Moon rocks

Last Friday, Daddy took Lydia to the store to buy Bekah a birthday present (spending her own money on a gift...again).

(A little side story: Lydia wanted to take out $60!!! She loves her sister! How sweet!!)

Anyway, while they were gone, Bekah and I set to work on the moon rocks.

We mixed sand, flour, glitter, and water and went to work!

Only these aren't just ANY moonrocks! No! These have surprises inside!!

After these dry, they're hard, like rocks. (Duh...they're called moon rocks.)

Anyway, the kids can break these open and find their prize.

We're going to hide these around the yard for the birthday party! Can't wait!

Tooth Fairy

Mamaw's birthday

While David was in Arkansas, he got the special treat of getting to be with the family to celebrate Mamaw's 80th birthday.


The family gathered around and after a big meal had some strawberry cake.










Here are a few of Mamaw with her girls, Brenda, Sondra (mom) and Beth.




















And of course, some of Mamaw with her dog, Lucky.


Here are a few of the cousins:


Trey



Isaac


Aidan



Justin

We're gearing up...

...for Rebekah's ASTRONAUT PARTY!! Can't wait!!

Lydia's Butterfly Song

Lydia's speaking part

Lydia's BUGZ Play

Lydia had her BUGZ play tonight. The girls in her class were butterflies.

The boys in her class were fireflies, but I don't think I managed to get a picture of them.

Next to the butterflies were the ladybugs. Our neighbor Cassidy was one of the ladybugs.

And of course, there were Bees...

and Army Ants...

Lydia had a speaking part with Dejana: "Your wings are beautiful like an angel's or a bird."

I thought she would get nervous, but she did GREAT!!

Lydia did a great job singing along...but I guess she did get a little bored at times. ha ha.

Lydia was kind of in the middle of a huge group of kids - I mean, butterflies - so I didn't get any really awesome pictures of her in the group...

but I snagged a couple in the hall.

Here she is with Cassidy.

And flying (of course)!

Make way for the princess

What's in a name?

Lydia has announced that if she ever has a son, she will name him

Cornelius...

...because that's a hard name for strangers to guess.

This kid is hilarious!!

Happy 80th Birthday, Mamaw!!

Where does she get this stuff?

Leaving McDonald's yesterday, Lydia started to dart out into the parking lot.

I reached my super-long Mom arms out and caught her by the upper arm.

"Ow!" she said. "Why did you grab me like that?"

"Because you were running into the parking lot and a car was coming" I replied, as I took her hand.


Still rubbing her arm, she said, "Well, you didn't have to squeeze my blood pressure!"

Hahahahahaha!

Brand New Day by Brian Cooney

Brian Cooney is our worship pastor. He headlined at the Nashville.Hearts.Haiti benefit. This is a video of his performance that night.

"Mommy, I think I'm in love with Jackson..."

This is what Lydia announces at the dinner table tonight.

And later tonight, she tells me that she thinks she's going to marry him.

We have a whole discussion about how many, many years it will be before she can marry him...and he might not even live here then.

Didn't deter her.

They planned for that.

Anyway, in this long, drawn-out discussion (you know, the whole: you-can't-have-a-boyfriend-when-you're-six-years-old-so-why-don't-you-just-be-friends-instead discussion), Lydia said, "I just can't stop looking at him!"

I told her "I don't care if you look at him."

She said, "Mommy! You just don't get it! That's part of the problem! That's what made me know that I like him."

She grabbed me by the shoulders, eyes blazing.

"He's ATTRACTIVE!"

Yeah...gotta admit. I lost it. Couldn't contain my mommy giggles.

Thanks

Found this in Bekah's homework packet last week. Part of their writing workshop was writing "thank you" notes.

How sweet is it that she chose to write a "thank you" to Mom and Dad?

"Dear Mom and Dad

thank you For all you've done For me like comeing to my partys, byeing my clothes, and For teaching me. I'll kiss you and hug you untille you tell me to stop. 

oxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Thank you,

Love

Rebekah"

Sweet girl!!

(Note: We're working on the spelling! Ha ha!)

Somebody's missing her daddy...

David's in Arkansas right now, visiting his folks. And Lydia insisted on sleeping with Sherlock, the stuffed animal that belonged to David when he was a boy.

A very PINK Halloween

Hopeforce International

Layout

Just for fun

I'm bored and wanted something fun to post on the blog today...so I thought, "What's the oldest photo folder I have on my computer?"

The answer? April 2007.

Enjoy!

At the Coffee Shop with Daddy

Checkers with Daddy

Something to think on...

On Sunday, our pastor was sharing about how we can never be good enough to earn God's forgiveness and love. God just freely gives it and so we should freely give it to others, without making them "earn" it.

To make his point about how unattainable perfection is (and how we shouldn't be prideful in our own actions), he quoted this anonymous note:

If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can get going without pep pills,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can overlook it when those you love take it out on you, when, through no fault of yours, something goes wrong,
If you can ignore a friend's limited education and never correct him,
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can say honestly that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color or politics,

Then, my friend, you are almost as good as your dog.

Cookies with Miss Stephanie

On Friday night, while David & I were enjoying ourselves at the Nashville Hearts Haiti benefit, the girls were hanging out with my friend, Stephanie.

They made cookies and played on the Wii. They enjoyed it so much, Lydia was ready to go back to visit on Monday!!

Here are some pictures Stephanie took of their (very messy) cookie making fun!

Lydia told me that she made "sherlock" shaped cookies.

(Interpretation:

.SHAMROCK cookies.)

.

.

.

.

.

.

And Bekah told me that she decorated her blue bird cookie by mixing white icing with Taiwan icing.

.

Translation: TURQUOISE icing

Nashville Hearts Haiti Benefit

The Nashville Hearts Haiti benefit concert and auction took place on Friday night. David has been working on it for weeks, and all his hard work came to fruition on Friday night!

And one really cool thing is that I actually got to attend...thanks to Stephanie babysitting for me! Yea!

(I'll post pics of her babysitting adventures later...)

One of the two charities to benefit from the evening were Hands & Feet - an organization founded by the members of Audio Adrenaline. They have an orphanage in Jacmel, Haiti, that was hit by the earthquake.

This is Will McGinniss, one of the members of AA, who shared about the ministry.

The other ministry to benefit from the benefit was Hopeforce International. It is a disaster relief organization founded by two members from our church, Jack and Cherie Minton.

This is Jack explaining the medical missions that they've been able to do in Haiti so far.

I was able to snap this quick pic of David and Axel behind stage. Axel works for the lighting company that helped sponsor the entire event...and he MC'ed for the night.

The first artist to perform was David Gallagher.

The second was Audio Adrenaline. Tiffany sang the songs, since their lead singer was still in Haiti at the Hands & Feet orphanage.

The third artist to perform was Parker Welling.

After Parker Welling was Charmaine, this new artist out of Australia.

And this is her drummer, Amy, who was super sweet and let the benefit use her drum kit for the evening.

Oh, and our good friends, Karl and Lena, came out to support the cause as well!!

After the intermission, when everyone went to go bid on the auction items, including my painting (grin), the crowd came back to Rachael Lampa's session.

Following Rachel Lampa was a new Christian artist, Andrea Thomas, who was phenomenal!

And the wildest band of the evening was the Avenue Bank Hummingbirds! They all work at the bank and helped sponsor the evening!! They were really good, actually!!

And headlining the evening was our worship pastor, Brian Cooney. Actually, all the guys on this stage go to our church. His song, Brand New Day, is the song playing behind the invitation video for the event.

He sang it again for the event and it was incredible! I'll try to post a video later.

Here's kind of the whole vibe for the evening...the Music City Lab was actually a really cool venue! I was very impressed!!

In this picture, taken as the night was starting to wind down (note Sha has removed her heels!!) you can see the owner of the Lab, Ken Gay, and his wife Sha.

Here's a better picture of them.

They were very generous is donating the use of the lab, the lights and several auction items worth thousands of dollars!!

At the end of the night, Axel and Josh (from the sound company) auctioned off a signed guitar!!

The evening was awesome and David was so GREAT at his job!! (I haven't gotten to see him working in years...so this was a special treat!)