This skit is performed by my brother's youth group at Northwest Hills in Corvallis. The kids did a great job! I have posted this skit before and it moves me to tears everytime. They performed it this Easter morning and we were all anxiously awaiting for the person to post it to youtube so that we could watch it. it truly is a great reminder that He has taken on our sins, He bears all, He loves us and would do anything (even die) for us. Before we go into a sugar induced haze today....let us truly remember what this day is about. Not a little bunny foo foo. Not candy. Not brightly colored eggs. But about our Lord and Savior who was born, died, buried and rose again on the third day!
a flock of birds
this was one of the best ones.
i just want to put it out there right now..........i don't know how we EVER going to be ready in time for middle school!!! it starts so stinking early in the morning (7:45am) and my daughter is not a morning person. i know i still have 2 more years, but right here, right now i want to say it is going to be a hard adjustment!!!!
can you tell we have had one of those mornings? anyone else experience those? no one wants to get up, no one wants to get dressed? toys are more enticing than eating breakfast? can i just watch a minute of tv before school? but somehow i still managed to sneak downstairs and blog this post? hum? maybe i should be upstairs cracking the whip right now....he he. hey, a mom has got to have a sense of humor in times like this.
but seriously, only two more years!!!
the other day i received several excellents hugs from a bunch of kiddos, which is not unusual, but during this hug one of the little girls exclaims:
"you are so soft, not hard like my mom!"
hum?
i did not have the heart to tell her that it meant i was fat.........but what an awesome way to look at it. so now when i look in the mirror, i can tell myself that i am squishy! that it is all right, cuz it makes my hugs that much better.
i just realized this morning that in one month i will be sitting on a white sand beach, hopefully with an umbrella drink in my hand and relaxing. that is right, i said in a bathing suit! oh wait, maybe i did not say that.
my amazing husband won a trip to marco island, florida for the two of us. all expenses paid! this is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity for the two of us. we are going to take the red eye in on tuesday night and then we have all day wednesday until saturday at the resort. all inclusive. they even have a restauraunt on the beach. we can sit and eat our meal with our toes in the water.
then to top it all of we decided to drive to disneyworld and experience that for a couple of days! this is the part i feel a little guilty about, but we need time alone. we are telling ourselves that it is a discovery trip..."do we really want to bring the kids here?" but really it is just a fun time for us to be together and remember what it is like to just be the two of us.
i am thankful that i was able to get some time off of work and go on this incredible trip with my man. guess i better start working out regularly again and watch what is going in my mouth, because i will have to fit into a swimsuit! yikes. every woman's nightmare.
you always hear the tales....the sagging, the metabolism, the internal body thermometer and when you are young you chalk them up to your crazy mom and her friends. well i am about there people and i am hear to say that i want my old body back.
the other day i woke up and i thought to myself as i looked in the mirror, "where did my eyebrows go?" isn't this suppose to be something that happens when you are about 50? i am only 29 (again)!!! i don't want the painted on eyebrow look. i refuse to do it, but sadly i am doomed because my mom does not have any eyebrows left. literally. she is 63 and no eyebrows. i remember distinctly the day i looked at her and asked her where her eyebrows went. so sadly i am at the point, when i remember, where i enhance my eyebrows with a little powder so that you can actually see them. i don't think it is so much that i have lost hair it is that they are slowly fading into oblivion.
a couple of months ago i got these super cute post earrings and i wear them all the time, but suddenly they don't hang the way they used to. i notice that when i wear them, they flop down a little. could this be the dreaded "my earlobes hang down farther than my nose" phenomenom that older women talk about? when i was young i remember older women telling me not to wear big earrings that pulled my lobes down even further, because the day would come when they would sag anyway....so i was careful what amount of weight i put into those holes in my ears. it did not matter. so now i am forced to wear drop earrings so that you will not look at my post earrings and see the sag, the granny ears that i am doomed to have.
by the hair on my chiny-chiny chin..........okay i am not there yet!!! but seriously what is up with having to shave your chin and mustache? my MIL keeps a razor in the car and just swipes at hair on her chin whenever she notices it!!! eeeewwwwwwwwwwwww.
we all know that we are going to sag, that is inevitable unless we get some "enhancements". i am fine with that, as long as i have some muscle tone underneath it all. i don't want to be a grandma that never wears shorts or short sleeves because of the sag.
so next time you see me, please don't stare at my waning eyebrows or my sagging lobes. just politely say hi and then continue to stare in their general direction until i relent and let you take a look at my aging body hair and grandma lobes!
this year i have had the opportunity to meet some amazing kids and be in their world for a short time. these kids are special and just want to be loved. i love spending time with them and watching how their minds work and create. it is interesting to me that they thrive in their world, but struggle in ours. if we all just took a moment to enter their world....to see life through their eyes how amazing would that be.
today is world autism day. support it. know it. stretch yourselves to see through their eyes.
http://www.worldautismawarenessday.org/site/c.egLMI2ODKpF/b.3917065/k.BE58/Home.htm
another exciting project if you have not heard about it is the miracle project. a mom of an autistic child started a theatre company and a documentary was made about it. "autism: the musical" great movie. shows you how amazing and talented most of these little kiddos are.
http://www.themiracleproject.org/
and finally this is dedicated to my little friend who i love dearly, who has stolen my heart......
let me enter your world for one day, sing songs, draw pictures and just be. cannot wait to see you today and celebrate your world!
as i was skimming blogs this morning i ran across this qoute. it struck me. that human side of me that continually wants life to just be. no hardships, no struggles. just life and happiness. i am human. i want to have an amazing life, spend time with my family building amazing memories and not worry about some of the bigger picture things. i would much rather take my kids to teh beach, than pay off that Old Navy bill. (trust me i have done that before),but that is not real life. struggles make us grow. hardships draw us closer to God. I still like the qoute that tells us to treasure every moment, because that is true.
then i logged onto facebook and saw this scripture! wow. it was a confirmation in my mind that we must always delight in the Lord, above all others. He is the reason we are here, to worship and delight in Him. Not things of the world. Life is never going to be easy, but with God on your side nothing is impossible. He will not give me more than I can handle. and as i struggle to be more like Him, hardships make that possible.
that is the phrase my daughter used to describe the amount of stress that she feels on a daily basis! wow....that is a lot of stress. you all know my precious adorable high strung daughter. i love her, but that girl has got to learn to chill a little. she quite frequently has stress issues and we have been working with her to teach her how to handle that stress and tackle one project at a time, rather than looking at the whole picture and becoming overwhelmed. she has really gotten so much better at the whole thing.
now if i could just teach her not to make lists for everything she has to do in a day. lol. like mother, like daughter. i secretly love lists. thinking of all the things you have to do and then listing them all out takes a huge bite out of the stress of everything that needs to be done. but the real benefit comes with actually sitting down and crossing off something that you have completed and when the list is all gone.........wow!!! but i digress again, this post is about syd.
on saturday we had spent a great day with friends in pdx, watching an upward league up there. then syd got to go to justice and spend her gift card! she was so happy, she had held onto that card for almost 3 months. i thought she had an awesome day, but once we got home and tucked into bed.........the breadown occured.
she was crying and would not stop, when i finally asked why she was so upset she informed me that it was the weight of stress. hum??? of course i am thinking, what stress? she finally speaks up and tells me that it is the stress of having a little, annoying brother that makes her feel like she is under 50 hundred millions pounds of stress. i secretly laugh, because i had a little brother....i know how this whole thing works. at least it was not school or something more tangible that was stressing her out. just her annoying little brother.
this evening after upward closing ceremonies a group of us from noah's bball team and from our auction table the night before, went out for ice cream. it was a great wrap up to a great year of upward and good friends.
as we were standing there both of my kids asked for another cone, because apparently they both felt that they needed more sugar. of course i said no. but then about 10 minutes later sydnie walks up and asks me what age she needs to be in order to order a two scoop ice cream cone? i of course don't think and reply that when she is double digits that means she can order a two scooper sometimes. well of course she immediately realizes my mistake and says " so that means in december i can order two scoops?"
oh no, what have i done? i was not even thinking when i said double digits, because in my mind she is still that cute little two year old eating ice cream for the first time, with gobs of it running down her arms and chin. that look of satisfaction when you reach the cone, the look of disappointment when you reach the last bite! she will forever be that in my mind, not a double scoop, double digit girl!
tonight was our PTA auction for our school. it was a great night, so much fun. the theme was a luau in paradise and it was decorated to the hilt. when i arrived i was greeted and received a leia and found our table. now here is the best part of the whole evening. my dear friend noel greeted me and told me to take off that fake plastic leia, because she had bought us fresh hawaiin leia's that had been shipped in just that morning. it was beautiful and amazing. i am so blessed to have such thoughtful amazing friends.
it really was an excellent eveing: we were served a fabulous meal and took in some hula from our fabulous teachers. several of us bought a table together and made a night of it. i bid on a couple of things, not too much considering our budget. i did win a lunch for noah with his teacher and a trip to a local coffee shop. i did not win noah's basket, but the woman who won it told me that i could have the quilt in it. that is all i really wanted anyway. the quilt is handmade and each child drew a picture of their favorite family road trip. it is adorable.
(noah's square on the quilt)
in january i posted my word for the year: release
it has been an interesting couple of weeks since then and i will tell you that i have come back to a starting point again. i know that this is not going to be an easy road to travel. that i will set back many times and it will take years to release. but i hate being back to the beginning. it totally bites. it can absolutely make my life miserable. and when i am tired and cranky, it gets worse.
i could really use some prayer on this journey. it is a reluctant journey, but one i must make in order to be me again. please just pray that i remain strong and do not fall back into old ways. that i can just take it one prayer at a time. that God will keep me strong and courageous.
thanks to all of you who are helping me through this journey. i love that you have come along side of me and are covering me with prayer.
i truly hate to admit this, but i have never, ever in my life ridden a city bus. i have taken max several times when i lived in portland, but never a city bus. too scary....too uncomfortable. i have always had a car, no need to take a bus. but today i had to take a bus. i rode from downtown to my house (there is a bus stop at my corner) and it was not as bad as i imagined it would be. but i really could not get over the thought of who had sat on these seats before me. i could smell the cigarette smoke off of several people. and well let's just admit it right now.........i am a bus snob!!!
i am not sure how thad does this everyday. he hops on the bus to wilsonville for his 40 minute commute, one way, and turns on his ipod and reads or falls asleep. then he turns around and does it at the end of the day. it has saved us so much money in gas, which is great. i am just not sure i could do it everyday. most of the people he rides with are business people, all headed to work. they ride together everyday. and i think that bus has cushioned seats!
i think that i am thankful for this transportation, but i will stick to driving my car as much as i can. i know........i am a total bus snob!
this morning i reported to the courthouse with my starbucks, book, ipod, phone and bagel in hand. keep in mind that i have never done this before...new experiences are soooo cool. except when you sit in the basement for 4 hours with only a little bit of window too look through. he he.
anyway....so i walked in handed in all my paperwork and found out that my desperate email to defer had been accepted. i was not in the pool, but at this point i am already down there, so i just stayed to get it over with.
as i was searching for a seat i saw a familiar face in the crowd. a face that i had not seen in about 25 years. a face that had matured, like my dads. a face that was staring back at me, with a look of wonder? i sat down in front of this gentleman and i could feel him looking at me. it took me about 30 minutes to realize who it was and i approached him and asked if his name was roger. he replied yes and then i told him that i was dale's daughter. his old fishing buddy. his old camping buddy. i remember many camping/fishing trips with his family and the harris family. it was great to run into him again. to catch up. i called my dad, as he was on his morning walk break and told him that i was stuck in a room with roger. he said "tell him i said hi" that was it, that was all....except to ask if roger was going fishing with him and ken this spring. my dad, not a phone talker. good to see a face from the past.
you never know who you are going to run into at any given moment. it ended up being an interesting morning after all.
WOW......i am a little shocked right now. i actually have to report for jury duty tomorrow. i guess that the third summons is a charm. i being the responsible adult that i am, did not pick up my mail last week as i was running kids to dr's appts and urgent cares and basically just trying to survive. so my jury summons sat in my mailbox for a week, waiting to see the light of day...as i am sure the mailman cursed me everytime he opened my box to fill it with more stuff. he he.
so needless to say that i did not get my summons until saturday afternoon. hum. i was pretty much stuck. i could not defer. i had to plan on going. but in my naive little mind, i thought, i will not report. i have never had to report. WRONG! so monday night i called in like a good little juror and found out that i was indeed going to go to the courhouse.
i scrambled to find childcare for my kids and then i moaned and complained for most of the night that i would have to ride a city bus downtown and home again! i eventually convinced my dear man to drive me downtown and drop me off with a stop at stabucks along the way. so wish me luck, hopefully i will be out by 10am and still get to go to work for some of the time.
in all of these trials is that i believe we have met our deductible for the year already! syd now has hives today, which means we will probably be heading back to the doctors office to check out why? we went and bought some bendryl and some cortizone cream and now she is resting and not itching.
after 3 hours in the urgent care last night, because they could not fit sydnie into the pediatric clinic, we finally came home with a diagnosis that she had coughed to hard. that is why she could not breathe and her chest hurt and she spiked a fever to 102.2! HUH???? no pneumonia, but they told me to still continue to watch for it in the coming weeks, especially given her history. i believe that God can heal sydnie from this and that she will walk away from this crud with nothing more than anyone else. but.........................
i was awake for most of the night, tossing and turning, using my super mommy ears to listen for the slightest breathing problem. so needless to say........i am exhausted. this is week three of illness in our house. we are right in the middle of upward, which means no husband around and i have not been at my job full-time for three weeks. dealing with the mommy guilt, the job guilt, it is just too much for me right now. emotionally, physically.
i just need to make it through today and then come home and curl up in a little ball for a couple of hours. because God does not give me more than I can handle. I just need to give this whole situation up to Him for He is in control. hopefully my MIL can still come over today, because oh yes.....it is snowing!!!!! can you believe that?
okay feeling much better now. thanks for listening!
(my first perfume)
The Interview - so mature and really well spoken, although I was 
noah made his first shot today in upward bball. he was targeted as a kid to make a basket, so that meant that the kids, refs and coaches were all helping him make this possible. he took a couple of shots, but was uncomfortable with the whole process. they were short baskets, but then the moment came..............................
the ball was passed to noah, the opposing team was pushed out of the way (literally by their coach) and he took a shot. it missed, opposing coach grabbed the rebound, put it in noah's hand and then he took a shot. it went in. the whole court was cheering and well, i had tears in my eyes. he was so proud of himself.
of course i was filming that moment, so i don't have any pix. but it was a great moment in his life! i am so proud of you buddy.
these past two weeks have been utter and complete sickness around our house. first i had the crud, then my kids both came down with the stomach bug and the cold. it has been a long two week and when you throw a job in on top of it all it is completely different for me than in years past. i have struggled this week with a guilt that i cannot seem to get out of my head. since this is my first time back to work since kids, it has been a new experience for me. i feel guilty that i am forcing them to take some tylenol and go to school, when really they should be at home. i feel guilty that as i was rushing my kids out the door one morning, sydnie was crying and asking me why i was sending her to school when she did not feel good. turns out she had a 102 fever and i had no choice, but to take her to school, put her in the sickroom until my MIL could come and get her. i feel guilty that i have had to miss so much work (5 days!!!). and i feel guilty that i feel guilty. lol.
i know that it will ease up and i have to realize that honestly, i am still their mom and i still need to be there for my kids. sometimes there is nothing more i can do, but stay home with them. i know that my work understands, especially after noah threw up at school. but i am having a hard time reconciling it. it is growing out of my mothers mentality about raising kids and growing into my own.
i think it comes down to the fact that i really want to do my best and if i am not at work i cannot do that. i also do not want to jeopordize my job, i love my job, i want to keep my job. it also is finding that balance between myself and my kids. my job and their lives. it is a year of new discoveries and we have all grown from it. just thought i would be honest about how i have felt, new experiences and also just a release of it, so that i can go on. there i feel better already.
words cannot even describe how i feel about this video. seriously. who does he think he is? to insult another human being, to degrade, to humiliate over and over again. my feeling right now is that he should be exported back to his beloved country, never be allowed to set foot on american soil again. and frankly his wife should go as well. unbelievable. apparently he is too well educated and speaks too well for our little country. just because you are obnoxious and full of put downs, does not mean that you are educated. just because you can let loose with incredibly, horrible put downs does not mean that you are superior. okay i need to stop now. deep breaths....
(always has a smile) so i spent the better part of yesterday sleeping and steaming the snot out of my nose and by last night i had enough energy to run the kids to bball and clean my kitchen!! I know right, amazing. I will say that the steaming really loosened everything up in my sinus's and really relieved a bunch of the pressure that was making me feel horrible. So I am off to work today. Wish me luck, i have not worked all week and i will say that after i cleaned the kitchen i was back on the couch exhausted. so i know that i am not one hundred percent yet.....but i have got to try. i am going stir crazy around here. just thought i would update you guys.
did anyone else notice that last night jack was wearing a very similiar suit and almost spot on tie to the opening scene is season 1??????? the shows creators have always said that their is something crucial in the first 10 seconds of the opening that we have missed...could it be that this is jack getting back to the island??
just a thought. hey, i am home, sick remember. i have nothing else to do except sleep a lot and watch tv. not enough energy to actually clean my house, but i can sit at a computer and blog. or maybe i am so deep into the snot filled headache that i am seeing things on lost that are not there. lol. either way, just my two cents worth.
last night was a brilliant episode of lost, as it trudges through the answer phase of the show, it still raises questions and leaves you longing for more answers. There were so many aspects of last nights show that i loved, like when Jin and Sawyer hugged (seriously great), seeing danielle when she was young, Sun finding out that Jin is still alive, Desmond showing up at the church.....but my favorite moments were of Locke down at the bottom of the well.
his legs injured yet again. this man of faith again questioning why is this happening to him. where does he go from here. his ultimate decision to become a sacrifice. his knowledge that if he goes back, he will die. his asking for help, so like the old john, but in being denied that help he once again became the strong, able john locke that had found his place on this island. as he grips the wall you see his determination, as he struggles forward you see him become the john locke of faith, you see his scared look as he sees the wheel, knowing that he will die, he still moves forward to take the wheel, to carry the burden of the island, to become the sacrifice for all.
as we have seen in this show time and again, there is a spiritual reference. there is scripture for john locke, where their is science for jack shepard. who knows what the producers and writers are really trying to convey, but last night they really showcased what could be seen as Jesus's struggle in the garden, His journey to the cross, His ultimate sacrifice. I know that this is stretching it some, but it was beautifully written and acted. Terry O'Quinn you deserve awards for this show......Brilliant!!!
i have got the ick. i have been sick since sunday with a major head cold and sore throat and sinus junk and well..........i am sick of being sick. i have had some little colds this year and actually a couple of stomach bugs. i usually don't get the stomach bugs, maybe once a year but nothing really major. i know that i am more sick this year than i have been only because of my exposure levels at work and that next year will be better. i even started this year off with drinking airborne and emergen-c at least once or twice a week, just to build my immunity.
but this cold that i have now, it is by far the worst. i had the worst sore throat of my adult life for a 24hr period, i felt like a whiney, crying two year old, but (damn) it hurt! so i finally moved beyond that and now it is all stuck in my head. i feel like i have been buried under a mountain of sand, my eyes are burning, my nose is running and this morning i had the hacking cough. yummo! you know i don't feel good when my kitchen is a disaster. i cannot stand for my kitchen to be dirty and let me tell you about the pile of dishes in my sink, on my counter and well everywhere else! lol.
so now i am going to go put my head into some steam and try and steam fry the "ick" out of my head and see if that helps! i just wanted you all to feel sorry for me. lol. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa........
duuuuuudeeee
clean cutI just had to blog about this real quick. I have to say that Target is one of my favorite stores to shop at. I love the store, I love the deals I can find and I love their fun ads. But they have really nailed the whole "economic" crisis and reached out to consumers as they are struggling with this recession.
Their new ad campaign, "the new"..........features a family on the cover of their ad this week and the header reads "the new family movie night." Then they went on to feature movies, pop, candy all on sale this week. I thought it was super clever and unique to our climate today. But then last night I was watching the grammy's and they had a ad on tv for this new campaign....the new dog groomer (with a woman washing her own dog) the new manicure (with a husband painting his wife's nails) the new nightclub (featuring a bunch of people playing a wii) and the new vacation glow (womens skin bronzer)!
Seriously GENIUS!!!!!
If you had not noticed most retailers "claim" to be running some steep discounts to help consumers, but no one has quite promoted it like target! We as a culture really need to rethink what we do on a daily basis. It is not all about going and doing and getting.........it should be working within our budgets and within our families! It is not even that they are running things at deep discounts, but they definately caught my eye with this campaign.
Great Job Target
oh the laughs that we get at the expense of our children. i actually felt pretty bad for this kid, but way to go dad in getting the camera out to record it!!! enjoy!
so today i was asked to pick up another 2 hours at work, which takes me up to 6 hours a day! which also means that my credit card will be payed off that much faster! hurray! i think it is going to be an okay transition because i am already used to 4 hours, but that means that my afternoon workouts are now relegated to either 5am or sometime in the evening (which really means they won't happen). i am happy that i get to go back to the classroom that i worked in this fall and i love my teacher i work with (i had to say that cuz she reads my blog now... LOL :)
but seriously, God has provided for me this year and i feel like i am moving in His direction, not my own. i am thankful for a way to get rid of our debt and do something that i absolutely love!!! unfortunately this week is also jam packed and i will be gone every night, so i am sure that by friday evening i will be ready to crash in front of the tv!
because it was a last minute decision, meaning i found out on tuesday and started on wednesday i am not fully prepared with all the groceries that i need. thank goodness i don't cook real meals on wed/thur because sometimes cooking can just take it right out of us women?? i am looking forward to the rest of the week...it will be a good one.
