Tomorrow,

I plan and promise to get back to posting about the Cool House shenanigans, but for now, please pray for the Smith family again.

If you recall, Todd Smith is with the group Selah and his wife Angie had a baby in April who died shortly after birth. Tragically, his sister Nicol's baby died of SIDS earlier this week. Nicol was also an original member of Selah.

Angie is keeping everyone up to date on her blog at http://www.audreycaroline.blogspot.com.

This is the third time in a little over a month that the Christian music community has been hit that I have heard. So tragic.

I am not sure what God is up to, but I am sure of one thing. I am glad He is in control and I am not.

This is an excellent video if you have not seen it. If you happen to have about 26 minutes, pause the music in the box and sit back with your cup of joe. You will be so glad you did. It has changed my way of thinking.



Smith Family Story from Matthew Singleton on Vimeo.

Still praying

And I hope you are, too. A week ago, the Chapman family lost their precious Maria and their lives were forever altered.

I am not sure why this one has hit me so hard. Maybe because this is about the fourth young child's death that I have heard about lately, other than the ones I have heard on the news. Maybe because the Christian community really seems to be getting hit lately, or so it seems to me. Maybe because I have followed Steven's career through the years because he is near my age and I have enjoyed his music for so long. Maybe because they seemed like the "perfect" family and had everything going for them. Maybe because if it can happen to them, it can happen to anyone, including us.

I don't know. I do know this and other recent events have changed me.

In my obsessive, can't get enough, just call me my mother state, I read an article in
The Tennessean about Maria Sue's service. It was a good article. I won't go into all the information given in the article, but I want to mention a wonderful thing one of Steven's sons said.

He said that God healed Maria in a way they did not like, but that He was going to heal his brother in a way they do like.

Yeah, that'll preach.

Words escape me right now...

Please pray for the Steven Curtis Chapman family. He is one of my favorite singers, and, in my opinion, one of the best songwriters in Christian music. One of his daughters was accidently run over by one of her teenage brothers yesterday. She did not survive.

Sometimes, I just don't understand.

Weekend

We had a great, tiring weekend. We went up to Bruce's mother's for a family reunion.

On Friday night, we took our mothers out for Mother's Day after four out of the five of us got haircuts from my brother. Since I was not one of the five, I went to try to spend a gift card I received for Mother's Day.

I was able to get a few clothing items and some accessories. Later when I tried on the items (I hate trying things on in the store.), one of the pairs of shorts I had bought was a little snug. Adriana was in the room while I was trying them on and proceeded to tell me they were too tight. Gotta love kids and their honesty.

We took both our mothers to a restaurant in my hometown that is run by one of my middle brother's high school friends. We enjoyed getting caught up with him, and Bruce enjoyed talking football with him.

On Saturday, we went to the family reunion for Bruce's mother's family. It was great. I really enjoy getting together with his family. They are a loving, enjoyable bunch. At least two of the siblings who are left are in their upper 90s, and I enjoy talking to them so much.

Bruce was funny, though, and told one of his cousins that it is sad when the grandchildren are looking more like the children.

My favorite part was when a couple of his cousins said that he was looking older, but I was looking younger. Like I said, I enjoy his family so much.

The person in the picture with Bruce is his Uncle Bill, a retired minister. Uncle Bill's son is also an ordained minister. Another uncle was also a minister, but he passed away a few years ago. What can I say? It is a family business.

Reality checks

Forgive my grumblings when I gripe about planning birthday parties and such. These are petty things compared to what some are going through.

Just this week I have had at least three reality checks that have jolted me to thank the good Lord for my good life.

So, thank you, Lord, that I do get to plan and celebrate my daughter's birthday. Almost seven years ago we were scared that might not happen, and I know of at least one set of parents today who wish they could plan their daughter's first birthday, instead they are planning a funeral.

Thank you, Lord, that back in December I received an all clear from a routine mammogram. Just this week, I learned of one person near to us, particularly Adriana, who cannot say that. Now, she is faced with the word so many dread to hear. And, I have to find a way to tell my daughter that someone she loves is sick.

Thank you, Lord, that tonight my whole family is safe and sound at home. I know of at least one pastor's family in Florida who cannot say that tonight. They lost their husband/daddy/and one young brother/son in a small plane crash. Now, a family and a growing church is left to grieve.

Even with the times of questioning if God is paying attention and wondering what he is up to when his children are hurting, I find hope.

Hope in the birth of triplets in California who come into the world almost one year after their parents lost their three siblings in a horrific car accident. Somehow, these parents found the strength and courage to carry on in spite of every parent's worst nightmare.

Hope in that this very weekend my community is rallying once again to raise money to help find a cure for cancer. A few years ago, Relay for Life was not held here, but the death of one sweet child because of cancer and the illness of another was enough for this group of good folks to come together to fight for a cure.

Hope that as devastating as losing someone is, we have the ultimate hope that we will see that person again if we and they know the Lord.

So, yes, Lord, please forgive my grumblings and help me to be grateful. Amen.

The list keeps growing

Well, Adriana seems to be obsessed with this slumber party since that is all she talks about from sun up to sun down. I originally told her shw could invite six other girls, but now that list has grown to eight or nine because I don't want her to leave out any of the girls in her class and that is the number in her class.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. I will get through this. Our house will survive. I am sure. Right?

Birthday parties

Adriana has decided that this year she wants to have a slumber party for her birthday. I don't know who or what put that in her head, but when she came home from school on Monday, she mentioned it.

I tried to convince her to wait another year or so, but she is determined this year is the year. I tried to offer her a Build-A-Bear party instead, but she is sticking with the slumber party idea. I even told her I needed to talk to Bruce about it first, but he was no help because he said yes. (For future reference, honey, this is the part where you need to play the bad guy and say, "no".) I even said that she would be leaving out her grandmothers and other relatives who usually come to her parties. She said we could do a family thing at her Nanny's. No changing her mind.

So, I guess a slumber party it will be. Oh, what fun. (Note the sarcasm in my voice.) This means we will have approximately 5-7 screaming hyper 7-year-olds in our house soon. I gave Bruce permission for him and Jonah to hightail it to his mother's that weekend.

In my short updates post, I forgot to mention that she had her first sleepover last weekend when a couple of her friends came over and spent the entire weekend with us. It went fine, so I guess she got the idea from there.

I am even going to attempt to make the cake this time. We will see how that goes.

I think I may call in reinforcements for this one.

What more could a mother want?

This is all I really wanted for Mother's Day... Oh, yes, they are mine, aren't they?

Sing it, Martina.

Good Mother's Day

Today I was given more than I deserve as a mother. My family showered me with gifts of material and non-material worth.

The best had to have been the homemade cards and gifts the children gave me. The girls had about four gifts a piece from school, Girl Scouts, Sunday School and children's church. Jonah colored a picture for me during Sunday School.

After church, we did go to a restaurant after I said we wouldn't because of having to wait for a crowd. Bruce was so disappointed that I wasn't getting taken out that I picked somewhere I thought we would not have to wait. Although the place was crowded, we didn't have to wait, so all was good.

And, between leftovers and what I had made for dinner today, we have enough food for lunch and dinner probably for a couple of days. So, Mother's Day will continue. Yay!

After we came home, Bruce told me to go take a nap while he took care of the children. Ahh, sweet indulgence.

On a more serious note, I have thought today about those women who have children now in heaven. I have placed a few prayers today when particular ones have come to mind, and have said one in general.

Like I have read, once you become a mother, nothing ever moves you the same again.

Strawberry picking

One of my wishes for this weekend for part of my Mother's Day celebration was to spend time together as a family. With Bruce's two jobs and the children's schedules, sometimes we are running in different directions.

After Bruce was finished with visiting on Friday, we were able to spend two whole days together as a family. What a nice treat.

We went strawberry picking on Saturday afternoon. Bruce's idea of strawberry picking was to go to the local grocery store where they were three containers for $5, but we went to a farm not too far away. For some reason, Cara thought we were going to South Dakota to pick strawberries. She said she wanted to go to South Dakota to pick them and see snow.

We had fun in spite of the muddy conditions after rain Friday night. Cara played in the mud, of course, and Jonah had a minor meltdown because he got mud on his shoes. (Nanny should be proud.) The strawberries are so sweet, and I also picked up a jar of apple butter that is so good.

The weekend

We had a pretty active weekend around here. Bruce had the day off from work on Friday, and he stayed home with Jonah while I visited Cara's class and had lunch with Adriana.

That afternoon, Cara and I went back to the school where the principal and several teachers were "creamed" as a part of a reward for a fundraiser in which students participated.

We were going out to eat that night for Mother's Day because I really didn't want to go after church on Sunday and fight the crowds, but that didn't happen. Adriana had a minor meltdown after school and I realized she was too tired to do anything that night. Bruce went visiting instead.

Saturday, we started off with Cara's first T-ball game. At practice and during the first part of the game, she has been sitting in the grass and taking care of mowing it for the Recreation Department staff. She did enjoy the game a little more than practice. She likes attention, and she got it.

Cara is one of the smallest players. She hit the ball and didn't know what to do after she hit it, so she took a minute to start running. Needless to say, she got out each time at bat.

But she did shine when she got three runners out. (Okay, maybe it was a runner error.) This is the story-she was holding the ball and three runners were called out. So, she got three runners out. The look on her face was priceless.

More Cool Kid observations

Jonah has now morphed from a kitty cat to Moe Doodle (see previous post about the Doodlebops). That's bad enough, but the whole family has been renamed. Bruce is Bus Driver Bob, Adriana is DeeDee, Cara is Rooney and I am Maz. Apparently, I need to start rhyming everything. Oh, yes, and the van is the Doodle Bus.

Cara said yesterday that she thought Justin Timberless would be somewhere.

And, Adriana was quite concerned the other day when she came home from school. She started crying when she showed me a place on her thumb where she has a slight cut. She told me that she was afraid her thumb was going to fall off because she still sucks it.

I have to admit, I was very tempted to let her believe that so she would stop sucking it. Bruce has a wake-up call like that when he was younger and he quit sucking his. After debating it in my head, I finally decided that I needed to be honest with her since we are having a time with her lying lately.

I told her it was not going to fall off, and she seemed relieved. She said that was what everyone says, and she believed it. She kept trying to hold onto her thumb after school up the hallway so it would not fall off and only placed it in her mouth "for a second."

So, we still have a thumb sucker.

She asked it!

I knew that inquisitive mind would not let the discussion we had go by the wayside. Adriana did ask me "how does a baby get in a mommy's tummy?" Eek!

After panicking, I quickly came up with, "God puts the baby there." True, and enough to satisfy her and buy me a little more time.

Whew!

Here's the short updates

I have decided we have too many holidays/birthdays/anniversaries all together in the course of about six weeks. This is how our celebration schedule looks around here: our anniversary-April 15, my birthday-April 21, Mother's Day-Mayish, Father's Day-Juneish, Bruce's birthday-May 26, and throw in a few other relatives (and you know who you are) birthdays, and we pretty much spend the spring months in a celebratory mode.

So, from now on I will abstain from turning any older. There. That should help.

But for this year, I had a good time celebrating that before mentioned date that I will no longer celebrate. Bruce and I went to hear "Jon & Kate" of "Jon & Kate Plus 8" on TLC. They were speaking nearby and I really wanted to hear them, so he took me as a part of my birthday present. Their talk was very good and they showed how the Lord has really guided them through their experience of having twins and sextuplets. Bruce even enjoyed, especially the part where Kate said she felt like Jon's job was to make the money and her job was to save it. He is hoping that I really picked up on that.

That night, we went to my restaurant pick and enjoyed a great meal. While we were there, we saw several couples who were dressed for a prom. I do like when we go out for our anniversary or my birthday because we always see some prom couples and they always look so nice and young. Brings back sweet memories of my own prom.

My actual birthday this year was on a Monday, so Bruce and I didn't get to see each other much because I have a Weight Watchers meeting on Monday nights. He and the children did have flowers delivered at my meeting place for me. A very sweet surprise.

Introducing, Adriana the superstar!

Adriana's children's choir had a spring performance during the weekend right before my birthday. Both grandmothers came down to see our star.

The show was great and Adriana did a wonderful job. We heard comments from several adults afterwards about how she has really come out of her shell this year. As Bruce said, she finally actually moved during the songs this time.

When the performance was over and we were all gathering our children, Adriana jumped into my arms with excitement. One of Bruce's co-workers who was helping with the performance said that Adriana had told her with great excitement who all was coming to see her. And, the church had a full house. Definitely the hottest ticket in town that night.

Career Day at school

On Friday, April 18, Adriana and Cara had Career Day at school. They were supposed to dress up as what they want to be when they grow up.

Adriana said she wants to be a teacher and a singer. (But not a Mama, as she has made very clear.) A couple of years ago, she dressed up as a teacher. She may have last year, too, but I can't remember. Or maybe that was last year. Funny how the mind tends to forget.

Anyway, I came up with a couple of options for Adriana as a singer. We followed the Hannah Montana model, pre-Vanity Fair photo shoot. I couldn't find her Hannah Montana microphone, because apparently I put it somewhere when the girls were fighting over it. It's somewhere safe, I can tell you that. So, the microphone ended up being a VeggieTales microphone, and she was fine with that.

Cara originally wanted to be a princess, but her teacher assistant said that she couldn't be that because to be a princess she has to be born into a royal family. (Now, that would have been a very teachable moment about being born into the royal family of God and how she is/can be a princess. Would have been, had I thought of it.) So, Cara settled on being a ballerina instead.

Of course, I found one set of ballet slippers, and three other ballet slippers, but none that she could wear. The complete set was too small, and the other three did not have a match. I made her wear her tutu on the outside of her jeans because I didn't think her tutu would pass dress code. She was not too happy about that, because "ballerinas don't wear jeans".

Jonah is in the floor of Cara's picture because evidently his chosen career is still that of a cat.

Now, for what you all have been waiting for, the updates!

Well, when I last left you, Bruce and I were celebrating our eighth wedding anniversary.

This is the way we celebrated, we went to lunch with a pretty four-year-old and a handsome two-year-old. All of our food arrived late, and mine even later. I think one, if not two or three, of us ended up with a fair share on our clothes.

Adriana had Girl Scouts, which meant Jonah, Cara and I had Girl Scouts since I have been trying to help the Daisy troop that meets at the same time.

Then, Cara had T-ball practice. Adriana is not playing T-ball this year because she has decided she is playing only one sport a year, which is fine by us. She did ask if she could still take some of her money to Cara's games and buy items from the concession stand.

Bruce had a meeting that night. He was able to come to T-ball practice for a few minutes, but then had to leave.

A little different than B.C. (before children).

Oh, yeah. I did get roses and the new book "Mistaken Identity". Great book, by the way.

As Cara would say...

Gee, that was close! I came to update and when I signed in, I was sent to a message that said I needed to do something about my cookies to proceed.

Well, considering I haven't kept chocolate chips in my house in about two weeks because I just can't be trusted with them, I figured I needed to do something to my computer. Took me a few minutes, but I figured it out.

For those few fans left, I have now changed the comment section to include moderation. Basically, I have to approve your comment now before it is posted. This is thanks to my new Brazilian friend with the GPS site. Hmm, considering the oldest male in this house says I have no sense of direction, do you think my friend could be him in disguise?

Something to think about.