Yesterday in church we sang one of my favorite hymns...I have a lot of favorite hymns actually. I grew up in a Baptist church that sang hymns and only hymns, usually set to organ and piano music, for most of my childhood. Somewhere in my late high school years someone started adding "choruses" but those hymns stick in my brain unlike any praise song I've heard! Maybe it's because I sang them for so many years and heard them played in my home, maybe it's because they are generally more "meaty" than the average praise song and maybe, just maybe, I'm old!!
Anyway, here's what we sang yesterday, perfect for a day of rememberance!
’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His Word;
Just to rest upon His promise,
And to know, “Thus saith the Lord!”
Refrain:
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er;
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
Oh, for grace to trust Him more!
Oh, how sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to trust His cleansing blood;
And in simple faith to plunge me
’Neath the healing, cleansing flood!
Yes, ’tis sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just from sin and self to cease;
Just from Jesus simply taking
Life and rest, and joy and peace.
I’m so glad I learned to trust Thee,
Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend;
And I know that Thou art with me,
Wilt be with me to the end.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Saturday, September 3, 2011
a collective "aaahhh"
We're back...
Quick update since my last post...Irene didn't amount to much here at our humble abode, OCMD website on Sunday morning said visitors can arrive as early as 12 noon...we packed up the car and left the house by 11:15 and were on the beach by 3 on Sunday afternoon :)
We basically had OCMD to ourselves until Tuesday when about five more people joined us...by Thursday we could see the holiday weekend crowd arriving and today when we left it was bumper-to-bumper! I think it was Tuesday when we all sort of settled into our "beach house" and our vacation "routine", at that moment, Tuesday on the beach, I think there was a collective "aaahh" from all five of us (my mom spent a few days down there with us).
Highlights:
1. the beach
2. the view at our place was AMAZING...we could lay in our bed and look out a HUGE window wall out onto the bay...same view in the living room, gorgeous!!
3. the beach is free
4. parking is free (at the beach) (and at the boardwalk it's only a dollar an hour...OCMD beats OCNJ on that one!!!!)
5. playing with the kids on the beach...non-stop action but sooooo fun! Maybe I"ll relax on the beach when I'm 60!!
6. dinner with my lovely mom at a restaurant called Dead Freddies...basically a bar with a playground for kids...conservative mom handled it well (and treated)
7. the beach
8. riding surrey's on the boardwalk, twice! The kids LOVED this, mostly they like that they sat in a basket in the front while we sat behind them. Miss M kept saying, "we're in the front and you're in the back sitting in carseats"
9. watching the kids faces on rides (I see a future for Scott and both kids and season pass to Great Adventure...they both loved the thrill and begged to go on the big rollercoaster, thank God they were too small!!!)
10. the fact that we spent $250 to rent our place for the week (don't ask how, just thank God for miracles)
11. watching people crab with a chicken leg tied to a string (this was creepy and fascinating at the same time...and yes, blue crabs really are blue!!)
12. spending a week with Prince Charming, he really is charming when he isn't working out in the hot sun on your roof for 10 hours a day!!
13. have I mentioned the beach????? I am such a beach person, I could sit there ALL day and play, swim, read, snooze, sip lemonade, eat pb&j and people watch. Prince Charming tolerates the beach, and he does it much better now that we have two little ones that take after their mama. I think we could have gotten to the beach each morning by 8 am and stayed until 6 pm and the kids would have been thrilled, exhausted, but thrilled!!
14. a Christian radio station (why is it that everywhere I go in the US they have good Christian radio stations...Philly...nothin')
15. vacation food...need I say more???
16. Miss M saying about 100 times a day, I have good news and bad news, the good news is I'm with my whole family at the beach...(the bad news varied from things like I lost giraffee, there's no more bologna to I only got to watch Tangled twice)
17. my mom coming for a few days...and no, we didn't use her as a babysitter! It was just nice to have her company, the kids LOVE to be with her, she loves the beach and we got to play games at night after we put the kids to bed! All highlights!!
I could go on...
We had such a great week together, that's my favorite part of vacation. I don't think I really care where we go, I just love that we were all together doing fun stuff. No talk about work, bills, church, family issues, hurricanes (well maybe a little, the whole island was still boarded up when we arrived!!) just playing, relaxing and enjoying each others smiles, laughs and hugs!
And when we got home we got a good laugh at what was in our fridge...1 gallon jug of water, 2 Mr. Iced Tea pitchers of water, our regular water pitcher, 10 sippy cups filled with water and all our nalgene type bottles filled with water and a rotten tomato! Good-night Irene!!
Quick update since my last post...Irene didn't amount to much here at our humble abode, OCMD website on Sunday morning said visitors can arrive as early as 12 noon...we packed up the car and left the house by 11:15 and were on the beach by 3 on Sunday afternoon :)
We basically had OCMD to ourselves until Tuesday when about five more people joined us...by Thursday we could see the holiday weekend crowd arriving and today when we left it was bumper-to-bumper! I think it was Tuesday when we all sort of settled into our "beach house" and our vacation "routine", at that moment, Tuesday on the beach, I think there was a collective "aaahh" from all five of us (my mom spent a few days down there with us).
Highlights:
1. the beach
2. the view at our place was AMAZING...we could lay in our bed and look out a HUGE window wall out onto the bay...same view in the living room, gorgeous!!
3. the beach is free
4. parking is free (at the beach) (and at the boardwalk it's only a dollar an hour...OCMD beats OCNJ on that one!!!!)
5. playing with the kids on the beach...non-stop action but sooooo fun! Maybe I"ll relax on the beach when I'm 60!!
6. dinner with my lovely mom at a restaurant called Dead Freddies...basically a bar with a playground for kids...conservative mom handled it well (and treated)
7. the beach
8. riding surrey's on the boardwalk, twice! The kids LOVED this, mostly they like that they sat in a basket in the front while we sat behind them. Miss M kept saying, "we're in the front and you're in the back sitting in carseats"
9. watching the kids faces on rides (I see a future for Scott and both kids and season pass to Great Adventure...they both loved the thrill and begged to go on the big rollercoaster, thank God they were too small!!!)
10. the fact that we spent $250 to rent our place for the week (don't ask how, just thank God for miracles)
11. watching people crab with a chicken leg tied to a string (this was creepy and fascinating at the same time...and yes, blue crabs really are blue!!)
12. spending a week with Prince Charming, he really is charming when he isn't working out in the hot sun on your roof for 10 hours a day!!
13. have I mentioned the beach????? I am such a beach person, I could sit there ALL day and play, swim, read, snooze, sip lemonade, eat pb&j and people watch. Prince Charming tolerates the beach, and he does it much better now that we have two little ones that take after their mama. I think we could have gotten to the beach each morning by 8 am and stayed until 6 pm and the kids would have been thrilled, exhausted, but thrilled!!
14. a Christian radio station (why is it that everywhere I go in the US they have good Christian radio stations...Philly...nothin')
15. vacation food...need I say more???
16. Miss M saying about 100 times a day, I have good news and bad news, the good news is I'm with my whole family at the beach...(the bad news varied from things like I lost giraffee, there's no more bologna to I only got to watch Tangled twice)
17. my mom coming for a few days...and no, we didn't use her as a babysitter! It was just nice to have her company, the kids LOVE to be with her, she loves the beach and we got to play games at night after we put the kids to bed! All highlights!!
I could go on...
We had such a great week together, that's my favorite part of vacation. I don't think I really care where we go, I just love that we were all together doing fun stuff. No talk about work, bills, church, family issues, hurricanes (well maybe a little, the whole island was still boarded up when we arrived!!) just playing, relaxing and enjoying each others smiles, laughs and hugs!
And when we got home we got a good laugh at what was in our fridge...1 gallon jug of water, 2 Mr. Iced Tea pitchers of water, our regular water pitcher, 10 sippy cups filled with water and all our nalgene type bottles filled with water and a rotten tomato! Good-night Irene!!
Friday, August 26, 2011
Irene
We're as ready as we're gonna get, that's only partly true. I suppose we could be much more prepared, I'm just not feeling the urgency. I have done the basics...as per my mother...I filled the car with gas, got cash and stored a little extra water. I have every sippy cup with a lid filled and in the fridge :) I laughed outloud at myself as I filled all 11 of them! I did buy one case of bottled water, figure we'll use it at the beach if we ever get there.
Just spoke with my best girl down in VA...they are bracing for a little more than we are expecting. Sadly she's by herself with her two kids while hubby is out on a ship...protecting our nation (or maybe just protecting the ship from the storm). If you think of her, and other military wives that are often "home alone" for these events, pray for their protection and peace!
The plan for now is to weather Irene here in good ole' PA than head out as early as possible on Monday morning...I'm hoping for beach time Monday...think I'm shooting to high??
Some hurricane activities are planned: make hurricane salad and hurricane cookies, paint with homemade watercolors (that is if I don't have to hoarde the sippy cup water for sustanence), watch a movie or two (read a book or 12 if there is no power for movies), make a giant fort and pack for the beach!
Stay safe friends!
Just spoke with my best girl down in VA...they are bracing for a little more than we are expecting. Sadly she's by herself with her two kids while hubby is out on a ship...protecting our nation (or maybe just protecting the ship from the storm). If you think of her, and other military wives that are often "home alone" for these events, pray for their protection and peace!
The plan for now is to weather Irene here in good ole' PA than head out as early as possible on Monday morning...I'm hoping for beach time Monday...think I'm shooting to high??
Some hurricane activities are planned: make hurricane salad and hurricane cookies, paint with homemade watercolors (that is if I don't have to hoarde the sippy cup water for sustanence), watch a movie or two (read a book or 12 if there is no power for movies), make a giant fort and pack for the beach!
Stay safe friends!
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Really?
We are supposed to leave on Saturday for our family vacation to Ocean City, MD. We have been looking forward to it for months and have really gotten the kids all wound up about it this last two weeks. Miss M can't wait to spend time on the beach with Grandmom and JB just keeps telling us that he's going to "go simmin wif shauks and daafins".
Cue the hurricane and the stomach bug...the Miller's have plans that need ruining!! UGH!
Prince Charming would like to go down anyway, he sees some strange sense of adventure in being there for the storm. I think this mornings vomit situation slowed his roll. JB is having a quick recovery though, and if noone else gets sick Prince Charming is going to be ready to go!
When I called the realtor today she said "Well, we aren't evacuating so you can c'mon down if you want" Sounds like a real good idea to me...take the kids somewhere we've never been in the middle of a hurricane, there may be no power, the bay might come right up to the patio of our place, and there is a slight chance we'll evacuate.
Sounds like a great weekend to me...
Cue the hurricane and the stomach bug...the Miller's have plans that need ruining!! UGH!
Prince Charming would like to go down anyway, he sees some strange sense of adventure in being there for the storm. I think this mornings vomit situation slowed his roll. JB is having a quick recovery though, and if noone else gets sick Prince Charming is going to be ready to go!
When I called the realtor today she said "Well, we aren't evacuating so you can c'mon down if you want" Sounds like a real good idea to me...take the kids somewhere we've never been in the middle of a hurricane, there may be no power, the bay might come right up to the patio of our place, and there is a slight chance we'll evacuate.
Sounds like a great weekend to me...
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
A pigeon, an elephant and a pig.
As I was wrapping up my 13 year run as an elementary teacher a "newer" children's literature author was really climbing the ladder of success. Mo Willems had written a few books I knew, nothing overly impressive. Then the pigeon hit the bookshelves! I was skeptical at first, the illustrations seemed childish (they are books for children so I'm not sure why this bothered me) and the stories were very untraditional and even a little "sassy".
My last year teaching I had the chance to read aloud at a Barnes and Noble event, a fundraiser for my school. I love to read aloud so I jumped at the opportunity, even though I was 8 months fat, oops, I mean pregnant. I was to read four stories, I chose three I loved and then the librarian handed me "Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late". I still didn't love it but when I read it outloud, with all my best first grade expression, the kids roared with laughter through the whole book!
Fast forward four years and we get to today at the library. We try and go to the library every two weeks, if not more. We get as many books as they let us take out and we make quite an event of our time there. We have many favorites that we check out over and over, or authors that we stick with...but the kids new fav...Mo Willems and all the Pigeon books and the Elephant and Piggie books. We had two last week, one about hot dogs and one about ice cream. Miss M and JB had them both memorized within a day of taking them out and would sit and read them themselves and just crack themselves up! So cute!!
Today we picked out three more, the kids could hardly wait to get home, eat lunch and then read before nap. They didn't disappoint...we read, we laughed and then we read them again! If you haven't checked them out and you have a child in first grade or under...get out from under your rock and find Mo Willems :)
Monday, August 22, 2011
Rainy Sunday=Bathtime fun!
We have had so much rain this August! I suppose we need it but it does get old after awhile! Yesterday I came down with a cold, right in the middle of Sunday School. Seriously, I was sitting there and all of the sudden I could feel my head getting heavy, my nose started to drip and I sneezed an undisclosed amount of times! I had to get up and leave, I'm sure my friend Pam was thrilled she had sat next to me :(
Anyway, we got the kids and came home, I needed to lay that heavy head down!! It was sunny and hot when I layed down...gray and rainy when I awoke! So we played at the house, ran an errand, made dinner and looked at the clock! Ugh...only 5:30 and the kids have already watched too much TV.
Then I remembered an idea I saw on Pinterest (which is my new obsession...I'm considering dedicating a whole new blog just to ideas from Pinterest and whether they work or not). So I whipped out some foil pans I happened to have, Prince Charming's foamy shaving cream and food coloring. Put them together and...tada...
The kids played for over an hour, they loved it!! The water turned all sorts of green from washing thier brushes off, but their skin didn't take that color on at all! As you can see from the last picture, it all washed right off and the tub is as good as new! It even smells like daddy's freshly shaven face :) I will say the post I got this from, Meet the Dubiens, says it won't discolor the grout...I think it did in just a few spots, but not enough to really notice. Prince Charming thinks with a good spray of shower/grout cleaner, it will come right off. You might want to test that before you find yourself in the midst of a remodeling job you weren't bargaining for!!
Sunday, August 14, 2011
...well, I haven't died yet...
I'm 40 now, have been for a number of hours, although if you ask my mom it's only been about 50 minutes since I was born right after 10 pm. If you ask my siblings I've been 40 for a month now, I was a month overdue (like they would let that happen in this day and age) and my sibs made my mom a good-bye dinner, spaghetti, every night for weeks...
It was a very nice day, Prince Charming got up with the kids, who wanted to be in bed with me, so we all snuggled and watched cartoons together. I got breakfast in bed, yummy, and then Miss M informed me "you're stinky, I love you, I just don't love the smell of you". And Happy Birthday to me! Just for the record, I had bathed the day before and had really done nothing to work up as horrid an odor as Miss M accused me of...I think she's just sensitive :)
Off to church we went, only stayed for one service since I forgot to "duck" when I walked by JB's class. He saw me and there was no turning back...so off we went to Kohl's where I got to pick out some new clothes than lunch at Red Robin. Dee-lish!!
Home for naps, off to Mom's for dinner and a fab dessert made by my sister Sue...torte with fruit and chocolate whipped cream...I don't know how many points that was, but I don't really care!! I lost 3.8 lbs. last week going back on Weight Watchers, pretty sure I gained them back today. Oh well...it's 11:02, I'm 40, I'm alive...onward I go...
It was a very nice day, Prince Charming got up with the kids, who wanted to be in bed with me, so we all snuggled and watched cartoons together. I got breakfast in bed, yummy, and then Miss M informed me "you're stinky, I love you, I just don't love the smell of you". And Happy Birthday to me! Just for the record, I had bathed the day before and had really done nothing to work up as horrid an odor as Miss M accused me of...I think she's just sensitive :)
Off to church we went, only stayed for one service since I forgot to "duck" when I walked by JB's class. He saw me and there was no turning back...so off we went to Kohl's where I got to pick out some new clothes than lunch at Red Robin. Dee-lish!!
Home for naps, off to Mom's for dinner and a fab dessert made by my sister Sue...torte with fruit and chocolate whipped cream...I don't know how many points that was, but I don't really care!! I lost 3.8 lbs. last week going back on Weight Watchers, pretty sure I gained them back today. Oh well...it's 11:02, I'm 40, I'm alive...onward I go...
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