When we all get to heaven, I’m really hoping that we’ll instinctively join in the singing and dancing--which I know must be constant there—and that all together we’ll sound something like this:
Not studio-perfect or even alike in any way. But each person adding their own personal and therefore beautiful color and experience in order to create the whole, amazing tapestry of song, art, dance, and genuine joy.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
County Fair
We went to the Galveston County fair last night and the verdict is: AWESOME! It was just our kind of county fair--small, lots of animals, fair food. We get over-stimulated by the huge county fairs--there's just too much to see.
Also, last night was kid's night, so it only cost 4 bucks for our entire family to get in (which also accounts for the incredibly positive verdict. Free=good).
As soon as we got in, we took of course took part in the obligatory Tractor Pull--well, er, Stevie did and he KICKED CAN! He seriously took care of business. I've never seen his little legs pump so fast. And the ONLY REASON he didn't win was because the other kid had a 2 inches and a full year on him.
Look at the calves on that kid. I mean, seriously!
But at least Stevie got this smokin' blue ribbon for being amazingly awesome.
Next it was off to the BEST PETTING ZOO EVER!! Steven and I could not get over the incredulousness of this petting zoo. Not only did they have the requisite goats and such, but they had a BABY CAMEL,
(They also had an adult camel...but it was kind of unruly and therefore behind a fence).
A ZEBRA,
(Seriously, when's the last time you petted a ZEBRA?)
A BABY LLAMA (oooohhh, so adorable)
And a friggin' KANGAROO, for cryin' out loud!
(FYI, do you know how AMAZINGLY soft Kangaroo fur is? I wanted to take a nap on it right there--but was pretty sure the act would have negative consequences).
Then, it was off to the various food vendors for some oh-so-delicious and oh-so-disgusting fair food. You can see Steven noting the evilness with his devil sign.
Stevie was getting mad crazy on that Turkey Leg. (Why did I capitalize Turkey Leg?)
We finished off the night with some carnival games and rides, which were just too fun. I have to give kudos to Galveston county for having such a fun, hick, boot-scootin', rootin-tootin' county fair. We'll definitely be back next year.
Also, last night was kid's night, so it only cost 4 bucks for our entire family to get in (which also accounts for the incredibly positive verdict. Free=good).
As soon as we got in, we took of course took part in the obligatory Tractor Pull--well, er, Stevie did and he KICKED CAN! He seriously took care of business. I've never seen his little legs pump so fast. And the ONLY REASON he didn't win was because the other kid had a 2 inches and a full year on him.
Look at the calves on that kid. I mean, seriously!
But at least Stevie got this smokin' blue ribbon for being amazingly awesome.
Next it was off to the BEST PETTING ZOO EVER!! Steven and I could not get over the incredulousness of this petting zoo. Not only did they have the requisite goats and such, but they had a BABY CAMEL,
(They also had an adult camel...but it was kind of unruly and therefore behind a fence).A ZEBRA,
(Seriously, when's the last time you petted a ZEBRA?)A BABY LLAMA (oooohhh, so adorable)
And a friggin' KANGAROO, for cryin' out loud!
(FYI, do you know how AMAZINGLY soft Kangaroo fur is? I wanted to take a nap on it right there--but was pretty sure the act would have negative consequences).Then, it was off to the various food vendors for some oh-so-delicious and oh-so-disgusting fair food. You can see Steven noting the evilness with his devil sign.
Stevie was getting mad crazy on that Turkey Leg. (Why did I capitalize Turkey Leg?)
We finished off the night with some carnival games and rides, which were just too fun. I have to give kudos to Galveston county for having such a fun, hick, boot-scootin', rootin-tootin' county fair. We'll definitely be back next year.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
FLOOD
Steven, the boys and I decided to go to our favorite restuarant "La Brisa" for lunch today with my dad. Big mistake. While leaving the restaurant, the lights went out, and it looked like night outside. As we started driving home, it rained torrentially. I was praying the entire time.
When we got to HWY 3, we realized that the roads were flooding, and that our puny little Toyota corrolla wasn't going to make it. We ended up pulling in a church parking lot, and after many minutes of agonizing over what to do, we decided to walk home.
At first it was rather fun--walking through knee-deep water drifts while splashing around as much as we could. But then it started raining harder, so we decided to take shelter for a bit in the Dairy Queen until the rain died down.
While we were there, a completely wonderful couple named Tiffany and Robert offered to drive us the rest of the way home (because the flooding on 518 was pretty minimal). We were so incredibly grateful to be suprised by such kindness--I mean, seriously--these people allowed a strange, water-logged family of four into their leather-interiored car. If that isn't Christ-like, then I don't know what is.
As we turned onto Newport, we all groaned. The street was COMPLETELY flooded, and even had a car floating out in the middle. Tiffany and Robert wished us luck, and we decided to walk the rest of the way home--(it wasn't far).
Along the way, we helped the owners of the floating car push it up onto higher ground. Then we waded the sometimes waist-deep water all the way home.
The boys were such little troopers. I was so proud of them and their awesome attitude. It made it all seem like an exciting adventure, rather than a harrowing experience. But I'm glad it's over and that we're all showered and wrapped in blankets, ready to do some serious popcorn-eating and movie-watching.
The real question is: do you think we'll still have church tomorrow?
When we got to HWY 3, we realized that the roads were flooding, and that our puny little Toyota corrolla wasn't going to make it. We ended up pulling in a church parking lot, and after many minutes of agonizing over what to do, we decided to walk home.
At first it was rather fun--walking through knee-deep water drifts while splashing around as much as we could. But then it started raining harder, so we decided to take shelter for a bit in the Dairy Queen until the rain died down.
While we were there, a completely wonderful couple named Tiffany and Robert offered to drive us the rest of the way home (because the flooding on 518 was pretty minimal). We were so incredibly grateful to be suprised by such kindness--I mean, seriously--these people allowed a strange, water-logged family of four into their leather-interiored car. If that isn't Christ-like, then I don't know what is.
As we turned onto Newport, we all groaned. The street was COMPLETELY flooded, and even had a car floating out in the middle. Tiffany and Robert wished us luck, and we decided to walk the rest of the way home--(it wasn't far).
Along the way, we helped the owners of the floating car push it up onto higher ground. Then we waded the sometimes waist-deep water all the way home.
The boys were such little troopers. I was so proud of them and their awesome attitude. It made it all seem like an exciting adventure, rather than a harrowing experience. But I'm glad it's over and that we're all showered and wrapped in blankets, ready to do some serious popcorn-eating and movie-watching.
The real question is: do you think we'll still have church tomorrow?
Monday, April 13, 2009
Easter In An Eggshell (yuk, yuk, yuk)
We dyed Easter Eggs late Saturday night, and the boys were really quite impressed. I initially thought that the fizzing pills in the dye were going to steal the show.
But the kids soon got the hang of it and were dying away. And then re-dying after we ran out of eggs. Which made for some interestingly colored eggs.
Easter Sunday was yesterday and it was quite a day. We had a plumber come to our house at 8:30am to fix our COMPLETELY clogged up toilets—(I don’t know about you, but I totally panic when the toilet gets stopped up. I just know that SOMEONE is going to have an explosive diarrhea attack before the plumber arrives. Luckily, no one did. WHEW!)
After that rather ominous start to the day, we let the kids have some Easter egg basket fun. Steven’s parents used to sprinkle flour near the Easter baskets, and then make little “rabbit prints” in the flour with their fingers. We did it this year and Steven said, “Look, boys, the Easter bunny’s footprints!” Very cute.
(This is seriously the best picture I got of them—which is sad).
Church was lovely. We had some nice presentations in Primary, and Steven and I sang in Sacrament meeting. My dad drove up from Galveston to hear us (which is a good thing, because he wrangled our children for us while we were up at the podium).
Afterwards we headed back to our house for dinner and an impromptu Easter egg hunt in the back yard. The dinner was questionable (the roast tasted like old shoes, Steve botched the corn and I burned the rolls), but the Easter egg hunt was quite fun. The boys were a bit swollen with pride over their enormous haul.
Steven and I were just relieved the day went well and was relatively disaster-free.
But the kids soon got the hang of it and were dying away. And then re-dying after we ran out of eggs. Which made for some interestingly colored eggs.
Easter Sunday was yesterday and it was quite a day. We had a plumber come to our house at 8:30am to fix our COMPLETELY clogged up toilets—(I don’t know about you, but I totally panic when the toilet gets stopped up. I just know that SOMEONE is going to have an explosive diarrhea attack before the plumber arrives. Luckily, no one did. WHEW!)
After that rather ominous start to the day, we let the kids have some Easter egg basket fun. Steven’s parents used to sprinkle flour near the Easter baskets, and then make little “rabbit prints” in the flour with their fingers. We did it this year and Steven said, “Look, boys, the Easter bunny’s footprints!” Very cute.
(This is seriously the best picture I got of them—which is sad).
Church was lovely. We had some nice presentations in Primary, and Steven and I sang in Sacrament meeting. My dad drove up from Galveston to hear us (which is a good thing, because he wrangled our children for us while we were up at the podium).
Afterwards we headed back to our house for dinner and an impromptu Easter egg hunt in the back yard. The dinner was questionable (the roast tasted like old shoes, Steve botched the corn and I burned the rolls), but the Easter egg hunt was quite fun. The boys were a bit swollen with pride over their enormous haul.
Steven and I were just relieved the day went well and was relatively disaster-free.
Friday, April 10, 2009
A Quote
"Spending time with you makes me think of meatloaf in a whole new way."
-Amber Cowley
(Is this a compliment, or should I be offended? You decide.)
-Amber Cowley
(Is this a compliment, or should I be offended? You decide.)
On My Boys' General Cuteness...
I often agonize over the fact that I let Stevie watch too much TV. He also gets quite carried away with computer games and playing the Wii. So naturally I felt pretty good as I watched some of the imaginative games my kids have been playing the past few days.
Yesterday, Stevie assembled all his toy drums together. He assigned a (drum set) name to each drum. Then he would say (out loud), “Hi, my name is Stevie and I play the drums. This is my bass drum,”—then plays it—“This is my snare, this is my floor tom, this is my high tom, these are my cymbals. And when you put it all together, it sounds like this:”—then he begins playing uproarious drum solos on his faux-set. He ends by saying “That’s it! My name is Stevie, and my cool trick is playing drums!”
To be fair, this is definitely not Stevie’s original idea—he’s quoting almost VERBATIM from the latest creepy preschool show, Yo Gabba Gabba. (It’s actually a pretty cool little show if you can get past the weirdness—especially DJ Lance and his unexplainable bright orange body-suit and Russian fur hat [also orange]). But the thing I was so excited about was 1) he remembered ALL the names of the drums AND all the words to the “script” and 2) he was performing them with feeling in an interesting way. So maybe it’s not Hamlet, but hey—I was impressed.
If you’ve ever been in my boys’ room, you know that it’s covered in those glow-in-the-dark stick-on stars and planets. (We got them at Frys, and the boys love it—Steven and I figure that as long as we’re in NASA country, we might as well get them excited about space). Well yesterday I saw that my husband had attached this round battery-operated night light to the wall, and had titled it the “sun”-- which made the solar system complete. I went in there awhile ago and the boys had flashlights and were exploring the universe.
Today we played “Name that Sound.” We gathered all our toy musical instruments in a box, and went inside a dark closet. Then we each took turns playing an instrument out of the box, and everyone else had to guess what instrument it was. As loud as this game is, the dark room makes me sleepy.
Just a few minutes ago, Stevie asked me if I wanted to play soccer. I was unfortunately unable to at the moment, so he enlists his little brother to help. Stevie assigned the role of “catcher” to David (which I can only assume means goalie) and they had a rip-roaring game of soccer right in the living room—that is until David snatched the ball and began running away yelling “MY BALL! MY BALL!” General pandemonium followed.
Hopefully, some of these anecdotes will make up for the hours and hours of Nick Jr. my children have inevitably watched (and can apparently quote).
Yesterday, Stevie assembled all his toy drums together. He assigned a (drum set) name to each drum. Then he would say (out loud), “Hi, my name is Stevie and I play the drums. This is my bass drum,”—then plays it—“This is my snare, this is my floor tom, this is my high tom, these are my cymbals. And when you put it all together, it sounds like this:”—then he begins playing uproarious drum solos on his faux-set. He ends by saying “That’s it! My name is Stevie, and my cool trick is playing drums!”
To be fair, this is definitely not Stevie’s original idea—he’s quoting almost VERBATIM from the latest creepy preschool show, Yo Gabba Gabba. (It’s actually a pretty cool little show if you can get past the weirdness—especially DJ Lance and his unexplainable bright orange body-suit and Russian fur hat [also orange]). But the thing I was so excited about was 1) he remembered ALL the names of the drums AND all the words to the “script” and 2) he was performing them with feeling in an interesting way. So maybe it’s not Hamlet, but hey—I was impressed.
If you’ve ever been in my boys’ room, you know that it’s covered in those glow-in-the-dark stick-on stars and planets. (We got them at Frys, and the boys love it—Steven and I figure that as long as we’re in NASA country, we might as well get them excited about space). Well yesterday I saw that my husband had attached this round battery-operated night light to the wall, and had titled it the “sun”-- which made the solar system complete. I went in there awhile ago and the boys had flashlights and were exploring the universe.
Today we played “Name that Sound.” We gathered all our toy musical instruments in a box, and went inside a dark closet. Then we each took turns playing an instrument out of the box, and everyone else had to guess what instrument it was. As loud as this game is, the dark room makes me sleepy.
Just a few minutes ago, Stevie asked me if I wanted to play soccer. I was unfortunately unable to at the moment, so he enlists his little brother to help. Stevie assigned the role of “catcher” to David (which I can only assume means goalie) and they had a rip-roaring game of soccer right in the living room—that is until David snatched the ball and began running away yelling “MY BALL! MY BALL!” General pandemonium followed.
Hopefully, some of these anecdotes will make up for the hours and hours of Nick Jr. my children have inevitably watched (and can apparently quote).
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Zoo and Forts (in that order)
This past Friday, a big group of us from church went to the zoo. En masse. Like one big giant amoeba trying desperately not to divide. It was a tad difficult to stay together, as you might have imagined. But nonetheless, the elephants and monkeys and giraffes were still as charming as ever, and so it was fun.
Here's David straddling a ceramic sea lion with reckless abandon.
This baby orangutan was just oozing with adorable personality.
Here's a shot of the little jokers hamming it up for the camera.
Yesterday I spent the day building forts with the boys. That morning, it was incredibly chilly and so we stayed inside. Here's our "cozy-watch-a-movie-and-eat-popcorn" fort.
Later on, when it warmed up outside, we decided to build a clubhouse out of the trampoline. This is all we came up with:
Inside, the boys dragged all their toy drums from the house, and we had a serious jam session (much to our neighbors' chagrin). Daddy joined in when he got home from work.
Here's David straddling a ceramic sea lion with reckless abandon.
This baby orangutan was just oozing with adorable personality.
Here's a shot of the little jokers hamming it up for the camera.
Yesterday I spent the day building forts with the boys. That morning, it was incredibly chilly and so we stayed inside. Here's our "cozy-watch-a-movie-and-eat-popcorn" fort.
Later on, when it warmed up outside, we decided to build a clubhouse out of the trampoline. This is all we came up with:
Inside, the boys dragged all their toy drums from the house, and we had a serious jam session (much to our neighbors' chagrin). Daddy joined in when he got home from work.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Narrowly Averted Disaster
Yesterday David climbed up on our 8-drawer dresser and pulled it down on top of him. Fortunately, 1)our bedroom is small, and so it ended up mostly crashing into the bedframe instead of his body and 2)I was just feet away and was able to pull it off of him. He's fine, but has a nasty scrape behind his left ear and on the side of his left eye. He looks like was in a boxing match and lost.
Steven immediately attached all our dresser drawers to the wall using metal wall brackets.
The whole experience terrified me. Years ago, this exact same thing happened to a family in our Stake with tragic consequences, and it stayed with me every since. I just snatched him up and held onto him for dear life after it happened.
He was so scared, bless his heart. A huge thing just had just fallen on him and Mommy was acting crazy. I'm just so thankful he's okay.
Steven immediately attached all our dresser drawers to the wall using metal wall brackets.
The whole experience terrified me. Years ago, this exact same thing happened to a family in our Stake with tragic consequences, and it stayed with me every since. I just snatched him up and held onto him for dear life after it happened.
He was so scared, bless his heart. A huge thing just had just fallen on him and Mommy was acting crazy. I'm just so thankful he's okay.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Happy Birthday, Dad!
Thursday night we threw a little birthday party for my Dad in Galveston. I can't believe it, but it actually turned out really well! Dad's friends are awfully nice and it was really fun talking and joking with them. Dad seemed to have a really good time too, which was of course the goal, and nothing made me happier than seeing him smile.
But after all is said and done, all I can say is: I hate throwing parties. It takes tons of organization, time and money--all three of which I miserably lack. I think Martha Stewart and Wedding Planners must be pyschotic.
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