Archive for July, 2008
…watch movies! My sister Katrina is in the Texas Baptist All-State choir and this past weekend performed at 2 Baptist churches in the DFW area. (FBC Duncanville and Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas.) My parents and Alicia offered to take the kids with them to see Katrina and to stay a night with Kevin’s parents. Of course, we said no. Just kidding. Katrina loved seeing the kids, probably more than she would have loved seeing us (also kidding), and now Katrina is in Germany, performing with the TBAS choir, praise team, and drama team as part of a worldwide Youth Conference.
So, Kevin and I were blessed with the opportunity to have the house all to ourselves this weekend, so we decided to catch up on a favorite pastime of ours, watching movies. He and I rented so many movies during college and before we had babies, but now it takes us about 3-4 days to watch one movie with interruptions!
Friday night, before the kids left, I went and saw “Mamma Mia” in the theater with Alicia and a few girls from my MOPS group. I Loved it, even though it didn’t get good reviews. The main character, Sophie, was so cute and a very good singer.
Saturday, Kevin and I saw “The Dark Knight“. It’s sad that Heath Ledger won’t be around for a sequel, and my vote is for him to win the Oscar. The movie was incredibly good, and I’m not usually a fan of the comic book movies. Not for children, seriously… the subject matter really is dark and evil. Know the Truth.
Then we went to Blockbuster and rented 3 movies. That night we watched “Charlie Wilson’s War“. A good historical movie but too many uses of the f-word.
Sunday after church we watched “The Bucket List“, which was really good especially after the first 30 minutes (I was sleepy anyway, it WAS Sunday afternoon during my nap. 
) I highly recommend this one if you haven’t seen it.
Our back-to-back features were complete with “License to Wed” with Robin Williams, Mandy Moore, and John Krasinski. Most of the cast of “The Office” had small roles in this movie, no joke. Very funny.
And to complete our journey, we went back to Blockbuster to rent “The Kingdom“. Kevin wanted a loud, action, guns blazing, fire and smoke movie, and he got it! We’re usually so concerned with how loud the movie is to not wake up the kids. Didn’t have to worry about that! I liked this movie too.
I realize that most of these movies are old but you have to realize we haven’t seen many movies in the past 3+ years! We enjoyed our weekend and missed the kiddos immensely. Oh, and my house is so clean now! We are so blessed to have family that loves their grandchildren (and niece and nephew!) so much and takes such good care of them. Colby and Kennedy came back from the weekend exhausted and ready for sleep. Good job!
UPDATE: Kevin went back through and added images and got link happy with links to IMDB.
July 29th, 2008
This summer has been quite emotional for me. Several members of our church have passed away. Let me retract that statement. Several serving and active members of our church passed away this summer. These are people that weren’t just fixtures on the wall. They got their hands dirty to serve and to be used by the Lord, for many years. They sent me (or made me) baby gifts when the kids were born. They came to our wedding. They called us by name in the hallway. And the Lord has called them Home.
Then just yesterday I heard that my former boss passed away last week while we were vacationing. I just spent an hour crying to Kevin about this event, and hopefully it won’t take me an hour to blog about it. My first words through my tears to Kevin about my boss were, “She was so mean to me.” I don’t know any other way to say that, but she was. I endured the year with her while pregnant with Colby, and she was mean to me. If it weren’t for a handful of wonderful students and their awesome parents, I would never have made it through that year. Figuratively speaking, my boss had a “good list” and a “bad list” – and pretty much everyone under the age of 30 was on the “bad list”. I never knew why. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t work my way off the “bad list”.
And yet, the things I remember about this boss were the good things; she was the first person (after Kevin) to whom I announced my pregnancy. I pretty much had to, so she would cut me some slack. And then, she was the person I called when I was in labor, to let her know I wouldn’t be at work the next day. I still remember her voice at 11:30 that night – “Good luck, Jenna, we’re all pulling for you!”, she said sleepily.
Why am I blogging about this? For starters, I’m just so confused about what to feel. I am sad for her family. She had a son my age, and we went to high school together. His kids will never know their grandmother. I am also upset about my feelings. I thought I had forgiven her for what she did to me but hearing about her death has brought up emotions I thought I had conquered. Jesus told us that when someone offends us, we are to forgive him/her for that offense 70 x 7 times. Now, I’m not keeping a running tally of how many times I’ve forgiven her, but I thought it was surely close to that by now. I am not rejoicing over her death, only that she is in Heaven now. There were many who loved her and respected her, and I just wish she had given me the chance to do so.
I don’t feel “unvindicated” by her death, if that makes any sense… I know there’s no way I could have ever told her what a horrible year I had with her. Kevin put it so succinctly, “Now our job is to train our 2.5 kids to love and respect others, because we don’t want them to have to experience what you went through.” Well said. Well said.
July 24th, 2008
Ever heard that song? “…I can do anything better than you.” Now picture Kennedy saying this to Colby, and then Colby answering back:
“No you can’t.”
Kennedy: “Yes I can!”
Well, I’m sure you get the point, but that is the motto for the Fearsome Twosome right now. They take turns chasing each other, playing with each other’s toys, hitting and pushing each other, talking with each other, and laughing with each other, which is the most fun thing to listen to. I love that my kiddos are so close in age and that they have a built-in playmate. This is especially going to be fun when Baby Girl gets here and figures out her role in the mix of things. Both kiddos love looking at babies and talking about babies, and we’re trying to do our best to prepare them for their baby sister to be here, as much as we possibly can.
On another note, we just returned from vacationing in California! I’ll let Kevin post pictures, but we had a great time and I would love to go back anytime. Kevin says he would love to live there if he could, meaning weather-wise it was so much cooler and the scenery was beautiful too. Plus, we had a really great time being together as a family, and my parents and sisters were there to help shoulder some of the burden of baby-handling so that it really did feel more like a vacation. We will update you with stories and pictures as soon as we can!
July 22nd, 2008
Oh, Roomba, oh, Roomba, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…
For those that have never heard of this wonderful contraption, I’ll spare you all the technical details and tell you about my love affair with the Roomba. If ever I could marry an appliance and have robot children, this would be The One.
I told Kevin a few weeks ago that I was tired of constant vacumming… between the 2 kids and 1 dog (plus 2 messy adults 
), I would vacuum one day and the next day you couldn’t tell I had even touched the vacuum. So, I asked him if I could get a Roomba for my birthday. Being the wonderful husband he is, who fully understands and loves my desire to keep a meticulously clean house most of the time, he told me to look online and order what I wanted. He knew I’d find a good deal, which I did! And, he knew he wouldn’t have to get me a birthday present on his own! (Who cares that my birthday is in late August? Not me!)
Soooo, I got the Roomba in the mail yesterday. I opened it and read the manual (very short, a plus for me) and then pushed the “Demo” button. It worked! It was so cute and so functional! Colby watched it work and then the darling little Roomba worked its way to the docking station, so it could charge the batteries. (Hey, I need a docking station every now and then so I can charge MY batteries…) When the Roomba had “landed”, Colby and I clapped and said, “Yay!!” Then Colby asked if he could do it again.
Colby and Kennedy sat next to the Roomba and ate their snack while the Roomba charged. I should have taken a picture. So that the battery could fully charge, I had to wait until today to run the Roomba’s first full cleaning cycle. (Maybe I should buy the Roomba a baby book and put all its first milestones in it…) But, the Roomba cleaned my entire wood floor and my living room rug this morning. When the kids wake up from their naps, I’ll get it to clean the rest of the house. Now if only it would fold laundry and do the dishes too…
July 10th, 2008
I don’t know if there’s a better term for these, but I found this one at Baby-Gaga.com. I like the little snippets it gives of what Baby Girl is doing right now.
In related news, I went to the doctor today. Baby’s heartbeat was strong and it looks like she’s good til her due date – on or before the 19th of November. If I had to guess, based on our previous babies’ deliveries, she’ll be here on the 15th. Here’s “what she looks like”!
July 8th, 2008