"36 year old mother swoons and faints at local concert"

OK... so I thought that could possibly be our newspaper headline this morning when I woke up; and although I haven't seen the paper this morning, I'm thankful to say that I did stay on my feet all night last night.  For Chris' birthday in January, we got 2 tickets to see the "United Tour" which included our 2 oldest faves in Christian music.  Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman.  Oh WOW!  They were incredible!  I didn't fain, however I will admit to shedding some tears when Michael W. first walked out.  I have had a 22 year crush on him and apparently I'm not over it.... not even a little bit!  I found myself wondering what I ever did with the life sized cardboard of him that I used to have in my room when I was in high school; seriously thinking "would Chris reeeally mind having this in our house again?"  well, my school girl crush aside, their concert was an amazing blessing to both Chris and I.  Seeing both of them on stage together was just AWESOME!  Steven Curtis shared about the last 11 months in his family since his little girl went to be with Jesus, and it was such a powerful testimony of God's presence, even in the dark pits of life.  Michael W. led the second half, which was primarily worship and it was just incredible.  Singing his songs in church is one thing, but being led in worship with him was pretty cool.  It was an amazing concert and a really great night, sharing one of the things that brought Chris and I together in the first place, our love of Christian music, and Christian artists.  And.... I stayed on my feet !

The Lady Lions!

The girls final Basketball game was last night, and unfortunately it ended with a few tears.  They lost the game 28 to 26, but they fought through the game with everything they had in them.  We were really proud of how the girls played.  They have both come soooo far this year in basketball, and really learned the game!  It was pretty amazing before the game to see the team together.  Their coach was late, so they decided to huddle up and talk about what they could do to play better.  They all decided they would pray together before it started.  So, 8 girls circled up and prayed that the Lord would help them play good and play for Him!  It really blessed my heart to see it, and just reminded me again of how blessed we are to have the girls where they are!  Of course being the last game, we couldn't help but have a mini photo shoot, and get some silly group photos!

Pocahontas!

This week in 3rd grade, Abbey had to present her first biography report in class.  Her report was on Pocahantas, and in true Abbey fashion, I think she came out of the entire experience wishing you was a real Indian princess.  They had a choice to make a puppet of their character, or dress up and present their report.  Far be it for one of my girls to miss a "dress up" opportunity.  We had fun making her a homemade indian costume, and she turned out pretty adorable.  Daddy thought she was the cutest thing ever, and couldn't resist a photo op before she left for school!

Go Lions!!!!

Basketball is soon coming to an end, and I realized I haven't put up any Basketball pictures.... mostly because I can't seem to figure out how to get some decent action shots.  So, instead of posting no pics, I'm sharing a few before game shots.  The girls are having a great time playing this year, and getting better and better.  The whole team is new players, so they have only won one game so far, but have come close several times.  The girls have both scored, and made several free throw shots, and I am the obnoxious Mom on the sidelines screaming like a howler monkey.  This week will be their final games, and soccer starts tomorrow... thus the crazy cycle of our lives keeps going!

Biiiiiiig Owie!

Well, we had a long day yesterday, spending all afternoon in the ER.  Abbey had a pretty bad scooter accident and at first we thought she had broke both her wrists or arms.  She came in the house screaming, which for a girl who can take the skin off her knee and shrug it off, kind of scared Mom.  She couldn't move her arms at all, and it looked pretty bad.  By the time we got to the ER, she was using her left arm, but her right one was swollen  all around her elbow.  She cried, and cried, and Mommy cried too... I just felt so horrible for her.  It was one of those moments where you wish you could take their place and deal with the pain for them.  After two sets of x-rays, we were thankful there was no break at all!  The doctors said she tore muscle fibers around her elbow, and sent her home in a sling.  She is extremely sore, so we are laying low for a couple of days, icing it and keeping her as still as we can.  She is such a trooper!  We are very thankful it wasn't a break.... never a dull moment in our home!

Lucas Michael

Well, little Lucas continues to be a little joy in all our lives.  We got to babysit him this week, and the girls just adore him.  He was such a happy little guy, you just want to scoop him up, and kiss his chubby little cheeks.  He has the sweetest little, low laugh; and can I tell you about his chubby legs?  Oh how sweet he is!  Livie walked and bounced him when he got a little fussy, and was pretty proud of herself, she was quite the babysitter!  Gotta love him!

The Beach in February

Well, the girls are home from school this week for "ski week".  This of course means Mom is off work too.  Today I asked the girls what they wanted to do, and we decided on the ocean. We have had rain most of the week, but there was a little break in the rain today.  We drove out to my favorite clam chowder restaurant and got some chowder to go, and then headed out for "School House beach"  We ate at a table that was right on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  It was windy, but actually we had some blue skies.  The ocean was pretty fierce however, and made me a little nervous with the girls.  Not to mention the fact that NO ONE was at the ocean today.  At this point memories of people being killed on the beach here in Nor Cal come rushing through my head, so we went looking for a beach with a few normal looking people on it.  We did finally find a couple of beaches that we took walks on.  We attempted to go tide pooling, but with the tide coming in quickly we were out of luck.  We pretended we had to hurry and get out of the rocks and back to the car or we would be killed against the rocks and no one would ever know what happened to us.  A bit dramatic maybe, but hey... we were on an adventure.  It really was a great day together.  We drove all over Bodega with our windows down, smelling the ocean breeze, and feeling the cold ocean air. (We did however have the heat on full blast :o)  We checked out some camping spots, however the girls informed me "this is not the wilderness" and decided Wrights Lake is definitely more of what we want.  On the way home, we talked about what a beautiful place we live in, here in Northern California.  We have the ocean, mountains, rivers, the city, redwoods, rolling hills and beautiful wine vineyards all around us.  We decided we are truly blessed to live where we do.  We can go on many different adventures, whenever we want!

Father Daughter Dance

The girls and Chris went to their 5th Father/Daughter dance on saturday night.  This was the first year however, that it wasn't a Girl Scouts Dance.  This year they went to the Redwood Covenant Church for the dance.  They had a spectacular time together, dancing for 3 hours.  They really hoped that the song "Cinderella" would be played, and were not dissapointed when it was the last song of the dance.

I had a great time helping the girls get ready for the evening.  They were really excited for Chris to see them, even keeping their dresses hidden from him last week.  They were all beautiful when they left for the evening, and Daddy was so proud of them.  They already told us they are "soooo going again next year".