God's Presence, Basketball, and Baseball

We have been home very little this weekend. Yesterday Kyle played in a one day basketball tournament with his 6th grade AAU team. We ended the season well by getting runners up in the last tournament of the season. I will miss basketball season and all our Hornet families, but there is a season for everything!

Today between church services, we put away the hoops gear and drug out our baseball chairs, and headed to the field to watch Kyle's first baseball scrimmage of the year. After the intense action of basketball, baseball is a little painful for me to watch. After a baseball scrimmage and then another baseball practice, David had an Upward basketball game. His season is coming to a close too and he will miss it very much. He has had such fun.

Tonight we headed back to church for the first of four "Lent Launch" services. The baptist in my wants to call them revival services:) Tonight's service was awesome and at first Kyle was annoyed that there was a guest preacher because he loves Jonathan so much. After he got over the initial shock of someone else in Jonathan's place, he did admit that he enjoyed it.

This is the first Lent season that Kyle has thought about Lent and what it means. I credit his youth director Jackie for teaching the concept so well and we went to the Ash Wednesday service last week. Kyle and I have decided instead of giving something up for Lent, we are going to do daily scripture readings. As a family we are also praying with our prayer cup each night. Kyle says one of his friends in youth group has given up his playstation during Lent:) That is so cute!

Our lives are crazy and busy but Mike and I are trying so hard to walk the walk and talk the talk with our kids that God comes first. We are trying to teach our children the importance of consistent church attendance despite our crazy schedules. I know that as parents we mess up a lot-I am grumpy, have a tendency to have a wee bit of road rage, and have a hard time walking away from small-town gossip, but I pray that when our kids are older they will appreciate growing up in church and feeling the love that comes from "the family of God."

Today in church this short video was shown and it touched my heart. God amazes me each and every day and this video is not only great, but I love the song. I hope that it blesses you as much as it blessed me today in church.

Prayer Cups and our Awesome Schools!

This week has been full.  Full of kids, volunteering, and more kids!  I was tired last night and blessedly today is another snow day here is the mountains of Virginia.  Usually I cringe when I hear Mike calling the TV stations cancelling school because that will be more day day in June we will have to go, but not this morning.  I am thankful to be snuggling in bed blogging while my youngest two are snuggled besides me watching the Lion King.  Life is good in my big bed this morning! 

Every Wednesday I am one of the helpers involved in our afterschool program at church.  I am kind of the craft gal, and each week I plan a craft to go along with our bible lesson.  This week we were learning about prayer, and so for the craft we made prayer cups.  I bought some brightly colored cups in the party section at the Dollar Tree and then I bought a bunch of craft sticks.  I was so excited they had these rainbow colored craft sticks.  They make me happy!  Anyway, here is our family prayer cup.  We as a family decided who we need to pray and wrote their name on a stick.  Each night before bed we pray as a family and the kids take turns reading aloud each name.  It has been precious family time each night before bed.  One of Hope's preschool pals has strep throat this week.  She would not rest until his name was written on a stick to be prayed for.  :) 

Yesterday after preschool Hope and I went to David's school to volunteer in the book fair for the afternoon.  I saw his class coming out of the cafeteria and did not see David.  His teacher informed me that he was still in the cafeteria having a special lunch  date with his principal!  At first I was worried that he did something bad to warrant time with the principal, but it was quite the opposite.  David loves his principal and just wanted to hang out with him while he finished his lunch.  Bless his principal for eating in the cafeteria with the kids and spending time with them. 

After spending several hours in the book fair helping kids purchase books with their sweet coins and wadded up dollars, we came home for a quick dinner and then headed back to the school for Dr. Seuss night!  Here is David with Clifford!!

Hope was so excited that some of her preschool friends were at the Dr. Seuss night!  Here are these big girls  at a station doing their work!:)  Hope is very excited to go to school next year!

Our entire county is blessed with some of the best teachers I have ever met.  They love kids, take their mission of educating children seriously, and give of themselves every. single. day.  Here is David with Ms. "Roz" at one of the stations-he was very concerned that there was not a "Thing 2" at her station:)

My heart was so touched at Dr. Seuss night watching David shepherd Hope around his school.  Next year it will be "their" school which is exciting and mind boggling all at the same time-didn't we just bring her home from the hospital??? 

At one of the stations, after reading Green Eggs and Ham, the children had to fill in their eggs with rhyming words.  This little girl rocked some rhyming words with help from her big brother. 

It was so precious to watch these two together. Kindergarten registration is in one week.  I thought it would be very hard to send my last baby off to big school, but she is SO excited and ready for this next big step.  We have had some precious years together at FUMC preschool and those memories will always be in my heart, but little love is ready to spread her wings. 

I left school last night after hours in the book fair volunteering and after a successful Dr. Seuss night thanking God for the awesome educators we have here in our neck of the woods.  My kids are blessed because of what they give each and every day. 

Lights, Camera, Action!

Wow!  Yesterday was quite a day in our household.  Around 11:00 the lovely Tucker and Brandy showed up at our house ready for a day of filming.  Twenty minutes later a group of video guys showed up and started turning our house into a production set.  I joked that I had never had so many guys in my kitchen before! 

When they got to our house, they walked around looking at lighting to find the best spot in the house.  The living room was not an option due to the fact that there is too much natural light because we do not have blinds up.  So the kitchen/sunroom was found to be the best spot in the house.  I was being interviewed for a video that will be shown this summer at the opening of the new Battle Building at UVA where clinic and basically anything pediatrics will be moved into.  They wanted a Mom's perspective about how this new building will impact David's care for the years to come because not only does he have special needs, but he will be cared for by multiple doctors for years to come. 

I was not too nervous because I am so passionate about sharing what amazing care we received at UVA.  We are so honored to be a Miracle Family and have the opportunity to give back in small ways such as this.  I also will not lie and say that when it was all set up and the cameras were rolling I did  sweat a little!  I was not allowed to look at the camera-only at sweet Ms. Brandy who was interviewing who was right beside the camera. 

 

We took a pizza break and we had ordered CJ's party tray for the crew.  David was in heaven having these two sweet and lovely ladies around.  They had a pizza picnic while the crew switched the set up. 

After my formal interview, they did some video footage of David.  He jammed out on his guitar to the song from the movie Frozen and of course he had to rock a David Crowder Band Song.   David was actually a little subdued yesterday?:) I had cleaned so hard for the video crew and then when they got here they started moving around my furntiure to set up the set.  I was so humbled when toys, candy wrappers, and "junk" rolled out!  Ha!  Thankfully they did not flinch!  They were professional but awesome to work with. 

We are committed to doing anything we can to give back to UVA.  We are beyond excited for the new Battle Building to open.  The care that we received in clinic has always been top notch, but the facility definitely needs to be upgraded.  While listening to Ms. Tucker talk about how child friendly and creative the new facility will be, I was stunned.  It is really going to be gorgeous and we are excited to go to the ribbon cutting in June.  That is where our video will be shown.  It is amazing to think that after three hours of set up and video it will be condensed to roughly two minutes long!! Thank you crew for driving all this way, hopefully making me look and sound great, and being so family-friendly to work with.  We had a blast with you all!