children

Flight attendants, Stone and Spring

February 18, 2011 by Amy 6 Comments

“HELLO EVERYONE! And welcome to North Rock Hill Church!” I had a super time filming our 5 minute intro video for our church. You can see kind of what they do in the TenBefore video at North Point. I sweat(ed?) a lot, had a hard time remembering to smile, my spandex only made my fat roll more prominent and I’m pretty sure I sounded like a flight attendant most of the time “please take your seat and turn off all your electronic devices” but yeah, I’m not going to lie, it was fun. Even if they scrap it, it was good practice speaking in front of people, even if the audience was only 2 and I was reading off a screen.

Also yesterday we went to pick out the stone that will be on the front of the new addition and around the garage. There are 3 options we narrowed it down to. One is the cheapest but I’m not sure if the stacking looks too too busy. We’ll have even more than this…

The next two are the same price, I’m just trying to decide on color. Also, some of these pictures show a mix between the ledge (small skinny, stacked) stone and the big stones. This is Sagewood color in two different installations:

And this is the Natural Blend color:

Here are the last two samples at our house:

I think my favorite is the Natural Blend but at 50% more cost (about $500) I’m not sure I like it THAT much more than the first one. What say you?

And last thing, we are all in a good mood in these parts because it is going to be 76 today! The kids wore new outfits from my mom, looking very springy and happy! I can’t wait for spring!

Tae Kwon Do – Day One

February 16, 2011 by Amy 2 Comments

Lexi’s first day of Tae Kwon Do was today. I am kicking myself for not making it (I was at the bank signing papers!!) but Scott said she was quite into it and in fact, the teacher gave her her focus stripe for her belt. See the little kid that has 3 of them? You have to get all your stripes before you move to the next level.

And yeah, she was the only girl in class. But if you’re worried about it making her too masculine, never fear, Lexi is Lexi…

Interviews, Banks and Tae Kwon Do

February 16, 2011 by Amy 2 Comments

Our Valentine’s Day dinner Saturday at Villa Antonio’s. So. good.

I keep waiting until we are at a good stopping point to give you a good update but I guess I just need to go for it!

The addition

We met with the builder this weekend and have everything set in place. He’s just waiting on a green light.
We are still talking to the bank about the financing. I had hoped this would be a quick process but apparently it is not. It could be another week or two until we are set to start.

The adoption

I don’t think I mentioned it but we couldn’t get in this month’s training at DSS so we have to wait until March 19.

The job

I got the invitation to do my interview on Monday and interviewed yesterday for the position. It went really well and now I just wait to see what happens. I hope it all works out to get my start date before the end of the month so I don’t have to wait an extra month for my benefits to kick in.

Random

We signed Lexi up for Tae Kwan Do last night. She starts today at the same time Emma goes to guitar. She looks adorable in her outfit. I think she will be great at it if it doesn’t scare her off that she doesn’t know anyone in the class.
I’ve continued with reading the Bible in 90 Days. I have enjoyed it so much. I moved into the NT this weekend and can’t recommend reading the Gospels enough. Jesus is just so awesome. That sounds so cliché. But really. He is.
Our church, NRHC, has asked me to host our intro video for our new series Words. I’m so much better at writing than speaking (I say that in all humbleness…if my writing is mediocre then you should hear my speaking HA) but I’m looking forward to stretching myself and seeing how it goes!

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Homeschool

February 9, 2011 by Amy 9 Comments

No, we don’t homeschool but sometimes we play homeschool. The kids set up desks in their room and I sit in the rocking chair. We do morning work, math, writing, reading, show and tell and even recess and lunch if the time is right. The other day Mr. Bennett got roped into being the principal. He has a comfy office, as you can see.

We use print-outs from an old set of preschool worksheets Scott’s cousin gave us a long time ago (thanks, Carla!). I gave them each award cards and told them to pick someone out of the “class” to make it for. I had hoped it would foster some sisterly love and encouragement. They both surprised me by giving them to us.

That “mome” melts my heart.

I’m a lucky girl.

Taylor Junior

February 1, 2011 by Amy 8 Comments

For a long time I’ve been wanting Emma to take piano but have been waiting for her to want to do it. Practicing piano is hard enough when you WANT to do it. Well, Emma has been BEGGING for guitar lessons the past few weeks. So we signed her up. She’s ECSTATIC. And I have to say, she looks mighty good with a guitar.

Snow Day. I Mean, ICE WEEK.

January 13, 2011 by Amy 3 Comments

What do you blog when you’ve been ~~snowed~~ iced in for 3 days? What do you blog when your husband has worked 7 evenings in a row? What do you blog when your day has been a monotony of wake, cook, work, cook, eat, cook, entertain kids, cook, sleep?

Well, if you’re me, I guess you don’t.

As I imagined, this week was tough. Not tough, tough. No crying spells or pulling out my hair or yelling (and I have PMS—it’s a miracle!). Just having to keep-on-top-of-everything- I-don’t-have-time-for-anything-else. You know, PARENTING. So I don’t have anything amazing, blog-worthy things that have happened this week. Just a lot of good home time. I have enjoyed the late mornings and not rushing to go anywhere and eating in and lack of drama. It’s actually been a nice week now that I think about it.

Wednesday afternoon we managed to get out to the bank and post office and stopped my parents’ for a few minutes. Their yard was still very iced over and the girls had a blast playing in it for a few minutes. Of course they thought it was like a skating rink. And in fact, some spots did hold Lexi up. So here you can hear my mad parenting skills and if you watch to the end, you can see Lexi take a couple falls. And yes, she IS wearing her Halloween costume and a lightweight jacket.

Hope you guys are having a great week!

Weekend Recap and Snow Day

January 10, 2011 by Amy 7 Comments

Weekend

So I finally set down my ruler and pencil and have given the floor plans a break. No floor plan pictures today! I think we’ve done all we can and we’re just going to have to wait until the snow melts enough for someone to get over and look at the house.

We had a low key weekend this weekend. I had to work on and off through the weekend on a conversion we’ve been working on for six months. It went smoothly and it feels good to have it out of the way. Other than getting out to the mall, the grocery store, church and Sunday dinner, we were at home doing stuff like laundry, cleaning, cooking and exercising. Yes! Exercising! I bought a few new workout DVDs with my Swagbucks and Opinion Output rewards at Amazon. I’m not committing to any exercise goals but I have been trying to do some type of something in the evenings. How’s that for noncommittal?

Snow Day

As for today, I’m sure you’ve heard that we are getting 4-6” of snow dumped on us as we speak. It’s beautiful, but really, a pain. The kids are home basically going back and forth between 2 rooms. Scott is sleeping from working this weekend so they’re having to be quiet. I work from home so snow is not stopping me from having to work today. And to top it off, Scott has been called in for two additional 12 hour shifts this week, totaling 7 days straight working. So now he actually has to be out in this mess working all the wrecks out there. Yay us! So, besides the snow cream, I’m really not jumping for joy over this snow. If I didn’t have to work then it might be a different story. But no. I hate to be a buzzkill but keeping it real!

On a high note, I did make some very yummy French toast this morning. I’ve never been good at French toast but I think it’s because I never used French bread. I took a note from my mom’s friend that cooks it when we visit in Pennsylvania and bought a loaf at the store yesterday and then followed these instructions. Enjoy!

I’ll leave you with a sure-to-be-famous “Amy story”. I have many in my past.

Last night the girls and I were trying to switch from Wii Sports to the Wii Fit DVD. I put the Wii Fit DVD in the Wii but it wasn’t recognizing it so I tried to eject it so I could clean it. Nothing! I went online and then followed all the online recommendations for ejecting one. I put out a complaint/plea on Twitter about what to do. Best I could tell, I was going to have to get it sent back to Nintendo to get fixed. It was REALLY stuck though. I could even get another DVD in the Wii and get it to eject that but the Wii Fit was lodged somewhere that couldn’t get out. Well. This morning I told Scott about it hoping that he would have some magic fix. Turns out he did. He hit the eject on the PS3…right where I had put in the Wii Fit DVD. Fail, Amy, fail.

Oh wait, in other big news today, Lexi lost her front tooth. She now looks like a legit kindergartner.

OK, now my blog has been down so long that I have a few snow pictures. Girls eating snow and then jumping on the trampoline with 4” of snow:

Top Ten Tuesday: Photo Booth

December 28, 2010 by Amy 4 Comments

It sounds silly but one thing I will really miss about my MacBook is Photo Booth. It’s a sample camera that takes pictures with different effects applied and you can see yourself as you take the picture. The kids loved it and it’s the one thing they mentioned they would miss. Probably because it’s the only thing I would let them do on it. It was always a fun time to take silly picture with one another at random times. Most of them are garbage but there are a few that I would be sad if they disappeared and make me happy.

The three of us piled onto my bed one night.