Know and Tell Friday

The girls over at Kicking It in Crazyville have started this thing called, "Know and Tell Friday." I think it's pretty cool, so here are my responses. If you're into this sort of thing, leave a comment and let me know your answers, or post them on your blog and let me know you did! I'll come check them out:

1. Pepsi or coke? Neither--it's DIET Pepsi!

2. Barefoot or shoes? Barefoot, definitely barefoot

3. If you watch American Idol – who do you want to win, David A or David C? David C--he's from my hometown...go KC! Plus, he's just really cool.

4. If money was not an option and you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why? Anywhere in Europe. I've only been to Paris and would love to go back. But there are so many other places in Europe I'd like to visit as well.

5. Is your desk messy or clean? Clean, but it's Hubby's fault. He's a neatfreak to the core!

6. When it's sunny, all I want to do is.......lie outside on a blanket and read a book.

7. What is your favorite word and why? Home...it stirs so many warm, cozy feelings.

Bonus Question: What song best describes you when you wake up in the morning? "Cruella De Ville" from 101 Dalmatians "...if she doesn't scare you, no evil thing will!"

Amazing Feats of Strength

In the last 8 months of my son's life, he has amazed me with his strength and agility. He seems to be especially adept physically, even at his young age. My mom swears she saw him hold his head up and look around in the hospital nursery only moments after he was born. But what happened this morning simply amazed me (humor me, I'm his mom!)...

I put him in his high chair, clipped the tray on (or so I thought), and walked to the fridge to make his breakfast. I heard a "clatter" and turned around in time to see him kick the tray loose (apparently I didn't get it as secure as I thought). But what followed was simply astonishing. As the tray started to slide off the chair, my little Bam-Bam grabbed hold of the side and hung on--as it dangled from his little fist--until I made the mad dash across the kitchen to retrieve it! I'm thinking of training him to lift heavy furniture for me when I vacuum.

Of course now that I've astonished you all with the wonders of my youngest child, I feel a little weird posting the following article. It's an article that a friend sent me recently on how some parents are rethinking blogging about their children. It is a good article, and definitely something I think all bloggers should consider, so I will post the link below. However, I must admit I don't make $40,000 a month on my blog, so I don't in any way feel that I am "using" my children or selling them out. If I ever do make $40,000/month blogging, then I will rethink the whole thing (so stay tuned as I'm sure that's going to happen any day!). But for now, I really enjoy sharing the adorable moments that make me smile and laugh and say, "Thank you, God, for my children."

Click here to read the article.

Music To My Ears

One of my Mother's Day gifts was the new Steven Curtis Chapman CD, This Moment. Hubby bought the CD for the song, "Cinderella." (If you haven't heard it yet, you MUST visit the SCC web site and listen to it!) But another song, "One Heartbeat At A Time," has quickly become my favorite. Not only is it amazingly appropriate for Mother's Day, it happens to be exactly what I need to hear at this moment in my life so I wanted to share the lyrics with you here. Hopefully they will be as powerful a reminder to other moms as it was to me:

One Heartbeat at a Time
by Steven Curtis Chapman from the album This Moment

You're up all night with a screaming baby
You run all day at the speed of life
And every day you feel a little bit less
Like the beautiful woman you are
So you fall into bed when you run out of hours
And you wonder if anything worth doing got done
Oh, maybe you just don't know
Or maybe you've forgotten

You, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time
Making history with every touch and every smile
Oh, you, you may not see it now
But I believe that time will tell
How you, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time

With every "I know you can do it"
Every tear that you kiss away
So many little things that seem to go unnoticed
They're just like the drops of rain over time
They become a river

And you, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time
Making history with every touch and every smile
Oh, you, you may not see it now
But I believe that time will tell
How you, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time

You're beautiful
You're beautiful
How you're changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time
Making history with every touch and every smile
Oh, you, you may not see it now
But I believe that time will tell
How you, you are changing the world
One little heartbeat at a time

And you're changing the world

Happy Mother's Day!

Last year my husband started a tradition of sorts. The day before Mother's Day, he takes our daughter (and some day our son, too, I'm sure) to pick out flowers for me. He does it on Saturday so that I can enjoy them for the whole weekend. These are the flowers my sweet little girl picked out for me today. She walked in carrying them and said, "These are because we love you, Mommy. Happy Mother's Day!" (I don't care if she was coached on what to say...it was so sweet it melted my heart!

Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms!!

Grandma's Wisdom

While visiting my grandmother last week, I saw the following quotes on her fridge. I've seen, and read, these quotes many times throughout the years, but now that I am a Mom, they have a whole new meaning. I have no idea who to credit for them (other than my grandma), but I hope you enjoy them:

Our children may do wrong, but they must not do wrong with our
permission.

Children need love the most when they deserve it the least.

Going Home

My trip to KC was a lot of fun. The purpose was two-fold: (1) to promote my book, and (2) to visit my old home church and some family. (The conference was held at my former home church and my parents were attending the conference.)

The book promotion wasn't exactly a huge success. We only sold a few copies (thank you, Lora for purchasing most of them!), but we did have a lot of people express interest in the book. Hopefully they will remember once they get home and order it online. It was good to get the word out.

The kids had a BLAST visiting with "Nanee and PaPa." I'm not sure which my parents enjoyed more...showing off their grandkids to all their friends or bragging that their oldest daughter had written a book!

It was a bit bizarre visiting my "home" church to which I hadn't returned in almost 15 years! The building had changed tremendously (but the sanctuary was eerily the same). There were some of the same faces, but now they had a few more wrinkles, a few more gray hairs, and a few more children in tow! It was like a weird time warp between 1998 and 2008. While it was nice to "step back in time," it's good to be back to my present and the things and people I now know. It's a wonderful church, and the people are great, but there's nothing like "going back" to make one thankful for where they are now!

I was also able to spend some time with my life-long friend, Lora (check out her blog My Blessed Life). Our parents were friends long before we arrived on the scene, and since both our parents were there, too, we had three generations of friendship going on. It was really cool. Lora and I hadn't seen each other in ages. It was great to see her and her beautiful family, and visit some of the places we had hung out together 15 years ago!

Lora and me at The Country Club Plaza, Kansas City, MO

Three generations of friendship...me and Lora with our moms and daughters.

After the conference, the kids and I spent a couple days at my grandma's about 30 minutes south of KC. My daughter LOVED the chance to run and play on "G's" property. (The great-grandkids have dubbed my grandma "G.") She also loved playing with G's dog, Lacey.

"G" with the kiddos

And the best part of going home...grandma's fried chicken!! YUM!!

All in all, it was a fun--and exhausting--trip!

I'm Baack!

Well, I've actually been back for a few days now, but with piles of laundry to catch up on, and tired, cranky kiddos, I just haven't had a chance to post. I promise I will give highlights of my trip soon...complete with pictures!