The Schrodt Family

Whew!!!

2011-12-22T09:42:00.001-05:00

All caught up - did you miss me? December is a little crazy over here - nobody can breathe until after we get thru the first two weeks of Christmas programs (which went AMAZINGLY well - so super proud!!!). It's all past us now, we've had a great week of fun family stuff this week since the kids are out of school, I've enjoyed NOT setting my alarm clock in the morning, Caleb is in full potty-training gear, and we are anxiously awaiting Mom and my sister & her husband arriving! Can't WAIT!!!

Gingerbread Houses and Christmas Cookies

2011-12-21T09:01:00.003-05:00

Our week changed a little bit. The kids were out of school last Friday which meant we had the WHOLE week before Christmas off - hooray!! We spent our day on Monday cleaning up and getting the house ready for Mom to arrive on Tuesday!! Unfortunately, on Monday, it was discovered (through some collaboration with my sisters) that my Mom's "cold" was a little more severe. We convinced her to go to the doctor and get some meds and she decided to delay her trip until Wednesday. After talking with her on Wednesday, we realized she really still needed another day before making the trip, so she would wait and arrive on Thursday. Thankfully, I had some fun Christmas projects to distract the kids (only somewhat - we were all bummed that Tutu wasn't here yet, but we were trying to be patient!!!)

First up was gingerbread houses! Our neighbors were spending the afternoon with us (their mom was trying to survive Toys R Us for some last minute gifts) so they got to join in the fun! There was a boys house...

...and a girls house...

Then it was time for Christmas cookies! The kids all picked two shapes that they wanted to cut out and we started the process! The hard part is waiting for that first batch to cool enough to decorate them (which is the REAL fun part!)

Caleb even woke up from his nap in time to get in on the sprinkles action! :)

YUM - sampling the finished products!!!

Once every one had decorated and eaten a cookie, they were ready to quit and watch a Christmas movie! :) The rest was going to be up to me to decorate! :)

Caleb wandered back over a little bit later to decorate a few more...and eat a few more sprinkles...

Max even woke up JUST in time to get himself a cookie! It was a fun day and helped pass the time.

Now TOMORROW is going to be really fun! Mom, Aunt Kristen, & Uncle Chris all should be arriving in the afternoon! We can't WAIT!!!

Christmas Caroling

2011-12-18T08:57:00.002-05:00

Our last official act of 2011 was to take the kids choir caroling on Sunday night!! Last year we sang at the retirement center which we LOVED, but since our musical had to do with caroling, I thought it would be fun to actually do it! We caroled at a neighborhood behind our new church property and handed out invitation cards about the Christmas Eve/Christmas morning services coming up. It was pretty crazy - the kids were SO excited and were wanting to run from yard to yard, but after a while it became more controlled chaos! :) When we were finished, we headed back to the cafe at church for some hot cocoa and christmas cookies!

Robin helped me with the barista duties :)

Caleb found his way in his favorite "ottoman" - with his favorite little girl! This is baby Alyssa - he WUBS Baby 'Lyssa. Her mom is a good friend of mine from choir and Caleb began falling in love with Alyssa this season while Callie and Amber (Alyssa's big sister) cheered together. Oh my does Caleb WUB Baby 'Lyssa!!!

As we were taking these pictures, I told Allison (her mom) that we would be playing these pictures at their wedding reception slideshow!! :)

A full day of parties

2011-12-17T08:56:00.002-05:00

Saturday was a full day. We hosted our annual Worship & Arts Ministry Christmas Open House. We invite everyone involved in the worship ministry at church to drop in sometime between 11-2 pm for a time of food and fellowship. It's a special way for David & I to thank them for playing such a vital role in the ministry and a neat time to have people from all of the different areas (choir, orchestra, praise band, praise team, AVL team, kids' choir leadership, senior adult choir) together! We loved our time of fellowship with each of them, our kids didn't go too crazy with all the people at our house all afternoon, and the food was delicious!

We had a couple of hours before it was time to head to our next party which started at 6:30 pm. After the long day at our own house, this is how our car looked on the WAY to the party :)

Some tired kids! They woke up when we got there and we had a good time. It was a tree trimming party - where we decorated their HUGE tree in the middle of their home. Very fun, lots and lots of ornaments, tinsel (!!!) and lots of fun (but tired) kids!

Sing a Long and Party Day!

2011-12-16T08:49:00.002-05:00

Friday was one of those days that made me SO thankful we live just a few minutes from the school. I had so much to do and knew I was going to be up at school several different times throughout the day. I went in with the boys early to help deliver their Christmas presents to all their teachers, which meant I couldn't go in my jammies and ponytail like I normally am when I drop them off for school :). Then I headed home and we had about an hour before going back up to school for the holiday sing-a-long!

Kindergarten thru 2nd grade was first. They all were in the PE room to sing some fun holiday songs. It was really fun. Callie sat in Jacob's lap :)

Can you find Jacob right in the middle? Callie is in his lap in a purple shirt :)

They sang all kinds of songs - including Joy to the World!!! My favorite moment though was when they were singing "Santa Claus is Comin' To Town" and this is what I heard:

"You better watch out, you better not crah...

You better not pout, I'm telling you whah"

I tell you what - these kids from SC have an accent for SURE!!! :) Hilarious.

It lasted about 40 minutes and then the 3rd-5th graders came in to do it all over again. Caleb and Callie did well, but were definitely starting to be done...

Josiah was a little embarrassed by it all...and I would definitely say that the older group didn't quite sing out like the younger ones did! :)

We headed back home where I had another hour or so before having to be BACK at school for class parties!!! :)

All of the 3rd graders were doing a special "Christmas in the Carolinas" theme since they've been studying all about SC history. They rotated thru all the 3rd grade classrooms and did special crafts and then even their party plates (royal blue for SC!) and food related to the theme!

Peaches (GA peaches have nothing on SC peaches), boiled peanuts (eww...everyone here loves 'em, but I just can't do it), cotton (represented by a chocolate covered marshmallow), and a pb&j sandwich cut in the shape of our great state!

Then it was off to Jacob's class party!

Jacob's class was playing the game where you have to pass things RIGHT or LEFT depending on what you hear in the story. Very cute. When I walked in the door, Jacob yelled "MOM! We're playing that game that we played at church! Remember??" (We had played it at a christmas party at church a few weeks earlier and he loved it!)

Then it was time for more craft fun, some goodies, and a little Christmas bingo! What fun!

My favorite day at PHES

2011-12-15T08:41:00.002-05:00

This is one of my most favorite days at the boys' school. It's candelight lunch day!! I remember last year coming in to have lunch with the boys and assuming it was just going to be battery candles or pictures of candles or something and was pleasantly surprised to see REAL candles burning on all the tables and Christmas carols playing in the background!! I love it!!

So the kids and I packed our lunchboxes to head to school for lunch with the boys - we were not going to miss it!!

Even white poinsettias on the tables :)

Jacob's lunch is first, and then we have about 30 minutes before Josiah eats lunch so we headed out on the playground with Jacob's class. Caleb had lots of admirers and help on the playground :)

Josiah loves when we come have lunch with him....except he says Callie always embarrasses him :). She does talk quite loud and doesn't exactly follow all the rules that Josiah knows to follow :)

These two were getting a little silly by this point...we had been at the school for an hour....

That afternoon, we all headed to Marble Slab Creamery to join with them in celebrating National Cupcake Day. They were giving away free ice cream cupcakes and we definitely didn't want to miss that! :)

That night I had to finish up my gifts for the boys' teachers. All of their teachers got a pan of homemade cinnamon rolls (The Pioneer Woman's recipe - YUM!) and then their main teachers got a giftcard to Barnes & Noble too. I was SO sad that I had JUST enough pans because I REALLY wanted to eat some after making them all!!!

Accessories

2011-12-14T00:37:00.000-05:00

You like Callie and her bear's earrings made out of hair bows? This girl cracks me up! You can never have enough accessories!

Polar Express Day

2011-12-13T00:31:00.000-05:00

It's Polar Express Day!!! A big day for the first graders at PHES! They all get to come to school in the pajamas, and the principal reads to them "The Polar Express". Josiah was lamenting how unfair it was (of course, when HE was in first grade, he loved it!!) and everyone was very jealous for all the fun the first graders were going to get to have that day!

I brought in North Pole cupcakes for his class :)

Here come all the first graders!

Jacob begged me to sit down with him (the other moms were standing around the room...), and then proceeded to climb right into my lap and sit with me. Oh I love this sweet tender boy.

All the first grade teachers had a copy of the book too and were turning the pages, so the kids could look at whichever book was closest to them to see the pictures :) See Mrs. Mitchum in the front in her nightgown? Hilarious.

They went back to the classroom and enjoyed their North Pole cupcakes and hot cocoa :). It doesn't always take much!! :)

Addison and Callie

2011-12-10T00:28:00.001-05:00

I got these outfits for Callie and Addison last year and saved them to give them this year. They got a kick out of wearing them the same day and sending each other pictures :)

Friday

2011-12-02T00:24:00.000-05:00

He doesn't always, but a LOT of the time, he is RIGHT next to Callie following RIGHT beside her. They are GREAT friends!

David got all of our stockings hung! The people that lived here before us had 5 in their family, and last year we never got around to hanging a 6th hook, so David and I just shared :). He fixed the hooks and got them all up. I LOVE our stockings. They are all very special and it about made me crazy finding the kids stockings that "sort of" matched David & my stockings. I love the tradition of it. The kids love it. I'm a sucker for these memories!

Talking with Carlie

2011-12-01T00:21:00.000-05:00

Callie misses her best friend Carlie. A lot. She had a few rough weeks at Sunday School recently where she was being kind of rough or rude with some of the kids. I asked her what was going on and she said "I miss Carlie". It broke my heart. Carlie was in all of her "church stuff" - same Sunday school class, same choir class, same AWANA class. They were two peas in a pod. And now that she has moved, I think Callie is feeling a little bit lost. She called and talked to Carlie for a bit this morning and felt quite a bit better (I'm not sure either of them understood what the other was talking about, but it was cute!)

Happy 9th Birthday Josiah!

2011-11-28T23:50:00.001-05:00

This was a non-party year for Josiah. But I still wanted to make it super special for him. It's a little difficult, because we don't live near family, so it's not like there is an automatic 15 people here to celebrate with him if it's "just family". It's just the 6 of us. And his birthday falls smack in the middle of an extremely busy time of year. But I understand how that goes (my bday is Dec. 31 - talk about busy!) so I wanted to make sure that he still felt special on HIS special day.

We started out with birthday donuts of course.

Caleb loved the football donuts!

I went and had lunch with Josiah at school but don't have any pictures because some cute little 4 year old was playing with my phone on the way to school and left it in the van. Sigh. But we were there! I brought him his favorite sub - Club on a Sub - from Firehouse Subs because they give you a free sub on your birthday. He was stoked. And ate the whole thing (it's an 8" sub people!). Then we handed out donuts to his classmates (it's what he wanted this year...not cupcakes, but donuts!)

He was super excited when David came home early in the afternoon so he could open his presents! VERY excited when some money fell out of his card from Aunt Daree!

He got a wallet from Aunt Kelli and Uncle Scott...

...and proceeded to run upstairs, get all of his money, come back down, and start putting it away in his wallet.

He was so cute - he was asking me where to put everything and where the "right" spot was for his money, etc. He opened up the wallet, I showed him where to put the dollar bills, and there was already a dollar bill in there! Then I showed him what the other slots were for - library card, pictures, etc - and Kelli had already put a wallet sized picture in there too! Isn't she the best?

In his back pocket, just like Daddy :)

He got the Wipeout 2 Wii game from Gramps - some VERY excited boys about that!!!

A Brain Teasers book from Tutu - which he exclaimed "YES! This is just like what I do in EAGLES!!!" Super excited!

A new puzzle from Tutu...

...and a Magic set!!! VERY exciting!

It was an all Gamecock birthday from us - a coozy for his Waterbottle, a cap, a sweatshirt, a Phiton necklace - all USC Gamecocks. He was PUMPED! He's turned into quite the Gamecocks fan this year and it's been really cute to watch!

He decided that afternoon that he wanted Hibachi for his birthday dinner, and I certainly wasn't going to complain, so off we headed to Miyabi for his birthday dinner! Good thing we made it in time for the Early Bird Specials!

Callie LOVES the soup there!

The last time we took the kids to a place like this, Callie was totally freaked out by all the fire. So she sat in David's lap like this - with her hands over her ears and ready to cover her eyes - the whole time. Just in case. She did fine though :)

I ordered Josiah an adult meal because he REALLY wanted steak and shrimp but that wasn't an option on the kids menu. He did well - and is really good at chopsticks! :) Yea for leftovers!

We stopped at a different Firehouse Subs on the way home for Josiah to pick up one more free birthday sub to take the lunch the next day. Gotta take advantage of these birthday freebies! :)

We let him stay up a bit later to play his new Wipeout game. It's pretty hilarious if you like the show.

We were cracking up the whole time.

had to improvise a bit with the candles on his cake. Couldn't find enough candles in my cupboard. So we used Jacob's old #7 candle, made a "plus" sign with toothpicks, and then added 2 candles and called it a "math" cake to equal 9! :) Whew!

I can't remember why in the world he was laughing so hard, but he totally got the giggles and could not stop laughing. It was a riot.

Happy birthday Josiah! I can't believe that it has been 9 years since you made me a mom! I remember so clearly the Thanksgiving day that you were born - how thankful we were that God gave you to us. We have had so much to be thankful for over the years! This year has been one that we have seen you grow by leaps and bounds in your confidence, your learning, your strength. You are excelling so much in school, in your advanced EAGLES program, in your karate. God has given you such a wonderful mind and such skills that He is going to use to bring Him glory! But beyond that, you can be such a wonderful helper for me with your younger brothers and sister. Thank you for being patient with them and helping me. I love your willingness to teach them things. You are a wonderful leader Josiah and I am SO proud of you! I love you!

A little dance party before saying goodbye

2011-11-26T23:46:00.002-05:00

Emily brought her "Just Dance" Wii game and we had a blast with it! The boys had never seen this or played it (we're sort of stuck in total boy games over here), but it was hysterical!

The cousins

The silly cousins

David and Sharolyn

We had a great time, Hassell Family! Come back and see us any time! We loved having you!

Daddy and Callie hung the outside Christmas lights up too!

Friday

2011-11-25T23:07:00.000-05:00

David got sucked in. After he heard about my huge SCORE at my "Black Thursday" shopping the night before, he decided to come with me for Black Friday. The kids were all in bed. David's sister & her family were all asleep. It was about 11 pm and I was finalizing going over my list and I jokingly asked David if he wanted to come with me. He said "sure!". I couldn't believe it! So off we went - we headed to Kohls first, met in the van when we were done (because we may have been shopping for each other too!), and then headed to Target for some more success. We did great - I had HUGE success at both places and both stores were staffed extremely well!

This is one of the signs that I passed while in line at Kohls :). I love Black Friday. I'm able to get the things on my list for 80% off sometimes - can't beat that! And I will say that I liked the midnight opening of these two stores. It's easier for me to stay up until midnight, hit a couple of stores, and then get back in bed than it is to start my day at 3 or 4 am and then be up all day long. Yuck! We got back home around 3 am again, headed to bed, and then woke up bright and early for another great breakfast and a fun day ahead!

We took our cousins to the zoo (I know you're surprised by that) and the weather was gorgeous!

I suppose alot of people were still shopping, because it wasn't very crowded at all!

David's sister Sharolyn (her husband Wade stayed back at our house to work on a little problem they had with their car during the road trip)

We headed to feed the giraffes first. It's always such a huge hit - especially with people that have never done it before - and we wanted to get there before they ran out of lettuce!

Noah and Emily LOVED it!!!

Noah is alot like Jacob in a lot of ways He could have stayed here all day with the giraffes!

Noah, Josiah, and Jacob - these three had a BLAST together!

Emily and Callie

"Show me your best tiger face!"

LOVED feeding the lorikeets - who were extremely hungry this morning :)

Callie and Caleb and I rode the carousel a few times while the big boys were tackling the rock wall

After a few times on the wall, the big kids came and joined us on the carousel.

Noah gave it a good shot - but his shoes weren't the best for scaling palm trees :)

Caleb...AGAIN....talked non-stop about how he wanted to ride the horse. David was convinced he wouldn't be afraid if he was with his this time. Wrong. Again, he chickened out right at the front of the line. Beginning to make me look like a total loser parent that is pressuring her kid to ride a horse or something!!!

Gotta milk the cow in the barn!

David and his big sister Sharolyn

We came home and enjoyed a late lunch of Thanksgiving leftovers. The kids were absolutely having a great time at their "own" table - I caught them in a moment of hysterical laughter...over who knows what!!!

Wade & Sharolyn, Danny, and David

Danny is David's cousin that lives near Greenville. He came down for the afternoon to visit and catch up a bit - it was a real treat to get to see him!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T22:55:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving morning started for me at midnight....when I went to CVS to do a little Black Thursday shopping. :) Yes, crazy. But boy did I get some steals! Got home a little after 3 am (YIKES!!), crawled in bed, and when the kids came in my room at 7 am felt like I had just shut my eyes!! David's sister Sharolyn & her family had driven through the night and arrived an hour early at our house. Our kids were so super excited and the activity kicked into high gear!!! We had a big breakfast, watched the parade, and snapped some green beans for our lunch later that afternoon.

Caleb is an excellent bean snapper! :) Who knew!

See how I'm in my glasses? That's because the contact solution that we use requires them to be in it for 6 hours in order to disinfect...and since I went to bed after 3 am and woke up at 7 am...well, you can do the math. That's never a good sign if I haven't even been asleep for 6 hours!

We only have about 4 place settings of "our" china. Really ought to get more one day, but there are more pressing things like socks and underwear and fruit that is always a higher priority. Anyways, this is the china that David's parents picked out when they got married. They gave it to us before his dad died and it's very special to me. The colors are similar to what I picked out, so they go together very nicely.

I spent alot of time in this spot on this day! I've done Thanksgiving dinner before, but never without my mom or sisters or someone - I was totally on my own this time...but it turned out great!!

This was one of our desserts. I'm not a huge pie person, so this is where I veer from the traditional. This was pumpkin praline cheesecake! Yum.!

One of my midnight STEALS :)

I love our tree. It's not very fancy or "coordinated". I wish I had beautiful ribbon cascading down...but then it would cover up all the handmade doilies that look like angels and little baby faces from the church nursery on half of my ornaments. Precious. And I wouldn't change a thing. I am thankful indeed!

Cue Music...It's Beginning to Look alot like Christmas!!!

2011-11-23T22:28:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I have always been pretty much the Christmas police when it comes to setting up and decorating for Christmas. It has ALWAYS been the day after Thanksgiving. That's when we always did it growing up, that's the way it should be. Well, this year I decided to change things up a bit. Here's the thing. I'm married to a Music Pastor. That means we're listening to Christmas music beginning in June when it's time to choose the programs. That's rule #1 (no christmas music should be played until after Thanksgiving) already broken. This year David's family was going to be in town during Thanksgiving. The first weekend of December is completely taken up with my children's musical that I direct. The second weekend in December is completely taken up with David's adult concert. That leaves me with slim pickings for when to decorate. Last year we were travelling over Thanksgiving week, and so we were left to decorate for Christmas on a random Tuesday night. And since it was a school night, it was very rushed, I was grumpy, the kids were tired, etc. It was not right. So this year I decided that we would decorate early. On the day before Thanksgiving. Because we were all going to be home. Our company wasn't going to be here yet. And we could have "the day" like I envision in my head.

First thing out was this Little People nativity set. I've been wanting one for years. I finally got one last year at an After Christmas sale and it took all my willpower to put it away until THIS christmas. It was worth the wait - the kids have LOVED it!

Time to work on the three!!! Love this part!

I love pulling all the ornaments out...ooohing and aahhing over their handmade ones from Sunday school, telling them to be so careful with the glass ones, it's just precious.

Callie dancing to some Christmas songs :)

Our Fontinini nativity set. It's very special to me. My mom gives us a new piece every year. My sisters all have an identical set. The set is the same kind that we grew up with. My mom's mom, Gigi, got it for her because it was beautiful, and yet safe for the kids (my sisters and I) to touch and hold and play with. I love the fancy nativities - don't get me wrong. But I LOVE that my kids can play with ours and act out the Christmas story. It's one of my most special Christmas memories and decorations.

Caleb was very into the decorating this year! I think last year he may have already been in bed! :(

Each year we take turns with who gets to put the angel on top. This year it was Caleb's turn!!!

We do a code each year for our kids' presents from us. Instead of writing who the gift is for there is some sort of numeric or alphabetic code. My dad left his presents for the kids when he came a week or two ago, and his gifts had a code on it as well. (He always used to do a code for our presents too). Josiah got to work immediately trying to crack it! :) (Jacob called and asked Dad for a hint, but Dad refused :) ).

Off to Haiti!!

2011-11-22T22:25:00.000-05:00

I FINALLY was able to get all of the Angel Tree presents packaged up and ready to be shipped. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but my Kids' choir adopted 31 kids from an orphange in Haiti and we had an Angel Tree project for them. It was overwhelming to see just how generous and giving our children were for these precious children. This picture doesn't even do it justice. We packed them up in 13 HUGE boxes and you should have seen the face on the Manager at Pak Mail when I brought it in - and then to tell them what was IN these boxes - absolutely precious. Can not WAIT to hear about how the kids in Haiti react!!!!

Gotta love Family Night at Salsaritas!

2011-11-21T22:20:00.000-05:00

Not only did I have a great coupon and the kids were in uniform and eat free, but it was family night at Salsarita's which means the Balloon Guy is there!!!

Princess Crown for Callie...

Sword for Caleb...

...and a Cocky hat for Josiah (he's all about the Gamecocks these days!!)

hmmm...wonder why I don't have a picture of Jacob? I swear he was there!!!

Gramps and Rita come to visit!

2011-11-19T22:08:00.000-05:00

On Saturday morning, we were SUPER excited for Gramps and Rita to come for a visit!! They were passing through South Carolina on their way to Hilton Head for vacation and so we got to snag them for the morning! They met us at the fields bright and early and got to see Callie cheer and Josiah & Jacob play flag football! (I'm so bummed I didn't get a picture of us out at the fields...but in my defense, I am usually pretty crazy between the 4 kids on three different fields, etc). They even got to see Jacob run for a touchdown and Josiah throw one! Hooray! Then they came home with us to have lunch and relax for a bit before they had to head back on their way. We LOVED having them!

Callie loves a captive audience :). She was showing Gramps her "magic books" (he got her the TAG reading system last year for Christmas, so he got to see how much she LOVES it!)

I have to "catch" my Dad to take a picture - I don't know if it's the Marine in him or what, but he doesn't normally pose. He gives me a look (as you can see) like I've caught him red handed or soemthing :)

He was a dad to four little girls - so he's pretty good with reading "American Girl" magazines and stuff :)

Caleb wanted to drive his car around outside for a bit...

And Rita was kind enough to listen to all his talking about who knows what while they were out there!

The boys took on Dad for a little Wii action...

...and goodbye came way too quickly!!!

Thanks for coming Dad & Rita - you are welcome anytime!! We love you!

(Nice camera work Jacob!)

Double Parties, Double the Fun

2011-11-18T22:03:00.000-05:00

Callie was invited to two birthday parties at the same inflatable place on the same day, same time! So we all went and I ran back and forth with her between the two party rooms while the big boys all played. They had a ball - but Caleb really enjoyed himself! He has no fear - and is ridiculously coordinated. I say that alot, but the fact that he can scale these huge things on his own is amazing to me!

Where did it all go?

2011-11-16T22:01:00.000-05:00

Remember my gorgeous tree in the front yard with all the beautiful leaves? Where did it all go???? It's amazing how quickly they all fall down!

The Zoo!

2011-11-15T21:49:00.000-05:00

It was another one of those days. The weekend had been crazy busy. We had worked really hard the day before getting our "work" done - errands, cleaning, laundry. And so today I just needed a day to enjoy my kids without anything else. So we headed to the zoo. Since we have our annual passes, it's the easiest, best, free way to spend a day with my kids! :)

Callie always wants to do the ponies first. Caleb is obsessed with horses and wanted to ride for the first time, but got scared at the front of the line and told me he was too afraid! :) Callie on the other hand, loved it! (And don't you love the outfit she chose to wear to the zoo! Whatever!)

You don't think she enjoyed having my undivided attention, do you?

A little unsure about the carousel....

...oh yeah! I do like this thing!! :)

Stopped to play at the playground for a bit...which I can't do without remembering that sweet day on August 4, 2009 when i brought all 4 kids to the zoo....because I was in labor with Caleb!! Knowing I was in labor with him, but also knowing it was going to take some time. Where do you go when you have 4 kids, your husband is at work, and you need to walk? To the zoo of course! I remember calling my sister from the playground at the zoo and saying "they are coming closer, I think this really is it" and then calling David in the middle of staff meeting and saying "keep your phone close by..." :)

Before we left, Caleb wanted to try and ride the horse again. It was all he talked about all day at the zoo. So we got in line again. He got the helmet on again. Got the cute picture. And then the horse came up and he said he was too afraid again. He's so darn cute.

Saturday with Schrodts

2011-11-12T21:37:00.000-05:00

A little glimpse of our Saturdays...

Callie was the cutest little cheerleader! (She's in the front way, on the far left). She had an AWESOME coach that was fabulous with the girls. Callie was the only 4 year old on her squad - everyone else was kindergarten or 1st grade, so she was by far the youngest - but she kept up and did great! (Although she did NOT enjoy cheering on the VERY cold Saturday mornings towards the end of the season)

Caleb loved watching the boys' play their games. Really, he loves anything that is outside and ball-related. We had some time between the two games and he just LOVES running up and down the field! :)

Snack is always the HUGE hit after the games...and Caleb somehow manages to sweet talk his way into getting a snack too!!

A little leaf pile fun in the afternoon...

This tree is in our front yard and is gorgeous right now!!!

This is always so cute - until after they are done playing outside and then I have all these body outlines in my driveway!! Looks a little CSI-ish!

Family Game Night

2011-11-11T21:33:00.000-05:00

Notice Caleb's little "Unitard" look? Looks like someone forgot to snap his onesie shirt :)

Just me and my little ones

2011-11-08T21:02:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I just have those days where I want to do nothing but keep my kids very close to me and just enjoy them! After being gone all weekend (which was HEAVENLY!!!), this is what I wanted to do on Tuesday. So we enjoyed a little karate....

....and then a morning at the park. Love these two little things (don't you love Caleb's hands up in the air!)

Monday.....OOPS!!

2011-11-07T21:00:00.002-05:00

On Sunday night after I finished leading children's choir, I got a message from Beth saying "I think I left my toiletry bag at your house". Sure enough - she had. All of her hair stuff, all of her makeup, etc. All sitting in my bathroom still! It's not a small bag, and so after initially talking about shipping it to her, we realized that the cost and delay before she'd receive it was going to be crazy. I had nothing major on my agenda on Monday, so we decided instead to meet halfway so she could get it. Callie and Addison were THRILLED to get to see each other for a quick little playdate!!

We met at an exit off of I-95 that was supposed to have a McDonalds with a playground, but our GPS ended up taking us to the middle of nowhere. We found an empty ball field and the girls were happy just to piddle in the grass with their babies for a little bit :)

We enjoyed our little playdate and then headed back home! :)

We LOVE Miss Jessica!

2011-11-06T21:06:00.002-05:00

Boy do we LOVE Miss Jessica!!! Her dad is one of the pastors at Northside, and she is our VERY favorite babysitter! The kids absolutely adore her!! She watched the kids for us all day on Saturday for our race and survived it! She took all 4 kids to the fields for 3 of them to have their football/cheer games, then took them all to Chick-fil-A for lunch. I had left her a stack of about 15 different "free" coupons with ordering instructions and she LOVED it! I left her money to cover the difference, and I think she said she paid less than $5 to feed all 5 of them! Love CFA! Her parents met her at CFA and had lunch with them and took this picture and sent it to us. LOVED seeing my happy kids!! :)

Sunday still comes!

2011-11-06T20:59:00.002-05:00

And the beauty of ministry is that just because I happened to run a half-marathon on Saturday, doesn't mean ministry doesn't continue on Sunday morning! We had a full day of church, then the Music & Mission kids went downtown to participate in a fundraiser for our local foodbank...where we were walking a 5K! Isn't that hilarious? :)

Caleb hanging out in the cafe....I'm pretty sure that this was not a purpose that our Executive Pastor envisioned when he approved ordering this cafe furniture :)

Some of our Music & Missions kids after the 5K - they did great! Was super proud of them, it actually felt good to walk it and loosen up my muscles some more. I shared some of my free Snickers energy bars that I had gotten from the Expo with the kids during the walk and they loved that! :)

The aftermath....

2011-11-05T20:57:00.002-04:00

Ice, ice, and more ice....knees (I think these are David's?)

ankles...feet.....everything hurts! :) but it's a good hurt!

Callie enjoying the treats that we brought back for the kids :) It was GOOD to see them!

Celebrate!

2011-11-05T20:54:00.002-04:00

This fountain is apparently famous - because it's what's on our finishers medal! :)

We got back to the hotel, showered, changed, and got checked out of our hotel rooms. We found a fabulous little mexican place nearby and ordered a large bowl of cheese dip to start off our meal!

Beth & Anthony drove back with us to our house to stay the night. His parents were keeping their kids through Sunday, so we got a little bit of an extended visit with them and they were able to come to church with us on Sunday before heading back to see their kids.

On the drive back, David whipped out one of the chocolate pralines that we bought and saved for post-race celebration....

...and I FULLY enjoyed a hot fudge sundae from McDs!!! Training is over!!!

The Starting Line

2011-11-05T20:49:00.002-04:00

Yep, 27,000 runners. Never have run in a race that big. It was FUN!!!

Beth & I right before we started. I LOVE this girl (and love that I sucked her into running!!!)

Ready, Set, Go!

2011-11-05T20:48:00.003-04:00

Oh, these awful porta potty lines! Gotta do it, but it's never fun. The lines were awful - 27,000 runners have to go!!! - so we were all actually in the lines when the starting gun went off!! It's a chip timed race though, so our "clocks" didn't start until our feet crossed the line. Still, it's always a little stressful!

Beth & Anthony on the shuttle to the start

David & Katy on the shuttle to the start

After the race - I noticed AGAIN that David and Anthony looked like twins - they were both in black pants and gray, long sleeved shirts! Isn't that a riot?

Here we all are - the finishers!!! The bummer about the 4 of us running was that NONE of us have any pictures from the actual race - because we were running in it!! But it was a great race. Anthony & David had intended to run together, but got separated after the porta potty line and never found each other. Beth & I lined up at the start to get a picture but then we had also decided we were going to run our own races. So all 4 of us were in our own grooves! :)

David's race was great - he set a personal record of 1:52 and was totally super excited about that. Remember his last half marathon last November? He blamed me for giving him Italian sausage the night before and had terrible heartburn the whole time and had to walk a bunch of it. So he totally saw this race as redemption and he rocked it!! I was so proud of him! I had been a little nervous because he had to take 3 weeks off the month before the race from a back injury, but the rest must have been just what he needed because he shaved 7 minutes off his best time! Way to go David!

And I had a GREAT race too!!! Not a PR (which I set BEFORE I got pregnant with Caleb), but my best race time in several years since having Caleb. My last race was around 2:15, and I finished in 2:05 which was AWESOME. I had sort of set a goal in my head to be under 2:10 and thought I could do it based on my training runs, but you just never really know what the course is going to be like and race conditions, etc. So I was super pumped to be able to hold on to my speed and finish strong!!!

We met up with Anthony, cheered Beth on at the finish, and then collected all our gear bags and promptly whipped out the cell phones to start texting and facebooking our results! :)

The finishers medal! :)

It's a GREAT day to run a race!!!

2011-11-05T20:42:00.002-04:00

We woke up bright and early to get ready for the race!!! All throughout the day on Saturday, we kept checking the weather over and over. We were struggling with what to wear - the temperature kept dropping and it was windier than we thought because we were so close to the water. We all settled on wearing warmer clothes than we thought we would!

David - looks ready to set a PR doesn't he!

We met Beth & Anthony downstairs in the hotel breakfast lobby (they opened early for the racers :) ), grabbed a banana, and were off to get on the shuttles!

Savannah's downtown has ZERO parking, so the runners were told to drive out to the Mall (about 30 minutes from our hotel and about 30 minutes from the start) to park and then ride a shuttle to the start.

Thankfully they had lots of buses there so they kept us moving. And we were there early so we didn't feel too stressed about the time. Time to head to the starting line!

Pralines, PAULA, and Pasta!

2011-11-04T21:18:00.000-04:00

Next stop on my list was the River Street Sweets shop. About a week before we left for the race, my Mom told me to be sure I ate some pralines while I was there! DUH - I had forgotten that Savannah is sort of well known for that! So this was another stop we had to make!

This is THE place. THE best. On Paula Deen's list for sure. They hand out free samples at the door. Every kind of candy confection. But the BEST pralines. Unreal. Ate only the sample they gave me and then bought the kids each a treat and me & David a treat to eat AFTER the race! :)

Not posed - I swear. Walking behind our husbands and noticed that they are twins! :)

Next up - Paula Deen's!!! We knew we were not going to be able to eat here. Sad. But the lines are so crazy long and we weren't going to be able to get our name in early enough on Saturday morning because of...well....the little race we were running in.....so we had to settle for going to her store and just peeking in the windows at the restaurant :)

Yes, that's me at the cash register...David bought me a few Christmas presents :)

Me and Paula!!! She's short! :)

I love these two girlies!! :)

The menu. Yum...

Then it was time for us to head and find some dinner. We knew that of course, every pasta place was going to be crazy busy. Everything in the city was crazy busy. There were 23,000 runners there!! We found an Olive Garden and were told when we walked in that it was a 1.5 hour wait. Ugh. That's no good. We were starving. It was already 7 pm. Needed to eat and get home and in bed. We decided to order our food to go and take it back to the hotel and eat. While Beth & I ran in the bathroom though, David snagged a table in the bar-seating area (where it's first come first served) and the next thing you know, we were sitting down ordering our food! Way to go David!! It pays to be observant!

We had a delicious dinner, ate plenty of carbs, and headed back to the hotel to get a good night of sleep. After all, we had 13.1 miles to run in the morning!! :)

Shirts at the EXPO

2011-11-04T21:06:00.000-04:00

One of my FAVORITE stops at the EXPO is always the One More Mile stop - they have the FUNNIEST shirts and things. Totally crack me up! Here's some of my favorites...

LOVED this one...because when I run, whether it's a mile or 12 miles, I am a sweaty, stinky, red-faced mess. Always. I do NOT look like the people on TV - all pretty, hair still perfect, make up still in place. I definitely do NOT smell like a princess when running! :) And that's okay!

I totally laughed out loud of this one...because Beth & David had been posting on facebook left and right! :)

We runners are a little crazy about our Garmins. I begged Kelli to ship us hers so that David and I could BOTH wear one for the race. (He bought me one for my birthday last year and we share it...but neither one of us was willing to go without it for the race!!)

The front of the shirt....

...and the back.

And yes, I'm DEFINITELY a runner! :)

The EXPO

2011-11-04T20:30:00.000-04:00

We drove up near the river in order to be able to board the ferry and head over to the expo. This is always a highlight for me of race weekend - it's always so fun to walk through an expo and get my free swag bag, see all the vendors, try all the samples, just enjoy the cameraderie with ALL the other runners milling around - it's exciting!!

I swear - it's like we were with Mr. & Mrs. Photogenic all weekend!! I kept taking pictures of them and they were all so good!! :)

It was fun riding the ferry over to where the Expo was...a little nerve wrecking perhaps, but fun :)

Our husbands hate us for making them take ALL these pictures...but we don't care....we do it anyways!

Me and my running buddy! :) Love her!

I mean - how can you resist these photo ops? :) (And I said when I took this picture that I would be SO stoked if that was my real time!)

(We also commented that the moral of this story is ALWAYS smile at the finish line - someone may be taking your picture and use it as a photo backdrop at an expo one day!! Just look at that poor lady on the right side...not looking very happy!)

This was me and Beth's first Rock & Roll race - and it was SO fun seeing all the rock stuff everywhere! :)

We all love our kids. Don't get me wrong. But we were super excited to be able to walk through the EXPO without them. And get to stop at whatever vendors we wanted! Take this one for example - an ear buds vendor that guarantees they DO NOT come out of your ears. Guaranteed. We were all sized (we all wear the same size if you can believe it) and it really was remarkable - they did NOT come out. Very cool.

Then we stopped at this foot place. David has had foot/back/hip issues and he loves for someone to look at his feet. No big surprises with his eval.

Then Beth got up. She's had a whole FIT of trouble with her feet and ankles during this training, and this guy was the first one to actually give her some good answers/reasons/suggestions/help with WHY and what she can do about it!

Of course, Anthony was watching the prognosis with dollar signs flashing before his eyes.....Beth did buy some new inserts for her feet.... :)

AND THEN....we turned the corner....and I about fell out on the floor!!!! Guess who I saw??? Dan & Jackie from the Biggest Loser a few seasons ago!!!

TOTALLY knew them right away. Totally threw my camera at Beth & said I've got to go meet them and take pictures!!!!

It was the COOLEST!! See the picture on my left? That was Jackie - Dan's mom. You can sort of see Dan's before picture to his right. He was huge. He's super young - early 20s. His mom said that she was totally to blame with him - took him to drive thrus and fast food all the time. He would down a 2-liter of soda at a meal. It was just so sad.

They totally changed their lives on Biggest Loser almost 3 years ago and are still keeping the weight off and staying healthy. They've started this KidsFit foundation that is promoting healthy living and active lifestyles for kids and travel around the country working with that. It was SO cool to get to talk with them! I told them that I am a total fan of the show and always am so inspired watching it!!! (Did NOT tell them we usually are eating ice cream on the couch while we watch...)

It was SO exciting. So proud of the changes they have made and how they are continuing to "pay it forward" with other people. Dan said he has done 10 half marathons this year! Talk about inspiring!!

It was so much fun. Loved taking our time. Picking up samples. Looking at goofy stuff. Tasting things. Grabbing freebies. Coupons. So much fun. I think we were there for 4 hours or something crazy. So fun.

And as we were standing in line to ride the ferry back over, David was giving Anthony a little cell phone lesson.....they crack me up....we married ourselves some crazy boys.

Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House

2011-11-04T18:15:00.000-04:00

Many months ago, when Beth & I decided that we were all going to do this race, we immediately started getting excited about the awesome food we could enjoy while we were there for the weekend! It sounded like the perfect place to get to enjoy some good southern cooking after all those months of training!!

She began having several people talk about going to "Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House" while we were there and so we began investigating. It's only open Monday - Friday, only from 11 am - 2pm, and there is limited seating. The line begins early in the mornign, and you either line up early to get a seat, or you are out of luck. Southern cooking at its best, served family style, and several people even said that they liked it better than....gasp....Paula Deen's! (Don't worry Paula - I still am hopelessly devoted to you, but I'm just saying what people said...)

I had heard about this place somewhere along the way....maybe Food Network? But I was initially skeptical. Our only shot to go eat was going to be Friday at lunch. The day before we ran a half marathon. Not really the perfect day to go indulge on a feast quite like that. And I'm not really a poster girl for self-control when it comes to yumminess like that. But as we got closer to the weekend and we both continued having people tell us "Oh, you've just GOT to go eat there" I gave in. We promised each other to slap wrists if we started reaching for fried chicken piece #4 or something, but just didn't want to miss out!!!

We met in the hotel for breakfast that morning - Beth & Anthony had gotten in late the night before. It was great to see them and know that the fun was about to begin! We made our plan and then headed downtown to get in line!! :)

It's the cutest little place - just this little bitty sign out front. Parking is near impossible downtown. Lined up with the crowds. Had plenty of time to start the picture taking! :) Started getting nervous about how windy and cold it was...and begin the first of a LOT of discussions on what we would wear for the race....

It's really quite an amazing thing this place has going. They've been there for about a hundred years. Only open M-F, 11-2 pm. Apparently makes plenty of money and has no need to change what they are doing!! They would open the door, seat about 80 people, close the door again and say we'll seat more in a little while. And so the wait would continue. Then people would come out of the door, make hilarious comments like "man that was good! Totally worth it! Loosen your pants up!", etc - so funny.

Finally it was our turn to go in and man were we excited!! :)

So glad I changed my mind about this place! We totally would have missed out!

This is what the table looked like when we sat down. I think David counted 22 dishes! Everyone had sweet tea at their plate. The waitress came by and asked if anyone wanted unsweet or water (I thought she was going to cut my head off when I asked...ashamedly....for water), and then she said "the food has been blessed - go ahead!!"

Oh my - it was incredible. Fried chicken, mac & cheese, buttered noodles & peas, okra, rutabaga, sweet potatoes, stuffing (with hard cooked eggs in it?), the best collards everyone said they'd ever had, cheesy potatoes, rice & gravy, macaroni salad, baked beans, black eyed peas, biscuits & cornbread, and a ton more I'm sure I"m forgetting. It was amazing. We ate our platefuls and then pushed away from the table! They brought us cherry cobbler or banana pudding (which I unashamedly STILL love Paula's recipe for banana pudding WAY better) and then told us that when we were done, we could carry our cup, silverware, and plates to the dishwasher lady! Seriously! It was the cutest!!

They accept cash or check only. No receipts. The man puts your money in a basket and pulls out your change. Had this great shirt in their little "gift shop" area. The man said that Mrs. Wilkes grandson now runs the shop - he was the one that seated us - and that they are one of only 4 restaurants in GA that are still allowed to serve family style. If they were to sell the restaurant out of the family, they'd have to align with new healthy regularions/codes and switch to buffet. Family style is sort of a fun thing - luckily we were sitting with a cute family of 5 that we met while in line. The mom and dad were both running in the race and they had their 3 kids with them that were super sweet.

So we were SO glad we didn't miss out - totally glad we went - and DIDN'T eat too much! We decided to walk around a little bit and head over to the expo to get our race stuff next!!!

...oh yes, and on our way there, we saw the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile!! (And Anthony was obviously driving too fast because this is as good of a picture that I could get!)

Oh, Caleb.

2011-11-03T20:28:00.000-04:00

This sweet boy. He is a mess. Totally ruined by these big brothers of his.

This is his new favorite thing. He goes up to the boys' room and gets their sparring gear on. He can put it all on himself - although you'll notice his helmet is sort of backwards and his gloves are on upside down.

Then he runs at you (or his sibling) full speed and it is just hilarious. The kid thinks he is as old and as big as everyone else. Oh my.

But he is still my sweet Caleb. Talking up a storm these days. Wanting to be right with his brother or sister. REALLY playing with Callie these days...and fighting with Callie. But loving everyone. Is so quick to say sorry in his sweet voice. To tell his teachers at church thank you. Precious. I love him. Caleb Isaac - you are my precious baby boy - even though you tell me all the time that you are a big boy!!

And We're Off!!!

2011-11-03T18:04:00.002-04:00

I should remember this and always make plans to get away in November. We were SOOO looking forward to getting away for this race. Not only for the race - we definitely were looking forward to that. And not only to see our sweet friends Beth and Anthony - we were SUPER excited about that. But it is VERY good for us as a couple to get away in November. It's about this point in the semester that things get totally insane - the fall semester of school and church stuff is in crazy full swing, and it is super nice to escape for a little bit and catch our breath before Thanksgiving and Christmas totally overtake us!

As soon as biblestudy was over, I gave my final instructions to our sweet friends here in town that were staying at our house with our kids on Thursday and Friday, gave kisses (to Callie & Caleb who barely noticed we were leaving :) ) and we hit the road!! We stopped for lunch at Ruby Tuesday (does any other restaurant give out HALF the amount of coupons that they do? Love their salad bar!!), and then got gas...

...at this gas station! Yes, they had cheap gas, but I also told David it was a sign from God that we were going to have a GREAT race weekend! :)
Just a couple short hours (we live closer to Savannah than I thought - we were there in 2 hours!!) later, and we had arrived! We checked into our hotel and then headed out to explore downtown a bit. We were greated with these cute "Welcome Runners" signs everywhere we went! :)

This was a MUST - I had to know where The Lady & Sons was...it was to be a future stop later in the weekend, and I just couldn't hold myself back any longer! Didn't even go in, but had to see it!! It was so freeing to just be able to drive around, take our time looking at things, have NO agenda or schedule or bed time or whiny kids to deal with - what a vacation!!! We drove around until we decided on dinner (Miyabi's Japanese Hibachi) and then saw Footloose! What a treat! Got back to the hotel in time to go to bed early - two nights before the race is the MOST important night of sleep, so we ENJOYED a great night sleep...and knowing we could sleep in!!!

Happy Halloween 2011!

2011-10-31T20:14:00.000-04:00

For the record, I do NOT like having Halloween fall on a school night. Ugh. But we'll have to deal with it for the next 4 years until it's back on the weekend again I suppose!

The boys have karate on Monday afternoons right after school, so when they got home from karate, they were BESIDE themselves with anticipation to go trick or treating. I decided to buy myself some time by taking them all trick or treating at Publix first! :) LOVE that place. They have stations set up all over the store with games and candy for kids from 4-7 pm. It was perfect!

Here's the only picture of the 4 of them in costume. I thought Caleb was going to be Buzz Lightyear...but when I went to the closet to get the costume, I realized I sold it at a consignment sale a while ago. Ooops. So I pulled out the lion costume from the attic...which freaked Caleb out. He is NOT a fan of costumed characters, mascots, etc. Poor guy. Jacob was a ninja - got it for two dollars or something crazy last year AFTER halloween. Josiah was Mario....a friend at church said to me one day "hey - your boys like video games. Either want to be Mario? We have the costume from last year". Love that. Callie was Tinkerbell - she chose a dress up costume from her closet of many options. Changed her mind a hundred times leading up to halloween but settled on tinkerbell.

my kids seriously love these little carnival types of games. LOVE them.

Still not super happy about the costume thing, but the candy thing perked him up!

We got home, forced the kids to all eat one chicken tender (while David & I greatly enjoyed the subs we got while at Publix - they are the BEST!), and then gave in and let them get started. Caleb REFUSED to put his costume back on and said he wanted to stay home and play ball with David (he was the candy hander-outer. Okay with me! Callie didn't want to wear the wings that came with hers. Fine with me. This is why I don't ever spend money on costumes. Half the time they change their mind or don't want to wear half of it. Not worth the stress!!

Off we went! I'm a pretty smart mom. I had a couple of plastic Publix bags and water bottle. Learned from experience. We get very thirsty. And their buckets get very heavy from the candy but they don't want to quit. So I take the plastic bags to dump their buckets every now and then so they don't get too heavy. Smart, right? :)

We did the back half of the neigbhorhood and then brought Callie home. She wanted to go back out, but agreed to stay with David when I told her she could eat some candy. She discovered that she LOVES handing OUT the candy and I had to pry her off of the steps later that night when it was over. She may never trick or treat again - she may be our candy hander-outer forever more! :)

Caleb and the Ball

2011-10-30T20:09:00.000-04:00

This boy. May very well make us millions of dollars with some kind of ball one day. At 18 months, we'd be watching the older kids at soccer practice, and there he goes. Dribbling the soccer ball all the way down the field. While 6 year olds on my other son's team are falling over themselves. He is crazy coordinated. (Does NOT get that from me). He LOVES it. Would play ball all day long. Lately he loves throwing the football (with his left hand!), but still loves kicking the best. He found a beach ball on this particular Sunday afternoon with David and did this for an hour....

Pumpkins and S'mores!

2011-10-29T20:04:00.000-04:00

We finally had COOLER weather (although you wouldn't know it from looking at my boys in short sleeves), so I opted to do my last long run (only 8 miles - I'm in taper!!) in the afternoon while David took the kids to choose their pumpkins. Because of football/cheer on Saturday mornings, I've been having to get up and do my long runs at 5:30 am - in order to be back and showered in time to leave by 8 am - it's not fun! So I was thrilled to get to do it in the afternoon for once!!

Our neighbors were excited about the cooler temperature too, and invited us to join us in their backyard around their fire pit for s'mores. Yippee!!

My boys! LOVE them!

Callie and our neighbor Sage. SWEET girls!!

Josiah's Rank Test - GREEN Belt!!

2011-10-29T19:46:00.000-04:00

The long-awaited day was finally here - Josiah's rank test. Once he got his blue belt, he knew it was going to take longer between tests as they get more difficult. He was super excited and had been counting down the days! It fell on a Saturday morning, so we had to split up to get Jacob & Callie to football/cheer while I took Caleb and Josiah to his rank test.

It always starts off with the physical conditioning part - which kicks off with a one mile run. I let Josiah wear my Garmin so he could see how far/fast he was. He loved it! :) (and big surprise, he's faster than I am! Of course he was only running 1, but still!)

Pushups for 3 minutes....I'd rather die....

Caleb did a GREAT job - these tests last SEVERAL hours...and it's so crowded in there. We were sitting on the floor along the wall for a long tie...but right next to the water fountain which he LOVED since he is tall enough to reach it (on a stool).

Josiah's right in the middle - only white uniform in the group...

Gross. He put Josiah's mouthguard right in his mouth before I could catch him...ewww...

Awarding the new belts!

Goodbye blue belt! Hello GREEN belt!!!

We have two very good friends in this group with Josiah - Savannah and Noah. Sensei bragged about all 3 of them in front of EVERYONE when he was awarding belts. He said that the three of them knew all of their requirements for this rank test several months ago, but used that extra time to perfect and strengthen their skills. He said that in doing so, it brought the level of the entire class up and he was very proud of their effort! SO proud of them!

Josiah and I went to Ruby Tuesdays afterwards for lunch to celebrate and I enjoyed my time JUST with him. I'm SO proud of you Josiah - I hope that you always stay as focused and determined as you are right now! God has given you wonderful gifts and abilities, and I know you will use them to do great things for Him!! I love you!

a FULL Friday!!

2011-10-28T08:53:00.000-04:00

Started off making the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls. Yes, I do have a half marathon next week. Really would have loved to just lick up the table after the mess all that butter made! :) They were going to serve as my take-home gift for all the pastors :)

A crockpot FULL of Shoyu Chicken...

Some lovely fall flowers for my table...

Homemade apple pie in the oven - crust from scratch and apples picked off the trees by my kids! Doesn't get much better than that!!!

Stopped by IHOP after the boys came home from school for a special afterschool snack (I realize that to most children it would count as a meal...not my starving boys...they made it clear that this was NOT dinner!) :)

LOVE free pancakes at IHOP!!

We had all the pastors and their wives over for dinner and dessert. A great evening to fellowship and relax with one another. It's been a tremendously stressful and busy last few months, so it was nice to have an evening together just to relax and enjoy each other! We put our kids in bed and this is how I found them shortly after. These two are cuddle bugs!!

Yep...

2011-10-27T19:38:00.000-04:00

...its just been that kind of week! Exhausting! :)

(This was how I found Jacob after he finished his reading this afternoon...)

Almost Friday!

2011-10-27T14:56:00.003-04:00

Hooray - it's almost Friday! I just spent naptime NOT taking a nap...sigh...but instead digging out my desk from under a ridiculous amount of paper and bills to be dealt with. Not fun but necessary.

Here's something that IS fun! :) Tomorrow at IHOP (Friday 10/29) from 7 am - 10 pm, ALL kids under 12 can get a free Scary Face pancake. No purchase necessary. (and before you worry about what "scary face" means, it means it has whipped cream, mini oreos for eyes and candy corn for a smile....not very scary but very delicious!) We can't go tomorrow night because all the pastors and wives are coming over for dinner (hooray!), so I think it's going to be a surprise afterschool treat! :) How fun is that!

Callie

2011-10-25T16:28:00.001-04:00

As I'm pulling Callie off of a crying Caleb, she says to me (in a very exasperated voice), "But Mom, I'm only TELLING him what to LIKE!". Oh my.....

i LOVE my family!

2011-10-20T23:14:00.000-04:00

The Brothers-in-Law

2011-10-20T23:09:00.001-04:00

As we were taking our "sisters & mom" pictures, the boys started staging a coup. They were complaining that we are "always" taking pictures of the girls, the four sisters, sisters and mom, etc, etc. (Which is all true...how many pictures have you seen of the four of us lined up, in birth order, etc?) They wanted a picture of the 4 brothers-in-law! Isn't that so cute?

The Sisters

2011-10-20T23:01:00.002-04:00

I love my Mom. I love my sisters. I am SO thankful for them!!

My mom says all the time how fun it is having grown up daughters now. It gives me hope on the days when my little kids are making me crazy that one day, when they are all grown up, we will have as much fun together as my sisters & mom do now! :)

And then we moved on to more craziness and would you believe we all forgot to get any pictures of just the four sisters??? Can NOT believe it. Makes us very very sad.

The Deaton Family

2011-10-20T22:50:00.004-04:00

Kristen and Chris

Married in 2010

The Schrodt Family

2011-10-20T22:37:00.006-04:00

I love him. More now than when I met him so many years ago. So thankful that God brought him into my life.

So glad I married my best friend!

This little girl LOVED posing for the photographer...

This little guy did NOT....he woke up from his nap that day with a fever and was "off" the rest of the day...of course...the day we have picture scheduled. Sigh...

David and Katy (married in 1998)

Josiah, Jacob, Caleb, Callie

The kids are totally grossed out by this picture :)

The Roads Family

2011-10-20T22:21:00.004-04:00

Scott & Kelli (married in 2000)

Joseph

I think this is my absolute favorite picture from the whole shoot. Seriously love those cheeks of Joseph's!!

The Oates Family

2011-10-20T22:07:00.006-04:00

The Oates Family

Kimberly and David (married in 1994)

Matthew, Luke, Mary, and John

Tutu & Her Grandkids

2011-10-20T22:04:00.001-04:00

Clockwise from Top Left

Caleb (2), Tutu, John (10), Mary (14), Joseph (2), Luke (12), Josiah (8), Matthew (4), Callie (4), Jacob (6)

The Maxfield Family Photo Shoot

2011-10-20T21:38:00.003-04:00

Sorry it took me so long - I only just realized that I never posted these!!! When our family went to St. Augustine in July for our family beach vacation, we hired a photographer to do a photo shoot with us on the beach. BEST money we ever spent! The last time we were ALL together and had our pictures taken (other than Kristen's wedding...) was about 6 six years ago...so there were a few children not pictured (Callie, Caleb, Matthew, and Joseph!), a husband (Chris) not yet part of the family, etc. Plus we crammed into Picture People to do it - it was definitely not ideal!! We were ready for some updated pictures!!!

Fall Playclothes

2011-10-20T21:35:00.001-04:00

Doesn't everyone's children play outside in floaties and bathing suits in the middle of fall??

Happy 7th Birthday Jacob!

2011-10-19T21:15:00.000-04:00

My sweet baby boy Jacob turns 7 today. I was determined to make the day special for him...even though it fell on a Wednesday. UGH! We started with breakfast donuts...as we always do on birthday mornings :)

He LOVES donuts. That's what he wanted me to bring in for his class. Since his birthday is in October, he always gets the pumpkin-shaped donuts from Krispy Kreme for his birthday. I had sent David to pick up the donuts last night and he came home with sprinkles. Said they didn't have the pumpkin-face ones that night. Made me sad. I'm a sucker for tradition stuff. Jacob asked about it this morning, but was okay with it. I take things like that harder than he does :) He was happy for donuts!

He had one little present from us to open that morning (a new water bottle...his teacher this year lets them keep a water bottle at their desk if they want...he's been asking since school started for a water bottle!) and then got to open my Mom's present that had arrived yesterday. I even let him play his DS for a few minutes (a HUGE treat - we have a "no screens" rule during the school week...)

The younger two and I joined Jacob for lunch...

...and found this smiley little birthday boy sporting a new birthday visor from his teacher. :) I love that he gets so excited about these things. You can always tell exactly how he's feeling from his face (unlike Josiah who is much more like David in his facial expressions!!!) He loved getting to pass out his donuts to his friends at school (and Callie & Caleb were SUPER excited to get in on that action!!!)

The younger kids and I went back home and put some groceries away. A little bit later, I dropped off Caleb & Callie with a neighbor and went to kidnap the big boys from school! I signed them out a bit early (much to their surprise and delight) and took them to....

...the movies to see Cars2!!! They were so surprised and so excited! It was playing at the dollar theatre, and Josiah was the only the one that had seen it (it was his date with David this summer). I had a great time enjoying my two big boys!! We headed home and Jacob got to open up his presents from Aunt Kelli & Gramps! We had about 30 minutes before leaving for church and they were so excited to play....so dinner was a grab & go thank heavens for frozen chicken nuggets kind of night before rushing them into the car...Whew. It was a day. But Jacob enjoyed himself thoroughly. I loved seeing his excitement over the smallest things throughout the day.

Jacob, I am so proud of you. You are growing up to be such a sweet boy and I am so thankful that God gave you to our family! Always remember that God loves you so much and has such wonderful plans for you! Happy 7th Birthday my sweet Jacob Aaron!

Dictionary Day

2011-10-18T21:12:00.000-04:00

All of the 3rd graders at PHES were assigned a vocabulary word that they had to dress up as. They made signs at school with the definition and pronunciation on it that they wore during a vocabulary parade that morning. Can you guess what Josiah's word was? :)

AGONY. See how he's acting like he's in agony? :)

He was quite embarrassed about all of this. David drove him to school this morning and told me when he came home that Josiah started freaking out when David went to roll down his window a bit. He told David "Dad! Roll up your window! Someone might see me like this!" :) Hilarious.

Sweetness

2011-10-16T21:08:00.000-04:00

Sometimes on the weekends, the kids ask to go to sleep in our bed. It's a funny thing to me - we always move them back to their beds when WE go to sleep, but I think it must be something about them getting to sleep all together. When we came to bed on this night, I found Jacob and Callie with their arms intertwined! :) Sweetness!

Jacob's Birthday Celebration

2011-10-15T20:55:00.000-04:00

Jacob's birthday is next Wednesday. Not the best day of the week in this family to have a birthday on unfortunately. So we decided to celebrate on Saturday when we were actually going to be together! After a fun morning of football/cheer (and Jacob scored a TOUCHDOWN in his game), we headed home for Jacob to open his presents from us.

Jacob saw this "toypedo gun" in the store at the beginning of the summer. He wanted it so badly and I bought it on sale at the END of summer with intentions of saving it for next year for a "happy summer" present. I was shocked when he listed it on his birthday list but I went ahead and gave it to him. He was SO excited! :) Kind of funny that he can't use it for another 6 months though....

David came back from his run to find Callie sitting in her window...she was supposed to be having rest time....and she got a huge lecture from David about how the screen could have fallen out and she could have fallen out, etc, etc. Goodness gracious girl!

Caleb had a super hard time falling asleep. Cried for a long time (totally out of character) He's had a bit of a cold and so when he woke up after only an hour, I got him out of his bed and brought him downstairs with me where I was reading. He laid his head down, and so we both slept for another 1.5 hours!! Sweet boy. David took this picture but decided to leave my mouth hanging open :) At least you know it was a real picture!

The boys spent most of the afternoon playing outside with some of Jacob's new birthday toys. Then we headed to dinner at Outback - huge treat but we had our FREE steak dinner coupons to use! :) Great excuse! Jacob was SO excited when they brought his free ice cream and sang happy birthday to him! :)

After we got home, we put the younger two in bed and the rest of us enjoyed a game of Disney Cranium before bed.

Enjoyed some birthday cake...

...which Jacob ate one bite of and then said he wanted to "save" it because he was so tired!! :)

The Sing-Off

2011-10-14T20:53:00.000-04:00

David decided that after showers, the kids ought to be introduced to acapella music...and they were fascinated! They watched about 5 minutes of "The Sing-Off" before we read books for bed and loved it. They especially loved the beat-boxers...my kids are great at making noises with their mouths so that's not shocking! :)

Cute Babies are Distracting!

2011-10-13T20:49:00.003-04:00

During cheerleading practice, I was talking with my friend Allison and loving on her sweet baby girl, Alyssa (whom Caleb is totally in love with....). Callie kept watching us and eventually dropped her poms mid-cheer and came over to me and said "Mommy, can I just please hold her?" I made her wait until the end of practice, but I can't say that I blame her? Baby Alyssa is just adorable! :)

The Angel Gabriel

2011-10-13T20:49:00.002-04:00

I'm afraid that my husband is losing it. He was helping to relocate the costume/prop closets from our old building today and he sent me this picture....oh my....(and now I'm feeling sorry for his sweet assistant who was forced to take this picture of him....)

We made it to Thursday. Short weeks usually feel nice and short - but not this one. This one felt just as long and crazy as a "normal" week. So I'm glad that tomorrow is Friday! We discovered McAlister's Deli tonight for the first time ever - did you know kids eat free Monday, Tuesday, AND Wednesday nights? And even better than that, you can get TWO free kids meals for each adult meal that you purchased. (Which means for our family, ALL four kids would be free when David & I buy dinner) Score! Good to know and file that one away.

My sweet baby boy Jacob is turning 7 next week. I can't handle it. Good thing he still LOVES to climb up in my lap and will ask me to carry him upstairs when he's super tired. 7 is very old. His birthday is on Wednesday. A hard day in this family, so I have some special things that I am scheming up that will hopefully make it special until we can celebrate as a family over the weekend....

PB&J

2011-10-10T20:46:00.000-04:00

My kids are the only ones on the planet that do not like pb&j. I don't like it either, which is why David blames me for their dislike. Jacob is adamantly opposed to all things peanut butter or nuts, but they have both declared that they love jelly. So they decided we could give it a try...

Josiah said he "loved" it and asked for it in his lunchbox the next day...but he only ate half of it, so I'm not totally believing him yet...sigh...

Whew! I made it!

2011-10-10T16:26:00.002-04:00

So there you have it! That's what we have been up to for the last month. I have much to be thankful in the midst of such craziness. It has been one of the hardest and most stressful months as far as church-stuff has gone, but we have seen God pour out His blessings too. October is Pastor Appreciation Month and I am convicted of how little I tell people that I appreciate them. I am praying about how I can do that for our staff, and let me encourage you to do the same. I can't TELL you how much they would appreciate hearing that!!

So our fall is fully happening...My harvest Yankee candles are out, Titans football is back (although was dismal yesterday), I'm beginning to panic that we aren't going to get our whole Christmas musical done in time, flag football and cheerleading is underway, AC is off, a chill is in the air, and noses are running! :)

Saturday with the Schrodts

2011-10-08T16:36:00.000-04:00

Mom sent her some tights this week...and I think it made all the difference in the world! She sat down through half of last week's game...said she was too cold...but she was all about it this week! :)

Cheez-its much?

Sitting side by side...happily...with no one screaming...good thing David took a picture! :)

I was inside taking a much-needed nap. I had gotten up at 5:15 am in order to run my 12 miles before having to get home, shower, and leave at 8:15 for the kids' games. Whew!

Callie and her various bed-mates....the girl is never alone! :)

Sky Top Apple Orchard 2011

2011-10-07T15:55:00.000-04:00

Last year was our first year to go Apple Picking and we absolutely LOVED it! I've been so anxious to go back but it has been nearly impossible to find a free Saturday to do it. The kids had off school today and Monday so we headed up to Sky Top Orchard around lunch time. David had a funeral to sing at in the morning and so we ate lunch and then left. It's about a 2 hour drive, and Callie and Caleb slept a good portion of that, so it ended up working out well. It was fun to see more of the leaves changing the further north we went! :)

Jacob was SO dying to get INTO a tree and grab himself an apple!!! These are some of the Arkansas Black apples that we got - they almost looked like plums they were so dark - but still crisp and sweet. Yum.

What a difference a year makes for Caleb! Last year he was barely one year old and I carried him in the backpack carrier. He kept pointing to all the apples on the ground last year and saying "ball?" He was a different kid this year - totally loved it, walked everywhere, he was a riot. David even put him up in a tree!!

Got one Mom!

Getting some Granny Smith apples so we can make pie - Josiah has declared that he LOVES apple pie! (it's not a regular menu item in this house, so I'm curious to see if he really does like it or not...)

Callie (who picked her own outfit and I decided it wasn't worth the battle...even though I knew it would be in ALL these pictures...you'll see more of it later...)

See how high Jacob got? His feet are higher than David's head! That is high!

All 4 of my babies in the apple tree! :)

My kids are as tradition-crazed as I am. They LOVE doing the same traditions every year - they remembered taking a picture in front of this apple last year (and Jacob said "hey! It said 2010 before! Who changed it? :) )

EVERYONE remembered these! Hot apple cider donuts - to DIE for!!! I was paying for our apples (75 cents a pound!!! Love it!) and asked them if they wanted to go get our donuts. Josiah doesn't usually like to go on his own like that, but he gladly accepted when he heard it was to get THE donuts! I gave them a $20 bill and told them to ask for 1 dozen donuts and that it would be $9. They both then said "can we get 2 dozen donuts for $18"? I felt like I couldn't resist since they did the math and all :)

He ate two of them in no time flat!!! (I restrained myself and only ate one...I had 12 miles to run in the morning...)

This kid is getting WAY to grown up lately....

Like it? Her outfit? Jacob's white tshirt with pink & white striped fuzzy sweatpants? Nice right.

They had this huge playground area that the kids were super excited to play on after all that hard work apple picking!

Everyone loves climbing (or laying) on a tractor!

A spider/haystack playground...thing...

They had a bamboo maze...

When we came out of the maze, we were near some of the petting zoo animals - and David said "Whoa! Did you see that goat just jump over the fence?" I, of course, thought he was lying, only to come around the corner and SEE the goat standing there in the road - on OUR side of the fence...then the OTHER goat still inside the pen JUMPED right over the fence too! Oh my word. The kids thought it was awesome and chased the goats for a bit until I decided it was going to end with one of my children being rammed down by a goat...

We stopped for dinner in the nearby town and ate outside at this little bbq place called Hubba Hubba Smokehouse. They only take cash & checks :) Guess who tried collard greens and LOVED them!!! (again, not a regular menu item in our house...but caleb wanted more and more! Guess he IS my little southern baby!)

They were having some kind of little bluegrass band play and the kids thought it was hysterical. They'd never really heard that kind of music and weren't totally sure what to think of it. The boys were intrigued by the instruments (upright bass, mandolin, guitar, fiddle), but Callie just thought it was weird. She said to me "Mom, that music is ridiculous, right?" It's all David's fault - I tried to get him to like country music back when we were dating, but he just can't stand it.

It was a great day. I love family days like that. Making memories you KNOW your kids will remember. Precious. Priceless.

Cue Boys II Men....

2011-10-06T15:45:00.000-04:00

It's so hard...to say goodbye....

The day is finally here. Our sweet friends are leaving tomorrow morning to go back to WV. Sad for us. Happy for them. Their daddy reported for work there about two weeks ago and they stayed a bit longer to wrap up some loose ends here with the house and school and things. We tried to stay in denial about it as long as we could, but the day is almost here now!

We met up for ice cream one last time - we both had groupons (again)....and so met at TCBY. But they don't have bathrooms there (seriously - is that legal?) - so of course with 7 kids someone had to go potty - and we headed across the street to Rush's to eat and go potty. At least our crazy kids kept us from getting too sappy! :)

Our 3rd graders - Keatley and Josiah

Our 1st graders and Lego Masters - Jacob and Cooper

Our 4 year olds - Carlie and Callie

Callie was looking about how I was feeling. Not wanting to say goodbye at all! I think it had just dawned on her what was all going on. She knew they were moving and had talked about it, but the night before we were getting ready for AWANA and it really hit her. She said "Carlie doesn't have a Cubbies vest because she is moving". I said "That's right - they are moving to WV and she won't be going to our church anymore." Callie got very mad and I realized that while we had talked about them moving, she didn't understand that meant we weren't going to see them at church all the time anymore. Sad.

Man has it been fun doing like with this sweet family this year!

And what a joy this lady has made it. She was the Missions part of our M&Ms (Music and Missions) on Sunday night and was a HUGE help and support as we led this ministry over the last year. Not to mention a great friend, coupon advice giver, and just joy to be around. Alli, you will be missed!!! As much as we will miss you here in SC, I pray that God richly blesses you up in WV!! Looking forward to our first ski trip up there! :)

Its so hard...to say goodbye....

Fall is Here!

2011-10-05T15:42:00.000-04:00

You know what the hardest part of having 4 kids is? Not cooking for them. Not cleaning up their mess. Not feeding them. Not going places in public with not enough hands to hold on to them all. The hardest thing is having all those tubs of clothes for 4 kids to change out at every season! It drives me crazy and wears me out. Finally got it done though and so now Caleb has some nice warm jammies to wear! :) Makes him look like a big boy though! Not happy about that...

The Photo Shoot Book

2011-10-04T15:39:00.000-04:00

Kelli and I made a photo book with all of the pictures from our Maxfield Family photo shoot that we did in St. Augustine this summer. She's heading up to see my Mom this weekend and is surprising her with it. She sent me my copy in the mail and the kids LOVE looking at it and naming everyone from our family :). Mom is going to just love it!

(And now I'm thinking I never posted those pictures from the photographer. Did I??)

The most beautiful towels I've ever seen

2011-10-03T15:28:00.000-04:00

I think I mentioned to you before about the Angel Tree that our kids choir is doing this semester for the orphanage in Haiti, right? Well, when I asked Angie about it (our Northside missionary there) she gave us this one other great idea...towels for each of the children! She had a friend here in the area that could personalize them all for us as well! What a wonderful idea for these precious kids - not only for them to have a new, beautiful towel, but one with their name on it - it was to be ONLY theirs!!! I LOVED the idea and knew we had to do it!!

In order to raise the funds for it, our parents and kids ran a concession stand a few weeks ago during a Back to School Bash that our student ministry had. They brought in Sidewalk Prophets and allowed us to sell concessions. (I was running around like a crazy person and didn't take any pictures...sad, I know.) Our parents responded in an unbelievable show of support by donating baked goods and sodas and volunteering. The littlest kids made signs for us and the older choir helped do the selling - it was a great way for them to get involved in this project! When all was said and done, we raised almost $500 for those precious children! We bought the towels, had their names put on them and I took them to the shipping store on Monday!!

We also bought towels for Angie & Andrew, our missionaries, and their baby girl Faith. :) We couldn't leave them out! We picked lots of bright colors for the towels, and then Kerri did their personalization in all different fun fonts and used each child's favorite color for the thread :)

Alli & her kids came over one night for dinner one night and then helped me wrap all 34 of these towels. This was the sight of them when I walked into the shipping store! I felt so bad for the people that came in after me!! We got them boxed up and on their way!! Now comes the hard part - waiting for them to arrive in Haiti! OH - I wish I could be there to see those precious children open them!

Blondes Must Have More Fun

2011-10-03T14:41:00.003-04:00

As we were driving to church on Wednesday night, Callie SHOUTED out from the backseat "HEY!! We need more blonde hair in this family! We don't want to be a brown hair family and my hair is turning brown!!"

Josiah

2011-10-03T14:41:00.002-04:00

Josiah has only spoken to me in pig Latin since getting home from school today...oh my...between that and "jinx" all the time, he is wearing me out! :)

Our little cheerleader

2011-10-01T15:25:00.000-04:00

I have two boys playing flag football again this year....AND a cheerleader!!!!

(Don't worry...many more pictures to come later of all...but I had to get one of her first game! She's VERY shy out there - not very like her - but she is one of the youngest ones on her squad. It's adorable!)

Sweet Treats with Sweet Friends

2011-09-30T15:20:00.000-04:00

The sad reality is near...our sweet friends are getting ready to move back to WV in just a few short days. We've decided to drown our sorrows in ice cream! :) (Actually, Alli had some groupons she had to use up before leaving town and we were happy to help!) Lucky for us, when we showed up at TCBY, we found out that it was their 30th anniversary and so a small cup of their yogurt was only $1.30!! SCORE!

Callie and Carlie

Jacob, Keatley, Cooper, and Josiah

Caleb sat with Alli and I - and ate EVERY bite of his ice cream (i mean yogurt) and even some of Alli's cookie dough bits - and LOVED it! Go figure! :)

Still moving...

2011-09-30T15:17:00.000-04:00

Still working on getting our "old" main building totally cleaned out and ready for the sale to be closed at the end of the month....which translates to working on Fridays (yes, supposed to be David's day off) and going in to help Daddy alot. Lucky for us, we have two little but very good helpers! :)

HER first haircut...

2011-09-29T15:09:00.000-04:00

I shouldn't be that surprised, right? Every kid does it, or so I've heard. Thursday mornings are a little crazy around here. I should back up. Wednesday nights are a little crazy. It's a late night at church for us. REALLY late if it's a week that I'm singing on praise team. Then Thursday mornings I lead biblestudy from our home. It's worked out great for the last year - the kids always went to a Mother's Morning Out at a church down the street for me. But they cancelled it this year. So without any other options, Callie and Caleb stay home on Thursdays and I pray that they can stay out of trouble. They play upstairs for 45 minutes while I'm leading the discussion and going over our homework....then they are allowed to come downstairs and watch a movie/play in the playroom while we watch our DVD of Beth Moore. They have done well so far.

On this particular Thursday, I had a meeting with one of the ladies in biblestudy afterwards - she is our new Preschool Director at church and we were talking over a few things. The kids were running around and playing, and all of a sudden, Callie came downstairs and looked at me - and I knew. She had cut her hair.

This is the pile of hair I found upstairs.

She gave herself a mullet. Oh my. Totally cut bangs for herself and then cut the sides. Oh my.

She doesn't look very broken up about it, does she? :) Could have been a lot worse I suppose. I know a lot of little girls that have cut bangs WAY up at the hairline - at least these were still decent...but the mullet look was just rough. David about died when he got home and saw it. Poor thing. Good thing we're using our pictures from the beach for the Christmas cards this year!

And He does it again...

2011-09-26T15:05:00.000-04:00

and just because HE loves to bless our socks off (and probably because sometimes it takes 2 or 3 times before we stop and LISTEN to HIM...

...THIS is what we saw when driving to football/cheerleading practice on Monday night!!

God's Promises

2011-09-25T15:01:00.000-04:00

After I finished up kids' choir tonight, I was walking my class over to their Missions class and I heard the torrential downpour occurring outside. Happy to be safe inside and not outside in that rain, I dropped them all off and got back to my work. When we left later on that evening, the storm had passed, and I passed a parent who showed me these pictures he had just taken outside on his phone. How GOOD is our God?

My kids and I just stood there with our mouths hanging open looking at the sky. I LOVE when God overwhelms me.

Callie's Dolls...all of them....

2011-09-23T14:58:00.001-04:00

A sweet lady from church asked me after choir one Sunday night - with Callie standing right there - if we would like to have her barbies....her girls were done with them....I thought Callie was going to stroke out she was so excited!! (Of course, because Callie was right there with me, there was no way I could hide them away and give her two now and save the rest for later, etc) THIS is what we came home with! Everywhere Callie goes, she has to take them ALL with her. They ALL go upstairs together, they ALL come down together, etc. It's pretty funny. She's constantly lining them ALL up on her bed, or ALL up on the couch like this. It cracks me up. I remember doing the same thing. I suppose it's just like Josiah and Jacob lining up their matchbox cars at this age, right? :)

TGIF!

2011-09-23T14:39:00.001-04:00

It's Friday - and Daddy's home!! HOORAY!!!

Free Ice Cream Day at Carvel

2011-09-22T14:56:00.000-04:00

The kids have decided that free ice cream cake is the BEST afternoon snack ever!! Can't say that I disagree! :)

Slightly embarrassed...but very tickled...when I noticed THIS happening next to me....

Callie and puzzles

2011-09-22T14:38:00.001-04:00

Me to Callie: "Good job on that puzzle honey!"

Callie to me: "Yeah, I'm like a rock star!"

:) Guess she's not lacking in self-confidence....

The Playground

2011-09-17T14:52:00.000-04:00

This is the VERY cool new indoor playground at our new church facility. Can you find my kids in these pictures? :)

It worked out great because we had to head up to church today to get some stage things squared away and the kids were HAPPY to go when they found out they could play on the playground while we were there! :)

Caleb the Samurai Warrior...

2011-09-15T14:51:00.000-04:00

Caleb and the Bike

2011-09-14T14:47:00.000-04:00

I can't tell you how many times I've told him he's not big enough for this bike...does it stop him? NO. He's going to be one of those kids that you hear about your friends having that can ride a two-wheeler by the time they are three (Courtney - like Joshua!!!) He can't really push the pedals, but he sure thinks he's hot stuff sitting up on top of it! :)

questions...

2011-09-14T14:37:00.001-04:00

"Questions are good. They leave lots of space for God to fill in the blanks far beyond our imaginations."

- Beth Moore

The day after...

2011-09-12T14:44:00.000-04:00

After a morning yesterday up on the mountaintop, this brought Caleb & I down pretty quick! :) He fell and hit his head right on the corner of our media cabinet. Poor guy - would you believe he didn't even cry? That kid is crazy tough.

I worked on making our "angels" for our Angel Tree. Our kids choir has adopted the kids from Hands and Feet Orphange in Haiti, where two of our our Northside members have moved and are serving as missionaries. Our kids have been SO excited about getting behind this service project and it is exciting to see!!

What a Morning!!!

2011-09-11T09:22:00.000-04:00

This picture obviously does not capture it...but I was on stage the rest of the morning and couldn't very well be taking pictures from up there! :)

Wow. What an incredible morning. A giant testimony of God's faithfulness, His provision, His leading - what an amazing God we serve. Our church bought this land more than 10 years ago. Knowing that one day we would need to relocate to this property in order to have enough room for growth. God has moved so many mountains to make this possible, people have prayed and given sacrificially for years and years - and the time had finally come.

There was so much up in the air because of the construction delays and things were not completed - but that didn't matter. As I was driving to church EARLY that morning, I was singing through our songs for the morning - "Come Fill This Place", "This is Your House" - and I was overwhelmed to the point of tears...in the car! God had been so faithful and so good to us - and what a privilege that he brought David and I here to Northside to get to share in this day.

The morning went amazingly smooth considering the incredible amount of things that could have gone wrong! The stress and exhaustion from the week leading up to it was overwhelming. Earlier in the week I posted this on FB:

"LOTS of change this weekend. As a church, we move into our new property on Sunday. New building. New people. New rooms. New parking place. New drive time (hooray for some of us!!). New hallways. New paint. New AVL stuff. New procedures. New songs. But there are some things that have NOT changed - God and His people. OUR job remains the same - to come before Him on Sunday mornings as empty vessels that He can fill and use. Whether we are in a new building or one that is 150 years old - we have to be emptied out so He can fill us up with HIS Spirit."

So as I said it was an amazing morning. One filled with worship and praise and gratitude to our Lord. When we took the stage to open up our 9:15 service, the preservice 5:00 minute countdown was up on the screen...when it got to 10 seconds, everyone in the room began chanting "10, 9, 8..." - no kidding! And this is NOT the contemporary service! :) Cheers erupted when we got to zero and the service began - I saw so many tears of joy on the faces of these sweet people that have prayed and given and waited for this day for so many years. The attitude of worship was nothing short of overwhelming. The room was completely full - but our hearts were even fuller. Wow. The contemporary service was more of the same - packed room, people standing along the back walls (shhh...don't tell the fire marshall) and an anticipation and eagerness to celebrate what God has done! What a morning.

As the psalmist wrote, THIS is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it! Boy did we rejoice!

All Jacob Wants for Christmas...

2011-09-10T09:20:00.000-04:00

...is his two front teeth!!! The other one came out!!

These toothless boys are really making a dent in our budget this month!! Good grief!

The Day Before...

2011-09-10T09:05:00.000-04:00

I can't even begin to write down the stress and insanity that this week held. We have been anticipating the relocation of our church to our new property for months and months and the week was finally here. The best thing that I can relate it to is when you are moving and trying to get into your new house and set things up but also still trying to pack up your old house, get it emptied out and cleaned out - except multiply that by about 1000! And of course complicating things was the fact that our new building was not going to be totally ready because of some construction delays - so we were cleaning out the old building and putting it not in its permanent place because some areas weren't accessible yet in the new building. Crazy.

David was working these crazy, round the clock hours and every day he'd come home and I would ask him "is it really going to be ready for us?" and he'd say "I don't know" or "they keep telling us it is"! You talk about all hands on deck - the pastors all got a call one morning that the truck had just arrived with the chairs for the worship center and they all needed to get there asap....the truck didn't have a ramp and needed to unload the 900 chairs! It was a week!!

We had an extra rehearsal on Saturday morning with the choir and instruments first - to get our first run through in the new worship center, with the new AVL stuff. The excitement was palpable. This choir has been so dedicated and totally have caught David's vision of where he wants to go in leading the worship in the first blended service. What an incredible group of people they are and such a blessing to us! They have more than doubled their size from about 20 to almost 50 in the last few months and we are excited!!!

The worship that took place that morning was something special. Yes we were trying to figure out microphone and monitor stuff, but our hearts were worshipping at the throne of God. The music was specifically picked by David to capture the theme of dedicating our new building to the Lord. One of the songs we sang was called "This is Your House" by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. One of our favorites and was so perfect for this special day. You can see the lyric on the screen that David was singing in this picture - Let Your glory fill this sanctuary. It talks about "decorating our walls with grace and mercy", that "this is Your house - a holy house of prayer" and on and on. It's incredible - and to be together in that place as we prepared for our grand opening the next day - it was special.

While we were rehearsing - the chairs were being unwrapped and set up...by our senior pastor!! What an amazing leader he is!!!

After the choir finished, the praise team & band for the contemporary service had their run through (which took about 5 hours due to some technical difficulties....people were so kind and patient...bless them.....and it was such a blessing to look out in the worship center and see our choir that had decided to stay after their rehearsal was finished and working alongside of our senior pastor to get the chairs set up. What a special family this family of God is...

Josiah and the VERY loose tooth...

2011-09-07T09:00:00.000-04:00

Josiah's other front tooth had been loose for quite some time. He was emphatic about wanting to pull it out HIMSELF though - which meant it was going to hang in there for quite some time...Finally, we were eating dinner one night and whatever he bit into, just about tooth his tooth out. He jumped up from the table and I knew that this was FINALLY it! :)

See it just hanging there? Gross!

Jacob was so excited to watch - Josiah was freaking out a little bit...but still totally wanting to try to do it himself. It was a very big deal to him (which was hilarious to me...)

He did it! Pulled it out himself! :)

Bowling!

2011-09-05T08:50:00.000-04:00

We went bowling with our friends on Monday - unfortunately, by the time I started taking pictures, Caleb had already lost interest and was drawing...

Alli was still going strong though, and is a secret bowling club member I think. She was great!

The little kids had all jumped ship by this point and were drawing on the floor...while the big kids happily bowled for them. :) Thank heavens for Groupons - no money lost!

Labor Day Picnic!

2011-09-04T08:38:00.000-04:00

The annual Northside Labor Day Picnic is always a fun family afternoon. The weather is FINALLY getting cooler, free sno-cones and bounce houses, and an outdoor movie - what more do you need! :)

Caleb was insistent about carrying his chair out all by himself when we arrived. Poor baby - "his" chair is actually one of Callie's old chairs that a neighbor gave us with Dora on it....I've got to get him a boy chair!! :)

I mean seriously - what's NOT to love about a sno-cone!

Our sweet neighbor Melodie arrived and sat in front of us with her family. She is playing keyboards for David in the contemporary service and piano for the choir in the blended service. To say she is tremendously talented and blessing to have on board with us would be an understatement!!!

Callie and Carlie - these girls are a HOOT together!!

We settled in with our popcorn to watch the outdoor movie - "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" - and loved it!

This how Caleb fell asleep on the way home. Happy as could be! :)

Movie Night

2011-09-03T08:35:00.000-04:00

Our friend Noah came over and had a movie night with us - and Caleb wanted to be RIGHT in the middle of the action! He laid RIGHT on top of Jacob for a little while before David took him up to bed :)

Music Maestro

2011-09-02T17:58:00.000-04:00

Every spare minute of our free time this month has been spent cleaning out the old main building of the church in anticipation of the move...

Caleb decided to provide us with some background music while David & I worked on cleaning out the choir room :)