Best 12 in 12

Here are my top 12 moments/events of 2012 (no particular order):

1. Pulling off a huge surprise party for Mom and Aunts 60 and 70th birthdays

2. Going to New Orleans with my sweetheart

3. Taking my girl to the beach

4. Going to St. Louis with my best friends to see best friends

5. Hanging out with Jim Mann in the sun

6. Seeing Blind Pilot in a crowed bar in Nashville

7. Becoming a member and active part of Christ City Church

8. Going to pool almost everyday in June and July

9. My girl turning 4

10. Finding out I'm going to be an Aunt

11. The births of Vera, McClain, Katie, Emmylou, Dylan, Grant, Everett, Aidan, Gus and Clover!

12. Discovering the meaning of the Gospel in my life, the grace and the promise. Having a community that demonstrates grace and service. And having a husband and friends that challenge me and support me. 

 Here's hoping you had a great 2012 as well! What was your favorite part? Did anything change in your life? Are you looking forward to changes in 2013?

The Littlest Ballerina

You know Wes has been in ballet lessons this fall right? It has been an adventure. I think looking back now we may have started this adventure a year too early, but oh well, she had fun and was too cute.

Nothing bad has happened, she just got tired of going about 4 weeks in, so every Monday night I had to persuade her to stick with it. I think she would have rather just play ballerina at home, where she could wear tutus and dance however she liked. But we stuck it out and this past Monday night she had a sweet 30 min performance to show for it!

Her she is getting ready "all by herself" as I was informed, by her, she could do.

I love this one, because of the sweet bun and perfectly pointed toe.

Some posing in the "studio" (I'm not allowed in, so I took them from the door.)

And now some selected scenes from the big show. 

(Each one is about 45 secs long, except the last is 3 mins FYI)

We were all very proud of our tiny ballerina, all nine of us (note we were only allowed eight tickets to the show)! We're like the Bravermans when it comes to  this kid. Love us all.

Christmas Program Time

As a music teacher it is to my ultimate joy and delight to plan a program. This year, for Christmas,  I planned 1 and 1/2 and got to go to a pretty darn cute one I didn't have to plan!

The one I did direct this year was called "Elfis Impersonator" It was the story of a strange looking elf who never stopped singing and dancing and had trouble fitting in at the North Pole. The other elves accused him of being an impersonator! Of course they all learn their lesson that we must except others differences and not judge a book by its cover etc. Too cute!

In the show we had 19 speakers, 18 guitars, 40 chorus members, 3 third grade classes, two Christmas trees and an Elvis Impersonator. It was a huge production, but well worth it. Everyone seemed to love it.


The show I did not direct was even cuter though. Mostly because of the little girl in it. I'm partial! Here are a couple of short videos from Wee's Christmas production.

Yep, I'm proud! This is the first year she has really sung. In years past she has just stood there, one year she even held her hands over her face the whole time. So we've come a long way.

And finally, my last Christmas music presentation I only count as a half. Not because of it's meaning to me, but because of the sweet angels in it. You see, it will be our first time to have the children sing in worship at church and we are a young church, so most of our children are very young. The biggest age group is the 1-3 range so there isn't a whole lot of understandable singing going on. But they are adorable. Unfortunately, I did not get very many shots of this one, because we were herding the babies in and out which is a lot like herding wet cats so there is no chance to stop and take a picture. Here are a couple I stole from the interweb.

 Merry Christmas!

Why you pack a change of clothes

One of my favorite things about Christmas break is heading down to Birmingham for Locke/Washburn family get togethers. This year, I was sad, we were only going for one night, and actually wouldn't even be in town a full 24 hours. But that's the way it fell this year. Anyway, when packing for the trip I really didn't over think it- pjs, change of clothes and toiletries. I should've known better!

I got the feeling I was underprepared before we even hit the Mississippi border, I had forgotten a blanket and pillow for Wes, and her nighttime cough medicine (as she has been recovering from bronchitis) but hey it's one night right? I could always run to Walgreens. It should have been an omen.

We rolled into the 'ham around 9pm, put Wes to sleep a little before ten and stayed up with our sweet family laughing and talking until about midnight, it's vacation and part of the fun. Then around 1:15am, you know just enough time to have fallen into deep, deep sleep, Wee cries out. It took us a second to remember where we were (in fact Matt jumped up and opened a closet to look for her) but then it occurred to me she may have wet the bed...we've only been night potty trained for 2 weeks. So as I walked back to her room it hit me, I only packed her one set if pj's 😞.

So I was very happy when I realized she was dry, just awake. I asked if she needed to potty while we were all up, and she did. After she went she started to cry again, I figured she just didn't want to go back to sleep in a strange bed, so I resigned to let her sleep with us. But as we walked into sweet cousin Lindsey's room, I heard it coming...oh no...yep...stomach bug. Four waves. For those who know us personally you know my angel is small for her age. Y'all, I cannot believe the amount that came out of this tiny, non-eating girl. We got her back to the bathroom, stripped her jammies off, only to discover bright red arms and legs, and shivers that indicated a raging fever. I felt so helpless. I got her in the bathtub and into dry clothes and back in bed and headed out for meds. This is what I learned next:

1. We should have all packed extra pjs
2. Siri is a lifesaver
3. The Walmart staff in Trussville, Al is super nice at 2am
4. Matt is the best, sweetest, most caring daddy ever (already knew that one)
5. Mommies can't go back to sleep after their babies have been this sick.

Of course I did drift off somewhere past 4 am with the thoughts we would need to get up and go soon to get this contaminated child out of the families Christmas parties. But as the sun rose so did Wee, with a giggle and a poke for me. She was completely fine. She wanted breakfast and the play dress up!

We told the family the adventure story and told them we would be on our way, but they said it was fine. So sweet of them! I'm sure they were thinking "gee thanks for bring the stomach flu" but they proceeded to be gracious hosts for us. So with strict instructions not to hug and kiss anyone, we all got to attend the family Christmas parties!

Family is the best. Love you all! And from now on I will be a much more prepared momma!

PS please excuse the ramblingness of this post and any typos, I'm blogging with 3ish hours of sleep and in the car.

Inadequate

Today as the news streams in from every screen, I feel inadequate.

I feel small and sad.

I feel powerless to evil.

But there is strength in that. Because while today has jarringly, unfairly, and hatefully reminded us we live in a broken sinful world. I know truly, there is a God who has come and suffered among us who will make all things new and right. He is not small, he is the creator, the God of the Universe.

Let your kingdom come, Lord Jesus. Father comfort us.

My St. Jude Hero

Between birthday parties and anniversary celebrations. My husband squeezed in running 13.1 miles to raise money and awareness for St. Jude's children's hospital. This is Matt's second half marathon this year. And we all agree there should be a better name for them. Half marathon seems to imply you are taking the easy road. But I don't know anything easy about running for 2 hours straight for 13-friggin'-miles!  So here's the great pics from the day.

A tiny present the night before to get him excited

His official race shirt

Best buds watching their daddies give it their all

Here he comes at mile 7, looking strong! Sorry for the thumb in the frame, it's hard to catch a runner !

There he goes, only 6 miles left!

Waiting at the Redbirds stadium for Dad to run in

Matt and Jeff (friend, neighbor, training buddy) did it!!

A medal to prove it!

One of good friends did actually run the whole marathon. And his story of grace, renewal and hope is AH-mazing. You can read it here. 26.2 in 3hrs! Whoa!

To all our friends who ran the marathon, half, 5k, and 1-mile Thank you! We are blessed to have a healthy child and we give thanks for her, but so many are facing so much pain and illness. This race is a beautiful way to support St. Jude and I'm so very proud of my husband our friends!

A Penny for Your Thoughts

It's the most wonderful time of the year! The time when our family has 8 birthdays, an anniversary, 3 major, travel involved, holidays and Christmas programs/parties galore.

It is insane, and busy. But it is also full of love and excitement. I am surrounded by very special people and I have an amazing family, and we all just happen to share the same birthday season, and that's ok.

So I will probably be doing a lot of posting about parties, gifts and the like for the next 30 days.

The season of celebrating really kicks off with Wesley's birthday, then we have Thanksgiving and next Matt and I's anniversary. So you saw the birthday post right? I kinda missed Thanksgiving, but I assure you all it was lovely and we were thankful. Now to the anniversary.

This year marked our 8th anniversary of marriage. Wo-ah. Weren't we here just yesterday?

Can we sidebar and discuss things that didn't exist, or I wasn't aware of when I was 23 and planned a wedding:

1. Trendy bridesmaid dresses...sorry girls
2. Digital professional photography-hence the badly scanned photos
3. Having your dress fitted and altered to your body, and/or not losing 10 lbs the week before your wedding

On with the post.

It was a great day. Perfect to us. Down to tacky Christmas trees on the Chapel lawn and donuts for a wedding cake.

Yes, this wedding was ours and I would do it again just the same, well with better photos : )

Every anniversary seems to get overlooked a little more because there is so much going on. I always tell Matt not to worry about it, we can just go to dinner and exchange cards. But every year he tops himself. AH-hem, new wedding band!!

I like getting gifts according to the traditional anniversary themes. Paper, wood, cotton etc. So as I planned Matt's gift this year I discovered 8 was the copper anniversary. What can you think of that is copper? A PENNY! Well, that's easy enough, but not a very fun gift. So I thought and thought and decided I would search for a penny from each year of our marriage. And ended up with 9 (wedding year plus 8) During my hunting I was also lucky to find both of our birth years so I threw those into the project as well. So I had 11 pennies, what next? Luckily I also had a very creative friend who I bounce ideas off of very successfully! She thought it would be cool to mount the pennies on a canvas. Ta da!

But it doesn't stop there. After working with the pennies for a while I had another idea. Matt and I love to travel. We haven't done as much as we used to, can't imagine why? But we still love to dream, and we have a running list of cities we would like to explore. So can you guess what I thought of next? That's right, we're going to Washington, DC!! So exciting! Here's how I broke the news.

Happy 8 to us! See ya soon Mr. President!

Pretty Pony Party

We successfully had another birthday party for my sweet girl! I can't believe we've had FOUR of these things!

This year she had the most input. This party was truly all about her instead of Mom trying to plan the cutest, trendiest, craftiest party. My girl wanted a pony party and that's what she got.

See, Wes loves My little pony, as most 3-6 year old girls do, and then we went to a friends party in March that had actual ponies and Wee was sold. She asked from March to November for a pony party.

First step was securing the farm so that we could have real live ponies. Luckily the same friend that had the first party had the hook up, so that was super easy to secure.

Next, decorations. Easy peasy, we would be outside in glorious nature no decorating really needed. I just added a Happy Birthday banner and some pony balloons. Done and done!

Next, favors. I found My Little Pony coloring books for all the guests and then added pony bubbles, stickers and handmade hairbows. This was the first and only hiccup in the party planning. You know I love a craft. And we live in the age of pinterest with unlimited tutorials. So I just bought the supplies and waited till one night after Wesley had gone to bed and decided I could knock out 12 hairbows like that. Yeah right. 3 hours later and multiple hot glue burns to boot and I had 12 bows being held together with ribbon and prayer. Maybe bow making is not my spiritual gift.

Next was party activities, again SOOO easy, hello?!?! there would be horses there! Done.

Oh, and of course I made her shirt! She picked every piece of fabric, too. If it sparkled it was in. I stitched the unicorn on a sweatshirt because I worried it would be chilly on a November day, but I was so happy to be wrong! It was a gorgeous 60+ degree day!

So that's my quick, late, post about my beautiful four year old!! The moral I learned from this party is more stress does not mean more fun, this party was the least "planned" of all I've done and we had a FANTASTIC day! I can be taught.

 Here are a few more, self-explanatory, pics from the day. Thank you to all our sweet friends and family who helped make it perfect!