Get Up, Grandma!

Last Monday morning, I called my Grandmother to see how her Mother's Day went & to just catch up. I knew that she had planned on going with my mom & dad to my sister's church for my nephew's baby dedication. She shared with me how her legs had really been hurting her for several days and by Saturday night, she'd pretty much decided not to go. She didn't want to be a burden to others because she would be getting around slowly. But when Sunday morning came, she got up, decided to move around a bit and see how she felt. She went into the living room to watch her favorite Sunday morning show, The Gaithers. But when she tuned in, she realized that her show had already gone off and that another show was on and Chris Tomlin was singing. Her words to me were, "I just love Chris Tomlin."

*I love the fact that my 86 year old grandmother loves Chris Tomlin!

So she decided to watch this show. As some point during this show Chris sang, "I Will Rise" which is an amazing song. And as my Grandmother listened to this song, she knew that despite how she felt or the fact that she might be moving slowly, she had to "get up off her rear and go." (Her words!)

There is so much to learn from this example that my Grandmother has set for me. When I first decided to write this post, I was thinking about how she is an example of someone who is willing to embrace change, especially in the area of music. But as I typed this, I realized that there's a deeper lesson to be learned, with me being the first needing to learn it.

My heart and mind are now churning over all that I am sensing the Spirit speaking to me about in my life.

Sometimes I just need to get off my rear and go!

When I grow up I want to be just like my Grandma!

Another 1st....

When Emma started 3rd grade at the private school, which she still attends, we began hearing about "social" classes. I was completely uneducated about this but after asking around I found out that it didn't start until middle school. But I can honestly say that by the end of their 4th grade year, Emma and Landon had already committed to being social partners!

In 6th grade, they offer a manners class and at the end of the year, they have a formal dinner, where they get to put into practice everything they've learned.

But in 7th grade, you get to go to "social". Twice a month, you attend a class where you learn different dances, hence the need for a partner. In December, there is a Christmas dance but it's just your age group. Then there's a Father/Daughter dance in February. But in May, it's the grandaddy of them all, Spring Formal. And it's some 2000 students, from 7th grade up to 12th grade, from all over the Augusta area! Since this was our 1st time, we weren't really sure what to expect. We were blown away! It was so much fun! We were thrilled that my Mom & Dad drove down for this event. It really was nice having another female to oooohhh and ahhh over all the different dresses with me!

Before the dance~



Emma and her brothers, who stayed with friends, which I'm so grateful!
With Grandma & Paps right before going in.



The Grand March~ in my simple-mindedness, I thought they would just march around the outside of the floor. But no, they did this weaving in and out pattern, which really enhanced the dress watching! :)




The next few shots are of Emma dancing. From the blurriness of the photos, you will see that my camera stinks, or it could be my lack of skills but whatever.


And finally, a picture of Emma & Landon after the dance!



Here's a video of part of one of the dances. It was so neat seeing the whole group move!

Untitled from Cheryl A on Vimeo.

A first!

I have been such a terrible blogger. I'm so far behind, I still need to post about spring break, Asher's party and I'm sure many other things. But something happened Monday night that I want to document. Hopefully, I'll catch up on the others soon!

I haven't really talked about Dougie's baseball season. If we're FB friends or Twitter friends, I've mentioned it some. But to be honest, it's been a hard season. At this point of the season, we're 0 and 8. And that's all I'm going to say about it. But at Monday night's game, it was the last inning, our team was down by 6 runs with really no hope of coming back. Our first 2 batters got out and guess who was up? You guessed it, Dougie.
With 2 strikes, 2 outs and nobody on, Dougie hit a line drive that went right between 1st and 2nd and ended up rolling all the way to the fence. As soon as he rounded 1st, I knew that he could make it all the way. His dad was coaching third and waving him on, as well as all the fans on our side! He was running his hardest and even though the other team made a throw to home, it wasn't even close!

So on Monday, May 9, 2011, Dougie hit his first homerun!

I am so proud of you, Dougie. Not because of the great hit but because even in the face of a hard season, you are playing your best, keeping a good attitude and being a great example. But it was fun seeing you hit that homerun! =)

Yabba Dabba Doo...I'm 2!

It's hard to believe that this past Saturday, Asher turned 2! Remember way back when, I found out I was pregnant and this happened? And then remember how Asher decided to make things difficult as he entered into the world? Where has the time gone?

At 2 yrs old, you weigh about 26 lbs and I have know idea how tall you are because you won't stand still long enough for me to measure you.

You define the saying, "all boy." No one has ever had to force you to throw a ball. You love any kind of ball! Earlier this year, we were visiting Grandma & Paps and you, Paps & Max played basketball together. From that moment, you have associated basketball with Max & you renamed him, "Max-ball." It's so cute, that pretty much everyone in our family calls him that now!
You also gave your cousin Mia a new name too! When "baby Duuz" (Cruz) was born, you started calling her MiMi. I wish I could type the inflection in your voice when you say it. I guess it comes out like "ME!ME!"
Your vocabulary is coming along slowly but surely. Some of the funny things you say are~
Yabba-bla-bla-bla- you're trying to imitate Caleb & say Yabba Dabba Do
lelow- yellow. To you, any color is yellow & you also call any writing utensil a "lelow."
lelow truck- any car or truck that we see on the road is a lelow truck
wack wack- is your name for a duck. In fact, for all animals (that you know), you only say their sound not the name of the animal.
apple- any fruit. But the funny thing is that you and Daddy have an ongoing game between what's an apple & an orange. You are so into this little game, that when we showed you an orange crayon, you said, "it's not orange, it's apple!"

Just a couple of mornings ago, we could see the moon out one window and out the other window, we could see the sun coming up. You love to see the moon & you pointed it out to me. Then you looked out the other window and said, "look Momma, it's lelow moon!" And there was no convincing you that it's the sun, to you it's the lelow moon!


While we were at the farm, you slept on an air mattress with Chaz & Caleb. You still sleep in your baby bed at home, so you didn't do too good the 1st night. Aunt Laura found you like this:


Your two best friends- dog and baby
You love to read, especially the choo-choo train book!




Like I said earlier, you love to play with any kind of ball but you have such a love for baseball. It's amazing how this seems to be so ingrained in you. Here's a video of you hitting the baseball off the tee. When you swing, you hold your hands as if you're going to bat left handed but then you bring the bat around and hit right handed. I've tried to get you to switch your hands on the bat but in true Asher fashion, you want to do it your way! You also step into your swing and hike your leg when you throw the ball. It's pretty amazing because we've never shown you how to do that!

Untitled from Cheryl A on Vimeo.

Asher, we love you so much. Life with you is fun and challenging. You make us laugh and sometimes you make us feel like crying! But I wouldn't change anything. You are a blessing! We love you so much!

Do it Lord....

This time last year my mom & I attended this event. My mom & I sat together with some friends, one of my mom's sister & her daughter were sitting several rows behind us and my sister and her friend were up in the balcony.
Before the event began, I kept looking around the sanctuary trying to locate our other family members and basically people-watching. It seemed like every time I turned around, I made eye contact with a lady who was a couple of rows behind us. To me, it got to the point where it was awkward because I didn't know this woman. She didn't look familiar to me but every time I turned around, she would look at me.

When intermission came, my mom and I went to look for my sister. As you can imagine, with 6,000 other women, it was a little crowded. As we're walking through the crowd, I realized that my mom was not right behind me. When I turned to look for her, imagine my shock when I see that she is talking to the woman that I kept making eye contact with earlier. As I'm trying to make my way back to her, I'm even more surprised to see my mom embracing this woman and I'm thinking, "who in the world is this?!" When I walk up, my mom says, "Cheryl, this is {insert name*}."

I'm choosing not to share her name because sometimes things happen in a family that happen to one or two family members but it inflicts pain on the extended family. The hurt may not be as deep as it is for those who are directly involved but it still hurts. I can't and won't share the details because it's not my story to tell but I'm part of the extended family and I believe God allowed us to cross paths with *her so that we can watch a story of forgiveness and redemption unfold before our eyes.

You can just imagine how utterly shocked I was. I hadn't seen her in a really long time. Within a few moments of this re-introduction, my sister walks up and my mom tells her who this woman is and in true Laura fashion, she hugs her and begins crying. After a few moments, we walk away, still in shock. When we walk back into the sanctuary, we see my aunt and cousin and we share with them who we just ran into. I would give anything to have a picture of their faces. Mouths literally dropped open! We see *her walking towards her seat so my aunt & cousin go to see her.

When Travis & the worship team come back, the first song they sing is "Do It, Lord." I knew the song and had heard it many times but was blown away by the words, they were so timely for what we had just experienced. I began crying and praying when we sang these words~

I see the brokenness of families brought to wholeness
I see the prodigals running home to You
Father's hearts now turning toward their children
And the children's hearts turning toward their father's

And even though we were scattered around the sanctuary, my mom, my aunt, my sister, my cousin and myself were singing these words as a prayer to our God, begging Him to do this for our family members.

It is a moment that I won't soon forget.
And to top it off, when Beth began her teaching, she focused on forgiveness.

Over the past year, we've seen God working in this situation. It's not what we want it to be but it's so much better than it was.

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Colossians 3:13

We need a break...

Aren't you glad that next week is Spring break? I sure am! We are at such a busy time in our lives. Here's a breakdown of our typical week. I know you probably don't care but I just want to write it down so years from now, I can remember all that we used to do! Now remember, Emma & Dougie attend a school that is about 30 minutes away and all of their extra curricular activities are either at school or in that general vicinity. Hold your horses.....

Monday- Emma has track until 4:30. The boys & I usually go to the park until she's done. Dougie has baseball practice from 6:15-7:30 and Emma has Social from 7:15-8:15.

Tuesday- Emma- track til 4:30. Emma's been involved in a youth girls Bible study from 6:3-8.
Wednesday- church

Thursday- Emma- track til 4:30. Dougie has baseball practice from 5-6:30

Friday- NOTHING, unless it's rained during the week & they reschedule ball practice. ugghhh! Whew! It doesn't look that bad when you see it written down but when you factor in cooking supper, a 4 yr. old and a (almost) 2yr. old, it can get a little crazy.

This past Thursday, Emma had her 1st track meet and it was an hour and a half away! But it was worth it. She did pretty good. The one event that she does that amazes me is the hurdles! I can't hardly believe my baby girl is jumping those gates. She cleared them all! I'm still without a camera so I didn't get any pictures. Her next meet will be after Spring Break, so hopefully, I'll get some then.

Thankfully, we'll get a much needed break next week.
Love y'all dearly!

A 1st for me....

I've never been a crafty person and I'm certainly not artistic, so what I'm about to share is waaaay out of my comfort zone. If you've spent anytime looking at any home decorating blogs, you'll see that decorative signs are everywhere. And lots of very talented people make them and they look so cute in their homes. So it got me to thinking, I wonder if I could make one? When we moved into our home, the previous owners left a bunch of wood in the shed. I sorted through and found one that would be a good size. Then I began thinking about what I wanted to put on the sign. I wanted something Spring or Easter related. I decided to use "He makes all things new." because it describes what happens at Spring and what Jesus did for us at Easter.

The first thing I did was paint the board with white paint. The paint was some that we had already. It's a basic white paint that you would use on the trim in your house. I did a couple of coats.(no picture)
I knew I wanted the letters to be green, so I used an acrylic paint, "green grass."


Next is when I had to get creative. I don't have one of those neat vinyl cutting machines to cut out the words but I knew I needed something to stick to the wood so I could paint over it but be simple to remove. I definitely didn't want the 'stenciled' look. So I created the phrase in a font that I liked on my computer and then printed it out on contact paper. I then had to cut out every.single.letter.by.hand. Oh my, it was a little trying.
Then I placed the words on the board.


You can see that some of the letters are black and some are white. That's because the ink never completely dries on the contact paper. I looked like I'd been finger printed by the time I finished getting the letters on. I ended up taking a wet paper towel and wiping the ink off the letters once they were in place. I didn't want it to mix with the paint.
Next, I painted it again with the white paint. I was gentle around the letters because I didn't want them to come off. (no picture) It took a couple of coats.
When it was dry, I couldn't wait to pull the letters off and see what it looked like.



As you can see, the paint bled underneath the contact paper. Which is ok with me. #1 I'm not a perfectionist and #2 I like that it gives it a little character. You can definitely tell it's homemade and I'm ok with that. And I also knew that I wasn't done.

The next thing I did was to "age" it a little bit. I took some wood stain, again, I used what we had in the shed. I'm glad I practiced on the back first! I used a rag to wipe the stain on and then used a WET paper towel to wipe it off. If the paper towel's not wet, it leaves too much stain. Trust me, I know! Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of this step.
The last step was to sand it. I used 80 grit sand paper and was surprised at the amount of sanding it took to get the look that I wanted.


The finished product~

When I get my mantel all decorated for Spring, I'll show you.

Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And He said to me, "Write, for these words are true and faithful." Revelation 21:5

Love y'all dearly!



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