what i did today

I think I’m caught up

January 20, 2008 by Amy Leave a Comment

I’m sitting here realizing I think I’m finally caught up on everything. The house was cleaned this weekend, the laundry is winding down, I’m ahead in my Bible in 90 day reading, my CVS trip is planned for tomorrow, the girls are in bed, bills are paid, we have groceries, my other site is stable, we cleaned my closet yesterday, we cleaned out the girls bathroom today, the dishes are ok. I think everything is checked off my mental list and it’s only 9:30. Wow. I’m not sure the last time that happened.

But it won’t last for long.

S ended up coming to spend the night for the second time in history. They are still chatting in Emma’s room all piled on a palette on the floor. I’m very sure when they decide to wake up at the crack of dawn, my house will quickly and surely become a disaster zone. Turns out that Scott, thank goodness, is off tomorrow. He’ll help me reign the mess in. I’m planning to get them out some as I want to take Emma and Lexi to a new children’s salon to get their hair cut. Lexi is in desperate need of about 4 inches cut off the bottom. It’s beginning to get tangled easily and look a little shabby.

I really feel like this has been a weekend off. Even if it ended now. And it feels GREAT!

And I have two more days!

January 20, 2008 by Amy Leave a Comment

The weekend is going quite lovely for me. Starting last evening it’s gone something like this:

Cooked dinner and ate in yesterday evening just the four of us
Made a trip to CVS (posted on previously) which turned out well
Put the kids to bed and J&J came over to watch Mr. Brooks (very sadistic but somehow good) and then talk about everything and nothing until after 1am
Stayed in bed until 10:30
Worked for about an hour for an implementation (probably the only downside except for the fact it went perfectly and solved two of our problems which makes me a happy woman)
Scott took the kids to MIL’s and came back to help me completely rearrange and organize my closet. It looks awesome now.
Finished up some other cleaning and laundry (Before today I didn’t realize so much needed done and yet it’s been running all day–need to go switch that in fact)
Went to CVS to jump-start MIL and SIL on their CVSing when they brought the girls home–you would have thought we had won the lottery MIL was so happy with her deal. She paid .60 oop for about $90 worth of stuff in two transactions.
Went out to eat with Heather and her boyfriend and daughter
Came home and spent time with the girls. We played with Legos.
Put the girls to bed and just finished watching The Illustionist. Everyone must watch this movie if they haven’t. And please add Edward Norton to my favorite actors list.

To top this off, Sunday School has been canceled because of our little snow/ice “storm” so we don’t have to be in a hurry to wake up tomorrow! And even better than that?? I don’t have to work on Monday either so I have two more days of this! Can you feel my excitement?!

No School Snow Day

January 17, 2008 by Amy Leave a Comment

It snowed through the night last night and unfortunately it has been raining on and off all day so the girls have not gone outside. Since local schools were on a two hour delay, preschool was canceled so the girls spent the morning at home. They have been doing great and playing hard. And I have proof.

Every room pretty much looks like these:

And proof of the snow:

Busy 24 hours

January 15, 2008 by Amy Leave a Comment

Well I have a meeting I’m supposed to be at tomorrow at work but Scott is working so I’ve concocted this huge kid-transfer starting this evening through tomorrow evening.

Tonight I took them to Mom’s and put them to bed over there around 8:30.
Mom will take them to school tomorrow.
SIL is picking up my niece and my two and taking them to Scott’s GM.
MIL will pick all the girls up from there around 2 as she normally does on Wednesday.
MIL will take them to AWANA tomorrow evening where I’ll pick them up afterwards.

Whew. I told the girls they were going on an adventure tomorrow. Emma was into it. Lexi wasn’t so sure.

Honestly, I had a hard time leaving Mom’s house tonight. I mean I was ready to get home but I stayed in Mom’s room kissing them goodnight a few extra times knowing I wouldn’t see them until tomorrow night. Usually that is cool with me but it seems that is happening so much lately. I think they have more of social schedule than I do. I just miss my little girls 🙁

So my day tomorrow will be quite the adventure also as, as I told Heather, I have to get up in the middle of the night and go to work. lol. My alarm is set at 6:15 and I hope to be out there door right at 7. I have some big 2 hour meeting I’m supposed to go to and then have some meetings in the afternoon as well.

After work, I’ll be headed straight for church and will be there until after 8. It will be a busy day indeed.

Winterjam 2008

January 14, 2008 by Amy 6 Comments

Up until about two hours before the concert, I wasn’t going to go last night. I just had so much to do and I was going to be gone for at least 6 hours and I hadn’t seen the girls very much. But then my nephew wanted to go and we figure out a way I could drop the kids off at choir and meet the youth group up there instead of spending time going on the church bus and then riding the light rail up there. And I figured Scott could pick the girls up and spend the last hour or two before bedtime with them since he had been working all weekend.

The place was absolutely packed. Bobcats arena can hold 20K or so I suppose and it was full all the way to the parts where you couldn’t see the stage up at the top. Thankfully two of our youth had gotten there FOUR hours early and had seats saved for us on the floor.

When we walked in I heard Group 1 Crew playing and I was certain they must have been playing their CD while everyone waited. NO! The one group I was intent on seeing went on before 6 when I was told the concert started so we completely missed them. We DID see Mandisa, Skillet, NewSong, BarlowGirl, Connersvine and MercyMe.

Just a short recap of each:

Mandisa – She is every ounce of wonderful she was on American Idol and ten times more. That girl can SANG. Honestly, I wasn’t that impressed with her songs on the radio but hearing some of them live just gave them a whole new meaning. She sings with heart and meaning and it was wonderful.

Skillet – I don’t consider myself a rocker by any means but Skillet was AWESOME. I was jumping, head banging (ok, only for a few seconds) and singing with the rest of them. Yes, I was acting like a teenybopper last night. But they were really good. I’m figuring out rock bands are so much better live than they ever could be recorded. It just doesn’t do it justice.

NewSong – They started out with Little Drummerboy and although the drums at the end were really, really cool I just thought it was weird they played a Christmas song. We stepped out to eat at this point since I saw NewSong twice last year but they are a fabulous group and I love Nate Sallie.

BarlowGirl – Honestly, I’ve never been a huge fan of BarlowGirl and while they are very talented, I wasn’t jumping for joy over them. They were ok. It’s just after you see Skillet, it’s hard to compare the live show.

Connersvine – This is a duo and a guy from The Colts are in this group. He wasn’t there yesterday because they were playing a sort-of important game. Only one of them sang and I’ll just say I’d like to say I’d like to see them singing together before I make any judgment.

MercyMe – OK, honestly I was going to leave during MercyMe. I know, I know they are a fabulous band but they are just so less exciting in person than some of the others and really, haven’t we all heard MercyMe played to death on the radio? But after each song, I’d say, let me just see what they’re playing next and every time, it was a great song I didn’t want to miss. I thought I couldn’t hear I Can Only Imagine one more time but it turned into the best praise song of the night. And the lead singer was totally soaking it in. He sat there with a smile and the microphone out to the audience obviously loving it 20,000 people were singing the words. And I don’t mean to say he was being prideful, he seemed humbled by it. They put on a great show and really, they have had a TON of radio hits that were great to sing along with since we HAVE heard them a hundred times over.

Without further ado, here are some pictures. I stupidly left my dad’s lens at his house Saturday night instead of keeping it so the quality of the pictures are not nearly what they could have been.

Skillet:

MercyMe:

Mandisa:

BarlowGirl:

Julian Drive Concert

January 13, 2008 by Amy Leave a Comment

The concert turned out great last night. We had about 300 people turn out. There were several that responded at the end, one that I personally got to lead to Christ. A great night indeed.

If you’ve never heard of the band, they sing Hoobastank’s song The Reason so that should give you an idea. Check them out on myspace.

They were all very nice as we ate lunch with them, help them set up (well, many of us watched them set up), perform and then meet and greet with the people afterwards.

Going to be a busy weekend

January 11, 2008 by Amy Leave a Comment

Well, we have a full weekend ahead of ourselves.

Tonight I have an Arbonne party to attend at D’s house. The guys are all planning to show up at the end to eat and play games. Should be a good time. And this is assuming the girls are going to MIL’s to spend the night tonight.

Tomorrow is the big Julian Drive concert. We are supposed to eat lunch with the band at our church then spend the afternoon helping them set up at a local high school and then of course spend the evening at the concert.

Sunday is of course church but Sunday evening the youth is going to the Winterjam concert featuring Mercy Me, BarlowGirl, Mandisa from American Idol, Group 1 Crew and some others I can’t recall. I’m not sure if I’ll go or not. The girls are supposed to start preschool choir and I missed choir last week and I’m not sure about someone keeping the girls that long so I may just have Scott go. Who knows.

Then Monday we’re supposed to go to another concert at church in the next town with the youth. It’s like the weekend of concerts.

Hopefully in there somewhere I’ll clean the house, work on some side projects, relax and enjoy some family time. You know, because the weekend is like 8 days long.

That premiere day I blogged all day

January 8, 2008 by Amy Leave a Comment

Today is a busy day. I got up early and got ready knowing I’d be quite busy. Scott works again today so I have to be the one to do the shuttling back and forth to school. I was supposed to have band practice at 5 but that got canceled and then we have a meeting at 7 about the big Julian Drive concert our church is sponsoring.

The big news causing all my busyness is today is the premiere day for One Tree Hill. That means lots of appearances and articles to keep up with on my OTH blog. Also, two of the youth are coming over to watch the premiere with me–I’m a great influence aren’t I?? One of them is actually a college student and the other already watched the show and got permission from her guardian to come over. Anyway. I plan to blog about all that tonight and that doesn’t end until 10. The good news is my stats are already hitting averages we’ve had and it’s only lunch time and the premiere hasn’t even shown yet.

Somewhere in there I’m doing my real job and taking care of the girls.