Well, now....

My sweet, spunky girl from Jamaica now has facebook and I was just chatting with her tonight!

Whooda thunkit?

Goodbye Tyler and Whit:(

Tonight we had Tyler and Whit's going away party.  They're planning to move to Denver on Friday.  They lived in Murphreesboro, TN which is about 1 1/2 hours away but they made it down for church as often as they could.  They will be sorely missed, that's for sure.  So tonight we had a cookout, volleyball, basketball for the guys, a nice calm walk for the girls, baggo/cornhole/bags, and per Whit's request, we had a pinata! 

We told Lauren that how a pinata works and she went in search of the perfect hitting stick.  She came back, proud as a peacock of the one she had found.  Unfortunately, it didn't do a lot of damage:)

Love you guys!

Disastrous or Memorable?

Tonight was our preschool graduation.  Oh..... where do I even start?  I got off work at 5:30.  The kids were supposed to start showing up at 6:30.  Around 5:50 a storm started passing through.  At six the power went out.  This was not a good start to our evening!  I gave up calling the utility company after getting a busy signal for the 14th time.  People started showing up around 6:15, gathering in a dark preschool, hoping the lights would come back on.  After much debating, we decided to cancel and reschedule for next week.  That was about ten till seven.  Just as soon as people started leaving, the power came back on.  Of course.  So we decided to go ahead with it.  Only three of our kids had left and we were able to call two of them back.  The third one I never could get ahold of.  I feel really bad about it but there's not much I can or could do. 
Then starts the program.  We didn't have any terrible criers this year.  Nobody that sobbed up on the risers.  We did have one little girl who stood there real quiet with one lone tear falling down her cute little cheek.  We had a few kids who got a case of the giggles, a few who wouldn't quit talking, one who kept turning around to bug the kids behind him, one who stuck his hands in his mouth, pulled his cheeks apart and stuck out his tongue for probably half the program, that same kid wet his pants, that same kid went running to his mom screaming two times and she kept bringing him back and making everything worse..... I think only one or two graduation hats stayed on the right way the whole time.  Most were falling off or completely crooked.  The loud obese child I have in my class danced the night away when it was our turn.  When it was the little kids turn, only one girl sang.  Very loudly.  Very off key.  But it was funny.  And my hair!!  I did it so nice and neat and between the rain, power outage and running around trying to figure everything out it was completely ruined!  But that was really the least of my worries.  It all worked out, they were cute and we survived.  But it was a far cry from the smoothe sailing we had envisioned.  I asked Kerwin as we were walking out if it was disastrous or memorable.  He said these are the best kinds.  They're the most fun.  And he's right.  But while the power was out and we were trying to figure out what to do, I nearly broke down and cried.  Very nearly.  And now I'm just starting to talk about nothing so I better quit before it gets worse.  Oh how I wish I had a video of the whole night.  And oh how I wish I had a picture of our crooked little caps.  I love my kids:)

You Know.......

You know it's just been one of those days when I resort to this:

and then this*:

and then another one of these:

But praise the Lord it's over and we made it through!


*I am typically NOT a coffee drinker.  This was drastic.

Fun With Friends:)

Awhile back a group of my friends was planning to come down but due to several different circumstances it just didn't work out.  On a completely different note, every time I go to a particular mall down here (which isn't very often) I wish I had a friend with me.  It's just a fun place to walk around even if you have no intention of buying anything.  So combine those two things and I decided to beg  ask a couple of my friends to come down for a girls weekend.  They did!  We had a great time shopping, eating out and going to the rodeo later that night.

Thanks for coming down!!!

Dear Mom,

I finally used the cake decorating set I got for Christmas!!

Miss Barbara's birthday is Saturday so I had the perfect excuse to use it.  I was all excited to do it.  I baked the cake (Duncan Hines Devil's Food of course) and even made Crisco icing like you always did.  I just knew I would be successful.  But, things just didn't turn out like I had envisioned.  As soon as I started decorating I knew my dreams of the perfect cake were shattered.

Needless to say, I don't think I'll be starting up Country Confections II anytime soon.

(Oh, and I know the name is spelled wrong.  The kids all say Barba.)

Since It's Mothers Day....

So, my mom is pretty special.  Unfortunately, I haven't really acknowleged or realized quite how special until the last few years.  And even though she'll probably hate the attention or the spotlight, I'm compiling a list of just a few of the reasons I think she's pretty cool.

10.) She is the best cook I know.
  9.) She is selfless.
  8.) She is giving and generous.
  7.) She loves people who others might label as different.
  6.) She makes time to visit with the old ladies in church who sometimes tend to be forgotten.
  5.) She makes the BEST cinnamon rolls and caramel rolls.  The smell of fresh rolls means I'm home.  Even her "flops" are amazing.
  4.) She went back to school and graduated with a bachelor's in nursing when she was like, 50!!  (And to think- I hesitate about going back for another associate's.)
  3.) She challenges me to be a better Scrabble player:)
  2.) She has been through the fire and come out stronger on the other side.
  1.) She has a great sense of humor.

There's just a few reasons.  I love my mom!

We Have A Winner!

A group of us ran another 5k today.  I am pretty excited to say that I got 1st in my age division!!!!  I was pretty stoked:)  I came away with $35 worth of gift certificates to sporting goods stores.  *Ahem*  At this point, I could do one of two things here.  I could lead you to believe that I have improved drastically since the last 5k we ran a few weeks ago (I did shave two minutes off my time).........

OR

I could tell you the rest of the story of how there was only two of us in that particular age group.

We had some stormy weather and it rained sheets and buckets up until a few minutes before the race started.  Believe you me, if it had been a beautiful morning and everyone had showed up I would have been much farther down the list:) 

I really haven't turned into little miss 5k who runs every race that comes along, but they had a booth set up for this one after the chick-fil-a one that we did and I really did it to support the cause.  It was for a mission in Africa called Bethany Village Ministries.  After the race they had pork BBQ and grilled chicken for us and they also had some singing groups.  One of the ones we listed to was a black a capella choir.  They were incredible- I loved it!!  Anyone who knows much about me would realize that it was right up my alley:)  I have now (kind of) fullfilled my desires to go to a service at a black church. 

It really turned out to be my lucky day.  Not only did I "do so good" in the race, get prizes and see the black choir, but tonight we ate at Applebee's and after they ran out of what I had ordered, I reordered and got it for free!  In between the race I also did laundry, watched a movie and took a nap.  A perfect combination for a gloomy, rainy day.