapped me. This wouldn't be such a big deal ... except there's only ONE LAP. Thankfully, he looked a little more tired than when I saw him last. I, on the other hand, was nearly dead by that point.

I made it back to the car and checked my time. Slower than normal. No big surprise there. I could feel every bit of that.

When I climbed in the car and checked the rear-view mirror, I saw that all of the paint from Kalleigh's precious bandana had smeared and had started running down my face! No wonder people were looking at me strangly!! Ha! Thankfully, that did come off in the shower!

Jonas and I headed home and when I got there, I saw my healthy egg whites sitting right where I had left them, untouched. So sad. I had just forgotten to eat them! No wonder I was so tired!

And that was the morning. I anticipate a much better "rest of the day." Toinght I get to sing with my buddy Mary for the first time on the praise team, so I'm looking forward to that. And tomorrow Jonas and I fly out to Pittsburg to celebrate Kristi's graduation!

Life is good.

I need to drink more water.

HU Graduation

2009-05-12T09:45:00.004-05:00

The kids and I had a good time in Searcy for Kreg & Keleigh's graduation. We loved spending time with everyone! And we ate and Ate and ATE! Seriously. In the few days I was there we had 4 BIG meals. Two out at the farm, one at Mom's and one at Shogun. Thankfully, I did run with Kreg on Friday, so I'm pretty sure it all balanced out. :)

Anyway, here are some pictures that I had no right stealing from Tami's (Keleigh's mom) Facebook. I was my typical self and forgot to take my camera along. Enjoy!

Kreg getting a hug from Mom after walking across the stage.

Cute little pregnant Keleigh with her Summa Cum cords!

Wait a second ...

All three children went to graduation, too. We almost made it the whole time.

Jonas was SO tired!

The Harding grads on the Hardig swing. How iconic!

Kell family

Back at Mom's house, Mamaw and Mom were fixing a feast!

The beautiful table, complete with Harding plates, Harding swing, a grad cap, a bison, a picture of Kreg & Keleigh, this year's Petit Jean and lots of black and gold!

I couldn't be more proud of Kreg and Keleigh. Keleigh is due any day now with baby Westin, so all of us are keeping our phones close! Love you guys!

Thursday Jonas and I fly out to Pittsburg to do it all over again for Kristi's graduation. She's the first of us siblings to get her Master's. Way to go, Sis! See you Thursday!