Wacky Wednesday

It's been a long but interesting day.

A few ladies from church and I went to the Houston Holocaust Museum. Wow, that was eye opening. I thought I knew a lot about that time period, but I was quite mistaken. It was fascinating and overwhelming and spiritually exhausting. I'm glad we went though, I think it's important to remember things like that, to study them so they don't happen again. I could probably do a whole huge post on my thoughts from that experience, but I'm too mentally and physically drained to even go into it this evening. I will say, however, that I stored up a lot in my heart and I know that I will be thinking over what I saw and heard this morning for a long time to come. If you get a chance to get to the museum, by all means take it. If anything, it will remind you how grateful you should be for your own freedoms.

Then this afternoon I hurried home to upload videos for Expo. Tomorrow is the end of the month and I hadn't uploaded one! I had filmed 15 of them, but needed to get them on the site. I hate waiting till the last minute, I'm usually pretty retentive about Expo like that. But this month has been absolutely insane - you've probably noticed my posts have been way down lately. I apologize. If you miss it, imagine how much I miss it! :) Anyhoo, I spent all afternoon finishing that project, I just uploaded my last video -PTL! Then I scurried for my game and got the kids off to church for an awesome youth service. We have been experiencing record numbers and I'm super psyched about it! We wrapped up the evening at MCD's with the worst customer service ever, as usual - but great conversation with our kids, so that's worth it. Hustled the children into bed - actually had to hold a mostly sleeping Sarah on the potty to get her to do her business - that sounded better than getting up in the middle of the night with an accident.

Overall, a good day. Exhausting, but fulfilling.

Tomorrow I have two senior picture settings, simulaneously. I can't wait!! It's going to be awesome.

Manic Monday

I love Mondays. A whole new week, filled with possibilities. But this is one of those weird weeks where you look out across it and you can see most every moment booked with a commitment and you have to wonder - how's that really going to look??

Today, for instance, we are headed to the grocery store - we are in dire need of most everything - milk and bread being most pressing. And then we are headed out to La Porte for the pool with my friend Jennifer and her kids. I haven't told the kids yet, because Sarah has been so hyper I don't know if I can even handle the excitement in the car just yet! :)

Then this afternoon I need to scramble to clean my house. My, it's bad. At 7pm we have all the church staff coming over for a meeting. That's just today.

It's going to be a fun day though. I've really wanted to spend more quality time with my kids this summer, so I'm glad to be scheduling some fun. That's about the only way it will happen around here.

Probably My Last Post of the Evening

This is the sermon I gave two weeks ago at realife. I've been meaning to share it. It's not really a sermon as much as it is a vision statement. A lot of the ideas have been found in the book Getting Real and expounded on by me. Also, a ton of my ministry philosophy flows out of Purpose Driven Life, but y'all know that. This is just the outline, I interjected quite a bit.


What Is realife?? [071308]

Real is a word we toss around a lot. What does it mean?

Real-life existing or happening in reality: real-life drama.

Real - genuine; not counterfeit, artificial, or imitation; authentic:

Life - the sum of the distinguishing phenomena of organisms, esp. metabolism, growth, reproduction, and adaptation to environment.

What is realife at Trinity Tab?
The VALUES of realife…

1.) RELATIONSHIP is the # 1 goal of realife.
Acts 2:42 (New International Version)
They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
a. Ministry flows through relationship – so if we start with relationship, an authentic ministry will be the natural result.
b. You’ll observe a lot of chit-chatting in realife, don’t underestimate the power of the meet and greet. (encouraging words, laughter, joking) All of this is intentional. We are building relationship.
i. This is all relevant ministry, we need to see it as that and make time for it.
c. Transparency is key. (I’m going to put myself out there, I’m nervous tonight, hopefully now you feel like you can share.)
i. My hope is that realife will become just that, a place we can be real and experience life together. (ups and downs and in between) We all have ‘stuff’ we go through.
ii. Often times people groups connect by their strengths (worship team, GATE program, excellence in their field) but I’d like to suggest the opposite in realife, connecting by our weaknesses. Together we can be strong in Christ.

2.) WORSHIP is vital for fulfillment in your life, and therefore vital to realife.
Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.
a. realife will be a place of authentic worship.
b. Worship resets our perspective.
i. You can’t handle your life on your own, but with God you can.
ii. Allow yourself to be real with God in this place.

3.) TEACHING will happen at realife a regular basis.
Acts 2:42 devoted themselves to the apostles teaching.
Philippians 1:6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (none of us have arrived!)
a. Teaching may not look like you are accustomed to seeing it. I’m a big believer that we can’t do it the way we’ve always done it and expect different results.
i. No one will be pushing you to ‘make you believe’.
ii. More of a shared experience, creating a common ground. We are on a journey together, and you can step in wherever you are at.
b. We’ll be discovering Christ’s authenticity together.

4.) MINISTRY is our mutual destination in realife.
Romans 12:4-5 4Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
a. Every person is equally important to God.
b. Each person in realife has a personal, God-given mission.
c. Every person in realife is a vital part of this ministry and the church as a whole.
i. Your time in realife will help you discover just where you fit in.
ii.
5.) So let’s sum it all up. Realife will encompass 4 things;
RELATIONSHIP, WORSHIP, TEACHING, MINISTRY.
a. An innovative idea – 20/20/20
b. Building time into our gathering for each of those values.

CLOSING – Pray for the success of realife.
*That the participants will catch the vision.
*For an excitement and a momentum.
*That we would step out of our comfort zones with each other and be real.
*For our leadership, wisdom and discernment, unique thinking and creativity.
*That realife could be a catalyst for our church.
*That we would invite our friends and grow.
*That above all we would remember our purpose and honor God with every aspect of realife.

Lame Robot Photos

Ok, I do need to clarify that these robots actually look way cuter in real life and I just didn't have the energy to get out my good flash and wow you all. But you'll get the idea. Eli loved them. I still have a second spread to do and some paintings. He can't wait. :)

So if you are curious to know how I did this.... the bedspreads were $24.99 at IKEA. I was kind of in a bind because I needed two and of course, I'm on a budget. So I surfed Flckr looking for Robots and drew sketches of what I liked. Then I pieced them together with felt - on a quilt mat first then transfered them to the quilt - spread out on the floor and sewed them by hand with DMC. The first quilt and all six robot piecing took me about four hours. But I totally thought it was worth it and I'm actually excited to do the second one, I just haven't had a ton of free time to tackle it.

A Very Long Day

wow.

Today was definitely one of those days. First of all, it was accented by the complete and utter absence of Daddy. That always makes it tough. Sarah stumbled into our bathroom at 7am with two matted shut w/ green goop eyes and a racking cough. So went our plans for work today. I drove Rob in with the kids, dropped him off and went to camp out in the doctor's office parking lot until they opened, where I was the first visitor of the day begging for an early appointment. I could tell that Sarah was absolutely miserable. Both of her eyes were the color of her bright pink shirt this morning. So an hour later we'd decided it was a double ear infection (how that affects the eyes, not sure?) and got to spend ANOTHER hour at the pharmacy while my insurance company decided whether or not we had pharmacy coverage. Which, of course, we did. My lands, who can afford their own prescriptions these days? So now it's 11am. We run by Hobby Lobby for some foam core for Sare's invitations and then home for lunch where I thoroughly medicate two children (Eli was diagnosed with an ear infection on Wednesday). By about 1pm I realize that the wonderful antibiotic I'm giving my children makes them extremely hyper. Not Eli as much as Sare - but WOWSERS Sarah made up for it. I'm pretty sure that this afternoon and evening was one of the longest in the history of my being a mother. Sarah was just flying like a kite - climbing the furniture, haggling her brother, unplugging the tv - which she did while watching a show, mind you. She told me she was trying to skip the commercials. She was just crabby. Meanwhile her eyes are crazy red and you can tell by looking at her that she's insanely tired. So she appeared to be crashing at about 5:30. I fed them dinner (homemade mac and cheese - one of their faves) and got everyone washed and jammied. They watched Hannah Montana while I made them some cookies. We reupped on meds right after baths. And we're climbing the walls again. I put her in bed about 7:20 - she was falling over tired, and she's been up like ten times since then. Finally I just laid in bed beside her and stroked her hair until her breathing softened. She's not asleep, but she was definitely in a less-crazed state. So now, we'll see.
I'm pretty sure I earned my Mommy-stripes today. :)

Personally, I've just been in a funk lately. I think it has to do with a sinus infection I've been fighting off for a few weeks now. Plus, it seems like lately, every day I make plans they go awry and that's a little frustrating. This is the second week in a row that I didn't get to work, which puts me behind for realife, of course, and puts us behind financially, which is never good. I'm sad too, cause we had been thinking about taking the kiddos to Schlitterbahn here shortly. I've also been pretty slow on ATP and that always bums me out. But I do have a shoot tomorrow, so that will be helping my little ego there!

I think I've just been overwhelmed on all fronts lately. Wish I knew how to combat that a little better. All of my 'peeps' tell me I need to say 'no' more often, and I've been making an effort to do that, but lately I've realized that no one's really asking me to do specific things, it's all pre-decided stuff, kwim? And I guess I could say no to shoots, but that's really what I want to be doing. I think I just need a little more rest is all. Might turn in early tonight, be well-composed for tomorrow, whatdayathink?

So Not a Brilliant Picture

But you'll get the idea. This is one of Sare's party invitations. She's pretty excited about it! :) The surfboard is made from foam core and covered in patterned paper. These wound up being pretty cheap - $1.99 for the foam core and $.25 for the patterned paper. I had the flowers and printed the details. We are sending red and yellow ones to the boys.

More fun Photos from the Weekend

of
WARNING!!

(this post is extremely picture heavy - sorry)

As promised, I finally am posting more of our six flags pics.

This is me (naturally) about to board my absolute favorite ride at Fiesta Texas - the Superman. It totally kicks the Batman's butt. I rode it three times and would have rode more if I could have convinced the others. But I did ride it at sunset the last time, and that was awesome because Fiesta is built in a rock quarry, so the sun on the rock, wow, it was beautiful.
Rob and I near the end of the trip. We all piled in this booth in a corner of Johhny Rockets at the Katy Mills Mall.

Rob's and my scores on the Scooby Doo ride. You can guess who's is who's.
Dan and Tiff went with as our addtional youth sponsers, with little Avery. She did great a great job but couldn't quite last the whole day. :)This was another awesome ride that scared the snot out of us. Five of our group was standing in line talking - as they are loading the cars. Then all the sudden they take off - crazy fast like zero to sixty in nothing and we all jumped out of our skin! It was hilarious. None of us chickened out though, and turns out yep, it looked as bad as it felt! Super fun though. I guess I like getting thrown around! :)
I bought one of these pink capes for Sare and one blue one for Eli. Had to model it first.
Our girls chillin in the TX sun.
Our fun corner booth at JR's.
These two boys, Josh and Jacob, cracked me up. Jacob and I rode waterslides together for a couple hours cause he'd gone with us girls to ride the Goliath again and separated from the rest of the guys but still wanted to ride. I told him I was game for any water ride he was. We rode them all. :) The Toilet was probably my favorite, I went down backwards - it's a four story drop.
We, of course, made our obligatory Walmart run.
Omega stocked up on the necessary supplies.
This Ronald McDonald at breakfast was just begging for a photo op!
These girls wanted this photo, I'm still not sure why. :)
Another beautiful TX sunset. Can you tell I'm in love with the Texas sky??
We made our mandatory Buccee's stop and this kind employee was willing to 'have her picture made'. Taylor was pretty excited about it!
The restrooms at Buckee's are why we stop there. Like 24 stalls in each bathroom. Makes a potty break for 14 teenagers go a lot faster!
The girls were pretty giddy about it.
Lucas and Isaac pretty much survived on energy drinks, beef jerky and some major tub of protein mix from the GNC.
These girls just cracked me up the whole time!
For some reason they all felt the need to purchase pacifiers.
As you can see, we had a blast.

Oh, and I've been meaning to share this song with you. My boys in youth are in love with this song and they sing it every chance they get. It's hilarious.

A few Layouts from the day...

So tired today, barely accomplishing anything. But I did scrap with Lori just a bit this afternoon. Here's my results. This page is a total lift from something in the gallery at two peas. I love my colors here though, new line from Cosmo Cricket and the fun black stickers are American Crafts.
And this is a random page with a picture from last summer. I realized the other day that I've been really stinky about scrapping our youth group - so much so that this is from back when our group was still named h20.

A Quick Preview

(as we are about to take off at 4pm on Sunday)

Ok, so this past weekend was AWESOME. First of all, we took 14 students to Fiesta Texas and even though I'm sure it was a hundred degrees, there was virtually no humidity and it felt like an indian summer day up north. We had a great breeze all day and it got just hot enough mid-afternoon to really enjoy the water park. The only downside was burning my feet on the smoking-hot Texas cement when I ran around flipflopless. Lesson learned. I finally figured out that they had no problem with you wearing your sandals up to the top of the waterslide and then hanging on to them all the way down.

Well, I really need to get to church, so I'm going to throw a few photos your way and then finish up later - probably tomorrow realistically. I'm thoroughly and totally wiped out and I still have to get through a major game night at youth this evening. And typically Games = Anna, so it's going to be a lot of pomp and circumstance on my part. But God is good and He'll supply all my needs, even if it's enthusiasm and energy!
(of course, we had to stop at Bucee's coming and going, it's such a fun rest stop!)
(Me and PR looking spazzy in our specially-bought-for-this-trip-never-wear-em-again fanny packs. Oh, we had too many jokes about 'keep your hands off my fanny!' -- cause we're five like that!)
(PR and his idol, Robin, in person!)
(some well-meaning innocent bystander took our photo. I'm sure he didn't really mean to cut out Banessa! Sorry Banessa!!)
(The Goliath at night - that's a story and I'll share it soon!)

ANNA! Where have you been?

Oh, dear reader, I am so glad that you've asked!!

I've missed you all, but I've been buried in a mess of my own making. :) Imagine that.

Eli is at camp this week, and I had the brilliant idea of redecorating his room while he's away. See, we totally blew off his birthday this year (Power Force takeover) and I've been carrying some serious Mommy-guilt ever since. So I decided about a month ago that him being away at camp for a week would be a perfect opportunity to make it up to him! So I bought all the new bedding a few weeks ago, I've been sketching robots for days now, and Rob helped me demo the room late Monday night after we got home from Kerrville. So far I have his room totally painted (walls and edging, even the trimwork) and his bunk bed repainted (a cool red stain). So now I have some artwork to make and the bedding to alter, I'm going with a funky artsy robot theme, I think he'll really like it. So I've been knee-deep in that project, plus we drove to camp and back on Monday. Oh, and I've been sick, of course.

Other fun-ness in my life right now. I got a really sweet phone. It's the Dare from Verizon and I've decided that it's really going to simplify my life, once I figure out how to use it. :) Naw, already it's really cool and I'm really excited about it.

Sare's been amazing this week. We've had a lot of fun. I kind of have accidently kept her home all week for some Mommy time, and that's been pretty special. She's suddenly acting like a four year old and not a 3 year old, so that's extremely cool. I had a really special foo-foo day planned for her with Jennifer, but due to some sickness that hasn't worked out just yet. She did help me paint Eli's room and now she's super anxious to tackle her room next. I need a little break first. Besides, that's the last room of our house to redo! crazy, huh?

I've also been really into listening to Beth Moore this week, her book Get Out of that Pit has been super inspiring! She's awesome. I think I'd like to find a local bible study of hers to attend.

Well, off to make some robots.

Late Night Scrapping

So about 8 months ago I started a scrapbooking group at Trinity. I had a couple faithful ladies - ok, two, and I'd almost chucked it for lack of interest. But after discussing it with Pastor and Linda we decided to hang in there and last night we had SEVEN of us ladies at the Scrapbook Junkie in Webster. It was so fun. We scrapped until midnight and then we were all sad to go home! But even more fun than the scrapbooking, the great conversation that was taking place. Plus they had an awesome playlist of modern worship going the whole time. It was a fantastic time and we can't wait to do it again! I finished two pages, but that's because we yapped a lot and shopped a lot. I found the Creative Escape book half off, so that will be some exciting new inspiration!

Some of these pages were from earlier this week when Lori and I scrapped on the phone.

A fun recap page of our Iowa trip. These were some of my favorite photos from the trip.
This page was a fun idea of using my business cards as the backdrop. I've been wanting to share my card on here for a while. And yes, Sare will be on the next one. :)

I love this acetate transparency from Creative Imaginations. It's super thick and crazy expensive - but I picked it up 40% off, so I felt like it was worth it. Especially now that Expo opened back up to scrapbooking reviews for me, now scrapbook shopping is fun again - since I can review every product I buy and make $10 for that product! I had gone a really long time with buying very little, which was probably good, but it's exciting to support my habit again! And in case you haven't noticed, I 'm really passionate about telling our family's story.This is the first page from last night. I so love the way it turned out. I found that back paper on clearance 40% off and it's actually a velvet paper, so that was really cool. And those pink foam letters STUNK to high heaven when I pulled them out of the packaging, we had a good laugh about it. I was excited to finally use those Creative Imaginations chipboard people, I've had them for almost a year now! These photos are some of my all time faves of our little family, they are super sharp because I used a tripod!
And this was my last page of the night, using Courtyard paper I found on Two Peas for 75% off! Wow, reading this post as I write it, I'm realizing that I have really found a lot of great sb deals lately. I've got a lot of fodder for this month's reviews, which I've actually already done 15 of them, so I'm almost there.
And this is my now-full scrapbook. Lori and I were talking about this, I started it some time late last year. My mother gave me a new scrapbook for Christmas and I haven't even taken it out of it's packaging yet. That's got to be a record for me - 8+ months in the same book. So sad, I've really slacked off this year. So much to scrapbook, so little time.

Things I Never Thought I'd say as a Parent...

"I would NOT hit your sister with that numchuck if I were you!"

"Yes, I'm making your naked spaghetti now."

"Could you keep your hands and feet off the wall please!"

Yeah, it's been one of those days.. :)

I'm a Liar.

(oops, I did it again)

Totally forgot about this little video that Rob and I put together for church this morning. It was a big day for me to miss. bummer dude.

Trinity Tab Independence Day Picnic


(and yes, I was there, I was just preferred to stay behind the lens, I'm WAY overdue for a haircut. At this point she may need to use a pair of hedge trimmers!)

Last Post Of the Night

(at least I think so)

Isn't it funny when I blog in bursts like this??

I guess I just like having it all sorted out. Clears the clutter in my mind maybe.

This should have been my first post. Rob brought me home this goodie from church this morning. My friend Danielle found it at a garage sale (he hee - garbage sale) in Spring on Friday. She saw it and immediately thought of me. You've gotta love having friends like that, don't you?? She's awesome. Anyhoo, she thought it would be a fun prop for me. I totally agree. And she had the great idea of painting it a fun color. Now, I need a few suggestions, anybody got any good ones? I have soldier blue, bright red, bright yellow, and a few various shades of turquise in my garage. I was also thinking a limey/kelly green might be fun. I'm open though folks, surprise me!

New Scrapbook Pages

Well, I finally paused in the house cleaning and child comforting long enough to scrapbook a tiny bit today. And wow, it was worth it.

First of all, I need to say that this one is a total lift from something I saw on 2peas, but it was so exciting, I had to try it! It was a lot of fun to do. And it honors my buddy Lori, who cleans house with me almost daily. Gotta love that!

And this one just fell out of my head. I found these cute letter stickers in the Target $ Spot the other day and the rest of it just plopped together. I have a confession, I've had my eye on this owl rub on for months. A few weeks ago my all-time favorite scrapbook store had everything on sale 40% off and I decided that I could stomach that price for this rub on. It was pretty inspiring, I basically did a paper piecing with it - so not my usual style. But he's happy and it is a fun and bright page. Plus I love that self-portrait I got in the car driving around the Iowa countryside last May. Not too often am I thrilled with a photo of myself.


So now, I'm just really in the mood to scrapbook. And I have about 8 pages planned from this afternoon. (it was a productive afternoon) so maybe tomorrow.... Well, I wouldn't want to jinx it!

My Reading List

These are the books on my bedside table right now.


Pretty inspirational, huh??

That Deanne Gist book is probably the one I'm most excited about. She's a relatively new author, but absolutely one of my favorites. She really knows how to write a book! I almost did a flip when I saw this book book at the library in the new fiction section. Seriously, you should check her out. (which I just realized, actually isn't in the picture, you can find it here)

And on the very top is the new Relient K album. It's relatively amazing. I don't know though, I can tell they are ten years old now, it's not as unrefined and insane as their previous works. I've been thinking lately that I'd really like to get my hands on some ancient Relient K. I didn't really start listening to them hard core until about two years ago. But they've pretty much been rocking my face off ever since. On this particular album I'm really enjoying "the Scene and Herd".



Also, not in this pile is a book that has followed me everywhere since it's arrival from Amazon on Tuesday. If you are even remotely interested in taking better photos, The Digital Photography Book is amazing and I can't recommend it enough. Plus, it's totally written in real people language, so you don't have to have a degree in Advanced Photography to be able to digest it! It's a very quick read, but don't be fooled, there is a ton of information in it and I'm so excited for my next shoot to try some things. Of course, it's terrible because now I think I need a new tripod and a 85-200mm AF lens, but I was leaning that way anyway! I'm smelling a trip to Houston Camera Exchange in the near future. Ooh, and maybe a white balance lens cap, I've heard that's a handy cheap tool that helps anyone take better pictures. Dude, I'm so excited about photography right now! And sadly, my next shoot is still a week away. bummer.

Born Again Bugles

Well, the missions auction was this evening. I'm hoping it went well, but I haven't heard from Rob yet. It was so weird being home today, on a Sunday. I always hate missing church, even when I'm sick or one of the kids is sick - it's just strange to me to not be in my pew on Sunday morning!
Anyhoo, I thought I'd be cool and put up one of my contributions to the bake sale. These are a little candy I learned to make in Illinois. I couldn't remember the original name for them, so I renamed them and thought it was pretty catchy - especially for a church bake sale. They are super yummy, so I decided to share.


Born Again Bugles

1 Bag Bugles (original)
2 Bags Wilton Melting Wafers (I like the light cocoa variety)
1 Cup (ish) Peanut Butter

Place your pb in a freezer bag, squeeze out the air and nip the tip (tiny hole!). You will use this to fill the bugles with peanut butter. I lay them all out on the table on wax paper to fill them first.
Then melt your chocolate wafers (very carefully - one bag at a time) in the microwave in short 30 second increments on high. Pause to stir with a spatula in between takes. Melting in mine takes about a minute and a half. Individually drop the bugles into the chocolate to cover, then drop on the wax paper. Let cool until chocolate sets. It also works very well to lay your wax paper in cookie sheet and thow the hot chocolates in the freezer to quick set them. Then bam, they are ready to eat! Ooh, be sure to have a chocolate buddy to keep you from eating to many or just plan on giving them away immediately!

[I would highly recommend storing your finished candy in the freezer, especially if you live in a high humidity climate like I do. Shoot, just go ahead and freeze all your baked goods, they stay a lot fresher!!]