Balentine Bliss

I Heart Faces - Smiles!

2010-04-26T16:51:00.000-07:00

This week's challenge is Smiles! I have one sweet, little drama queen on my hands. It's hard to capture a smile that's not faked, forced, or freaky. This rarity happened a couple of weeks ago at our local Botanic Gardens. I was quite excited to be quick enough to capture that fleeting moment!!

Head over to I Heart Faces for some more toothy (or in our case, toothless) grins!

I Heart Faces - Dramatic B & W

2010-03-29T17:58:00.000-07:00

I Heart Faces' theme this week is Dramatic B&W. There is already milllllions of entries ( OK, So I exagerated a little, but there are a bunch!), so here is one more of our pianist, Daylor. I liked the contrast of his creamy skin and the blackness of the piano. The mood of this image fits his personality and his seriousness of his music.

Head on over to I Heart Faces to check out all the drama!

I Heart Faces - "All Bundled Up"

2010-03-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

Oooo! What a cold winter it was and still is for some folks! Lots of opportunities to get wrapped up and go outside for some fun "Kodak" (or in my case Olympus) Moments!" This week at I Heart Faces the theme is "All Bundled Up." My entry is of my daughter and is from a snow day earlier this year.

Head over to I Heart Faces for some "warm fuzzies" and check out all the fun!!

I Heart Faces - Hands-on-Fun

2010-02-22T19:47:00.000-08:00

I heart faces assignment this week is all about hands. I have sooooo many images of hands that this one was a hard one for me to choose. I love photographing hands. Hands say so much about a person. I have a photograph of my sweet ,92 year old grandfather's hands. His hands are weathered, but strong and long, just like him. I have pictures of bitty baby hands that are so sweet and innocent and perfect, not yet touched by the environment or hard life.

The picture I choose is of my little girl's hands. I love how she is holding this little pumpkin - gently, tenderly, and like it is worth everything to her.

Hands speak for themselves.

Head on over to the hands on event now!

I Heart Faces - We Heart Kisses

2010-02-08T19:38:00.000-08:00

So this week's challenge at I Heart Faces is a celebration of Valentines Day! Kisses! I actually shot this picture 4 years ago the day after I got my first dSLR. At that point, I had not clue how to utilize all it's bells and whistles so it's not pro-quality, but I loved catching this moment between my hubby and our little girl. It's still to this day one of my favorites!

Go check out the rest of the entries HERE to check out more smoochies!

iheartfaces - "We are Family" Photo Challenge

2010-01-18T12:50:00.000-08:00

iheartfaces is having a photo challenge this week about families. My submission is of my parents with our kidos. Family is so very important to us and our children are so blessed to have two sets of amazing grandparents that insist upon (with no arguments from us) being part of our kids lives. They adore each other!

Head on over to i heart faces for the family reunion and join in the fun!

I ♥ Faces - "Hilarious Outtakes"

2009-12-28T20:47:00.000-08:00

I ♥ Faces contest this week is about funny outtakes and, boy, do have a BUNCH of those!! This one immediately came to mind, though. This was taken this summer after my daughter, Perri, had gotten an extra long ride on the "Crab" ride in Sea World. She found out all too soon (in her opinion) that all good things must come to an end.

Head on over to I ♥ Faces for a belly laugh and to enter your own image!

Annual Christmas Pictures - Balentine Style

2009-12-16T19:43:00.000-08:00

Alas, 'tis the season of Christmas carols and hot cocoa, evergreen trees and tinsel, stockings hung with care and ......the annual Balentine Christmas picture in front of the tree. We have done this year after year and then take the picture and put it in a frame ornament to hang on the tree to commemorate the year. It's always the same procedure: we come home from church, everyone is in a great mood and excited to get their picture taken! We set up the tripod, do a couple of adjustments to the camera and Viola!...A lovely picture...Oh, if it were only that easy.

Me: "OK, guys! Are we set?"

Them: "We are ready. "

Me: "OK. Now remember to sit still and put your best smile on when you see the red light start blinking. Ready?"

Them: "Yes, Mama. Is this gonna take long?"

Me: "Only as long as YOU make it take. Here we go! Smile!!!" (click)

Me: "OK! Not bad. Duglin - maybe sit up a bit and smile a little more!"

Them: sigh.....

ME: "One more time! Smile, everyone!" (click)

Me: "Well, we are getting there. Honey (Duglin)- I still think you have a better smile in there. Can you show it to the camera next time?"

Duglin: "I guess."

Perri: "How is my smile, Mommy? Is it a princess type smile or should I show more teeth?"

Me: "Whatever you were doing before looks fine, sweetie. OK. Now let's try this again. SMILE!!!!!" (click)

Me: "Umm, Duglin. That maybe too much of a smile, honey."

Duglin: "But you SAID to smile bigger. I smiled bigger."

Me: "Yes, you did, but it looks, well, like you are in pain, not smiling. Let's try this ONE MORE TIME! Everybody set? SMIIIIIILE!!"

Me: "Duglin."

Duglin: "Yes, Mommy."

Me: "You look like you are are gritting your teeth, not smiling."

Duglin: "Mommy, I'm trying really hard!"

Me: "I know you are, but I think that might be the problem. Just.....smile. Ahhh! I have an idea. Think of how you might look if Santa Claus were here and how happy you would be! OK?"

Duglin: "OK."

Me: "OK! ONE MORE TIME!!! Everybody say, "Look! There's Santa!"

Everyone: "Look! There's Santa!!!!"

Me: "Wow. Umm (trying not to die laughing). That's an interesting face there, Duglin. OK. I can see this is not working. Let's do this one more time." So I devise a plan to say something funny right before the camera shoots. "Everyone ready?"

Them: "yes.....(moans, rolling eyes, whimpers)"

Me: "OK, camera's counting down. What's something that's funny?"

Daylor: "You mean like Daddy tooting?" (click)

So can you tell by the flare of my nostrils I knew it was over? As the famously, overly used cliche saying goes:

"If you can't beat 'em....."

OK - So, we did finally get a decent one. So what if Duglin looks a little constipated? Life imitating art...or is it art imitating life? Hmmmmm, I need to think about that one!

Merry Christmas!!

Love,

The Balentines

2009

The Boy That Touched EVERYTHING

2009-12-03T18:59:00.000-08:00

It had already started out a bad day. I had been awake most of the night with a migraine and after 14 hours had finally begun to get some relief. We had places to go and people to see, so the kids and I were scurrying around looking for lost coats, getting hair brushed, and, in my case, just starting to get dressed. I was standing in our master closet staring at the minimal amount of clothes that were clean when I heard loud crash in the den. I tugged on the semi-presentable jeans and ran to check out the latest broken item in the Balentine household. Before I had a chance make it to the doorknob, my youngest beloved son gently taps on the door.

I opened the door. There he was. Eyes wide open. Blink. Blink.

"Mommy?"

"Yes, Duglin."

"I accidentally put a marble in my stocking. When I accidentally tried to get it out, I accidentally pulled everything off the mantle and accidentally broke some stuff. Accidentally. Yes, absolutely, accidentally."

(Anger and blood pressure rising.) "Duglin, did I not tell you guys last night as I was putting the garland and the stockings on the mantle that you CAN NOT TOUCH IT?!?!?!?!?!?!?"

The previous night I spent an hour putting together the garland on the mantle. The hearth on the floor was now covered with a million pieces of Frasier fir clippings, lights, broken ornaments, broken stocking holders, and a pile of dirty stockings.

Duglin is my touchy feely kind of boy. He learns everything he knows by touching it, taking it apart, seeing what happens when you break, throw, rip, cut, roll on, glue, drench, or mash it. Some people might say he's destructive. We choose to use the word "deconstructer." His purpose is not destroy, but to learn how to create by taking apart.

So back to our scene at hand.

"Duglin. How does one accidentally drop a marble in a stocking that is hanging two feet above one's head?"

"I don't know, mom. I just happened. Accidentally."

So here's the part that I could leave out and not tell you. How I would love to say that I handled the whole incident with grace and patience. It would be lovely to make you think that I am the perfect epitome of the maternal unit but in the spirit of transparency, I will tell you I totally blew my top. I became so angry that I had to leave the room. And not only leave the room, but slam my bedroom door behind me to bring home the point. The point being I. WAS. LIVID.

Now, before you say, "Why, Sonya, it was only decorations," you have to understand that this was about the 8th thing in a week that my precious son had gotten his hands on and had ..........."disassembled." And yes, I did use a thesaurus to come up that word.

I went back to my bathroom and slapped on make-up as I prayed and asked God to help me decide how this issue should be handled. God somehow gave me the control and calmness I needed to discipline my sweet boy firmly, but gently.

Afterwards, I still was so angry looking at the mess I had to clean up, but decided to let it go until after we ran our errands. Again, I confess, I was mad that I can't have anything nice because I have a child that struggles with his impulse to touch everything. I was mad that I had so much to do and now I had more to do because I had to clean a mess when I got home. I was mad because I had to spend more money to replace the broken stocking holders and ornaments. I was just mad. Mad. MAD.

Then it came on the radio while we were in the car. A song that I have heard and even sung a thousand times.

"O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born;
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
O'er the world a star is sweetly gleaming,
Now come the wisemen from out of the Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friends.

He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name. Christ is the Lord!
Then ever, ever praise we, His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!"

I began to think of that tiny Baby that was born this time a couple thousand years ago. I began to think that He was a deconstructer, too. Not a destroyer, but a deconstructer. He took apart the shame, sadness, and filth in our hearts, and began to create something beautiful that only the Designer of a the universe could. He came, not to destroy, but to repurpose and redesign for a better life. Not because He had to, but because He wanted to.

Maybe, that's God gave me my own little 'redesigner." To remind me that sometimes things have to be taken apart, pulled down, and redone in order to be built back up again, better and stronger, wiser and more effective. And in order for the perfect reconstruction to happen, things must be touched. Deeply touched.

Jesus was a baby, a boy, a man, THE God who touched, is touching, and will touch everything. The question is are we willing to be redesigned?

Disney Vacation 2009 - Day 3 - Epcot

2009-11-10T20:21:00.001-08:00

So, I feel a little bad. Here's why. I am finding such little time to blog right now. I have a ton to catch up on, but I don't feel like I can post anything until I finish my Disney pictures. Why?Because I am obsessive.

I have this thing that I do to myself. I call it discipline. Others might call it looney. But, whatever. Anyway, I don't allow myself to do things I really want to do until the one thing I really need to do gets done. Even if the thing that I think really "needs" to be done, really doesn't need to be done. For example, I won't eat anything in the morning until all my lamps are turned on and my blinds are open. If I don't do those things I don't allow myself to eat. Or, I don't allow myself to craft in the evenings (unless my crafting circle ladies are at my house) or blog unless all of my 3 clothes hampers are at least half empty and the kitchen is clean. OR, I don't allow myself to sit down during the day unless I am teaching a lesson or until the kids go to bed. Just keepin' it real! At least things get done! I may not have breakfast in the morning, but at least I have a super-duper bright and shining living room to pass out in, doggone it!!

So, I have not allowed myself to blog because I have yet to have time to post all of my pictures from the trip. IT'S SO GOOFY!!!!!!!! But I seriously can't do it because I have ingrained upon myself that it has to get done! I'm the only person I know that grounds herself! So, maybe after I get all my pictures edited and posted I might blog be able to more! But until then. Sigh... Being grounded sucks. :)

Anywho, now that I have shared that little tidbit of info about myself, here is day 3of our trip at Epcot.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Number 10

2009-10-28T19:14:00.000-07:00

This is always such a busy time of year for our family as it is the season of vacations, holidays, and birthdays. Daylor's 10th birthday is at the end of September. It gets harder as the kids grow older trying to pick out themes that are age appropriate and still fun. Daylor has been playing the piano for a couple of years and absolutely has a gift for it. He's written multiple songs and insists on practicing at least an hour a day. So, in light of his enjoyment of it he chose to have a piano/keyboard theme.

Now, we are not the type folks that go all out for parties. I have some friends who throw their kids AMAZING parties for their children. They make extraordinary invitations and party favors and games and decorations - every detail is thought of and it is so beautiful! Me, well, I have learned to accept that I might be in the minority of my buddies who throw birthday parties. Pretty much my kids are lucky if they get birthday hats! That doesn't mean we don't plan and put an emphasize on their birthday's because we do! Our parties are just a bit more (OK, a lot more) understated, but we still have a blast!! At our house, the party is ALL about the cake!

If you will remember this post from earlier this year about my relationship with the confection, I challenge myself each time to make something creative and beyond what I think I can do. This year I made my largest cake yet! A 3 foot 3 inch keyboard cake. Probably one of the most fun I've ever done!

I found a picture on line where someone had used Kit-Kat's as the black keys on a regular 13x9 sized piano cake, but it looked funky and off-balanced. So, I borrowed their idea and put 3 sheet pans together to make it life sized. This made the Kit-Kat keys look much more realistic. I iced the chocolate first after I marked on the cake how far to come down, then followed with the white icing. After waiting about 20 minutes for the icing to harden up some, I took a kabob skewer and using a ruler, I measured the keys one inch apart. I used the edge of the skewer to make the impressions of the spaces between the keys on top and in the front of the cake. Then, I placed my Kit-Kats down. For the decorations, I used several flavors of Tic- Tacs, upside down Hershey's Kisses, and white Mentos for blinky lights and the knobs. The volume had to be ten, of course for Daylor's age, but it took some serious self control not to bump it up one more to eleven (for those of you who have no clue what I talking about, you would have to see the movie Spinal Tap to understand. And yes, I am THAT old.).

Because we had just come home from vacation we decided to have a family only small party where Daylor got all kinds of great stuff he loved!

The cake is always a surprise for them and Daylor seemed to get a kick out of seeing his keyboard in edible form.

After gift opening and cake and ice cream, Daylor gave us a concert of some of the music he has been writing and Perri did a little interpretive dancing for the family.

Then the kids got thier worship team together and sang a few tunes to end the night out.

We had a wonderful time and Daylor had a great birthday!

DisneyWorld - Finally!

2009-10-26T20:56:00.000-07:00

Yay, me! Two posts in a week! Trying to get back into the swing of things! So, today's pictures are of the Magic Kingdom. This was the day I was most looking forward to! I wanted to see the kids eyes as we first saw the castle and watch them be bewildered by the front gates and beyond of Main Street. I have to say, my little fairy tale of what it would be like never happened.

We woke up that morning in plenty of time to get ready and get to the MK. I had envisioned Perri all dressed up in her Cinderella gown that her grandmother had made her with her hair swept-up and encased in her tiny tiara. After all, we had reservations to have breakfast with the princess herself at 9:40. I thought we would have loads of time getting pictures of the kids as they walked through the gates all wide-eyed and innocent. Blah, blah, blah.

Instead, that morning when we put on Perri's gown and she informs me (after wearing it for almost the entire week before we left) that it was now "itchy" and she really would "prefer for it to stay home this time." Her exact words. Alrighty, then. Let's just put your hair up and wear your crown. "Ummm. I think I just would prefer for Cinderella to see how long it is, so I would like to wear it down." Translation - "Mommy, it hurts like h. e. double hockey sticks when you put my hair up so I will officially throw a fit if you so as much show me a hairpin." (Deep sigh of surrender. ) So, not wanting to upset the morning, I decided that it could be her choice and went with just the crown. Whatever.

Well, the little altercation cost us about 30 minutes, so we had to book it to the park. Our reservations were at 9:40. We walked, umm, ran through Main Street pushing photographers and tourists out of the way to get to the castle on time. Fortunately, we made it just in time. Not exactly how I pictured it, but that's OK. It was still wonderful.

It was such a great day. The kids were so well behaved and precious to watch. So, here are a few shots of our first day in the Magic Kingdom. Day three will be coming soon!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Hello!

2009-10-23T22:46:00.000-07:00

Wowsers! It's been awhile, hasn't it? It's not that I don't love you anymore, it's just I have been sooo busy! I have so much I need to catch up on with you, birthdays, pumpkin patch stories, tons-o-stuff, but it's probably going to take some time!

First, I know I still owe you some Disney World pictures. I have SO MANY, so it's been a bit overwhelming trying to figure out how to show them to you without boring you to death and also trying to get the time to edit all of them. I think since I know some of you will not want to scroll throw a ton of images on my blog I am going to show them in a slide show format. And don't worry I just picked out my favorites. I won't make you suffer through all of them!

Doing a slide show kinda sucks though because the slide shows sometimes boogers up the pictures and distorts them, but what can you do? So, I am going to divide our vacation days up and do a show for each. Please feel free to skip them if you get tired of hearing about Mickey Mouse!

The first set of photos is of Sea World. Again, sorry the some of the photos of fuzzy - it makes me vomit in my mouth a bit, because I am a perfectionist when it come to my pictures and they don't really look like that, but again, trying to get over it.

So, enjoy! I will post day 2 of of vacation soon! Miss you guys and hope to get caught up soon!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

2009-10-15T19:37:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday 6th birthday to our precious princess. You are a joy and are ever so loved!

Double Digits

2009-09-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

September 29th, 1999 at 3:26 in the morning my life changed forever. I went from being a daughter, wife, and sister to a daughter, wife, sister, and now, mother. Four weeks early, the tiniest baby I had ever seen, much less held, was placed in my arms and forever the make-up of the Balentine household was repurposed. I remember packing up the 4lb. 10 oz. sleeping bundle and putting him in his carseat thinking what do I do now? He's so tiny. He's so fragile. He's so perfect.

The days following were exhausting and scary, but amazing and wonderful.

Now here we are entering the double digits in age, an official "tween", and how the time has flown. He's no longer that tiny little bundle as he stands taller than my shoulders. He no longer is fragile as he can "throw down" with the best of 'em. And although he isn't perfect in character, he strives everyday to please his Maker and that makes him perfected in Christ. I adore this boy and the past 10 years has been the best of my life.

I am grateful for the gift of you, Daylor. We are so glad God chose us to be your parents. We look forward to what God has planned for your life. Happy birthday, D! We love you so much!

I Heart Disney World!

2009-09-26T19:11:00.000-07:00

It's great to be home!!! I'm having a hard time believing we have been back almost a week. We had such an amazing time and it flew by in a blink of an eye. In fact, I have been feeling a bit off kilter because we have been planning and saving and planning and saving for almost two years and now that it's over, I am not sure what to do with myself. But with two birthdays in the next two weeks, Trick-or-Treat, Thanksgiving, and Christmas around the corner, I am sure that feeling won't last long!

I REALLY love Disney World! Everything about it is completely over the top and fabulous. The kids had such a great time, but I think it's the most exhausted they have ever been in their lives.

We were also able to visit Sea World and head to Sarasota to spend some time with some precious friends of ours. It was a wonderful, amazing, and busy trip! I ready to go back!

I took TONS of pictures. As in 1000's. I will try not to bore you with all of them, but I will be posting several as the weeks go by so you can get a taste of all we were able to do and see! It's going to take me awhile to get them up, so I am just going to spread them out over several posts.

So, until I get caught up here are just a few pictures!

I look forward to sharing more with you in the next couple of weeks!

"Lack of Planning..."

2009-09-07T15:24:00.000-07:00

"...on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine." One of my favorite sayings. And truly, lack of planning, for the most part, is not something I struggle with. You are talking to one serious control freak here. Planning is an essential part of my life. I am learning ~~that if planning ahead is not done I go completely nuts and have nervous breakdowns with temper tantrums following~~ to cope with the fact that others are not nearly as ~~obsessive compulsive~~ organized as I am and that is really OK. But for me, I am built to plan. I think that's why I was a wedding planner for 20 years and I had my entire wedding planned by the time I was 13. It's in my bloooood.

There are 3 general rules for the subject of planning.

Planning must begin several weeks if not months, even better years, prior to an event. Don't even try to come to me the day prior to an event. I can do it, but you're going hear about it.
There MUST be lists. Lots and lots of them.
Everything must be entered into a Excel spreadsheet.

See? TOTAL control freak.

And our vacation to Disney this year has been no exception. We booked and started saving for this trip in February of 2008. That's almost two years ago. I had the tickets a year in advance and our reservations for meals 3 months in advance (only because they wouldn't let me do it any sooner.) I had a house sitter booked (my sweet brother), my dog sitters booked (my parents) and had a the "Big Reveal" for the kids planned by last Christmas. I've gathered books, bought a Disney planner folder and typed out itineraries. (Do let me interject and say I have not planned out our days minute by minute for this trip - just what parks we will be at on each day and where our reservations are. We are on vacation, ya know!)

AND I started packing two weeks ago. I absolutely LOVE packing! I know. I need therapy.

Here's just some of the stuff we are taking. Oh - and see that white tee with the red polka dots in the middle of the pic and the Children's Place bag in the photo below? That's what I can't wait to show you. It's my latest "craft crush!!" Can't show you yet, because I am not finished with them, but I can tell you I am absolutely addicted!! You'll have to wait!

See that cute little smocked Cinderella dress? Love it!! Picked it up at a sweet consignment sale here in town, another obsession of mine. Perfect for breakfast with Cindy!

Here's an image of just a few of my brochures, books that I am borrowing, maps, and my cutie- patootie folder where I keep the most important thing -MY LISTS! Oh, and other minor things like reservation confirmations and tickets and stuff. Just minor things.

So there you have it. I hope you still love me despite the fact you have just found out that I am a planning maniac! We are just about ready to hit the road.

We leave in just a few days, so I may be offline for awhile, but I will try to post when I can. I'll miss you guys and will be back soon! Mickey Mouse, here we come!!

Where in the world is Sonya Balentine?

2009-08-29T18:55:00.000-07:00

I know I have a practically fallen off the face of the earth, but things are sooooo incredibly busy right now. Disney is less than two weeks away. I have had two sick boys this week. I am currently participating in 3 children's clothing consignment sales and school is chugging along. I honestly haven't had time to sit much less get a little blogging in.

So, I just wanted to let you know that I am still here. Life is wonderful and busy. I have created some really cute things in my crafting circle that I hope to show you soon. I am not sure how much I will be able to blog in the next few weeks though, but as soon as we get back from Disney World you can expect some serious blogging catch up. Hope you all are well and happy. Peace and joy to all of you!

Just Like Chocolate Bunnies, Life is Sometimes Bittersweet

2009-08-22T11:39:00.000-07:00

Perri has always been a picky eater. She has a hard time with certain textures and textiles, and therefore her diet has consisted of just a very few items that she will eat. Occasionally, we will playfully give her a hard time about her eating habits. One of these times was while Da Hubby was fixing dinner. He jokingly made the comment that she didn't like to eat ANYTHING. Perri made a very defiant objection to that comment to which my husband challenged her to name 5 favorite things she would eat. Her exact list:

1. Captain Crunch
2. "Peanut Jelly Samiches"
3. Tacos
4. McNuggets
5. Chocolate Bunnies

Two weeks ago my little picky eater started Kindergarten. Granted she is homeschooled so we didn't have to go through the drama of sending her to a school, but there is a still a bit of melancholy involved in thinking that the baby of our family is now considered school aged.

I have always enjoyed documenting all of my kids firsts (as well as the seconds, thirds, fourths, and everything in between) in photos. I remember taking this picture like it was yesterday. It was the first time I caught her smiling on camera. I remember I had been trying to snap a shot of this for two weeks but it never failed, as soon I as pulled the camera out she would put her smile away. She was almost 10 weeks before I finally caught that sweet little grin.

I caught the first time she lifted her head.

And when she started pulling up and "cruising the house."

We made sure we got her first expression of when she tasted solid food and veggies. As you can tell she didn't like them back then either.

We most certainly had to get a shot of her (and this is a big one) in her first smocked dress!

We covered the first time we took her to the zoo...

Her first swim. She loved and still loves the water!...

Her first birthday...

And when she began to walk.

School seem like such a long time away. We loved having her as the baby and she was so tiny and petite and so very, very loved. Still is!

We caught several others firsts as she continued to grow.

Her first fishing trip...

Here's her first jump off a diving board. She has always been such a brave little thing. I think having two older brothers has really helped her here!

Her first swim in the ocean...

Her first night in a "big girl" bed...

And her first haircut...

School still felt so far away and she still in many ways felt like a baby. Next thing I know, time sneaked up on us and it's her first day in kindergarten. Wow! Time has flown and she and my sweet boys are growing up so very and way too fast!

Pretty much my entire life I have been a milk chocolate kind of girl. I love the stuff. Could possibly eat it for breakfast, lunch & dinner everyday. Lately, however, a good piece of quality dark chocolate has been such a treat and change from the norm. It's sweet bitterness has such a full and substantial flavor. I am really coming to enjoy it!

I suppose now that my kids are getting bigger I am realizing that even though a wonderful part of my life is over, (the diapers, kids having a nap time, baby food jars, and Binky nursing babies part - the sweet, milk chocolate part of my life), a whole new wonderful part of my life is just beginning. Its certainly not what I am used to. I have had, after all, a baby/toddler in my home for the past decade. This new part of having all elementary aged kids is a bit unusual, but not in a bad way. It's just different.

Sometimes I long for those precious baby days. I guess that's why experiencing this new part of life is somewhat bitter. Do I mourn for those days? Honestly, I would say yes. Sometimes. But it is overwhelming laced with the sweetness of joy for the present and days to come. Just like dark chocolate.

So MY lists of 5 favorites over the years have changed.

My list ten years ago would have been:

1. Rocking babies in the middle of the night.
2. The tiny clothes, diapers, and itty-bitty shoes.
3. All the firsts of the first year.
4. Watching Da hubby read the Bible over sleeping babies.
5. Milk Chocolate Bunnies.

My 5 favorites list now:

1. Hearing my kids sing praises to their Maker without being prompted to do so.
2. Watching my kids conquer fears and putting their trust in their Savior.
3. Walking hand in hand with Da Hubby behind our kids who are walking hand in hand.
4. Having the privilege of being able to teach my kids at home.
5. Dark Chocolate Bunnies.

Summertime...Parting with Such Sweet Sorrow

2009-08-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

Where did it go? Our summer just flew by this year. We kicked off our break with the great Disney World reveal, and I assumed the time would creep by in anticipation of the trip. But I was SOOOO wrong!

I made a poor judgement call last summer in thinking that summertime was the perfect time to clean up and "catch up" (whatever that is) on getting my house in order. Can I say that it was the most boring and miserable summer I have ever had?! I totally had my priorities all screwed up and decided that this summer the kids and I were just going to have fun. And we did!! So much in fun, in fact, that I have gotten WAY behind in my blogging.

In order to catch up, I am creating one great big, huge post and cram some of the highlights of our summer. So without much further ado? A due? Adou? Whatever. Here is the most random post in the history of Balentine Bliss. (Which, BTW, is celebrating it's one year anniversary this month! Yay, me!)

So, this summer we went to the dog park with the puppies and the parents,

Visited some of our relatives in NashVegas,

Had one storm that had hurricane force winds and another that dropped a twister a few miles away from our home,

Grew and ate bunches and bunches of this stuff,

Played for hours & hours in the backyard,

Rescued and watched these little guys grow up then subsequently learn to fly away,

Had a long and fun (and exhausting) week at VBS,

Went to the sprinkler park several times,

Had a fabulous 4th,

Picked, pealed, and froze about a million peaches,

Did some serious swimming,

And first handedly (yes, I know it's not a word) learned the definition of "belly-flopping,"

Got a not so extreme make-over,

Before:

After:

Visited our downtown "Riverwalk,"

And rode the trollies,

Hung out at the bird exhibit at our fantastic zoo,

Had some family worship time,

And spent the whole summer just being together, loving each other, and having a wonderful time.

We started school yesterday and now have only 30 days until DISNEY!! If the time goes anything like this summer's did, it will be here in a jiffy!

I ♥ Faces - Funny, Silly Faces & Pets

2009-08-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

I ♥ Faces contest this week is silly, funny faces. I was doing a shoot of my daughter, when my youngest son popped his head in to steal the spotlight.

Head over to I ♥ Faces to join in the fun!

And the Winner is...

2009-07-29T13:39:00.001-07:00

Our Little Mikey!! After 1000 votes, our name won first prize by a landslide vote of over 280 votes. Would that mean we had 281 votes? Anywho, thanks to everyone who voted for our name, "Mike Byson." This is a pic of our little guy. He is the oldest of the new babies of the year.

We headed out to the park for the day and had a blast flying kites,

taking pics of all the buffalo - this one's giving me the stink eye....,

playing with the over sized basket and soccer balls,

and posing for the ever popular "We don't want to have my picture taken, but my mom is making us, anyway" shot.

They announced all the winning names. Here's me trying to explain in a VERY squeaky mega phone how we chose the name.

Perri "liberated" one of our prizes very quickly.

Mom and Peepa all came to join in the fun.

We even made the NEWS:

And the PAPER!

Thanks to everyone who voted for our baby!! We had a wonderful time - Wish you could have been there!!

I ♥ Faces - At the Beach

2009-07-27T12:23:00.000-07:00

This weeks theme at I ♥ Faces is "At the Beach." I have dozens of photos that I love from our trip to Destin a couple of years back, and have already entered several in I ♥ Faces past contests. This image, though, is one of my fav.'s that I haven't entered yet and is of my little girl, Perri.

Head over to I ♥ Faces for the beach bash and enter your own image!

Short and Sweets

2009-07-22T20:16:00.000-07:00

Da Hubby came home on Monday after work with a haircut and meeting him at the door, the kidos immediately noticed. Here's how the conversation went:

Kids: "Daddy!! You got a haircut!!"

Da Hubby: "Yep."

Perri: "You look nice, Daddy."

Da Hubby: "Thanks, sweetie."

Duglin: "Looks good, Dad."

Da Hubby: "Thanks, Dugley."

Daylor: "Dad? What's that white stuff in your hair?"

Da Hubby: "That would be gray hair, son."

Daylor: "Oh, it looks weird."

Me: "Daylor!! That's rude!"

Daylor: "Uhhh, no, mom. What I meant is that his hair looks experienced and smart."

Nice.

Vote for Mike Byson!!

2009-07-20T20:24:00.000-07:00

Just for fun, my family submitted a name to a baby buffalo naming contest for a park here in the city well known for its roaming buffalo! (Shelby Farms) 8 names are being chosen for the 8 babies that were born this year. Out of over 400 submissions our name, “Mike Byson,” (Da Hubby's idea), was chosen as one of the 16 finalists! Yay, us!

I am shamelessly asking, OK, maybe begging my friends and family to go to http://www.shelbyfarmspark.org/sfpc/ to vote for our name to win! Just click the link, then click the “vote here” link, and vote for “Mike Byson.” You can only vote one time per email address and we would love to have as many as possible! Anyone from anywhere can vote!

This would thrill my kids to death if we could win of one of the 8 names!! Thanks for humoring me and taking a second to do this! I’ll owe ya one!

I ♥ Faces - Feet

2009-07-20T09:38:00.000-07:00

I ♥ Faces is going south this week! This week's contest is all about the footsies! Here is my entry my Daylor's foot. We were at a local park in my town where there is a waterfall to wade in. It's a great way to cool off in the sweltering heat as well as a perfect opportunity to get some great footie shots!

Head over to I ♥ Faces for all the foot fun!

Short And Sweets

2009-07-17T11:48:00.001-07:00

A sign that I might be spending a little too much time blogging:

Oopsie-Doopsie! Tee-Hee!

Peach Pickin' Party

2009-07-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

Every summer for the past 4 years my mom, the kidos, and I have gone to a peach orchard just 20 minutes from our home to pick the most amazingly sweet peaches. They give you baskets to take out among their hundreds of trees and you can fill them to your heart's content with yummy peaches. For only $.75 a pound we rack up on them and eat as many as possible within a few days. Then, I chop the rest up and freeze them for the coming months.

The kids really get into it and get up underneath the branches to get the big fat ones that are hiding there. I constantly have to remind Perri, however, that we want the biggest ones because she tends to feel sorry for the small ones and wants to pick those first. :)

This orchard also has strawberries in the early summer, blueberries, blackberries, plums, nectarines in mid-summer, and apples and pears in the fall. It really is a wonderful place to get really, really fresh, right off the vine produce and cheap, too! We are thankful it happens to be so close to home! Here we put the kids to work picking some blueberries. They are such willing and great helpers!

It was a bright day and...Oh my word!!! I just realized that bow is bigger than Perri's head!! I love BIG. BOWS and I can not lie!

I have a quick tip for ya if you are interested in canning or freezing peaches. If you have ever done either you would know what a PAIN in the uh-hum it is to peel them. If you use a paring knife you loose ALOT of the tasty flesh trying to take of the skin and the handle of the knife ends up sticky from the juiciness of the peach.

I have found that if you place the peaches in a pan of boiling water for 20 seconds and then quickly pull them out, the skin EASILY wipes away with a dish towel or can be peeled by hand without losing ANY of the flesh. Easy. Easy. Easy. (As much as you tends to get on my nerves, thanks Alton Brown for that time saving suggestion.)

And BTW, you will want to bleach the dishtowel out after this process as it will be very icky after you get done.

All I do after I peel the skin away is cut them into slices, put them into a quart size freezer safe baggies, and sprinkle a little sugar in. I shake the bag to melt the sugar and off they go into my freezer.

My kids love when I thaw out one of the bags and it's just the right serving size to put on top of vanilla ice cream or their pancakes in place of syrup.

There really is nothing like summer fruit!

Estate Sales R My Friend

2009-07-14T20:05:00.000-07:00

I have to admit it. I am a yard/garage sale kind of girl. I love the thrill of the hunt and the excitement of a deal. I love gettin' up early on a Saturday morning armed with a purse load of change in one hand and a Starbuck's Tall Vanilla Latte in the other. It's thrifty. It's therapy. It's downright fun.

My bud's Jennifer and Maribeth, however, are estate sale kind of folks. I have to say estate sales kind of bum me out. I been to quite of few in the past, but I never really have, first, found anything that I like at them. Second, understood what the draw of going to some deceased person's house is, and then rummaging through things that once meant something to to them but now are discarded by the family as unwanted. It's sad. I've seen things like wedding gowns and diaries, family photographs and letters. Bibles that that look like they have been in the family for years are out for sale.

I understand that families can't keep everything and that maybe sometimes there is no family (sad, again) so a estate sale is a necessary thing to do. But sometimes there are such personal items out that I am shocked are not kept by loved ones.

Anyway, I stopped going to them and have stuck mainly to my yard sales. Jen and Maribeth swear by them. I do appreciate their perspective of rescuing something that might have gone to the wayside. Plus, they have actually purchased some loverly things lately. I decided I would ignore the underlying depressiveness (Yay, I made up another new word!!) of entering the home of someone recently deceased and give estate sales another try.

My mom and I went to two a couple of weekends ago. Honestly, I still felt weird walking through the houses, but I made myself stay and really look. I came across all kinds of really neat stuff at one of them. The lady that had lived there previously obviously had an eye for gorgeous antiques.

Although most everything was WAY out of my rice range, but all the nifty old furniture was fun to look at. She had some OLD vintage toys from the 40's and 50's that were in pristine condition. There were crystal serving pieces and an entire Lenox bone china set from the 50's that they were offering. They also had milk glass bowls and vases (slapping myself for not snatching those up), vintage table linens, and all kinds of stuff that was neat to see.

A few things immediately caught my eye. I found these amazingly bound books from the 1920's and 30's. I fell in love with them instantly. They were impeccably kept and beautiful and I HAD to have them. Until I found out they were $10.00 a piece. Gag. Sputter. Gag. OK, so I didn't have to have after all. I am sure they were worth it, but right now, my pocketbook (and Dave Ramsey) says NO!

I also fell for these gorgeous plates. All fine china. All absolutely perfect for hanging in my kitchen. All $10.00 a plate. Again with the gagging and sputtering.

OK! Call me cheap, people! I got kids to feed (and to take to Disney World) and I just can't justify paying $30.00 for plates I don't even plan to eat off of!

One thing I was reminded of while shopping - stuff at estate sales is SOOOOO much more expensive than garage sales.

So, Mom ended up buying some nice cookbooks and I just bought a small bowl for salt for my kitchen and a soup ladle. Yeehaw. We left and went home.

I bet your wondering why I have pictures of those plates and those books if I didn't purchase them. I have such perceptive readers!

Well, that night after we got home I began to think about those books. OK, thinking is not a strong enough word. It was more like obsessing over them. Hey, they were from the 20's and 30's !! How rare is it to find something like that in great condition? Maybe if I couldn't have all of them I could buy just one.

So, after discussing it with Da Hubby, he sent me back to the estate sale as soon as we got back home from church the next day to see if the books were still there. They were!! YAY!

A second thing I learned at the estate sales is that usually on the last day you can bargain them down. I picked up my three books plus found these two adorable ones and donned my pitiful, I'm-broke-so-please-let-me-have-these-for-as-cheap-as-possible look.

I found the sale facilitator (or whatever they are called) and asked what was the BEST price she could give me for them. She looked at me and said $20.00 for all. The look on my face must have told her I was putting them back, so she spat out, "How about $10.00 for all?" $50.00 worth of books for $10.00? SCORE!!!

As I was walking to check out I happened to notice that the gorgeous red plates were still there and went over to see if they were marked down. The lady must have seen me looking at them so she came and asked me what I would be will to pay for them. I told her I could pay $10.00 for them all as that's all the cash I had. Amazingly, she agreed. She also threw in the cute little terra-cotta bird in the picture below for free.

A couple other sale finds I found were this cute basket for $2.00 and this cast iron wall piece for $5.00. (The wall piece actually came from a garage sale, but hey, I gotta stick to my roots!)

So, I suppose the bottom-line is even though yard sales will always be my first love, estate sales may make it on my circuit every once in awhile. So, thank you to my sweet friends who reintroduced me to the pleasures of estate sale-ing. You continue to inspire me!

Thanks for putting up with this way too long and rambling post. I am amazed and humbled if you made it this far without falling asleep! I'm going to shut up now and go to bed.

I ♥ Faces - "Sports in Action" and "Pets" week

2009-07-13T12:24:00.000-07:00

This week's theme of I ♥ Faces photography contest is "Sports in Action" and "Pets." I am submitting one for each category.

My sports in action picture is of our kid's team's soccer coach (aka Da Hubby) revving up our very cute and reluctant goalie for the oncoming ball. I shot this at dusk (my favorite part of the day to shoot!) and really like the warm rich tones of that time of evening.

My Pets entry is of my Mom's rotty, "Gracie." I loved the contrast of mom's pallazo floors with her big, sweet eyes. She's one great, big baby girl. We ♥ her, too.

Head over to the action at I ♥ Faces for all the furry and sporty fun and enter your own best shot!

Ellie Mae- Part 2

2009-07-07T11:56:00.000-07:00

What a night last night! I had flashbacks of being a new mommy again, not getting any rest to take care of some tiny babies! This time not baby humans, though. This time it was baby bluebirds!

A little over a week ago I was out picking some weeds in our garden when I noticed a pair of bluebirds flying in and out of the bluebird box we have hanging on the fence in our backyard. We had sparrows in the early spring hatch there and fly away.

Our box was been there for at least five years and we have seen several pairs of bluebirds nest there but have never had any babies.

A few days later, I kept hearing birds twittering as the adult bluebirds came and went from the nest. We have babies!!! We have been careful to keep away from the nest as well as watch our puppies while they were outside to insure the safety of the birds.

July 3rd we caught our first glimpse of one of the babies peeking out.

It's been very exciting for the kids to watch everyday as the mama and daddy have been so attentive and protective of their young through out the day. Apparently, the parents have grown to trust us as they frequently will land just several feet from us as we are in the backyard playing or working in the garden.

I began to notice the day after Independence Day that the parents didn't seem to be around. By the 6th, I became increasingly worried that something had happened to the parents as we had been outside for several hours and they were nowhere to be seen despite the babies calling for them. This was unlike them as usually at least one of them was around the entire day and the babies are not large enough to be by themselves for such a long stretch of time.

As you figured by now, I just couldn't sit by and let something happen to them, so I called out local wildlife rescuer, Brenda, and asked for her advice. I knew time was of the essence when it came to baby birds. They can't live for long without food or fluids.

Brenda agreed that we probably needed to check on the featherlings (I sound so official, don't I?) and make sure they were thriving. So at 9:30 p.m. armed with a flashlight and my much braver than me Hubby, we headed to the nest and found these two little guys, weak and lethargic in their nest.

One of the babies was much smaller, but seemed to be a little stronger than the other. The larger of the two barely moved and was in obvious distress. Now, let me stop and say that I am not in the habit of just removing birds from their nest just because their cute and cuddly.

The absolute best thing for a baby bird is to be taken care of by their parents. Brenda assured me that removing the babies if they were ill or dehydrated so they could be rehabilitated and returned to the wild was priority number one.

She also assured me that parent birds will not reject babies if they have been touched by humans, so if the babies were strong enough, we could easily place them back in the nest without fear of the parents deserting them.

Her instructions were to first supply fluids them to prepare their bodies to be fed again. They were exhibiting signs of dehydration, so she recommended clear Pedialyte a couple of drops every 5-10 minutes for a couple of hours, then every hour or so after that. We also had to put them on a rolled up towel in a box placed on a heating pad kept on low to maintain a their body temp.

The smaller of the two began to take the fluids immediately and began to show immediate signs of improvement. As the night progressed, the larger bird finally became interested in taking some of the fluid and by morning was chirping and acting like new baby birds should - Loud and Hungry! Uh!! They're just so inseay-weensy!

Because they tend to stress easily, I pretty much left them in a quiet room by themselves and tried to feed them as quietly and quickly as possible. That nurturing side of me was trying to take over! I so wanted hold them and love them and call them George (or Squishy) - they were so cute! I had to restrain myself! Ack!

In the morning, I was feeling good about their health and began to wonder what happened with the parents. I parked myself in a window that faced the birdhouse and waited to see if they might show up today. (I know - I am such a Kook!)

30 minutes later here is what I saw.

Daddy was back! I bolted out my back door to get him away from the nest before he realized his babies weren't in there anymore. I flew upstairs, grabbed the bowl I was keeping them in, and ran out the backdoor. After gently returning the nest and the twins back in their house, I ran back inside just in time to see the daddy return to check on his babies. I was so excited that I nearly cried! They are such beautiful birds!

I went and sat in my backyard to watch and make sure everyone was happy and that's when Mama came home, too. I could hear the babies chirp excitedly as she crawled in the house and nestled down on top of them to keep them warm. OK, I know I am a dork, but I was sobbing at this point!

I have no idea what happened to them yesterday, but all I can say is I am so glad they are back on parental duty and the babies have been fed several times this morning already so I know they are happy!

Here is the male bringing breakfast for the wife and kids...

Thanks so much to Brenda who helped me get these guys back up to health for their parents! Don't you just love a happy ending?!?!?!

Side note - If you find a baby bird, please contact a professional rescuer for instructions on how to take care of it BEFORE giving it anything. Different birds require different things. Google for a rescuer near you!

Lyla Bryanne

2009-07-07T00:35:00.000-07:00

One of my closest friends recently became a grandmother for the second time in June. They graciously humored and allowed me to take some photos at the hospital to brush up on my photography skills.

I have to say I enjoy those newborn babies! So precious in every way!

Here are a few of my favorites from our "shoot."

Great-grandma's hand...

Sweet big brother...

Giving Gramma kisses...

Congratulations, guys! Love you all so much!!

Mimi's 'Stang

2009-07-06T23:37:00.000-07:00

Wow! Three posts in a row! I told you I had some serious catching up to do. It's also 2:00 in the morning now, so what better thing to do with the quiet than blog! Why am I up so late? Here's a hint:

Meet the Bluebird twins. See their little, blue wing-feathers? Aren't they adorable!?! More about these little sweeties in a later post. Look away, Maribeth! Look away! (Like I told you in THIS post, critters have my address!)

Anyway, there is another new animal in our family! This time it ended up showing up in my mother & father-in-law's driveway. My MIL's new Mustang!

I absolutely love my in-laws! They are hilarious and totally unpredictable! My just barely over 5 foot, 60 something-ish ;) "Other-Mother" decided it was time to buy another car, but not just any car would do. It had to have a powerful engine. It had to ride like the wind. And it had to be RED.

She is so proud of her new baby (as I would be!). My boys think she hung the moon. After all, how many kids can say their grandmother has a red sports car, AND lets them sit in the drivers seat and pretend to drive it, AND takes them for a spin whenever they want! Kewl grandma's rock! My kids are blessed to have two VERY kewl grandmothers!

You have to love a lady with a sense of humor!

What's REALLY wonderful about her is that she could truly care less about things money can buy. She likes her car, but she LOVES her family. Stuff is stuff to them - Love is #1 and I am grateful that not only she, but all of my kids grandparents are living examples of this quality. What a sweet legacy for my kids to see.

In the meantime, Mimi's Mighty Mustang is on the prowl! When your in town, if you hear the rumble of a Mustang's engine behind you, check your rear view mirror for a red one. If the driver is a senior lady who barely clears the dashboard, my advice to you would be pull out of the way. She fully intends to leave you in her dust! :)

More 4th Fabulousness!

2009-07-06T22:33:00.000-07:00

I love the 4th of July for so many reasons. I am grateful for a beautiful and diverse country where pride for our nation is still prominent and where people willingly give their lives to keep it safe and free. The 4th is a great reminder of that!

I also love the 4th because it is a GREAT reason to to get the family together and have a party! We folks on the Perry side believe ANY holiday is a good reason to have a party.

There is also another reason I love the 4th, though. Technically, it really has nothing to do with my country's independence or it's birthday.

Oh, yes. That is a work of art, ladies and gentlemen. A work of art that only goes on display the 4th day of July every year. Here's some more eye candy fer ya...

My dear, sweet Hubby goes through a 2 day ritual preparing these babies just for me (OK - AND the family). He loves me I tell ya. And the sad thing is, he doesn't even like ribs and doesn't eat them. He cooks them for me because I ADORE them. His are THE BEST I have EVER tasted and I am way picky about baby-back ribs. Wish you could have smelled them on the grill. So divine! Mmmm. Mmmm. Mmmm. He has a God-given gift with pork.

The kids splashed around in the pool for awhile while daddy worked his magic.

Daylor decided he was too big for the pool and hung out with the adults for the better part of the day. (Why does he have to look so big?!?!? I have to say I am struggling with the fact that he will be 10 month after next. I'm not near old enough to have a 10 year old and he's not near old enough to be 10! )

Here is some of the other spread we had. We had so much to eat and it was so good! Notice those gorg. tomatoes compliments of my garden.

And everyone knows you can't celebrate the 4th without some of this:

My sweet, 93 year old Peepa enjoying a big plate of yumminess:

Mom always tops of the occasion with my Meema's homemade ice cream recipe. A perfect way to end the perfect day!

God Bless America!

4th Fun!

2009-07-06T20:44:00.000-07:00

I'm back! I hope all of you had a wonderful Independence Day weekend! We certainly did!

We started celebrating the fourth a little early this year by taking the kidos to one of the local mega-churches in town the weekend prior to the 4th. They had a night of worship and fireworks there so we met up with my folks and about 15,000 (literally) other people, and had a picnic and some great QT (quality time) with the family.

We sat by the sound booth. (Of course, at the Da Hubby's request. He says it's not because he is a sound man or that he has an uncontrollable attraction for all things blinky, but because it's going to be where the best sound is. It does make sense, but I still think it has to do with the blinky lights of the board. :)

We had a great view of the stage, mega-tron and other things we wished we didn't have a great view of.

We threw out a blanket and made ourselves comfy.

They had some clowns making ballon hats and dogs for the kids. I don't care if he was wearing a "Clown for Christ" button, he still kinda creeped me out.

Perri was willing, however, to suffer through a EXTREMELY long line and the creepiness of Big Red just so she could get herself a purple puppy dog.

Big Daddy Weave (so awesome!!) was the headliner for the evening.

Don't tell anyone, but even though we were on Baptist church property, there some serious dancin' going on on our little picnic blanket! How can there not be when you are listening to a song with the lyrics, "Dancing with my Father God on fields of grace..."?!?!? It was a blast!

After Big Daddy finished singing we all sat back and enjoyed the fireworks show.

A long walk back to the car...

An hour's wait to get out of the parking lot and a VERY late night for the kids was so worth it because of the great time we had with each other!

And because I got this picture...

Happy Day-O-Independence!

2009-07-03T22:11:00.001-07:00

I know, I know. It's been so long. But, I've been so busy doing all kinds of fun summer stuff and I have been just to pooped out at the end of the day to blog. I haven't been doing so great on updating lately. I'll try to do better! I promise I will catch up soon - have all kinds of stuff to tell and show you!

In the meantime, I hope you all have a fabulous 4th of July! Hugs and love. I'm going to go eat some ribs now.

Short and Sweets

2009-06-26T21:30:00.001-07:00

Horton Hangs A Who

Or at least levitates a few...

I'm hitting the garage sales bright and early in the morning. Check back this week for my finds! Have a fabulous weekend!

The Art of Imperfection

2009-06-24T19:17:00.001-07:00

Have you ever wondered why we try so hard to be perfect?

We strive to have perfect families. We obsess and sometimes spend thousands of dollars to achieve a "perfect" body. When we are in school we are pushed to have perfect grades and perfect scores. We try and, as in my case, repeatedly fail at keeping perfectly clean, neat, and immaculately decorated homes. We try to personify the perfect Christian. We want perfect husbands, and perfect kids, perfect hair, perfect financial freedom, perfect personalities, and perfect clothes for the perfect occasion so that the perfect holiday dinner that we cooked will delight our perfect parents and in-laws. It all makes me nauseous.

I have come to the conclusion that living with imperfection is sometimes WAY harder than trying to be being perfect. Of course, perfection is totally unrealistic in most cases. It will never happen until I am made perfect by our Lord when it is my time to go. But while I are here, I am realizing that I am wasting time trying too hard to be "perfect." Where as it is easy for me to pretend that my life is wonderful and flawless, I tended to put a lot of pressure on myself trying to be that way.

No one wants to be imperfect. We just are. Nothing we can do on our own power will change that.

There are so many things that I would love to change about myself. So many attributes that I would love to have that I don't. So many pet sins that I seem to keep stumbling over. Yet, I continue everyday trying and failing.

To me, perfection is unchangeable. It's flawless and complete. No changes are ever necessary. It's also nearly impossible. Yet, I chose to torment myself into thinking it's necessary to be excepted and loved by others, but more importantly by God. And while it's true that sometimes people do expect perfection, I am reminded on a daily basis that my Father doesn't. He knows I am going to fall. He knows how completely flawed I am. He still is with me. And His love for me stays steadfast.

I had to face it. I AM IMPERFECT. And it's OK. Why?

Because perfection has been achieved. I came across this verse last week in my quiet time and wanted to share it with you.

"Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our hearts from deeds that lead to death so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered Himself to God as a PERFECT sacrifice for our sins."

Hebrews 9:14

Jesus alone was perfect. We will never achieve perfection like He did. And He did it for us so that we don't have to be perfect, but still can live eternally with our amazing Creator! He did it because He wanted to. Because His love for His imperfect people is so unfathomable that He chose to live a faultless life and then give it up so that we could be forever together with God.

Does this mean we should just let it all go and live as we want? No. But it does mean that the pressure is off. When we mess up, which we will, if we are in a personal relationship with Jesus, our shortcomings will never separate us from His abiding love.

And because of this undeserved and unearned grace He bestows on us, someday on the glorious day that we will get to meet Him face to face face, we will get that perfected body and the perfect mansion that He's creating just for you and me! We will sing with a perfect voice to the perfecter of our faith, our beloved Savior.

Garden Update 2

2009-06-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

I don't know about your part of the country but here in the heart of the Mid-South it's as hot as H.E.Double hockey sticks. Today's heat index was well over 110 degrees. It's so, SO very hot that we have planted our family in our little air conditioned home and don't intend to leave it's 75 degree heavenliness unless the plans include a pool or ice cream (or Target.)

One interesting thing about this crazy weather we are having is my little garden seems to love the blistering heat! We are already harvesting some wonderful tomatoes and are amazed by the monger cucumbers that we have pulled. As you can remember, our first attempt at a garden last year was quite the learning experience. We got little to nothing from it except knowledge of every disease, mold and predator bug known to tomatoes, cuc.'s and watermelons.

This year has been wonderful so far! I am amazed at my tomato plants and how huge they are! Just so that you understand why this is so exciting for us, I thought I would show you a picture of what our garden looked like in early September of last year when it should have been at it's fullest and most mature stage. Can we say Pit.i.ful?

Saaaaaaaaad. Here is what the tomato plants looked like. Be sure and notice all the empty stems where the hornworms ate all the fruit and foliage. I abhor those horrible, nasty creatures!

In comparison, here is what our garden looks like today. Yeeehaw!!!

It's so much fun to have a thriving garden! Not to say that God might feel the need to humble me and let it become a fun night out for the hornworms again, but for right now I am rejoicing and thankful that it's doing great!

Here's a few pics of what else is growing:

Baby cantaloupes and watermelons.

Tons and tons of Better Bush, Roma Grape, Early Girl, Beef Steak, Better Boy, Jumbo Cherry, and heirloom tomatoes.

This was probably THE best tomato I have ever tasted. We had BLT's with it last night! Yummy!

Our cucumber's are ginormous. Supposedly, they are supposed to be only 6 inches long, but when they were that short they look so skinny and scrawny. We let them stay on the vine for a couple more days to see if they might plump up some and they literally grew 6 inches in two days.

I look forward to seeing what else we can pull! The kids are enjoying watching everything as it grows and then being able to eat it after it has ripened.

Hope you are enjoying your summer as much as we are!

Today's Forecast

2009-06-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

We interrupt your regular programming to bring you this special weather report. Doppler radar has shown a large area of sock showers moving in a southerly fashion. Be particularly aware of the striped tube socks and socks that are missing their partners.

Obnoxious snorting and contagious laughter are possible.

Winds of joy and happiness are immanent!

A New Look?

2009-06-17T18:43:00.000-07:00

OK, so I have been wanting to change things up a bit and try a new look for awhile. I have had the same wonderful stylist for almost 20 years, but was brave and decided to try a much younger girl thinking she might could really bring my "do" up to date.

I just wanted your opinion of her amazing work. Whaduya think?

Perri, my 5 year old, hip stylist for the day says, and I quote, "Mommy, you's looks Fab-U-Less."

I do, don't I?

Vivaaa, Oh, Vivaaaaaa, NashVegaaaaaas!

2009-06-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

Whew! It seems like forever since my last post! I had envisioned long and frequent posts this summer, but apparently that ain't gonna happen. We have been so busy, busy!

We had a nasty, yucky storm here on Friday. Lots trees and power lines down, but gratefully no one was hurt. Lots of people are just now getting their power back. We lost ours for several hours, but were one of the lucky ones to get it back so soon.

On a happier note, I spent a wonderful weekend with my bestest bud and cousin in Nashville. I packed my oldest youngin' and myself up headed over there on Saturday morning. Although we just mainly ~~trashed~~ hung around the house, we had such a wonderful time just being together. Her precious hubby kindly watched the myriad of boys (she has three + mine) Saturday night so we could go out and have some girl time. We laughed 'til we cried, ate a fabulous dinner, and almost got thrown out of a movie theater. What more could ya ask for? She is truly the best friend I will ever have and we're related! Life is good!

She's going to kill me for putting this picture up, but whatevah... She's gorgeous! She can deal with it. :)

Her boys are so adorable, too!

This is her oldest, F. He and Perri and exactly 2 weeks apart in age. We laugh because he and Daylor are so similar in personality - very careful thinkers and big helpers to mom!

Such a great looking kido!

This is her 2nd little boy, J. Carbon copy of Duglin. Gets into everything. Never stops for a moment. So very, very loving.

Can't you just see the rascal in his eyes. Love him!

This little dude is the adorable V. He's a precious one. I had the privilege of watching him be born. Such a sweet little angel. And Oh. My.Word. The child has got some hair!! He's just a year old and has already had at least five haircuts! He's got that surfer dude look goin' on.

Couldn't you just eat him? And he's quite the oral child, as you can see above...

And here...

And here...

On Sunday after church, we took the boys to a beautiful walking area in the neighbor and let them run off some pent up energy. Around the perimeter of the walking trail was a natural stream like looked like something straight out of a scene from Narnia. So pretty...

I could have spent the entire day there making pictures. The dudes had a great time just running, playing on some stepping stones, and skipping rocks. The mama's had a great time chatting it up with little, OK, alot of interruptions, but whose counting? It was still a wonderful afternoon.

We headed home Sunday evening accompanied by a gorgeous sunset, bagillions of lightning bugs, and a suitcase full of dirty laundry.

I wish we could have had more time with the cousins, but the time we spent was so sweet and as always, full of memories of "growing up together."

Love you, girl! Thanks for a wonderful stay!

OK, sorry. Just had to show you one last photo of V. It's only fair that you get to see him in all his cuteness with out a washcloth, alligator, or cookie blocking his little kissy lips.

Short and Sweets

2009-06-11T17:21:00.000-07:00

Werkin' it...

4 more. 3 more.2 more. Now take it to the left...

The Ghost of Weekend Past

2009-06-09T18:38:00.001-07:00

Tell me how is it possible to have a perfectly clean house Friday afternoon (after spending a week cleaning it) only to wake up Monday morning to find it looking like this?

I can think of a few possible reasons:

Daylor
Duglin
Perri

I need a vacation.

Question of the Day

2009-06-08T19:46:00.000-07:00

***********************************************

Parental warning - Not appropriate for children's eyes. Wish this child's mother had the same sentiment.

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Would you allow your 9 year old daughter wear this? (Yes, she's NINE.) Especially to a public CHILDREN"S sprinkler park? Hmm. Bet you don't have to ponder that one too long.

Honestly. Sometimes I wonder what parents are thinking. Wake up, folks!

Busy, Busy, Busy...Havin' Fun!

2009-06-08T19:23:00.000-07:00

Last year a made a huge mistake in letting my house get so past the point of disorganized and completely nasty that I ended up spending most of the summer trying to get it back into shape again. (Can we say, eeeeww?) Summer is supposed to be fun and well, unfortunately ours last year was anything but. This year I made a concerted effort to stay on top of my housecleaning so that when summer rolled around, I would be able to take the kids to do fun stuff and not just a quick outing to Walmart to buy yet another bottle of 409.

We have been quite busy so far and have so much fun being together and just hanging out. One of the reasons I love summer so much is I get to be just mommy the mommy. I don't have to be Mrs. Mommy, the teacher. We do have plenty of educational moments during the summer, but the pressure is off because there are no tests, no seatwork, and no lesson plans. It's just plain ole' fun and we love it!

Today, I took the kidos to a local sprinkler park. It started out a bit cloudy, but they disappeared soon after we got there and it was PERFECT weather for a day in the water. I enjoyed watching my sweet little ones drenching each other and having a great time. I also got to start a new book from one of my favorite authors. It was really a perfect day. Here's a few of my fav. pic's.

Garage Sale Mania

2009-06-04T19:46:00.000-07:00

Remember this post? Specifically, the part about having a garage sale? As much as I hate hosting them, I LOVE to shop at them. Mom, my fav. shopping partner, and I hit the pavement bright and early last Saturday morning to find some seriously good deals. I thought I would share a few of my finds with you.

Garage sales can be exhausting, I suppose, because you have to be willing to look at a lot of junk to get to the good stuff. I don't mind so much because I typically walk away with a few really kewl items that are worth the hunting. This time around Mom found an great deal on a brand new never used expresso machine for $4.00. We came home and found it on line for $50.00. Saa-weeet!

We literally came home with a backseat full of stuff. Got this cute little night-light lamp for a dollar. Not really sure where I am going to put it yet, but I am positive I needed it. :)

This sweet, little frame - $.10. I have this thing for black frames right now. Since my tastes are subject to change within minutes, I thought I would be safe paying a dime for it and not feel bad tossing it if I hated it tomorrow. But I didn't hate tomorrow - I still think it's cute!

I love this little jobber. I plan in painting the base black, distressing it and putting something nifty in it like lemons or limes in the summer and glass ball ornaments at Christmas. And yes, it does say $.50. Great deal, huh!?!?! HeHe...she gave it to me for quarter. I know!! Seriously!

Here's a great shopping tip for you when garaging sale-ing. When you are ready to purchase something, never offer the seller the price you want to pay first when bargaining. Start by asking the seller if they would give you a deal on the item. Sometimes, they will offer it to you for a lower price than even you would ask for. That way, if the price they offer you is not low enough for your liking, you can counter offer. That's what happened here. I asked her how much of a deal she could give me for it and she quoted me $.25. Woo- Who! Bargains make me happy!

I've got big plans for this little shelf I found. My mom gives Perri a tea cup and saucer set every year for her birthday. We have no place to display them and I have been refusing to buy the cute, white, wall shelves at Target that cost $12-19. (I know, I am cheap.) So, I found this shelf complete with a groove for the saucer to be able to stand upright. It had tacky, country-ish, little pegs that my strong hubby has already pulled out for me. I am going to buy some cute little pulls to replace those with and paint the whole thing-a-majig white (and distress it, of course!). I'll show you the finished product soon! It's going to be adorable in Perri's room. Oh, I paid $1.00 for this.

OK, so I went back and forth on whether to purchase this rod iron candle lantern. I am NOT an interior designer and tend to struggle decorating my home. I am not sure why this is but I tend to buy a lot of candles and candle holders. I have recently looked around my home and realized how many of candle related items I have. I went through a did a big clean out of a lot of that stuff for my own ~~garage sale~~ Goodwill donation. I really am trying to stay away from cluttering up my house with the same types of things again. But after studying it for awhile, I decided that I really liked it's unique shape and I could always put something else on it's base. Besides, it needed me. I heard it say my name when I walked past it it. Yeah. That's it.

Especially since it only cost me $.75.

I know, I know. I just went on and on about how I am trying to get away from candle holders. I couldn't help it on this one. It was too good to pass up. I found her at the bottom of a box completely covered in dust and cobwebs. But it's 2 feet tall. And solid wood. And from Pottery Barn. And completely gorgeous. And perfect for my master bathroom. And only $.75. I'M NOT KIDDING!! I seriously danced all the way down their driveway and nestled this little beauty in my backseat.

This organic-looking, stone urn? Adorable, isn't it? I plan on putting rolled up wash clothes in it and placing it next to my Pottery Barn beauty above. Wanna guess how much I paid fer this little container? Not a cent. Nothing, nada, ner' a thing! It was a free. I asked the lady how much she wanted for it and she just said to take it. I tried to pay her for it and she refused. Best deal of the day!

I am notorious for stopping by random yard and garage sales when I am supposed to be doing something else. About a month ago I came across this loverly table I had found at a yard sale on a Friday afternoon. I bought it for $30.00. A little steep, but I had talked her down from $50.00 and loved the woodwork, so I called Da Hubby to see if I could bring it home. He said yes, with a degree of irritation in his voice.

I tell you that story so that you will understand this one. This past Saturday before I left, Da Hubby made a point to tell me he didn't want any phone calls about anything expensive. In the spirit of saving money for Disney World, I agreed not to buy anything that was to much and went on my merry little way.

We both have been wanting an elliptical machine for a couple of years, but have never been able to find one we could afford. A lady was having a sale that pretty much included a gym full of exercise equipment. She lives in the swanky part of our little town and was having to change over her gym to a mother-in-laws wing to accommodate her ailing mother. She was selling her BRAND NEW elliptical machine for $65.00. I debated and debated calling Da Hubby but knew he would probably hang up on me if I did so I pass it by. (sniff, sniff)

Well, got home and was showing the dear hubs. all my goodies and mentioned the elliptical machine and how good I was at walking away from the deal.

Here's how the conversation went.

Me- "I found this sweet deal on a really great elliptical machine for $65.00. Oh, I wish we had the money. It was a steal!! Babe, you would have been so proud of me - I just walked away!"

Him - "Really? Why didn't you call me? You should have called me."

Oh.Yes.He.Did. I love my husband, but AAAAAARRRRRRGGGG!!! I shot him my best "we-are-going-to-talk-about-this-later-but-I-have-something-more-important-to-do-right-now" look, grabbed my keys, $65.00 that he was hiding somewhere, and RACED through the streets of our little town back to the ladies home. She was closed up and everything was put away.

I took a deep breath and marched up to her door, thinking that I couldn't believe how desperate and pathetic this was going to be. I rang the doorbell. I just knew it was gone. Slipped through my fingers. I was already telling myself the inches I could have lost if I just could have made that phone call to him earlier, would be forever there. No tight tummy. No firm tush. Just flab. Lots and lots of flab. Why? Because SOMEONE told me not to call.

But then I start to think to myself. AM I crazy? I am getting upset because I don't get to work out. What is wrong with me?!?!? This means I have a much better excuse for being squishy. If we get an elliptical machine, people are going to expect me to use it. And sweat. And be sore. Maybe this was a bad idea...

About the time I was about to turn and run back to my truck, chicky answers the door. She meets me around by her garage door. Fortunately/unfortunately, it was still their. So we are the proud owners of a new elliptical machine!

I am pretty pumped about it, though! Trying to do a little toning for the summer! Wanna look hot in my Mickey Mouse tee-shirt down at Disney!

Tomorrow is Saturday, so I am taking my Perri out early and start her training in garage sale etiquette. Should be fun! Looking forward to a day with her and hope to find some incredible deals!

I ♥ Faces - Pets and Birthdays

2009-06-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

This week's theme at I ♥ Faces is "Birthdays and Pets." I couldn't find a birthday submission I really liked so I am entering the "Pets" category this week.

This image is of my sweet, oldest son Daylor, with his beloved chinchilla, Prancer. You would never be able to tell it from this picture, but they pretty much adore each other. :)

Head on over to I ♥ Faces to check out all the critters and birthday activities and join the in on the fun yourself!

Leviticus 18

2009-05-29T10:17:00.000-07:00

We have established such a great bedtime routine with our kids. They clean up, do the pajama and tooth-brushing thing, and then crawl into bed to wait for mom or dad to tuck them in. Da Hubby and I have this little deal worked out that we rotate nights putting them to bed. The evenings we are not putting them to night-night land we do the dishes. It's a sweet deal for sure. Anyway, when it is our turn to put them to bed, we read several verses from God's word to them.

Perri has a Bible devotional book that is WONDERFUL for her age and she will not go to sleep unless we read from it. Duglin picks out a picture from his Super Heroes Bible and we read him the story it goes with. Daylor is reading the Bible from cover to cover on his own desire, so he has been making his way through the Old Testament. It is so wonderful that they have the desire to want to read God's Love Letter with us and we are thrilled for the opportunity to be there to answer questions and participate in this evening event. Time consuming? Yes. Absolutely worth it.

It's amazing the sense of humor God has. I am not one who believes in a stoic, straight faced, and humorless God. The Father I know is comedic and funny and has perfect timing. As I am typing this out, I can almost hear His booming, musical laughter. Why? Well, as much as we LOVE reading the Bible we have had to deal with an issue that we hadn't thought of. The word that strikes fear and perhaps dread at the thought of in every parent. The "S" word.

S.E.X.

Daylor has done a great job reading through the Old Testament. He has enjoyed the old stories of Moses and the nation of Israel. Then we got to Leviticus.......

Let's stop here for a second so I can fill you in with a few details. One of the great things about homeschooling is that we have avoided our kids learning about things such as sex at too early of an age or before we have felt that they were mature enough to talk about it. Granted, they could still hear it from neighborhood kids or kids from church, but we have been blessed that our children have, for the most part, been innocent to what sex is.

Da Hubby and I have both recently felt like our boys were getting old enough to have "the talk." We have also felt the Spirit urging us to share God's wonderful plan of sex with them. Frankly, we have been ignoring it. OK, so maybe ignoring isn't strong enough a word to describe our eludement (Yay! I made a new word!) of the subject matter. Perhaps, if I'm "keepin' it real" our behavior would be better be described as running away as fast as we can screaming as we go.

I never thought this would be so difficult! I really thought I would be the parent that would be OK with dealing such an issue. I have to say I am terrified! I am very open to talking about sex. With adults. It doesn't bother me talk about it. But, with my boys, the whole thought of having that conversation gives me heartburn.

SO! I am doing what every good mother of sons should do and passing the baton to my husband to talk with them. I'm such a giver!

We both agree that this is a conversation that he should be having with them, not me. You would think this would give me a big sigh of relief. Our boyz adore and look up to him. He is wonderful father. Not just a father, but a Daddy. But after hearing his best opening liner he was going to give them for the conversation, I am now SERIOUSLY concerned. Oh. My. Word. I will spare you his, um, "enlightened" choice of words, but trust me when I say the kids would need therapy for life. Pardon me, while I go take a ~~bottle~~ couple of TUMS.

So, back to Leviticus. We were doing fine with all the sacrificial ceremony commentary and the cleansing techniques before entering the Temple that the Old Testament was providing us. We discussed all the promises that God had made and fulfilled through and to His people. It was beautiful and precious, the conversations that were being sparked through God's Word. It was all interesting, good, and wonderful.

Until Leviticus 18. Yes, that enlighten chapter of Leviticus. I will wait so you can go read it for yourself.

See, what I mean?

Apparently, God was tired of the brush-off we were giving Him concerning this issue and made sure that this was the chapter Daylor would read to us last week.

*CHOKE***COUGH, COUGH*****CHOKE*********GASP**** Defibrillator, please....

Yeeeeeeeaah. Hmm. No easy way outta this one. Well, needless to say we will be having the "conversation" in the extreme future as many, many questions have been sparked since this reading. (I hear your giggles, Jesus. OK, not really, but I bet You're getting a big laugh outta this one.)

So, all of you mommies out there who know what I'm talkin' 'bout, how did you do it? Did you use a book to go along with the conversation? What was it? Did you experience the heart palpitations at the thought of discussing such a serious, but wonderful thing with your kids?

I am going to lay it out there for ya. If your your feelin' my pain, PLEASE leave me a comment as I would would be eternally grateful for any godly advice and possibly the loan of a Pacemaker. (Just in case.)

I ♥ Faces - Silhouettes

2009-05-26T10:28:00.000-07:00

When I saw that I ♥ Faces theme this week was "Silhouettes" I knew immediately what photo I was going to submit. This was taken in Destin a couple of years ago. It is of my little boy, Duglin, running down the beach. It has to be one of my favorite pictures. I love the reflection of the sunset on the water and the little footprints he's leaving behind. I also appreciate the fact that he was running so fast that he almost didn't make it in the frame. Totally fits his personality! Thank goodness for those fast shutter speeds and snappy ISO's!

To see some more incredible silhouettes head over to I ♥ Faces and join in on the fun!

Short and Sweets

2009-05-22T21:54:00.000-07:00

Duglin's Grocery List...

When we asked what the fourth item was he said it was hats and strings (streamers). Literally, everyday is a party for this child. Oh, how he makes my insides smile. :)

What I Did on My First Day of Vacation...By Ellie May

2009-05-21T14:38:00.001-07:00

This has been an issue my entire life. God must have given me a scent that attracts hurt, lost, or abandoned animals to my front door and to my husband's dismay, into our home. Da Hubby calls me Ellie May which I suppose if I were feeling defensive I could be offended at. Realistically, it's the truth. I have a very, extreme soft spot for animals.

I can't help it. It just happens. I seriously don't go looking for them. They find me. Lots and lots of them know where I live and deliberately plop themselves into my life.

Personally, I think it's my mom's fault. Although she would NEVER admit it, she has the same tender heart towards critters that I do so it must of been one of those inherited genes thingys. I will admit I am really bad. I bring home anything - snakes, turtles, squirrels, chinchillas, dogs, cats, bunnies, and an occasional opossum or two. I know it's crazy but they just won't leave me alone! And they know I just don't have the heart to leave them! (Oh, wow. I just realized that I am beginning to sound like the crazy lady at the end of the street with all the animals. Really, it's not like that!!! Much.)

Case in point, we found this on our back porch on Monday.

So sad looking isn't it? We think another bird must have stolen the egg from a nest but when it found out it had a baby in it it was dropped. Right on to my back porch. Literally it was minutes old. It's hiney was still attached to the egg. After detaching the egg from the baby, I took it inside and began to figure out how to save the little guy.. how could I have not? Look at it! It was one wiggly, little critter and seemed to have alot of strength so I thought maybe it would have a good chance of surviving.

Things were going just dandily as I was educating myself in the ways of baby sparrows. The site I found said to wrap it up in a soft cloth (Check!), put in a small container (Check!), put on a heating pad (Check!), and place in a quiet room (Check! Well, sort of, except for the sound of the back door slamming as the kids were in and out. And in and out. And in and out.). I was up with this! I could do this - baby sparrows are a breeze!! That's until I went to check on it and it was doing this.

Uh-oh. MAN! And to add to it's tiny patheticness, it was peeping! Aww! So heart wrenching! I had to do something! Well, after researching a bit I found out you can give it some softened dog food. Apparently, it works because she ate it. (That was a whole other ordeal.) I began to think that maybe I could rehabilitate the little guy here at our house and set him free when he got big enough. I had visions of releasing it to the wild to be with it's brothers and sisters. It was a beautiful thought... until I read that you have to feed it every 15-20 minutes, 24 hours a day for 2 days and then every hour to hour and a half for the next 7 days (No wonder mommy birds are so cranky!). Umm. I don't think so. Time to find "Tweety" a new home.

I found this great lady in town that takes in baby birds and does get up and take care of them 24 hours a day, God bless her! So we packed the little birdie up, kept it nice & warm on a heating pad plugged in, and headed to her house. Poor lady - she already had several birds she was helping and I am sure I added to her misery,but she was excited to see how tiny and strong the "hatchling" as she called it was. Poor thing, hadn't had a bath or been to sleep for an hour straight in days. Now THAT is dedication!

Here we are on the way to the nice lady's house all warmed with a heating pad and my footsies (I just love that color toe-nail polish!)

After dropping it off, I walked out of her bird filled home and I felt a huge sense of relief knowing that the little guy was going to have a chance with someone who knew what she was doing, and Da Hubby was breathing a sigh of relief that his wife wasn't going to be occupido taking care of a baby sparrow for the next few weeks.

Sadly, the baby birdie did not make it. She/he/it died the following day. But, I feel good that in its short little life it was comfy, warm, and fed by people who cared about its little existence. I can live with that.

Now I await the next little creature to come a knockin'. I'll be ready with a like I always am. :)

The BIG Reveal

2009-05-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

Woo- Who!!! School is out for summer!

We normally have an open house every year for our families to come over and see all that the kidos are learning in that school year. The kids enjoy showing off all their work and art and we have such a great time! Usually we host the open house at Christmas time, but this year we had a very exciting surprise for the kids, so we decided it was best to have it at the end of our year.

We started out displaying all the kids work for the grandparents and family to see. Being that we are not in a "regular" schoolroom situation, it's such a good thing for them to be able to take pride in their work and be able to share it with other people.

We told the youngin's that we had planned a few games for them and started with the whole family participating in charades. THAT was fun. Here is a great shot of my brother, Brian, doing his best rendition of a monkey.

We then told the kids we were going to have a treasure hunt and handed them the following note:

All the clues had been printed out beforehand, put in envelopes, and hidden in various places.

Here is how it went.

Clue # 1 -

Sundae and Harmini have you first clue.

Go to their houses and find out what to do.

Clue #2 -

Congratulations, you've found you're first clue!

You'll need to go see Mrs. Lisa to find out next what to do!

Clue #3 -

Your journey has just begun!

Head back home and see Go-Go for more fun!

Clue #4 -

Now out you go into the backyard.

Check in Mr. Green Turtle. See? It's not hard!

Clue #5 -

Good job, our treasure hunters three!!

Time for clue number 6: Where would ice be?

Clue #6 -

BRRRRR! Thanks for saving me from the cold!

Now go open the dryer - Do what your told!

Clue #7 -

Go straight to your bathroom! I hope it's clean!

Check under the sink and look for something green!

Clue #8 -

Take this to Papaw and use it to buy your 9th clue.

You know how Papaw is. You may have to beg for a minute or two!

Clue #9 -

Instructions are held in Clue Number 10.

But you'll have to find it. It's somewhere in the den.

Clue # 10-

WOW! You guys have done great and you're almost done.

Go find an envelope on the trampoline, but be careful - Don't run!

Clue #11-

Mama and Daddy hold the 12th and final clue.

They will tell you what next you must do!

Clue #12 -

Congratulations!! Do you wonder what you've won?

Hasn't this been a boat load of fun?

Put the puzzle together and in one, two, and three

You'll know what the prize is in a quick jiffy!

So for the next 20 minutes the kids and grandparents all helped put the puzzle together. The end result was this. Perri guessed that it was a mouse, but everyone was wondering why there was a big piece in the middle that was missing.

I made them look all over for the missing piece, but finally confess that we had it the whole time. After torturing them for as long as I possible could, I then laid the final piece of the puzzle in front of them.

(Insert ear piercing screaming and jumping up and down as well as Duglin's remark of "Can we eat now?" here.

I also have made a countdown calendar for the trip! We have literally had this booked since February 2008 and it has been a miracle that they haven't found out! I feel like I can breathe now!

Hey, Mom! We're going to Disney World!!!!!!!!! Now you know our big secret, too!

I ♥ Faces - 2009 Blurb Photo Book

2009-05-18T21:24:00.000-07:00

This week's I ♥ Faces contest is for a Blurb Photo Book they will be making with the winners photos. They have asked that you find your favorite photo to post. This was soooo tough in that I have so many pics that I adore. So I decided to choose this picture of my boys a couple of years ago in Destin. It's definitely one of my favorites. I love the color, the warm light from the sunset in the background, and most of all, the reflection of how much they love each other.

I am submitting this photo into the http://www.iheartfaces.com/ Blurb book photo contest. If chosen, I grant I ♥ Faces permission to use my photo in a printed version of a book for commercial use and possibly advertising of a photo book on both the Blurb and I ♥ Faces web sites.

Head over I ♥ Faces to join in on the fun!!

Garden Update #1 & Other Stuff Too

2009-05-14T19:14:00.000-07:00

Ooooooh, yeah, baby. Now that's what I'm talkin' 'bout!

Yes, those are what you think they are. Little tiny mater's! In just two weeks, my little plants have survived all the typhoons and rain and have begun to produce! Can't tell you how happy that makes my green, little heart. I know you are saying to yourself, so what? It's just a tomato.

Well, as you can remember in this post, last year was a umm, a rough year for our little tomato plants. In fact, even though we planted the buggers in April, out of 9 plants we got no tomatoes until October when the first frost came and stole what had started to grow. NONE. Yes, friends, I am ashamed to say that I have been known in the past as a tomato plant killer. Sigh...

Fortunately the tide seems to have changed this year and we have a great start to some healthy looking plants! Keep on keeping on, little babies!! Mama, wants some tomatoes!

Perri also decided she wanted to join the Green Thumb Society and plant a little flower garden of her own. A few weeks back our church gave the kids a packet of Cosmos seeds for the them to plant. We dug up a little corner of our backyard and let her put them there. BTW, the package said they grow 4 to 5 feet! Seriously!?!?! Should be fun to find out. Here she is showing off her little garden.

And here she is again, tolerating the fact that big brother wants to be in the picture, too. Notice her flared nostrils and expressionless eyes. Ya think there is some passive aggressiveness going on in this shot? Hmmm...

Here is my little ~~drama queen~~ sweet princess giving you her best and dramatic "this is my shovel and you can't have it" expression.

The child cracks me up, ya'll! Apparently God thought our family needed some drama when he chose to give her to us. Don't get me wrong, it's not the kind of drama from defiance or rebelliousness, it's the kind you get when you cross a Snow White movie with a Broadway musical. She lives in a totally different world than I do that includes talking to crickets and rescuing fallen leaves from being stepped on.

But, I love it. I love that she loves being a feminine, pink obsessed, stuff animal toting, twirly smocked dress wearing, little girl. She enjoys her childhood. I think all of my kids do. I am grateful for that!

Wow, I totally went off the path there didn't I?

Anyway, I better be off - I have TONS of housework to do. The Balentine Christian Academy officially closes for summer tomorrow and we are having an open house for the family to come see all that the kids have learned this year. I can't wait!

I also have a big surprise! SHHHHH!! It's a secret! But, I can't tell you what it is yet. NO. I am not pregnant you sick, sick person, you! :) You'll have to wait until Monday to find out!

Have a fabulous weekend!

I ♥ Faces - Laughter

2009-05-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

This week's theme for I ♥ Faces is laughter. While I have hundreds of laughter pics, I decided to pick two that are not necessarily technically perfect, but two that were very dear to my heart.

My kids photo is of the first time we took the family to the beach. This is the very moment that my kids first touched salt water. I will never forget the squeals and laughter as their toes first felt the waves on the beach.

My adult entry is of my amazing mother and father-in-law. I am so blessed to have in laws that I adore. This image gives me such a nostalgic, Americana feeling. I love how they are laughing and looking at each other. They just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and they simply love each other to pieces.

If you feel like you need a warm fuzzy, head over to I ♥ Faces to see other amazing pics. Makes ya feel down right giddy seeing all the happy faces.

A Weekend of Firsts

2009-05-11T20:10:00.000-07:00

Hope all you mamas out there had a fabulous Mother's Day! My weekend was right nice, but soooo incredibly busy! We had much so to do. Lots of kewl stuff happened I thought I would share today. We had several "firsts" at the Balentine Kingdom that must be documented here and in the baby books. OK, maybe not the baby books, but EVERYTHING is blog worthy at our house. :)

First, Daylor is no longer in his booster seat. He is over the weight and age limit for needing one and had his first ride in the car sans the "baby seat" as he now calls it. Last week when he was sitting in it, it was a "booster seat". Now that we are ALL grown up, it officially has become a "baby seat". Mommy is sad but working through it. I suppose it would be unreasonable for me to ask him to ride in it until he was 21.

Then we ran to "the border" with the kids for the first time this week. They got their very first Taco Bell dinner. I know, we are bad parents for not taking them before now, but we have a VERY picky eater that rarely wants anything but ~~McNasty's~~ McDonald's. She actually decided that she wanted to try something different (with a little bribing) and went for a couple of crunchy tacos. You would have thought they were having a steak dinner - they LOVED it! Woo-Who - now we can go to two places! (Seriously, she is beyond picky, but that is a whole other post for another day.)

Speaking of steak dinner, the kids had their first steak dinner as well this week. (I know, how sad, we totally don't experiment much with food here - back to Miss Picky-Pants.) In efforts to expand the kids desire to eat a variety of food, we have a couple of kid cookbooks that we are letting one kid a week pick out something that they would like to fix. It was Daylor's week last week and he chose Teriyaki Steak Kabobs over Grilled Pineapple. Delish!! So good!

Daylor is totally open to eating just about anything. Literally, he will try anything. A-n-y-t-h-i-n-g. Including octopus. With tentacles. And a head attached. And eyes still looking at you. Not joking. Anything. Gag.

Anyway, the boys said they really liked the steak. Perri took a bite then threw up a little in her mouth...and everywhere else. I'm not sure, but I don't think she liked it. Oh well, back to McNasty's and P,B&J.

There is also one other thing that happened this weekend that concerns my Perri. She finally got over her fear of walking through the house at night to come and get us when she is scared. It has been raining almost solidly for two weeks here and there has been many thunderstorms. All of my kids have gone through a period a fear of thunder, but Perri has always dealt with it much differently then the boys ever did. She does something we call "boody bumping." It is a coping mechanism that she has had since birth. There is a long, long story behind this and again, it will be another post for another day, but the main point is she overcame her fear and came to get us instead of boody bumping.

She has NEVER come and gotten us for ANYTHING, even when she was sick, when she has accidents, when it was thundering, when hail made the house sound like it was caving in, when fireworks were going off, when she's thrown up in bed. Nothing. It has been a source of guilt for me not being there and not knowing when to be there for her. She simply coped the best and most quiet way she knew and would boody bump for hours. Completely heart breaking for Da Hubby and I. It also leads to severe follicle issues such as this:

FUNNY! But, nor fun to brush out. Especially when you have a tender head like she does.

Anyway, I can't tell you how HUGE this is. HUGE! We have been trying for years to help her move from the rocking and "bumping" to coming and telling us she is scared instead. For some reason she has never been able to voice that until now. We spent a good part of the night and most of the morning holding and loving on her. What a sweet and precious Mother's Day present that was.

So, I hope that your Mother's Day weekend was as fun and blessed as mine was!

Short and Sweets

2009-05-07T20:32:00.000-07:00

Perri coined a new term at our house this week. She informed her daddy and I that she was very excited that summer was coming. I asked her why and she said she was looking forward to getting outside to do some "excessorizing".

"Ex-cess-or-izing" - verb - workin' out and looking fab with a few accenting articles.

I'm thinkin' I need to call Webster's!

I ♥ Faces - Hats

2009-05-04T19:57:00.000-07:00

This week's theme at I ♥ Faces is hats. I am submitting a kid and adult entry this time around.

My adult entry is of my favorite people in the world, my 93 year old grandfather, "Peepa." Here, he is showing off his newest and 8th great-grandchildren who happens to be named after him. As you can tell by his amazing smile, he adores his great-grand babies!

My kids entry is of my daughter, Perri. We started taking pictures while wearing the hat, but it quickly got on her nerves, so she took it off and began to twirl it in front of her. I love the way this turned out! It is probably one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken! Thanks to I ♥ Faces for the inspiration!

If you want to be totally impressed by some very talented photographers make your way on over to I ♥ Faces for the hat festivities!

Gardening for Dummies

2009-05-04T09:08:00.000-07:00

Yay! Warm weather and sunshine!! Well, at least it sunshined for a day or two, nothing but rain since! But that's OK, at least it's warm outside! I love May for lots of reasons but my FAVORITE reason (with the exception that school gets out) is that I get to plant my garden!

Last year, Da Hubby was so kind to build me a ~~fortress~~, beautiful garden for our backyard. Dude, this thing ain't movin'! Isn't it loverly?

People have asked us why do we need such a structure for a garden. Garden are supposed to be free and able to spread. Here are our two main reasons:

Who me?

Uhh, yeah. Don't let their adorably, sweet faces fool you. They are Vicious. Cunning. Veggie Killin' Machines. They get into EVERYTHING, hence the electric fenced in garden. (I'm just kidding, people!) However, that's not such a bad idea....

Anywho, we decided what a great educational and frugal way to grow some of our own stuff! This was our little peace of incredibly diseased, pain in the butt, insect infested, non-producing heaven last year. It was, umm, an "experimental" year. Yea. Anyway, amazingly enough we ended up with a few edible items and a desire to try to get it right this year.

We planted three small strawberry plants last year and picked the blossoms off as they came out. Supposedly that makes the plant increase their volume and spread for the next year's crops. We covered them with straw (Covering strawberries with straw - clever, huh?) over the winter and up they sprung with a vengeance this spring. They are TASTY!!!

They are so adorable! I just love them! At least we did one thing right last year!

Here's some of the other things I have planted this year and will hopefully get a harvest by the end of summer.

And then, there are the tomatoes. We planted nine different types. Ahh, our tomatoes. A great source of stress and demise in my life. I have this really beautiful and sweet neighbor I was talking to last year about my tomatoes. I told her that my tomatoes had every disease and bug that is known to kill the plants with the exception of the nastiest bug of all, the hornworm. I will spare you a picture of these grotesque creatures, because they are just that nasty. So literally a week later I go out to water my precious, dying tomatoes and find a family of 12 nasty, nasty and HUGE hornworms had taken over my garden the evening before and eaten most of the baby fruits as well as most of the vegetation. OOOOOOO!!! I HATE those things!

(Side note - I thought I'd also mention that neighbor I was talking about. You know, the sweet and beautiful one? Well, she planted two tomato plants gingerly in her front beds and produced two, 7 foot tall plants that literally were drooping to the ground with all the tomatoes on the branches. No hornworms. No blight. No powder fungus. No aphids. No garden fortress. Just tomatoes. Lots and lots of tomatoes. Humph. I am not jealous. I am not jealous. I am not jealous.) I love you, Lisa!

Again, I will try and maybe after learning from a few mistakes last year, perhaps I will get something to feed my family with! I so enjoy watching the plant progress and grow throughout the summer. I just hope there is something to eat this year. (I really don't think I should have any worries, though. My beautiful and sweet neighbor has planted her tomatoes once again in her front flower beds and I'm sure she won't mind if I come and ~~steal~~ liberate a few from her! After all, what are neighbors for?

I ♥ Faces - Reflection

2009-04-27T19:22:00.000-07:00

I ♥ Faces theme this week is "Reflection" as in the mirror image kind. I thought this could be an easy, fun challenge. I was wrong! I struggled with this theme more than I thought I would. I decided to do something little different this week. Typically my photos turn out bright and cheery, but this one is somewhat dark and somber. I thought maybe it would be interesting to mix things up a little and try to think "outside the box."

This shot reflects my oldest son, Daylor's serious side very well. I chose to use an empty picture frame with a black background for his reflection. It amazed me how well the reflection actually came out.

Head on over to I ♥ Faces to see other's rendition of this theme and be brave and enter your own!

Short and Sweets

2009-04-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

Sitting down at dinner, we were discussing that they were showing the movie "Enchanted" at the doctors office yesterday when I took in Duglin. Our family is slightly obsessed with this movie. We LOVE it! Especially, you guessed it, Perri. We are constantly quoting one liners from this movie. Anyway, if you have ever seen the movie you would be familiar with the term, "True Love's Kiss." It's pretty much the theme phrase of the movie.

Here is how the conversation went:

Perri - "Mommy did you know that True Love's Kiss is not real?"

Me - "It's not?"

Daylor, with his most disgusted voice - "Unfortunately, Perri, it is. People actually do that."

Tee-Hee!

Go kiss your True Love today!

3 Things I Learned This Weekend...

2009-04-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

1. It is so much, MUCH more fun to shop at garage sales than it is to be having one.

Right after Christmas we did a major clean out of our upstairs room as well as the rest of the house and decided that there was so much stuff we should have a garage sale. When I say we, that means I, because Da Hubby wasn't quite as excited about it as I was. We've been doing the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University thing and was inspired to try to make a little money. I thought to myself what a great way to make a little extra cash-ola!

We stored all the crap, uhh, I mean treasures, in the garage for four months and finally had the sale this weekend. Can we say WASTE.O.TIME? So after weeks of hard work, pricing & storing, hours of sitting in the sun (which was the best part), and a profit of only $61.00 we decided this was officially the first and last garage sale the Balentine household would ever have. 5 truck loads of Goodwill donations later we will have a place to park the cars again.

2. Being sick, while having a child who is recovering from a sinus infection, another child with laryngitis, and yet another with a double ear infection and strep throat all while hosting an unsuccessful garage sale makes for a VERY long weekend.

3. I have incredibly sweet children.

I had to take Duglin this morning to the doctor. Yes, it's Sunday, but that's one advantage of having a Jewish pediatrician. They are open Sunday mornings for emergency cases. Duglin has been running a 104 temperature since Friday morning that doesn't want to break. So I carted the poor baby off to the doctor first thing this morning to find out he has two "mega" ear infections that have caused a temporary loss of hearing in both ears AND a severe case of strep throat. I feel so bad for my little man.

Anyway, after his examination, the doctors let the kids raid a little drawer built into the examination table that is full on plastic animals and doo-dads. Duglin began to choose one to take home and the comical doctor "whispered" to Duglin to take on of the plastic lizards and put it on his mama's pillow tonight to see what she would do. Hearing full well what the doctor had said, I played dumb and asked Duglin what the doctor said. Duglin laughed and motioned for the doctor to come near so he could whisper back. I could hear him tell the doctor no, I love my mom too much to do that. AW! What a precious boy! I might possibly need to eat him!

The doctor was so shocked at his response that his eyes welled up with tears. He looked at me and said he had been a doctor for 30 years and that he has told his other patients the same thing hundreds and hundreds of times. Never once has a child ever responded that way. We both were teary-eyed. He looked back at Duglin and shook Duglin's hand. He told Duglin that it was worth coming to work on a Sunday to be able to meet him and to be able to hear that. He proceeded to walk out of the room and bring all the nurses in to meet my little guy.

Seriously! What more can a proud mama say? Remember this post? Perhaps it's safe to say that he still loves his mommy best!

Get well, sweet boy! I love you, too!

Short and Sweets

2009-04-22T13:16:00.000-07:00

Perri enjoys watching DVDs that have any kind of music on them, especially anything that relates to tiaras and castles. Regularly she makes up her own, umm, "choreography" with them. The other morning while the boys were doing school, Perri was occupying herself by dancing around the den to one of her Disney Princess movies.

Daylor, who happens to adore his sister, but finds her extremely feminine attributes a little over the top and annoying, looked over at her and grinned. He looked back at me and said, "Mom, she is so cute! I am so glad you guys decided to adopt her." (Side note for those who don't know my family - Perri is not adopted.)

Gotta love when they develop a sense of humor at an early age. :)

I Heart Faces - Self-Portrait

2009-04-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

Yikers!! This week's challenge on I Heart Faces was a toughy!! Definitely an exercise in humility. I used my 50mm lens for this and it certainly is not forgiving when it comes to those fines lines and blemishes. (Thank goodness for spot healing brushes, blur masks, and other fabulous technological wonders!)

I hate having my picture taken to begin with, but having to take my own portrait and having to make sure I am not making some obnoxious face at the same time, nearing impossible!!! so here's my best shot.

Head on our to the nice folks at I Heart Faces to see what other brave people did in their own self-portraits.

He's Mine...Hands off!

2009-04-19T17:49:00.000-07:00

Just want to share something going on around my neck-o-the-woods. Lately, I been noticing a slight change in his behavior. I guess I should have seen it coming, after all, he has such a loving and funny personality. He naturally attracts people. Recently, I caught him at church watching her. When he saw me following his gaze to her, he looked embarrassed and kept walking.

I'm hurt and devastated I'm no longer his only one. I mean, I guess with those beautiful, blue eyes he was going to be hard to keep as exclusively mine. sigh.....

Yes, there's another woman...a girlfriend.

What does he see in her? OK, sure, she's naturally blond, smaller than me, but I definitely have her in the height and cooking capabilities areas.

Oh, and then there's the age thing. Apparently, he likes the "younger" models. Friends have warned me about this, but really I just didn't this one coming.

And the saddest thing of all is he actually admitted to me that he likes her!!! In fact, he even goes as far as to say that she is his "girlfriend". Seriously!!?!? And apparently, she likes him, too. Doesn't she know that he belongs to me!?!

OK, I know that they have a tendency to get eyes for other women, but seriously! He's 7! He's only supposed to love his mommy!!! The nerve!

So now, if you will excuse me, I am going to go pack my bags now and head for the Land of Denial.

He's mine, Mine, MINE! And she can't have him! Well, at least until he's 35.

A Journey to Worship

2009-04-17T08:45:00.000-07:00

I remember the exact moment I decided what I wanted to do when I grew up. I was sitting in the backseat of my parents green, 70 's Ford LTD (Saaaawwweeett!). I was seven, going on eight, and my mom, brother, and I were waiting in the car for my dad to pay the bill at the little cafeteria in our neighborhood we frequented. I remember I was singing along to a tape mom had going and was staring out the window. After the song was over, mom looked back at me and said, "Honey, you sang that song really nicely. You have a great voice!"

It's amazing the power of a parents words. Those words changed my life from that moment and gave me a vision for my future. I remember thinking to myself that I wanted to sing. And not just sing, but be really good at it. A couple months later I began voice lessons. I worked really hard and practiced every day. I continued taking lessons from various people up until high school.

Then, the real training began.

I began taking lessons from Tommy through high school and college. I was beginning to lose confidence in my vocal capabilities as my voice was unpredictable and inconsistent as a teenager. Tommy was one of those people who encouraged me to do my best despite my teen aged, squeaky voice. He wouldn't put up with my pathetic self-pity and pushed me to do what he knew I capable of. I am grateful for the training I had with him. I learned how to really sing.

One of the things that Tommy taught me has stuck with me over the years and was this: God gives the gift of musicality. How great it is to take this gift and improve upon it. Not only does this advance our talent, but it honors God by acknowledging and doing our part to refine the gift. I LOVE that!

After college and getting married, I knew I wanted to do something with my singing and I also knew I wanted to use my voice for God in some way, but honestly, I really didn't have a clue what direction I should take. Da Hubby and I decided to join a church near our home and both became part of the worship team there. A couple of years later the church hired a new worship leader by the name of Sparrow.

God used Sparrow to change my whole perception of singing about Him. In fact, he changed my whole concept of what worship is and how I needed to incorporate that into my life. Singing from that moment on became a side issue and worship came to the front and center of my life.

Sparrow helped me focus first, on my own daily walk with Christ. Living worship as a"lifestyle." Then, draw others to Christ through worship leading, ultimately helping to establish and/or grow other's relationship with Jesus.

I now use my voice to worship and praise my awesome God. Not just sing about Him, but to and for Him alone. Vocalizing my adoration of Him spills over from my desire to worship Him in ALL aspects of my life, not just when I am holding a microphone or listening to music.

I know why God led my mom to make that comment almost 30 years ago that first peeked my interest to be a singer. I see why I went through all the years of training with Tommy and others to be able to sing properly and effectively. I look back and understand why Sparrow was in my life to mentor me and prepare my heart to be a leader. I needed all of those things because my heart craves and hungers to worship an Almighty God who loves me more than I can imagine. Using my voice as a tool, a vehicle, I worship Him, not because He forces me to, but because I want to. I really want to. I hope those who hear me sing don't see some chick who has a voice, but a face that reflects gratitude to and amazement of my Heavenly Father.

All those things that have led me to this point, have sent me on journey to worship my Saviour. Along the way, God used and is using certain people to align my footsteps to the right paths to take to get to my destination. I am still traveling and all the while on the way I will continue to commune with my God. I am grateful for the privilege to openly live my life for Him.

I love Him, I love Him, I love Him.

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T11:32:00.000-07:00

Hope you have a wonderful day celebrating the resurrection of our loving and LIVING King!

Happy Easter to you and yours!

I Heart Faces - HELP ME!

2009-04-10T17:41:00.001-07:00

What a great opportunity that I Heart Faces is giving to help answer some questions about a particular photo that needs "something." And if I can hurry I will be the 50th and last person to get the opportunity to get some "constructive feedback!!"

This photo was taken at sunset in Florida with an Olympus E500 camera using a 40-150mm lens. (Yes, I know it's not the best lens to have, but at the time it was all I had.) I shot in Aperture Priority mode with a f3.5, ISO of 640, sorry, don't know what the exposure timing was.

I love the thought of how great this photo could have been. Love the expression, love the sunset in the background. I was afraid to shoot with a flash because I thought that it would wash out the sunset. So, I guess my question would be how I get a portrait shot but still have a great background such as this without out the flash washing out the colors in background? Granted my editing sucks, too, but when I tried to brighten the subject, she turned out a funky color. When I tried to fix that, the whole picture just looked odd.

Any other suggestions and comments are totally welcome!!!! Thanks so much I Heart Faces!!

Here is the unedited version if anyone else wants to give it a shot! Thanks so much!

Short and Sweets

2009-04-09T14:36:00.000-07:00

Evidence that Perri may be watching a little too much Strawberry Shortcake...

Perri - "Daylor! Duglin! Come look out the window!!!"

Daylor - "What?"

Perri - "Come look!!!"

Daylor - "I don't see anything."

Duglin - "Me, neither."

Perri - "You don't see them!?!?"

Daylor, getting annoyed - "See, WHAT, Perri?"

Perri - "The yard! It's covered in "wishberries!!!!"

Daylor and Duglin - (eyes rolling)

I didn't have the heart to tell her, her daddy just Weed-B-Gone-d the "wishberries" soon to be "deadberries." Oh, well. Bye, bye "wishberries!" Hello, Bermuda!

Martha Mondays

2009-04-06T19:51:00.000-07:00

Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy doing crafts? I used to do them obsessively before the kidos came to be, but found I had little time for do them when babies arrived. Or maybe it was I just didn't want to fight the hands that wanted to "help." hmmm... Either way, I put my crafting cravings away for awhile to raise some youngin's.

Now that my little ones are a bit older, I have joined up with a Monday night group with other fabulous moms who strangely enough all have kids 2 years and younger (I don't know how they do it!) to form a crafting circle. We have some amazingly crafty and creative people in the group. I love to craft, but I am definitely a copy cat! These ladies are down-right Crafting Queens! They inspire me and make me laugh!

I have made some really fun a kewl stuff in our circle like this

and this

and most recently this.

Jennifer and Maribeth in the group came up with a the great idea of having a crafting blog where we share the projects birthed from our circle. We also give instructions on how they were done, give ya lots of pictures, and lists of what cha' need and where to get it! Fun!!

So, go check out the craftiness at Martha Mondays , our new blog!! Keep checking back for some awesome ideas and feel free to leave comments, ask questions, or whatever!!! Hope you enjoy!

Getcha Motors Runnin'!

2009-04-03T11:22:00.001-07:00

***B.L.O.P. Alert! (Boat Load-O-Photos)***

Take a big breathe in and smell that? It's the fragrance of spring in full bloom. I love this time of year, even if we all sneeze and itch and sniffle (that's what Zyrtec is for.)

My fab. in-laws asked us awhile back if it was OK if they bought a motorized scooter for the kids to ride on their 2 acre lot. After debating back and forth whether or not we were up to several visits to the E.R., we decided it wouldn't be to bad to use our sucky insurance now and then and agreed to let them purchase it. We took the kids over to let them try out the "Red Dart," as named by the kids. To my relief, I found out it only goes a few miles an hour and we have restricted it's use to the lot and and grass areas of their grandparents house.

Da Hubby, of course, had to "try it out" to make sure it was safe for the kids to ride. (Yeah, that's what he was doing.)

He's such a little boy when he wants to be! Poppin' wheelie's on a scooter. (Eyes rolling.) I love that about him.

Daylor took immediately to it and had a ball zipping around the backyard.

Then there was my Duglin, poor little dude could hardly put his feet down on the ground and well, had a few spills. Papaw and Da Hubby took a few tumbles with him. I needed a defibrillator to start my heart back a few times, but other than that everyone was OK. He got right back up and hopped back on. He's no quitter! Da Hubby rode with him after that at my nagging, um, request.

Duglin's bumped cheeky. It got lots of kisses.

Perri had little to no interest in the scooter and just did her Perri thing, skipping around the back yard picking all the pink flowers.

I have to admit it is pretty fun! How do I know? Hmmm...

It is these sweet, precious moment with our families that I pray my little ones remember. The fragrance of spring always reminds me of being at my grandparents house with all their azaleas in full bloom. Our kids are blessed to have both sets of grandparents to enjoy and be with. Such wonderful memories to cherish forever...

Look at those lips!! No Botox here, baby!!!!

Short and Sweets

2009-03-31T13:23:00.000-07:00

I overheard a conversation the other morning between Perri and Duglin that went like this:

Duglin - "Perri, I think I have decided something."

Perri - "What?"

Duglin - "I have decided that I am going to marry you."

Perri - "You want to marry me?!?!?"

Duglin - "Yes, but we can NEVER kiss!"

Perri - "Duglin. I can't marry you."

Duglin - "Why not?"

Perri - "Because I already told Daddy I would marry him."

Duglin - "But I want to marry you, too."

Perri - "Sorry, Duglin. Daddy kisses."

I Heart Faces - Pouting & Pets

2009-03-30T19:27:00.000-07:00

It's that time of week again! I Heart Faces theme this week is pouting and pets! The kids theme was a toughie this time as I don't really have that many pic's of the kids pouting. Pouting is somewhat looked down upon in our house, but I did come across this beauty of Duglin. This is his best pout after learning we had run out of fish food for the koi at our local Botanical Gardens.

This is my sweet, 6 lb. chihuahua, "Sundae" (also known as Demon-Terror :), flashing a big grin for my camera!

Head on over to the Pout & Pet Fest at http://www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com/ to see the the rest of the entries as well enter your own! I would love any comments or suggestions!

Friday Night Videos

2009-03-27T19:17:00.001-07:00

Ever wonder what would happen if we changed the prison system rules and rehabilitated inmates in a new and innovative way? Check out this prison in the Philippines. I am not sure I would call this punishment.

Makes you wonder if people would just want to stay in jail.

Hmmmmm.....Thoughts?

I Heart Faces - No Flash

2009-03-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

This week's I Heart Faces theme is No Flash. This is my favorite type of picture because it fully relies on the greatest lighting there is - the natural kind! We have this really great northwest facing, picture window in the front of our home that happens to be my favorite indoor place to take the kid's pictures. It lets in plenty of warm light as well as allows for those uber-kewl shadows that give images lots of character!

See? I do have another kid! This is my oldest, sweet boy, Daylor. It was one of those rare moments I actually got him to sit down long enough let me take a few shots of him on a beautiful sunny day next to the window. I love this picture of him as it completely reflects his thoughtful and laid back personality.

My adult entry is of my best friend and her baby on his birthday.

Head over to http://www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com/ to check out some of the other gorgeous shots and enter your own!

Friday Night Videos

2009-03-20T20:15:00.001-07:00

I thought it might be fun to pull out a video from my home collection to show you on this luverly Friday evening. I realized two things after watching this clip from three years ago.

1. I may possibly be a bad mommy.

Have you ever watched AFV (America's Funniest Videos.) My kids LOVE this show so it has become a tradition to watch it Sunday nights while eating our Sunday special, spaghetti. Every episode there is always at least one video where some kid inevitably either falls off a bike and gets caught in between the wheel and it's cover, trips over a brother and lands face first in the Christmas tree, or slips while pirouetting on the frozen lake for the camera and busts his you-know-what. I am bewildered by the parents who just sit there and laugh (all the while never taking the camera off the tragedy) all the while their child is suffering and screaming for help. Terrible isn't it? (Clearing throat...) I would never do that.

2. OK, maybe after three kids you learn how resilient they really are.

If this had happened after just having our first baby, Daylor. You would have heard the camcorder hit the pavement all the while still recording the dash of feet to the pool to "rescue" our drowning baby. We would have rushed him still clad in a dripping wet swimsuit and towel to the nearest ER, and insisted that they run every EKG, MRI, and WXY&Z there was available. Only after the doctor and a second opinion doctor assured us he was fine, we would have driven home and sat vigil by his bedside to be sure he was still breathing for the next week.

If it had been our second baby, Duglin, we would have rushed over to the pool, but this time we probably wouldn't have dropped the camera. (We probably would have shut it off.) We would have pulled him out of the pool and made sure he was OK. After holding him for about an hour, we would pat his little toosh and send him on his merry little way back to the kiddie pool with arm floaties on.

Well, poor Perri, we learned after the first two to let them go and just keep a watchful eye for serious emergencies. Oh, and to continue to video and laugh at their expense. (See point #1.)

Picture of the Day

2009-03-19T20:31:00.000-07:00

Our Lil' Lunch Lady...

I Heart Faces - GREEN

2009-03-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

This week's I Heart Faces theme is GREEN. The first thing that flew into my head was Duglin's beloved, reptilian best-friend, "Frogga." He has had him since he was 6 months old and has been "attached" to him ever since. Here is my entry...

You gotta love that toothless grin!

Head over to http://www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com/ to check out the other great "Greenies" and to enter your own images!

Friday Night Videos

2009-03-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

Love this song. Love this video. LOVE what it stands for.

So Shoe Me!

2009-03-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

SHOES! I love them. I can't afford to buy many of them. But I love them. ALOT. Boots, stiletto's, ballet flats, and heels. Especially heels. According to somebody that shall remain nameless, you can't buy happiness, you can only buy fun. What does he know?!?!? HE'S. A. BOY. Yes, shoes. They are my friend.

Apparently, this passion for foot wear is an inherited gene that works its way down from generation to generation of women. As my mom passed down this gene to me, it seems I have done my feminine duty and passed it down to my female offspring as well.

We recently purchased Perri's shoes for the spring and summer season. We might need an intervention soon because she is seriously obsessed with her new duds. We have to try them on at least 3 times a day, you know, "just to make sure they still fit". And speaking of fit, she is having one because I won't let her put them in her closet yet. We haven't cleaned out Fall/winter stuff because the weather here can't decide if it wants to be summer or snowing. (The kids have tee-tiny closets and we can only fit one season of clothes at a time in there.)

I have taught her well, though, because she also insists on keeping them in their boxes so they stay nice longer. (I need a tissue. Proud tears on the verge of spilling over.) You, Go, Baby!!!

Wanna guess which ones are her favorite?

Duh.

(Disclaimer - No, I don't really believe money can buy happiness. But, it can buy a really great pair of shoes that make you down right giddy!)

I Heart Faces - Creative Crop

2009-03-09T15:52:00.001-07:00

I am having so much fun learning from all the talented and kewl peep's over at I Heart Faces!! This week's theme is creative crop. I love off-center, interesting composition-ed (is that a word?) pictures. A well cropped photo adds interest and character to any subject!

This week I am submitting a photo in both the adult and kido categories. Normally, you can only submit one pic in each category, but this week you are allowed to submit the original un-cropped photo and as well as the cropped and finished one.

Here is my entry for the kids. The picture is of my daughter, Perri and her daddy in Destin while watching the sun set.

Before:

After:

This is my submission for the adults. This picture I cropped in my lens, so no Photoshop-ing was necessary. This handsome face belongs to the hand above. :)

Head on over to the http://www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com/ to enter your own and take a look-see at the other folks nifty stuff.

Extreme Birthday Makeover...Da Hubby Edition

2009-03-08T15:47:00.000-07:00

Yep. It's HIS birthday today. The big 42. He decided it was time for a change. My rock-n-roll man is growing up. But, he'll always be a rocker! So here is the before shot...

Cute, right?

Are you ready?

Seriously, you may want to sit down.

Wait for it...

Are you ready?

WOW!!! See what I mean!?!?! Holy butter beans!! He is such a hottie AND he puts up with me taking pictures of him!!

Did I mention that he cooks, too?

Yes, my friends, life, indeed, is so very good. Happy birthday, Hottie, uuh, I mean, Hubby!

Friday Night Videos

2009-03-06T13:16:00.001-08:00

OK, probably the entire world has viewed this at one point or another, but I thought it was kewl enough to show again. Enjoy!

March 4 - Ever!

2009-03-04T12:14:00.000-08:00

March 4, 1995

March 4th is a very important day in the Balentine home. It represents the beginning of an amazing journey into what is now our precious family. 14 years ago today, Da Hubby and I took the plunge and got married on a very rainy and cold March afternoon. It was such an amazing day and I still remember the feeling of being week in the knees when the doors opened and there were all my friends and family waiting for me to walk down the aisle. I also remember locking eyes with my future hubby and everyone else disappearing. Nothing mattered more to me than being able to spend the rest of my life with him. (sigh)

We had such a crazy wedding party! I have to laugh looking back at my wedding photos because the men had just as much hair as the women (My man included - don't laugh - mullets used to be kewl....used to be.) But, that's what you get when you marry a musician.

Wow, hunter green bridesmaids dresses. Lover-ly! At least they could wear them other places! OK, so maybe not. :)

14 years seems like a long time and even though it feels like we have been together forever, it also feels like we just got married yesterday. I was so young! We were so much in love. And we still are. I am so grateful to be married to such an awesome man, and though we have had our share of the good, the bad, and the ugly, we were truly made for each other. He's my "Lobster." (Go watch Friends.)

March 4th is also the anniversary of our first date 17 years ago. I was 18 and he was 24. I will never forget the face my father made when he walked in the door. LOL!! Umm. Shock and disbelief might be a little understated for the expression. I always brought home clean cut lawyer, military, or stock broker types. This long haired, bass playing rock musician was MUCH different than my usual type. I think "hood" was the exact word that my dad used. But, my "hood" loved Jesus and was the most wonderful blessing God could have given me.

Have I told you that the man makes me laugh!! If you know my precious man then you know what I am talking about. We laugh all the time and life is certainly never boring with him around. Seriously, he is the ONLY person in the world who can make me laugh so hard that I snort! He keeps me young and skinny. (Well, sort of.)

So, Happy Anniversary, Bud-EE!!! I love, love, love you! I am so blessed to married to you and look forward to everyday that we have 4-Ever!!
With all my of love, chocolate pudding, and big hair,
Me2

Playing Like There Snow Tomorrow..and Other Stuff

2009-03-03T13:18:00.000-08:00

Duglin got a fabulous late winter birthday surprise last week! It snowed. ALOT. It doesn't really snow that much here where we live. We might get a couple of dusting's every season but usually it's here today and gone tomorrow.

It started snowing around noon and didn't stop until 6: 00 the next morning. 12 inches later we had ourselves a winter wonderland! We actually had a drift or two that was 2 ft! That's huge for us! We bundled the kids up, I armed my self with the camera, and we all headed outside for some birthday snow fun!

Duglin always like to do things a little "differently" - wears his clothes backwards and inside out, eats with the wrong end of a spoon, dips his carrots in ice cream. Here, he is making a "belly-flop" face down snow angel. I just love that kid!

WE have a couple of great hills in our backyard that make for sledding fun. We didn't have a sled so we used the top of the turtle sandbox. They LOVED that! Our rat terrier, Harmini was having a ball, too!

We all had a such a blast. Well, maybe with the exception of...

I am not sure what is more sad, the fact that Sundae's tail is so far between her legs that it nearly froze to her belly, or that I made her wear a coat. Poor baby!

Isn't he gorgeous?!

Duglin had a wonderful birthday party! The cake turned out cute and I had minimal green food coloring under my fingernails. We had a military theme this year.

In Duglin fashion, gift opening time went much like this.

AAAAAAAAAAnd, we're done.

I Heart Faces - Messy!

2009-03-02T18:16:00.000-08:00

I Heart Faces blog contest theme this week is Messy! Click http://www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com/ to go take a look at some of the other entries and to participate yourself! Duglin fits perfectly into the "messy" catagory. This picture was actually taken on film a few years back and was scanned in and "fixed up". I feel kinda bad because Duglin has been the subject of the last two contests. I do actually get pictures of all my kids! Duglin's just fit best into the last two themes! :) Here he's wearing his "sketti."

I am trying to figure out what I am doing, so please do not hesitate to leave comments and/or suggestions!

Happy Birthday, Boo-Man!

2009-02-28T10:22:00.000-08:00

My little man is now a medium size man. Every eve on the birthday of one of our kids I put them to bed and "re-live" the night each of them were born. I love those memories of when the nurses handed me tightly burrito wrapped tiny-nesses. I remember exploring their hands and toes. I remember what each of their cries sounded like. I remember nursing them and being so overwhelmingly happy and terrified at the same time.

The next morning, I get up and they are magically a year older. Duglin is 7 today. Seven! How fast the time has flown! He is growing up to be such a great and personality filled boy! He definitely gets his wild and crazy personality from his daddy. The boy makes us laugh until we cry. Sometimes he makes us cry until we laugh! Every day with him is a blessing and we are so grateful to have such a unique kid!

Happy birthday, sweet boy! We love you so much!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Friday Night Videos

2009-02-27T11:29:00.000-08:00

It's no secret that I love music of all kinds! I also really enjoy listening to and am fascinated by kids who have an amazing talent, so this week I have a 10 year old little girl who has an REMARKABLE gift. Hope you enjoy!

Side note - If you are a "RUSH" fan check out her rendition of "YYX" here. Keep in mind, chicky is 10 years old!

I Heart Faces Contest

2009-02-23T20:16:00.000-08:00

I found this really kewl blog that has a weekly contest for anyone who is interested in portrait photography. I love perusing the posts for helpful hints to feed my obsession with my camera! :) Such a neat resource for all levels of photographers! If you want to be amazed at some of the talent out there stop by the site and check out some of the others entries. Breathtaking, to say the least!

This week's contest theme is B&W. I though it would be fun to enter! The blogs IP is http://www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com/.

Here is an entry of my birthday boy, Duglin. I love this shot as it shows the "point" on the top of his left ear. He is truly a little man with a 1000 faces!

A Love/Hate Relationship

2009-02-22T17:56:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I do it to myself. About 3 times a year I do something that I am so conflicted over, so stressed out about, and SO completely obsessed with. I have practiced, failed, retried, "stayed the course", trained, and nope, we're not talking about a marathon here. I'm talking about baking and decorating my kids birthday cakes.

This is a major source of stress in my life and Duglin's birthday is coming up next weekend so the strategic planning has begun. This all started back on Daylor's 1st birthday. I REALLY wanted to make his first birthday cake. I had in mind this "simple" & cute hedgehog cake. (I know, a hedgehog cake for a first birthday? What was I thinking? Apparently, I wasn't. All that nursing I did must have sucked the brains cells dry.) There was just one itsy-bitsy problem. I couldn't cook.

Like the good mommy I was, I ventured out into the uncharted territories of baking and attempted to make this joker. Umm, attempted. This was my fourth try. The first I burnt. The second I drop on the floor. The third fell into a bazillion pieces when I dumped it out of the pan. Finally, after calling my best friend and cousin and sobbing to her on the phone for an hour, I tried, yet again, and came up with this. (Kinda creepy looking, huh?)

I am not one to ignore challenges. I forced myself after his birthday to commit to making the cakes every year. "WHY!??!?!?," myself screamed to myself! Because it was and still is hard for me. Sure, I could just order one, but because this is such a challenge I make myself do it every birthday. The first 5 years I HATED it. I whined and I complained. I continually burnt and broke most of those cakes, and I had to control myself as to not cuss at every Duncan Hines cake mix I saw. I even begrudgingly took some cake decorating classes. I kept trying and still do.

But now, even though I couldn't say it's something I would enjoy doing everyday, I have learned to like it when those birthdays come around. I enjoy the creativity behind coordinating the cake with the birthday themes the kids pick out.

I have done LOTS of car themes:

I also like the cakes below because they are what I call "interactive cakes." The first pictures are of Daylor's last year's cake. He had a Hot Wheels theme and so I found the rad car launcher that we let him and a couple of the other kids launch Hot Wheels cars into before we served it up. (This the only time of year we let the kids play with their food.)

Then, there was this cake which is probably one of my favorites. We found this cute remote control Caterpillar bulldozer. We made it look like the bulldozer had plowed through the cake and then let Duglin, push the cake around and off on to our guests plates. THAT was a most excellent cake, especially with a kid whose is a hands on kind of guy! It was a blast!

I LOVE to use props with my cakes, and at Daylor's 4th birthday he was really into dump trucks. Target had this huge dump truck in it's summer stuff for $5.00 and I made this AWESOME recipe that included crumbled chocolate cake, (I used Devil's food and milk chocolate for two different colors to have a more realistic "dirt" look.), Cool Whip, a little bit of strong brewed coffee, chocolate pudding, and Heath bits. I poured it into the truck's bed and popped in a few candles. Looks like dirt, but tastes sooooooo good! Fast and EASY!

I have made a few dinosaur themes including a Dinosaur Park cake complete with a picture of Duglin walking his T-Rex.

We've done Blues Clues and frog ponds. One of Duglin's nicknames is "Frogga."

I am even venturing out a bit and doing a few cakes for close friends and relatives.

But my absolute favorite cakes to do are my girlie-girl's cakes.

My favorite and best cake by far was for Perri's Cinderella themed birthday last year. It took three hours to complete, but I did it!

So there ya have it. My love/hate relationship. With cake. And this Friday night I will once again trash the kitchen, dye my fingernails green with food gels, and wonder what is wrong is with me as I make another culinary birthday surprise for my precious Duglin's birthday party. I have a LONG way to go and someday I might even be brave enough to try to use fondant, but for now it's just me, my lazy Susan, and my Wilton tips. Wish me luck!

Friday Night Videos

2009-02-20T11:58:00.001-08:00

This week's pick involves two of my most favorite things, babies and dogs. Say it with me..AAAAWWWWWWW! Enjoy!

Friday Night Videos

2009-02-13T18:49:00.000-08:00

Time for a little "Mystery Science Theater." I had to watch this video literally about 25 times to decide if it were real or not. Several places I checked into say it is, but I still am not sure! So, I think I will let you decide for yourself what you think. Comment and let me know. Is it for real?

Oh, Me!

2009-02-11T14:14:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't it be great if we could go back and educate our younger selves on what to do and be just so we would be better prepared as to what was coming. Beth at Not a Bow in Sight had this brilliant idea to write a letter to our 20 year old self. At first, I thought this would be a fun thing to do, but I have to say it has been a very thought provoking and somewhat painful letter to write. In fact, I only am going to post about half of what I wrote because, as much as I love you all, somethings are just between me, myself, and God. If you blog, I encourage you to try this yourself and link up to Beth's site. Here is my letter...

Dear Me,

Hey, chick! It's you writing, just 15 years older and 15 pounds heavier. Things have changed quite a bit. You have have to dye your hair blond now. It's not naturally that color anymore and it's even getting a little grey. Your eyes are starting to show a few lines and well, enjoy these days while you can eat anything and not gain a pound. That's going to change, too.

I thought I might write and give you few pointers for the next few years. I know you are planning a wedding and will marry in the spring, but if you could put down the planning book and lend me your ear for a moment, there is much we need to discuss.

First, you are way to concerned about how you look and how the opposite sex sees you. You are not defined as to how much attention you receive (or in our case) don't receive from men. God has given you an amazing man that you will be marrying soon. HE thinks and will continue to think you are the most beautiful woman who walks the face of the earth. Start believing him now. Let that be enough.

Secondly, stop trying to be other people. Stop copying others and be who God made and wants you to be. He wants us to be unique and different for a reason or we would have all be created to look and think the same. Celebrate your different-ness. Thrive in your own gifts and ideas and don't worry about whether or not you fit in. All that matters is that you live a genuine and transparent life that glorifies God. THAT is what draws people to you.

Third, it's OK to be emotional. It does not mean you are weak. It does not make you fragile. It means you are human. Go with it.

Let's talk about singing for a minute. When you are standing in front of a microphone, get over yourself. I don't say that to be harsh, but you are truly wasting time trying to entertain. Not that there is anything wrong with entertaining, but you will soon find it to be unfulfilling. Remember who gave you this talent and spend your time learning how to give it back. Granted, the compliments given to an entertainer are nice, but at best, short-lived. The blessings given to a worshipper, however, are eternal.

Speaking of worshipping, live and breathe every moment for Jesus. Talk to Him constantly. He is your Best Friend, your Love, your Hope. Don't wait until you are in your 30's to read His Love Letter to you. You will miss out on so much. Start now and commit to doing it everyday.

Your doctor will be right when she told you that you would have problems getting pregnant. Don't freak out over this. You will be frustrated and will be become more familiar with a basal body temperature chart than you ever would have imagined. You will take fertility drugs and you will have a two precious boys (and praise God, not at the same time). Then God will intervene and there will be a nuclear-surprise, natural pregnancy in which will result in a angelic little girl.

Let me stop here and say your pregnancies are going to be VERY hard on your body and your body will in turn try to "expel" your babies way before their due dates. TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY. DON'T be up and about when you are supposed to be on bed rest. Don't feel guilty, pre-term labor is not your fault. DON'T let inexperienced nurses give you catheters.

That being said, do adore the miracle tininess of your preemies. They grow so quickly. Do enjoy the bumps and thumps they give you while in your belly. Every time you get a stomach gurgle for the rest of your life, for a split second, you will put your hand to your belly and think there is a baby still there. Just enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Your kids will be the light of your life.

Just a couple more things, then you can get back to your wedding planning.

Love and appreciate your friends. They will be vessels from God in your times of need and rejoicing. Return the favor to them.

Get a good camera and learn how to take good pictures BEFORE the kids come. (Ya know those three years we talked about you trying to get pregnant - That's a great time!)

And lastly, God is going to ask you to homeschool your kids. No seriously, He is. Stop laughing. I mean it. Save yourself a week of sleep and don't fight it. It's useless. You're going to do it and you will even like it (sometimes).

So that's about it. I could say more, but you need to go through some stuff to get to where I am now. It's going to be OK. You will come out for the better, I promise.

Your loving self,
Me2

Baby Cora

2009-02-08T23:41:00.000-08:00

If you would, pray for this family as they grieve the loss of their precious baby, Cora. You can read their story here as well as leave them a note of encouragement.

"For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him..."

Psalm 103:11

Great Attitude Award

2009-02-08T18:27:00.000-08:00

Yay! I received my first blog award from Jennifer from Love, Laughter, and Lyrics:

The Great Attitude/Spirit of Gratitude Award

Now I get to pass it on!

Here are the guidelines...

Put the logo on your blog or post. Nominate at least 10 blogs (sorry, I only have 8) which show GREAT ATTITUDE and/or GRATITUDE! Be sure to link to your nominees within your post. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog. Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

Jennie at Loving Life at Home

Kelly at Emma & Ava Moments

Barbee at Wookies and Tu-Tus

Kris at The Johnsons (Yes, I know you have a website not a blog, but that still counts in my book. :)

Sparrow at Birdman 1

Amber at (aefilkins)

Michelle at Circle of Life

Sarah at ThriftyDecorChick

Love to all of you!

Friday Night Videos

2009-02-06T18:14:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you but it has been a rough week at the Balentine Castle! Lots of school and attitude issues with the kidos. What's up with that?

Then Da Hubby and I redid our budget because we are taking Dave Ramsey's "Financial Peace University" class and well it just needed to be done. Budgets TOTALLY suck. As my friend Kris told me, it's much more fun just living in denial. I agree. But, we have some BIG TIME cash-ola things coming up, so that means no mo' Target trips. :( Well, except for this: my dogs chewed up officially EVERY pair of underwear that I own, so I was FORCED to go to Target, spend $18.00 of our newly saved "emergency" fund (sad isn't it?) to get new ones, and be tempted by all the cute spring stuff coming out. In the words of Simon Cowell, "It was Dreadful." I behaved, though. Sniff, Sniff.

And have you watched the news lately? Bad economy, loss of savings, loss of jobs, not to mention murders and crime on the rise. Hmm. It's a good thing God is still the same and there is always joy in Him no matter what the circumstances are!

So, this week I decided everyone could use a little laughter in their lives, hence my choice(s) for Friday Night Videos. I couldn't decide which I liked better, so I am posting them both this week. Meet Christian comedian, Tim Hawkins. If you get the opportunity, go search a few of his other videos on YouTube.

This dude will make you pee in your pants, so go get your Depends on and enjoy!

Oh, Shoot!

2009-02-01T19:12:00.001-08:00

A pattern has begun. As I have mentioned in previous posts I am a total shutterbug. I literally take pictures daily mostly of my kids, occasionally of other things. This week we had "snow" here where we are. It wasn't much, but it was enough to make the ground turn white (sorta of.) I went out and shot a few pictures that I will spare you the time of viewing.

It's been VERY cold the past few weeks and so the kids have been couped up inside. We went through all that crud at Christmas with ear infections and flu, and I am adamant that we WILL NOT go through that again, so like the mean mommy that I am, I have insisted that everyone stay inside.

This weekend, however, we received a reprieve in the weather. The sun was out and it was actually 65 degrees. I decided to release the monkeys and let them go outside to play for a few hours and soak up some Vitamin K. We had a great time visiting with our AWESOME neighbors and snapping a few shots of the kids. Well, OK, kid.

So, back to my first comment about a pattern developing. I am beginning to realize that as my boys are growing they are beginning to get a little tired of mom's constant begging to get "just one more picture." I mean, I really don't ask that much. Is it really that bad that I constantly have a camera in their faces, and maybe that I have to adjust my white balance and Aperture settings one or two (dozen) times a shot, and that I make them repeat a "spontaneous" moment three or four times with the same enthusiasm as the original moment so I can capture the event from all angles? And so what that I sometimes forget to set my flash or take the lens cap off. They should be used to this by now, it's only been going on SINCE THEY WERE BORN! But NOOOOOOO! "We are getting "too old" for this, Mom. You're embarrassing us!" (blah, blah, blah.) Well...(sniff)so what...(breaking into sobbing mess......NOT!) GET OVER IT and GET USED TO IT!

I will have to say, however, when they get in these moods the pictures turn mostly out like this and, well, that's when mommy gets vindictive and threatens to put them on her blog.

Ahh, that felt good.

Then, there is my Perri. Breathe of fresh air, Perri. (Well, maybe with the exception of when she eats baked beans or biscuits.) She (for the moment) loves to have her picture taken. While we were out she was once again my little model and we got several of these beauties. (Thanks Jason for the shooting tips!)

Now, don't get me wrong I still love to get pictures of my sweet boys too, but it's just easier to work with a subject that WANTS to get their picture taken. I vow to keep trying, though, and maybe, just maybe I can catch the other two when they aren't looking! (Or not!) :)