Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby

Today is my sweetheart's 30th birthday. I told him we could do whatever he wanted to do for the whole day. So, of course, we went fishing. It was a lot of fun even though he spent the majority of the time messing with my line or putting worms on my hooks rather than fishing himself. We caught 5 big catfish to have for a fish fry later.


Wow. 30, Babe! On May 30, 1978, you were the first son born to your parents, the first grandchild to both sets of your grandparents. How cherished you must have been on that day.

I'm so glad we got to spend the day together. I love you and can't wait for your next 30 birthdays :o)

Cocoons

My mom is a teacher and she does a great job of filling Maggie in on what's to come for her in kindergarten next year. Two years ago, we went to visit her class at the end of the day and it just so happened that her class was about to release the butterflies that they'd been watching from caterpillars. Maggie got the honor of opening the habitat and setting the beautiful Monarchs free. She has talked about that day often. This year, my mom decided to give her some of her own to watch. It should happen this week so we are on intense butterfly watch. Here they are in their cocoons...


Stay tuned for butterflies!

UPDATE: I'm afraid I have some bad news...our butterflies never emerged. I think that either the hot car ride to our house or my transplanting them into our clear container stunted the metamorphosis process and they have all died. This was difficult to explain to the kids but maybe we can try this again soon and be a bit more delicate with mother nature.

Love it.

Taking the day to recover...

We had a crazy weekend. Fun...but crazy!
We spent Friday afternoon at our church for a playgroup. The latest addition to our church is a new plaza with squirting fountains for the kids to play in and a great (gated) playground. It was so nice to let the kids run around while the ladies sat and chatted. Most of our husbands spent the day playing in a golf tournament.

Then that night we went to the drive-in theatre and in abnormally chilly weather, stayed for two movies. The kids sacked out in the back of the minivan and Casey and I enjoyed a pseudo-date together.




The next day was filled with two birthday parties. Maggie has now gone from dying to take ballet to desperate to be a gymnast :o)




And who doesn't love to dig in the sand on a gorgeous Saturday?

Sunday- church.
Sunday afternoon- GrandPa & Mimi's for 4-wheeling & lunch.

Whew. I'm tired. it is so wonderful to have spent the whole weekend with such dear friends and all of the fun kiddos.

Next weekend will be the first time we get out on the lake. My good friend Kandice is in town and I can't wait to spend the day on the water with her!

Hello summer fun!

Photo credit: Thank you, Amy & Ashley for taking so many pictures of my family! I'm going to borrow yours until I get home and get my pictures off my camera :o)

Baby Dedication

In addition to it being Mother's Day, it was Baby Dedication day at our church. It is so monumental to me to have a day to remember and commit with our church body to raising our children to know the Lord.

Our church only dedicates on Mother's Day, so being that we go to a big, young (& fertile!) church, there are TONS of babies dedicated in that weekend. We were #21 out of about 50 families dedicating in our 9:30 service alone. 200 babies total this weekend!

If you are so inclined to see little Sully being dedicated, check it out here. We are at, about minute 6:16.

Your children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be their peace.

In righteousness they will be established: they will have nothing to fear.

Isaiah 54:13-14

See a Resemblance?

I've been having deja vu lately looking into Sullivan's face. Looking through old pictures of Maggie I realized why. Here they both are at 2 months old.

Loosing Touch

Beth Moore never ceases to amaze me. If you are a woman and you've never seen her speak, I highly encourage you to. I used to hear her name so much and just kind of thought, "Hmm, I wonder what's so great about her?" Then I got involved with a couple of her studies and WOW! She hits the nail on the head so many times on a variety of things relating to being a Christian woman. I could go on and on but the point of this post is to tell you about the thing she said today that really hit home for me.

Relationships. Friends.

Who are your closest friends? Let's redefine close.

Who knows you....really knows you?

Most of the women in my life who I truly feel know me are people from my childhood/school/college. Why is that?

We have become so technology dependent that I often find myself texting my husband and IMing my sister. How can we get invested in someone's life if we can't even bring ourselves to have a conversation with them?

I think about all of the time that I spend emailing friends instead of giving them a call. God forbid that the sharing of important information turn into an actual conversation where you take turns sharing in each other's lives.

Beth also touched on our society's obsession with gossip magazines and celebrity buzz. There is something in all of us to relate with people and to share in the lives of friends and because we aren't taking the time to connect with each other...we get it by reading about celebrities lives and then texting our "close" friends.

I hate to borrow an Oprah phrase but this was such an "A-ha" moment for me.

How will our children learn to develop relationships with people if they are taught to communicate devoid of emotion or effort?

Maggie's New Haircut

Christians have a sense of humor too

The time-consuming downfall of blogs is that one leads to another and so forth...

I came across this blog via a friend's blog and I sat and read it for way too long because it was so entertaining to me!

I have entered a new phase of my spiritual life. It's almost like studying something in school and then trying to go and teach it to someone who has no idea what you're talking about and tons of questions about it. I want my children to know everything about God and how to have a personal relationship with Jesus. I have had to go back to the fundamentals of Christianity and to try and answer all of the "why" questions my children throw at me. Things that I have just always taken at face value...they want more information about it. The most important thing is to show them that God is loving, forgiving and fun; not some ultimate disciplinarian who doesn't want us to enjoy ourselves.

Stuff Christians Like

Here's an example post:

#10. Weird Memorabilia

The other day I got a catalog from a Christian book store chain promoting their new Easter products. One of the items you could buy was a "crown of thorns." For a mere $49.95 you could own a crown for your desk? Your mantle? Where do you properly store/display a crown of thorns? Do you think the Roman soldiers that made it at the time said to each other, "You know, some day this is going to make a really sweet paper weight." But what can I say, when it comes to Easter and Christmas but shut your mouth not Halloween, we love us some weird memorabilia.

It's a bird, it's a plane...

...It's SUPER RORY!

We had a fun family party for our little super hero on Wednesday. It was so much fun to watch him loving all of the attention. The final present was a red power wheel that he has been on since he got it.

Google Me

I thought this was interesting...

There is a new indie movie/documentary coming out, called Google Me, about a guy who Googled himself and took a trip around the world to meet the 7 other guys with his exact name.

Have you ever Googled yourself just to see what would come up? Go on, admit it.

When I type my name in, the first 4 results are links to my blog, facebook page and husband's company website.

After that, there are links to pages about Terry O'Quinn (who plays John Locke on Lost), Carly Smithson from American Idol and Carly Simon. I guess that there are no other Carly O'Quinns out there.

If you've never done it, try it! See if there's someone else with your name who's a lawyer in Idaho or an antique shop owner in Connecticut. If you find some interesting results, post them in the comments section.