Singing along..

As you may have noticed I added 'My Playlist' to my blog. Several of you...my fellow bloggers.. have playlists on yours and I love to hear your selections of music. As a matter of fact, I have stolen some of your songs. Thanks, by the way.
Some of the songs I have chosen have some sentimental value to them, like Boston's 'More than a Feeling' Steve and I listened to on our first date and he thought I was cute/crazy for totally getting into it and playing the air guitar to it. How could we not include "Aubrey" by Bread? Come on!! And I think "Why Georgia" is pretty self-explanatory.
Other songs I just love the beat and want to dance to it or excersize to it. If you know how much I love to dance and excersize (a fact that my figure does not reflect) - almost as much as I love to play the air guitar - you would understand. I'll have to add some more of those.
I have also added my favorite artist category. I just plain love Chris Daughtry and Josh Groban. And Steve's new addiction is Dean Martin. He listens to his best of all time album ALL THE TIME! It kind of cracks me up. I would have never pegged him for a rat packer back then when we were rocking out to Boston and Depeche in his GMC Jimmy. Oh, those were the days.
Then there are other songs that as soon as I heard it the song moved me. Those are the songs that inspired me to add the playlist to my blog. It was the song 'Lucky' by Jason Mraz that really pushed me into adding it to my blog because I do feel lucky to be in love with my best friend. Steve and I love to be together. We laugh over crazy people he meets at work and debate plot lines in movies. We discuss gospel doctrine, watch Jeopardy together ('cause we are nerds). We pull our hair out about the kids and sometimes we fight. But I always feel lucky.
The other song in this category for me is 'Small Wonders' by Rob Thomas. The kids always tease me when that song comes on because it makes me cry. I realized after I looked up the lyrics that they don't say what I thought they said, but the song always says the same thing to me..."our lives are made in these small hours...these little wonders still remain" It reminds me that eventhough my life is hectic and crazy right now that the little things, the everyday things are forming their lives. And Rachel, don't forget, they are small wonders! They really are!! I hate to lose sight of that sometimes but that song always reminds me how wonderful and what a blessing my children are. Remember to cherish every moment!
So sing along and enjoy... you know I will be!

April Happenings

Yes, I understand that it is May now...almost June. I just have one question..."where'd my life go?" Holy Moly! I'm sorry all, I am extremely behind. So I will try to be brief...one of my greater struggles, just ask Steve. Anywho...April brought spring showers, I refer to my previous post about showers. We have finally received some water here in Georgia. We've been in a 'drought' since we've been here but I think thats about over with the amount of water we have gotten this year. Anyway, it makes us happy that we put that cement slab under our deck. It has at least pushed the mosquitos back from our back door a few feet. I fear they will find us anyway.
April also brings us Tyler's birthday, which if you can believe it was his 3rd. I remember it being a wonderful day. The weather was getting warm, Steve took the day off, we went to lunch together with the little ones and then we had planned to take them all to Chuck E. Cheese but the weather was so nice we went to the park and flew kites instead. Talk about reliving your childhood. That was fun!!
One of my favorite rememberances of Tyler's birthday, besides it just being one of those perfect days, is that when we sang 'Happy Birthday' to him he was so thrilled with joy that he started waving his arms conducting our singing. It was so cute. He is truly a boy full of joy and quite a blessing.
We also enjoyed a lovely Easter. Steve and I have been trying over the years to separate "bunny Easter" from Easter Sunday. Saturday we usually dye eggs, (Grandma Alice's tradition that we are keeping!) have an Easter egg hunt, and search for baskets. Then that leaves us Sunday to really focus on the importance of the resurrection.
As we left church on Sunday I asked the kids what they learned in their classes and Tyler said they talked about Jesus and 'rolling the stone away'. Wow, it really floored me how early they can learn. It was a good moment for me to realize I have to teach eventhough I think they aren't listening. I'm pretty sure Tyler's teacher didn't think he was listening. I'm really grateful for wonderful dedicated teachers. I can't do it all but there will be others there to help teach. Lovely, blessed Easter!

Things to do during a tornado warning...

Friday night we were having some crazy weather -- severe thunderstorms, hail -- tornado weather. I'm starting to realize that its par for the course in the springtime here. Unfortunately for my kids, the tornado sirens going off pretty much scares the crap out of me, so I make everyone go down in the basement and hang out in the 'bunker'. This time however we found something fun to do. I found some extra glo-sticks in our emergency packs and we turned the lights out (on purpose). The kids started spinning them around and I thought I would see if we could get some pictures of it. I think the pictures turned out pretty great. Alex was the purple, Hayden was blue, Aubrey green, and Tyler orange. If you look closely in the last picture you can see their faces 'DEVO-style'. I realized, after-the-fact, that I did neglect to get a picture of the walnut-sized hail we got though. That's okay, this was WAY more fun and memorable.

New Picture Time!

Well its been a whole year since our last family photo. Time goes so fast in such a busy family. I was looking forward to getting these pictures back - because last years turned out so well. Apparently we forgot to tell Aubrey that she is supposed to smile -- whoops! She's the brightest star in this family, it just doesn't look right without a smile on her face. Oh well, gotta give the photographer a bonus just for getting us all looking in the same direction! I'm taking a vote please let me know if you think the whole family shot should go on the header or just the kids. They are darn cute after all.

As ye sow, so shall you reap...at least we hope so

A couple of weeks ago we decided it was about time to set our hand at planting here in Georgia. Steve has always had the inclination to gardening -- its because he is a Taurus (sorry, couldn't help myself, its an inside joke) So we have tried a little garden in most of the places we've lived. It was about time to actually admit to ourselves that we live here and that we are staying for an indefinate amount of time so we should 'put down some roots' -- literally and figuratively. So for Family Home Evening we did some planting. There is a tiny little garden of beets, cucumbers, yellow squash and carrots on some of our planter beds in back of the yard and we had each of the kids choose a plant to start from a seed in pots on the back deck, also a couple of tomato starts that we will leave on the porch (assuming it gets enough sun during the day). We want to see of we get a watermelon grown here this year. Our growing season should be long enough. Anyway so here are some picts from our Family Home Evening. Thus far we have beets, squash and cukes coming up in the garden. Yippee!

Early Morning Shout-out

The other morning we were having Second Breakfast, which is the breakfast for the little ones after Alex and Hayden have gone to school, and Tyler and Jacob just started screaming back and forth at each other. While it was killing my eardrums I still thought it was really cute the amount of gusto they were putting into screaming at the top of their lungs. So I had take a picture...sorry you missed the soundtrack. HA HA

The Joy of Tyler

Just Chillin' with Charlie.
This is the first picture I caught.


Elder Fletcher and Ty-Ty showing their game face.

Tyler is finally at an age that he is enjoyable -- Okay, that kind of sounds bad but he has been a struggle ever since he was 4 months old and he found his vocal chords. He certainly has been a presence in our family. More lately that has been a good presence. He has become such a sweet boy. He loves to hug his mommy, read books, follows directions (better) and I can actually take him places without a threat of a tantrum. He totally loves Charlie. Have I said that before? You can tell by the pictures. He is just a lover. He has his moments but he is going to be a sweet, sweet three year old.