Kooza!!

About a month ago, I got an email from our friend, Llew. He said that he had just send Cirque du Soliel's Kooza show and he wanted to go back and take his wife. Now Craig and I have always been in awe of the Cirque performances we have seen on TV. We were so excited. Until we checked prices. Looking at our budget and what the evening would cost (which included dinner and babysitting), we just decided that we couldn't do it. We were a little saddened, but we felt good about the decision.

Fast forward about a week when I received a second email from Llew. He had found a wonderful website (http://www.atlantaonthecheap.com/ for those of you in the Atlanta area) which posts deals on local events and attractions. Well, one of those deals was Kooza tickets for 1/2 price, if you went during the week. Since weeknights had actually been better for us in the beginning, we jumped on the chance. So, for three weeks, I have been counting down to our Cirque experience.

It did not disappoint!!! It was truly amazing. I have to admit that I was a bit sad when the performers came out for their final curtain calls. The contortionists - I don't think bodies were meant to bend that way (especially after I attempted my first yoga class last weekend) - were unimaginable. The juggler was quite entertaining. The acrobats flipped with such grace and agility . There were tightrope walkers, a unicyclist, a "chair-balancer" (I'm sure he has a formal name, but that's what he did), two men who did the "hamster-wheel-spinny-thing" - to try and put the experience into words leaves so much to be desired and falls so short of the evening. There was always so much to look at - you'd focus on one performer and miss out on something else. The storyline drew me in in such an amazing way. I loved it!! I would love to go again, but really only if I could get the same great deal.

We had an amazing night out with Llew and Lisa. They are two special friends of ours and we treasure their friendship, support and open ears. Great friends, great show, great night - what more could we ask for? We are, without a doubt, truly blessed!!

Fighting the Flu

Poor Trinity, she has not been doing well this week. We thought she was doing well with a speedy recovery, acting pretty normal during her school holiday on Monday. No fever, a little tired, but nothing too disruptive to our day. So, we sent her to school on Tuesday. As soon as she got off the bus, I could tell that she was exhausted. She did her homework and then asked to go to bed. She spent the entire afternoon curled up in our bed, away from the other two kids. What a way to spend a birthday. She even got a couple of birthday calls from grandparents and she didn't even want to talk. We woke her up to see if she wanted to eat anything (which she didn't) and then to open her gifts (a Pet-Shop pet from Kalyn and Xander a Wii princess game and the Anastasia movie). She stayed awake long enough to watch the movie. Needless to say, she was home from school Wednesday and Thursday. However, by Thursday afternoon, she was ready to head back to school (as was I). We're still waiting to do her birthday dinner out and our annual trip to the firehouse, but we'll get that done and post about it soon.

We are praying that Kalyn and Xander stay immune to it. So far, so good. A positive thing is that the bug Trinity caught was pretty confined to a whole lot of coughing, a high fever and very little energy. If we have to be sick, that's a good way to be sick.

We are looking forward to celebrating Trinity's birthday this weekend with a batch of her friends. Our parties are usually pretty laid back and I don't think this one will be much different. An exciting thing this year is that we'll be taking a trip following the party to the Foster Cares Support Foundation. You see, for the past few years, we've asked people to bring donations for a specific charity or need in lieu of gifts (we have more than enough stuff around our house). This weekend, Trinity will get to see exactly where her donations are going. I can't wait. More posts on that to come!

Happy Birthday, Trinity

Tonight marks seven years from Trinity's great arrival into the world. She arrived 6.5 weeks early and I am now convinced that she just came out early to find out what was going on. She was done with the womb life and was curious to see what was next. Her birth was a truly amazing one. To summarize the excitement - an early arrival, a home birth (no, that was NOT planned), a breech delivery and only God, Craig and I in the room before paramedics showed up (just a few moments after Trinity did). A few months ago, Craig put together the 9-1-1 recording and some video and pictures from her birth. It's quite an amazing video. Let me just warn you to have some tissues handy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDKx4PecQHk


Dear Trinity,

You are an amazing girl. You have so many wild and fun ideas going on in your head. We think you try to say them all out loud just to keep up with yourself. You are a wonderful big sister to Xander and Kalyn. They look up to you so much. You are surrounded by people that love you. Your songs and musical skills are always surprising and amusing us. You have such a caring heart. Just the other day, you offered your allowance when Mommy couldn't find her coupons before we went to the store. We can see that you are beginning to keep going more and more, even when things scare you. You are such an avid reader and writer. You love to write and read so much!! You love school and church.

We am so sorry that you are sick on your birthday today. We hate to see you coughing and feeling so miserable on such a blessed day. We look forward to celebrating with you with your special dinner out and our annual trip to the fire station later this week.

We pray that you will know Christ early and serve Him always. We pray for your protection and strength as you grow each day. You are such a blessing to our family. We look forward to watching you grow. We love you very much.

Happy 7th Birthday!!

Love,
Daddy & Mommy

Enjoy a quick look back on the last seven years with Trinity Kathryn!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Valentine's Weekend

A few years ago, Craig and I began celebrating Valentine's Day on February 13. It started one year when Craig was going to be out of town for the actual day and we celebrated the day before he left. We found out that the crowds are a tad smaller and getting a sitter was a little bit easier, so our tradition began.

Friday night, we got to enjoy a wonderful dinner out, thanks to a gift certificate to Cheesecake Factory we had received a while back. It was a great chance to spend some time with just the two of us. We also exchanged gifts, which was some new workout gear for both of us. God has blessed me with a wonderful husband, a precious daddy to our children and an amazing friend. I love the way he provides for our family and takes care of me!! I have a wonderful valentine all year long.

After our date, we got to join a party (already in progress) to celebrate the birthday of our friend, Frances. It was a blast. We just sat around, talked, laughed and had a great time hanging out. Have you ever been in a group of people and find yourself looking around the circle, from person to person and jumping from one conversation to another? That was the picture of the evening. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love any excuse for a gathering of friends!

Saturday, we all headed up to church, very early, to send Craig off on the youth ministry ski trip. I'm also a notary for our youth, so I had to be up there to notarize a bunch of the medical release forms before they drove off. He had a great time skiing - he even mentioned that it was less crowded than he expected and there were even some snowfall!!

That morning, after the kids and I headed up to Lifetime. Kalyn and Trinity hadn't been with us in a while, so they were excited to go up there. My friend Jennifer had convinced me to join her in a yoga class. Okay, to say that I am not flexible is a HUGE understatement. And it was further shown me during this class. I would watch the instructor, look at those around me and their oh-so-flexible-selves, then turn to Jenn and we would just laugh. It was quite a treat to try the down dogs, the swan dives and a lot of other moves that just hurt. Maybe I'll try another class again, but I'm not sure.

That afternoon, Trinity began acting a little off. She took a long nap that afternoon and when she woke up, she was coughing quite a bit. Her appetite was less than normal, so I simply gave her some cough medicine to help her get to sleep. Well, at about 1 AM, she woke up coughing and crying. The poor girl was burning up and just couldn't get back to sleep. Not wanting her to wake up Kalyn, I brought her into our room for another round of medicine and to sleep in our bed. It was quite a long night. She kept having very vivid dreams and talking though all of them, which kept waking me up.

The next morning, she awoke to a 103.8 temperature. Unfortunately, we had to go to church. I had told two other Sunday school classes that I would teach for them and I was teaching our class. Poor Trinity was quite a trooper as she got dressed and simply sat in our classroom as I taught 3/4 of the high school classes. We even managed to get her checked out by a friend while she was there. His diagnosis - the flu. Out goal now is to simply stop it before it spreads throughout the others in our house.

So, needless to say the flu stopped our further weekend plans. Unfortunately, that included a playdate that we had scheduled for Trinity's school friends on Monday. She was very sad to have to postpone it. Even as we checked her temperature on Sunday night and I commented that it was as low as it had been all day, she asked, "If it's still low tomorrow morning, can we call everyone back and tell them to come to the party?" But, it has been successfully moved to next Wednesday - a half day for Trinity. Her bus will have a few additional passengers as she brings her friends over.

Craig is now set to be home in about an hour. I'm heading to clean up the house so he can come home to a house that is a bit cleaner than when he left. Hopefully I'll be successful.

Family Fun

We try to have fun at our house. Sometimes it happens more frequently than other times, due to our crazy schedule and the occasional frustrating days. Over the past month or so, we've had some great times!

We held our family game night, first with the game of HISSSSS. It's a great matching colors game with a bit of strategy to it. Trinity ended up winning the second round. Xander surprised us with how well he knew his colors!

One of Xander's favorite sayings is, "I want to move it, move it" from the Madagascar movie. It's not as if he's watched it a lot, maybe twice. However, he's picked up on it and love say it and sing it. One night, he even put it to music with Craig! Craig had a guitar out (one that he brought back from the girls from Ecuador) and Xander had his drum (also from Ecuador). I wish I had working video of this, but it's flipped the wrong way and I can't flip it back.

Our second game night was with the Strawberry Shortcake game. I'm sure later in life, we'll make the girls play a true boy game, but until then Xander will enjoy playing the girl games. It was a fun game with a DVD portion to go with it. Congrats to Kalyn who was the big winner on this game.

Scrapbook Weekend!

I am a scrapbooker. I love to take my pictures and put them into a book so I can remember why I took the picture in the first place. I've been scrapbooking since high school. Now, it has evolved over the years. I was even a Creative Memories consultant for a few years, but I think that was really just to feed my habit.

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of spare time to scrapbook. However, I do have at least one weekend a year, set aside for the simple purpose of scrapbooking. My friends and I take one weekend in January and go off. It's great. I know there are tons of retreats out there that you can pay to go scrapbook with 300 of your closest friends. However, this is not one of them. To be truthful, we're too cheap for that. We rent a cabin, usually at Amicalola State Park and bring one meal to feed the five of us and set up shop for the weekend. We create as much space as we can by moving furniture all over the cabin- who really needs a couch anyway? We also bring tons of chick flicks ad CDs to have something going on in the background. This year, we ran into a little trouble with the TV recognizing the DVD player, so we were without our movies. That just helped me be that more productive, though.

At the end of the weekend, I felt pretty good. I had gotten all the pictures I had taken into my albums and had begun to journal them. I had completed from October, 2005 through May, 2006. Yep, I'm still a few years behind in being completely caught up, but it is still very enjoyable to do, when I get the chance!

Friends

I love our friends. They mean so much to Craig and I. They make us laugh, they pray with and for us, they build us up, they are there to be goofy about and we can share almost anything back and forth! Craig and I laugh because too often, when a free night becomes available, we say, "Well, who can we call to get together?"

Over the past month or so, we have had some great times with our friends. We got to join in a little get together for our friend, Cacee's 30th birthday. Anytime we get to play a competitive guys vs girls game laughter is sure to follow, especially when it involves yelling out answers.

To celebrate Cacee's actual 30th birthday, she wanted to do a music video. Oh, to think that this video is actually able to be seen by others is a bit scary. But, true friends go the extra mile. So, we dressed up and had a blast. It was fun!! Plus, since it was during the day, her husband John volunteered to take Xander with him and Asher so the girls could play. Asher and Xander are great buds so that worked well.

Our church holds a mission auction each year. Last year, we bid on a couple of seats at the spaghetti dinner. It's a great chance to come together and be served by the youth and see what they've been doing mission-wise over the past year (even though we know what they've been doing, it's good to share it with others). The youth praise band also provided entertainment and they did a great job! A yummy meal, good fellowship and being served - what more could we ask for?

this is the table that was right beside us - a great group of our friends!

We love our friends!!!

A Colorful Theology

I must say that I love to hear what goes through the minds of my children. Okay, let me rephrase that SOMETIMES I love to hear what goes through the minds of my children. Other times, silence is truly golden. Now before I type in the conversation that Kalyn and I had, I do have to give a small shout out to my dear husband, Craig. As I was making some notes to help me remember the details of this conversation, he said, "Are you really going to blog about the twisted theology we're teaching our children?" One answer is yes! The second is, no, we're not really teaching our children this.

While Trinity was in school one day, the remaining four of us headed to LifeTime. Out of the blue, Kalyn throws out a random question and the conversation begins.

Kalyn: Mommy, what do you think we will be wearing when we go to meet Jesus in Heaven?
Me: I don't know. What do you think we'll be wearing.
Kalyn: Pretty dresses.
Me: What will your dress look like?
Kalyn: Mine will have lots of colors - like poka-dots. I think I'll be Ariel (from the Little Mermaid). And I think Trinity will be Tinkerbell. Xander can be Eric - from the Little Mermaid. Daddy can be the other Eric (I didn't know there was another Eric). No, Daddy will be a tree.

I didn't ask what I was going to be. I think after the tree comment, I might have been a little nervous to find out. The truth is, I am very excited to know that Kalyn is looking forward to heading to heaven. We just need to reach the point where that is her decision - to follow Christ. We're working on it, we just need a little more time.

Where Have We Been?

Wow. It has been quite an adventure trying to figure out my new schedule. Between starting a new study at church, beginning (and keeping) a new exercise routine at LifeTime and diving into a new accountability group, this life of mine has seriously gone under a slight overhaul. In trying to fit my workouts into my days, I've schedule those on the mornings when Kalyn is in school. That means that all the things I was doing during that time has been moved to the afternoons. (Are you starting to see the domino effect?) My two other studies cover my other "free" time. So, blogging has fallen to the waste side for a little bit. However, I'm trying to figure out my new schedule to include my time for blogging. I just love keeping up with the small things that happen throughout our days. So, hopefully I'll get a bit done today as I await Trinity coming home and Kalyn and Xander take a good rest. If not, at least I've gotten one post done today!