Something else to think about

I know that this ad is put on by catholicvote.org, but it's message is still profound. I find it also interesting that they use him considering his pro-choice views. 

Hockeytown

Since hockey isn't big in the south, or at least in South Carolina, we enjoy any chance to see a hockey game. Scott's sisters gave us tickets to a game while we were up there. Here are pictures. I know that some of them are really pointless, but I took them to show the kids what hockey is all about.

Just a warning....

It may be a while before I post pictures from the Friday after Thanksgiving. I'm kinda dreading the sorting process. According to Picasa, there are 135 pictures in the one folder. Yah. I'm procrastinating.....................................

Neither Pumpkin nor Pecan

Unlike Pumpkin and Pecan, our turkey did not receive the presidential pardon. Instead, he found his home in a vat of hot oil. Scott did the honors.

Signs of fall

One of the things I love about our neighborhood is that, even though we're just off of a busy road, the surrounding trees make us feel like we're distant. However, every year at fall, we are reminded that we aren't alone.


The house behind us

The house paparazzi style

The "Thomas" tracks by our house

The new apartment complex up on the hill

What a day!

First of all, my apologies for not having the blog updated in the past week. We've been having major technical difficulties, causing us to erase our hard drive and start all over again. Anyway, here's an explanation of the next 3 posts. Saturday, November 1, was by far one of the craziest days of my life. Scott & I took the kids trick-or-treating Friday night. Then, I got up at 3:30 Sat AM to fly up to MI for the day. I got up there in time for my friend Kelley's bridal shower. After the shower finished, and clean-up was done, I went to my nephew Drew's basketball game out in Novi with my brother Tracy and his family. On the way home, we stopped by a cider mill for doughnuts and cider. From there, we went by his house and then to dinner with the rest of the family. I went back to my mom's house and visited for about an hour and then went to bed, only to get up at 4:30 Sun AM to fly back to SC and meet Scott & the kids after church. What a day. My apologies to family up there that I didn't get to see. It was a whirlwind trip. We'll be back in 15 days. See you then.

Pumpkin carving time

We were invited to a pumpkin carving party again this year. Last year, we did the block M for Michigan. This year, Scott chose Annie from the Little Einsteins. If you don't have kids, you probably don't know who she is. However, all the kids there, loved it. Anyway here are pictures.
If you look carefully at 2 of the small pumpkins, those are the ones that the kids "carved". You can see smiley faces.

Tour of Champtions

Last month, the Gymnastics Tour of Champions came to town. Some friends who had the JD box seats gave us their extra tickets. Lauren absolutely loved the 1st half. She came down with something during the intermission, and she managed to throw up before we left after the 2nd half. She was up throwing up all night. It was a great night. But the first part of the night was incredible. Since no flash photography was allowed, the pictures are kinda dark, but I thought I'd share them anyway.
The setup before the show started.

I managed to take a picture just as the strobe light flashed right before us. At least it illuminated the picture somewhat. :)

Nastia Lukin

I think that's Jonathan Horton on the high bar. I don't remember who was on the floor.

New heights of stupidity

Of course, it's stupidity from where I'm sitting, but clearly there are those out there that think that this is logical. Pardon my soapbox, but it just struck me as odd. Now, I'm all about 1st Amendment rights and all, including the one about free speech, but sometimes, people need to think about their speech before they say it. So, the atheists and agnostics and the like have come together to put this ad out in D.C. just in time for Christmas. I find it interesting that they chose Christmas for this. Follow my logic, if you will. Christmas-> Santa Claus-> Saint Nicholas-> "Saint" giving reference to a religious person who did good things-> "Religion"- completely taboo for atheists, therefore causing them to despise the "source" of the holiday-> thereby causing them to despise the holiday itself and all references to anything non-"Happy Holidays" and actually seeking to change it. Why, then, if they hate this time of year so much, do they chose to promote their beliefs on the most despised part of the calendar? Is it because people are emotionally driven, with all the snow, and the lights, and so on and what not? They think that people will start pondering why they're doing what they're doing? Who knows. Even if people don't truly understand the real meaning of Christmas, what's wrong with letting them do things to please the god that they think exists? Why take that away from them? Please don't misunderstand me. I don't think that doing good works for a false religion is right, it's just the facts of man. All men know at some level that God exists. Some have chosen to suppress that knowledge. Some haven't heard the Good News. Some replace that knowledge with vain attempts to create their own god. The sin nature combined with a knowledge of a god lead them to do good things in order to satisfy their own consciences. This usually seems to peak around Christmas time, when people are most emotional and sentimental..........

Anyway, back to my point.......Leave it to the atheists to use a holiday they don't believe in, despise, and try to obliterate, to try to convert people to their way of thinking. It's like using Ramadan to convert people to Christianity. It just doesn't make sense. But, that's just me. I guess there are thousands, if not millions, of people out there that think it makes excellent sense. Whatever. It's a way to make money and convert followers. The joys of capitalism. Enjoy it while it lasts. :)

4-Year old definitions

So, here are some words that Lauren has asked me to define lately. (Don't worry. I still have 12 more folders of pictures to upload.) I thought I'd pass these along to see how you would define them to a just-over-4-year-old.

Glory
Honor
Reverence
Respect
Lord
[a word which was given a strong admonition against using]- she wanted to know what other words we don't say.

Other random questions/statements.
Why did Mary have Jesus even though she wasn't married to Joseph? (because "we don't do that, do we, Mommy?")
How much is the gas here? (She asks that every time we drive by a gas station.) To answer that question, I saw Regular for $1.62! Crazy, huh. Especially considering it was just over $4 not that long ago.
On election day, while waiting in line-"Mommy, how old do I have to be to vote?" "18" "Oh. How about if I'm 19?" "That's fine. As long as you're over 18." [Ryan pipes up] "I'm going to be 6" [chuckles from people standing around us] [Lauren in a mothering tone] "Nooo Ryan. You have to be over 18, like 19, or 20, or 21....." [She continued to count until I finally stopped her, at which point, she informed me that when she turned 19, she was going to vote for John McCain. Yes, I watch Fox News a lot, but Scott & I hadn't really discussed politics because we both knew we were voting for the same person.] As the afternoon wore on, I turned on FNC to see how the polls were faring. Of course, they kept going between the McCain and Obama headquarters. Lauren was pointing out who each of the men were (which I found particularly strange, since like I mentioned, we didn't discuss politics). The next day, when everyone on every channel was talking about President-elect Obama, Lauren pipes in with "Oh maaan! I really wanted John McCain!" which she said like she was truly devastated. I couldn't help but laugh. This kid has no idea what she'd talking about. She does know, however, that she needs a new presidents place mat since "W. Bush isn't president any more." What a kid.

Well, I digress. Anyway, you get the point. Conversations are always interesting around here.

Finally.....................

If you don't view my blog through a reader of sorts, you probably won't know this, but I finally, after almost 2 months, finished 2 posts. They are from June. I actually started them the week after Scott's best friend died. Yep. It was a loong time ago.

Anyway, in the time since then, God has continued to hurl lessons at me. The week after James' death, our youth/stewardship pastor (he's in a period of transition until next month.) was diagnosed with Leukemia. He was also 31 years old. God has taught me so many lessons from both Matt's life, as well as from the life of his wife Kimberly. As the blogging absence has taught me, if I try to list all of the lessons, it will take me another couple of months. Anyway, it's amazing to see what God is doing in our church. From the beginning of May until the end of June, this is what has happened. 1) A young man, who was just graduating from college was going out to Utah on a mission trip. On his way out there, he stopped off in Colorodo to visit friends. While going mountain climbing, he fell 150 feet, breaking almost every bone in his body. Yet, amazingly, he suffered no spine or head injuries. Still, the recovery process has been hard and full of set-backs. 2) Ken Bartholmew died. 3) James Larsen died at the age of 31. 4) Matt got diagnosed with cancer. It's been a long summer and it was a very long 2 months. However, God is still good. He is still on the throne.

Anyway, scroll down for new posts.

More help

I don't know what I'd do without the blog. So, Lauren is constantly scared every night. She's usually awake for a couple hours every morning, somewhere between the hours of 2-5. Anyway, I was going to have her color a picture of Jesus "caring" for children. If she put it on her nightstand, she could look at it and say Bible verses when she got scared. I've found a couple pictures on the internet, but they're a little to.....I don't know.....weird for me. Anyway, I didn't know if anyone knew of good "Jesus" pictures without going to "relic" or "icon"ic.

Brain Freeze

OK, here's a dumb question, but I know that you like Dr. Seuss books. (I mean, who doesn't?) Ok, I just got done painting Ryan's room (pictures later) and it reminds me of a Dr. Seuss book, but I can't think of which one it is. It has a white dog with bright polka dots on it. I checked Go Dog, Go!, Hop on Pop, One Fish, Two Fish. Any other ideas? It's driving me nuts!

Gas price adventures

Ok, I've learned to not complain, at least out loud, about our gas prices. Reason #1, I think we're living in the "good ol' days." It won't be long before we reminisce about how cheep gas was at $4/gallon. Reason #2, no matter our gas prices, they are always higher in the North. Here are random pictures that I took of gas prices. This is proof for my fellow Southerners that our prices aren't that bad. (How pathetic is that?!)

This is the cheapest gas we found in MI (note that even the BP across the corner was more)


This is what we paid just before we left for SC


This is the most expensive that we found


For my readers elsewhere, what is gas where you live? When we finally got home and filled up for the last time, we paid $3.66.

Food creations

Those of you who know me, know that the cooking portion of Home Ec was not my strong point. However, summer foods seem so much more fun than winter foods. Anyway, here are some of my latest discovered fun summer foods. (The chips & salsa I actually discovered last year.)

Peppermint patty "hamburgers" (with coconut "lettuce" and without)

For some reason, things never turn out as good as how they appear in the receipe.


Cinnamon chips and fruit salsa (it's strawberries, kiwi, apples, & raspberries)

Warning: Plastic is not made for the oven

Let me preface this post: Back at the beginning of May, in the midst of the maelstrom that is my life, I had to rapid fire clean my house in under 5 minutes due to a lady from church coming over (the fear of man will get you in trouble every time!). Well, I have these 2 plastic cupcake carriers that I love and use like crazy. Well, their storage place is in the tiny cupboard above the fridge. I didn't have time to go through and clean everything out and try to shove it in there. I opted for something I have only done 1 other time (and this is the reason why)- I put them in the oven. I know, I know, at this point, you're already rolling your eyes because you know what's about to happen. However, I usually always make sure that I open the oven at least once before turning it on. (I'm a big fan of the preset cook feature. I usually put dinner-or whatever- in at 4, and it cooks automatically to be ready at 6:30. I love that feature.) Well, I digress......

So, that night, I was making a big spaghetti dinner. Everything was pretty much done. I just had to throw the bread in the oven. Not thinking, and since bread only takes a couple minutes to bake, I opted to not use the aforementioned preset cook feature. Well, I crank the oven up to 420. Yep, that's hot. Well, I'm getting the bread ready on the the cookie sheet, and trying to keep an eye on the kids. I'm picking stuff up around the house and I start to smell something. I thought that maybe I had spilled something on the oven floor last time I baked and didn't realize it. I go over to the kitchen to check on the oven and I see a little smoke coming from the oven. All of a sudden, it hit me! I'm an idiot!!! There were orange flames everywhere in the oven! I turned the oven off, and then the smoke really started to pour out of the oven. I watch to make sure that the flames are actually getting smaller. I gather the kids and we head outside, barefoot and all.

To make a long story short, we had dinner at Roly Poly's that night. We were late for Shepherding Group. Plus, I had to clean the oven at some point. What had been about 4 inches of plastic ended up being about 2. Note: Never store non-oven safe things in the oven.

On a side note, the lady that was supposed to be coming over, the reason for my lazy storage of the containers, canceled and showed up on Thursday.

Scott ended up taking all the racks to work and using a blow torch to get the plastic off of them. I scraped the bottom and the sides. Once I got most of it off, except for that paper-thin layer, I had to use the self-clean cycle twice. Plus it took a lot of cooking before the smell faded. Hopefully, the plastic fumes won't have toxic effects on us. :)

Yep, he's a guy

Lately, Ryan has taken a fascination with cords. He matches up our audio/video cords in the right spot without us showing him where they go. I guess that electronics really is in the genes of the male species. Below is the picture of the first time he did it. (And, lest you think he just copied what we do, we never use the jacks on the front of the DVD player.) Anyway, I know it's nothing special. It's just one of those things that only a mother finds special. I just thought I'd share it with you.

So, I've been busy......

Well, apparently, one of the gifts that God has given me is the gift of organizing/planning. Now, for those of you who know me and know what my house looks like, I'm sure you'd disagree with me. However, if you notice, I didn't say that it was organizing my house, just things/events. I'm sure most of my blog stalkers have given up on me. Sorry about the huge gap in postings. I've been planning stuff like crazy since my last post. Between church, ministries, helping friends, housing projects, and a class reunion. After the reunion next week, I have a couple more things planned, however, I'm stopping this addiction. It's consuming my life. This is the first chance I've had to actually sit uninterrupted and update the blog. Scott & the kids are at our church's annual Dad & Kids Greenville Drive baseball game. That means I have about 4-4 1/2 hours of complete quiet and free from interruptions. I haven't been completely by myself for any thing longer than an hour in.....well, I forget how long it's been. Anyway, I'm enjoying it. What am I doing with my free time, you ask. Well, I'm updating the blog (duh! since you're reading this), watching The Chicks as the kids call it, or Alvin and the Chipmunks as we grown-ups call it, doing laundry, and updating our Sunday school class email directory. Fun times. Anyway, all that to explain my long absence. It's not like absolutely nothing happened in the past 2 months. I have lots of pictures to upload. There are also a couple "rambling" posts that are on my heart. To save you a lot of boredom, I'll stick those in between some "picture" posts.

My apologies to those of you who thought I dropped off the face of the earth. I'm back. Hopefully I won't be gone that long again. If I could just get the kids to work around my blogging schedules. :) Until then.......

Really?!

So, when we bought our house, we loved the fact that it was at the end of a cul-de-sac. Well, apparently, the people diagonal from us thought the same thing. I don't know if they carpool to work or what, but this Saturn is in front of our house almost every day. Usually, the guy is pretty good about keeping it within 2 feet of the curb. However, lately, it seems that he's just trying to get it somewhere in the circle. This morning was about the worst I had seen it. You can't really tell from the picture, but the car is a good 5 feet from the curb. I'm not exaggerating. I could easily lay on the ground between the car and our curb. However, I didn't want to be too obvious and go outside and actually stand out there to take the picture, so this one from our front door will have to suffice for now. Interestingly enough, the car doesn't even belong to the house in the background. It belongs to the house to the left of them. I guess people don't really feel the need to park in front of the house they're visiting or whatever. Sheesh. Anyway, I thought I'd use this as an opportunity to remind everyone to be courteous to other drivers and homeowners when parking in front of some one else's house.

$4,000 worth of fun

For about the past month or so, Scott has been building these XBox 360 game stations to go on the tour trucks. One company charged $4,000 for one station. However, JD needed4. Being the creative handy man that he is, Scott decided that he could build them and save the company money. Anyway, here are the 1st two. The other Michelin and BFG ones will be done this week.



Working hard or hardly working? You decide.