Monday Routine

Sorry I don't have a picture of my hair yet. I didn't get around to it yesterday, and I don't fix my hair on Mondays. Sounds weird, I know. Here's why. Mondays are my cleaning and laundry day. I do it all in one day then don't worry about it the rest of the week. Since I'm just cleaning and hanging out at home, I figure it's also a great chance to give my hair and face a break from products and make up. Kind of like Sabbath for my hair and face. :)

Girls LOOOONG Day Out

Today was one of those rare days when Emma and I had nothing on the calendar. And since Wednesdays are always Tim's long days...and since he has a meeting tonight that will keep him out till around 10 or 11...I decided we needed a day of fun!

We headed to Denver this morning and started our day at the Aquarium. It was really fun seeing all the sharks, turtles, jelly fish, etc. and petting the stingrays. After going through all the exhibits, we had a picnic lunch overlooking downtown Denver.


(Emma broke out in this pose. I don't know what that was all about!?)


(Can you believe the size of that tortoise and grouper in the background?!)

Next we headed to Monkey Bizness. That place was very cool! I ended up playing with Emma on all the giant slides and big air jumpers. We had an absolute blast! I'm not sure what the other parents thought of me but a few of them actually followed suit and played with their kids on the giant toys. Our favorite was the giant blow up slide. It was two or three stories tall and "scared our hearts" as Emma kept saying.




After all that hard playing we landed at Cold Stone for an ice cream treat. I had mint ice cream with oreos mixed in. Emma had cotton candy ice cream with rainbow sprinkles.

While we were enjoying our treats, I realized Emma had worn a hole in the knee of her jeans. I was so bummed because they were my favorite jeans of hers, and I had gotten them at a consignment store for $2. Since they were Gap jeans, I decided we should head to Gap to replace them.

So we went to Park Meadows Mall next. The Gap was a bust but we ended up at The Childrens Place where a huge sale was going on. And this really nice lady gave me a coupon. So I ended up getting Emma 4 pair of jeans and 13 shirts for $50! (Some of them I bought large for next year. At $4 for jeans and $2 for shirts, I couldn't pass it up!) Emma also got to visit her favorite store: Pottery Barn Kids. She loves to play there. I don't think she realizes it's not a play place. :)

By the time we were done at the mall, Emma was exhausted. We had skipped nap of course which I could foresee would lead to a melt down. So we hopped in the car and headed for home. She fell asleep within minutes and slept the hour it took us to get back to our home town.

Not wanting to think about cooking for the two of us, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner. It was a nice treat but we were both exhausted and Emma started saying she missed her Daddy. So we finished our meals and stopped by Daddy's office for a quick hello (and goodnight). I had Emma in bed by 7:15 and I got to relax a bit watching American Idol auditions.

So that was our LOOONG day in a nutshell. Very fun. Very tiring. But very worth it! We had some great bonding time. It's amazing how playing together can knit your hearts together.

My New Gun

Tim finally finished the gun he was making for me. Isn't it pretty?! He was trying to tell me all the specs on it in case someone asked. I grinned and told him that the people looking at this blog would be girls who would say "what pretty colors" and that's about it. So what do you think...of the gun and my new do?! You probably can't tell my do is all that different, but it really is a different hair style. I'm still trying to figure out how to fix it just like my stylist. Ever have that problem?!




Tim also thinks federal agents will be reading my blog now because I used the word "gun."

Tidbits from the Weekend

Emma and I had a special breakfast Saturday morning. She "invited me over" and decorated her table with clementines, a candle and a "rug". Then we had a nice conversation over our breakfast of skillet toast, clementines and a chocolate protein shake.


Sunday after church we decided to take a drive to the mountains. Tim is an avid hunter and loves to shoot guns, so he brought along a few for fun. Emma got to shoot a gun for the first time. She was pretty excited about it! She actually hit the target her first time! Emma is always saying she wants to go hunting with her Daddy when she gets big enough. This just might be the thing to get her hooked!

Tim is in the process of custom-making me a gun. I am actually very excited about it because he is making it himself. Who knew you could do that?! I'm not a hunter but I do enjoy shooting guns with Tim occasionally. It's a way to connect with my manly man doing something he loves! Maybe I will get him to make a card with me someday! Naaaahhhhh!

Schools

Ok, first let me confess that I love this stamp, which is why it appears on every card I have made in the past two days. Now let me explain why I made it.


I don't know about where you live, but here in CO charter schools are very popular. So much so that one of them has a 4-5 year wait list. Translation = you have to place your baby on the wait list for kindergarten at birth! Who is thinking of school when they have a newborn? Certainly not me! But I came into contact with enough moms who made me feel like if I didn't have her on every "good" wait list that I was somehow failing. I put Emma on one such wait list just to keep our options open. Then I quick thinking about it and tried to enjoy all the days in between birth and 5 years old.

Since Emma will be 5 this May, I recently started thinking about where to send her to school and, of course, praying about it. Then a letter came in the mail last week that significantly increased the pace at which I was entertaining such thoughts. It was an acceptance letter to the charter school we had wait listed. This would have been great news had I not researched other options, but since I had it caused me great stress.

For one thing, I had no idea schools would begin enrollment so soon for the fall. We were 8 days into 2008 when we got this letter. And they want me to make up my mind about something that won't occur until late August?! I mean ~ I am a planner ~ but this took me completely by surprise. So I quickly got on the phone and scheduled meetings/tours with the schools we are interested in.

That brings us to today and this card (no I didn't forget my original point). We visited two schools: the highly coveted charter school and a private Christian school. The difference was so striking to me. At the charter school they gave us a guest pass and a map and told us to enjoy our visit. When I asked if there was someone who could give us a tour and answer some questions, I got a blank stare...then she said maybe I would get lucky and catch a teacher who had time to talk. We did (get lucky). We met two teachers and both were more than willing to answer our questions. This school has a strong academic program and promotes its high moral teaching.

The Christian school was much different. For one thing, we had an appointment (the charter school didn't take appointments), and we were met by a friendly lady named Bobbie who spent an hour with us. She took us around the campus ,introduced us to teachers (who were more than willing to stop and say hi, meet Emma, and tell us about their classroom) and answered my loooooong list of questions without batting an eyelash. We got to sit in on parts of music class, reading, writing and p.e. Emma met lots of teachers, all the office staff and even the school nurse. We left with a packet full of information. And need I see, a really great feeling?!

It's tempting to make an instant decision, but I have committed to praying about this decision until enrollment packets arrive in the mail next month. I made the card for Bobbie to thank her for her time and sweet demeanor in hosting us as guests on their campus.

God's Favor & A Girls Night Out

Last night I went to a girl's night out at church where Kelly Minter was the guest worship leader and speaker. Kelly often leads music at my church, but I have never heard her speak. I was very impressed. She has a new Bible study out called "No Other Gods," which of course I bought and can't wait to dive into.

At one point during her talk she challenged us to look back on 2007 and remember God's goodness to us. I have done this often, but I've never put it in on paper. So as I get ready to do that this afternoon, I wanted to share a few highlights with you.

It was one of the hardest years we have ever faced, but it was also one of the best years because Tim and I grew in our relationship with God. I have already shared some of the things I learned in 2007 (click here to read that post), so this post is all about how I have witnessed God's goodness in my life.

~ HE blessed us with the opportunity to take some wonderful trips (and kept us safe). We went to Florida twice (once to Disney and once to Clearwater Beach), many fun weekend camping trips, a week at Navajo Lake (our fave), and a couple trips to TX to visit my relatives.
~ HE brought Tim through knee surgery. What we thought would be 6 days of recovery turned into 6 weeks because his knee was much worse than the MRI showed. But it is doing great now!
~ HE protected us from a frivolous law suit.
~ HE sustained Tim through a lengthy illness and restored him. Through this HE also transformed our hearts and minds and drew us into a more intimate relationship with our Savior.
~ HE allowed me the opportunity to lead a Bible study for 50 women.
~ HE blessed us with new friendships.
~ HE restored a broken relationship in our lives, which has turned out to be sweet fellowship.
~ HE gave us the opportunity to facilitate a small group called Starting Point for nonbelievers or new believers who are seeking answers.

The list goes on....

God truly has been good in the ups and downs from the past year. I am thankful that no matter what happens in this life I am able to say, "God is still on the throne."

Our Weekend

We went to Denver this weekend and visited lots of fun places: The Children's Museum, Trail Dust for dinner (where they have a large indoor slide), and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (where we had tickets to the Titanic exhibit). It was awesome! Emma was excited to stay the night in a hotel. We swam in the pool, soaked in the hot tub and stayed up late watching a movie.

I only have pictures from the Children's Museum because you can't take any at the Titanic exhibit. Oh and there is one of Emma on the big slide.

Family Fun

We went to Mr. Biggs Family Fun Center today with my brother, his friend, my sister and her girls, my mom and my sister-in-law. It was a blast! I think the most fun for me was watching my sis-n-law Linda (who is from Liberia, Africa) do so many things for the first time. Mini golf, bowling and go karts were just a few of the things we did today that she had never seen before.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Catching Up

I have not scrapbooked since last April! That is until yesterday. I sat down for several hours and was able to catch up a little bit. I still have quite a bit to do, but it feels good to get through hundreds of pictures.

I'm not gonna post pictures because I don't do anything very special in my scrapbooks. When Emma was born, I decided to scale down because I knew there was no way I would be able to keep up. Each page usually consists of a background paper, cut out pictures (sometimes mounted on color card stock, sometimes not) and a couple brief captions that I type out on the computer. Pretty simple, I know. Simplifying this way has made it much more manageable and fun for me.

So I have the following scrapbooks that I keep up with:
~ Emma's birthday book
~ Our anniversary book
~ Family vacations
~ Holidays
~ Friends (I cut apart all the great pictures we get in Christmas cards and make a page out of them each year.)

The rest of the pictures go in regular albums where we can still look at them. Now I'm off to tackle a few more pages before dinner.

Happy 2008!

As promised, here are pictures from our annual family dinner at the Sunbird. The second one is dark but I wanted you to see the awesome view of city lights ourside our window.




On New Years Day we had friends and family over to play games. My Tiffiny gave us a New Years gift of the game Apples to Apples. It was the "Party Game of the Year" for 2007, and I have to say it lives up to its award! We had a blast playing this game. We decided it was like Balderdash without the effort. Very fun game!

My brother Tomy got a game for his XBox for Christmas called Rockband. He brought it over for us to play. There is a guitar, drum and singer and you have to follow along with the music on the TV. You don't have to know how to play these instruments because they are color-coded and you just follow the prompts on the screen. The trick is hitting the right key or playing the right drum at the right time. If you are the singer, you have to hit the right notes. Another really fun game! Here are some pictures. Emma ~ being the musical prodigy that she is ~ LOVED it!




Today we are taking the Christmas decorations and tree down. Kind of a sad day, really. I wanted to leave it up longer, but I knew if I didn't do it today we would be in February before I got to it. So off I go...