Second Yard Sale

We had our second yard sale this weekend to once and for all purge our baby stuff. Every year my parents' neighborhood has a community wide yard sale which usually sees a lot of traffic and in years past as been very successful. The weather was chilly and looked like it was trying to start raining all morning, and actually did sprinkle on us a couple times. Instead of getting the kids up as early as I wanted to be down to my parents house to set up, we decided for Andrew to stay home with them and bring them down a little later in the morning. The boys were more than happy to go to Grandma and Granddad's, especially since Granddad has his famous tran set up, complete with a full Thomas train, which is a big hit in our house. I didn't have my camera, but I'm sure we'll get some pictures before he takes it dow early next year.

Probably because of the weather, the traffic through the neighborhood was extremely light in the morning. After about 2 hours and only making roughly $10, I was thinking this day was going to be sort of a waste of time. But as the day wore on and the sun began to poke through the clouds, traffic picked up and we actually ended up being pretty successful, making about another $100 and getting rid of everything we had really wanted to go. We packed up everything that didn't sell, which ended up being not too much, and my mom carted it off to Goodwill for me. The only thing we kept were the leftover clothes. What is so exciting is that all we have left of baby clothes is one plastic tub full. That may sound like a lot, but when you think that before we started giving it away and selling it, we had about 3 tubs and 4 trash bags stuffed full. Yay for more closet space! I love getting rid of things no longer used. It makes the house feel so much more organized, and even a little bit bigger. Now we're ready for whatever Santa may bring! =)

Be Honest Now...

My friend Lea tagged me to post 10 honest things about myself, so I thought I'd give it a try. She called it the Honest Scrap award, which is to be given by other bloggers who consider a blog's content or design to be brilliant. The awardee must then post ten honest things about themselves and pass the award on to other bloggers who fit the bill – in other words, whose blog is brilliant. Thanks, Lea, for the vote of confidence that I can even complete a list like this! Here goes!

1. I am not ashamed or afraid to talk about Jesus to anyone. I love my Savior, and I want everyone to know it. I get such a high off of any opportunity to share my faith with people who don't know Him, and also love hearing about other people's faiths and having open and honest discussions. Some think that Christianity is intolerant, and I guess you could say it is. I know there to be but one truth, and one way to Heaven, and that is through Jesus. He died on the cross to save us, because our sin has separated us from God and his perfect justice. Yes, bad things happen to good people and we are never promised that our life will be easy or pain free once we become a Christian, in fact, the bible tells us that we will definitely have trials and troubles in our lives. But I have learned to trust God and I hope that my life is and will be a walking testimony to those who are seeking the truth. In church today our pastor said to preach the gospel (the good news of Jesus Christ) every day, and if necessary use words. I love that quote and want that to be my life. A walking testimony of the love of Jesus!

2. I would never survive as a stay at home mom. I totally respect those that can stay home with their kids and live to tell about it. I am simply not one of those people, and I am completely okay with that. Little bothers me more when I feel judged for working outside the home. There are those that make comments that would suggest that I am less of a mother for not staying home with my kids. I would never return that judgment, or think that my way is the only way. I know that I personally am a better mom because I work. Other moms are better moms because they stay home. We all just need to do what works best for our families.

3. I sing in public... frequently. I have always loved singing and for the last almost 5 years I've been involved with the music at our church. But I don't stop there. I am that person you see belting it out in the car, in the shower or pretty much anywhere else without a care of who sees me or thinks I'm an idiot! =) Andrew and I were in a store at the mall yesterday and Soul Asylum's Runaway Train was on and I was singing away. I asked him if it embarrassed him that I sing everywhere we go, and his answer was "not anymore... I've been putting up with it for 10 years." Thanks, dear!

4. I am a mommy of boys.I have two little boys and I feel no need to have a girl. I thought I wanted a girl when I was pregnant with Ben, but when I found out he was a boy, I just said "yeah, that's right." Of course most people have the idea of their "perfect family" in their minds and sometimes that picture is of a mixture of boys and girls. The truth is, when they're here, it doesn't matter at all what plumbing they have. I wouldn't want any other person than my Benny, boy or girl!

5. I am surprisingly crafty. I have really surprised myself with some of the things I have accomplished, especially in the last year. I made Joshua's Halloween costume, and a firetruck birthday cake, and have successfully turned some of Joshua's ripped jeans into decent looking shorts. I love cross-stitching have made cross-stitch birth records for both of my kids and both of my sister's kids. I think most of my success in this area comes from a) my desire to do things on the cheap and b) the fact that I can sit and do tedious tasks for hours! My next project is a Choo-Choo train cake for Ben's birthday next month. We'll see how I do!

6. I have recently become obsessed with gardening. It started out as something to do with Joshua, and has quickly become a passion of mine. I find watching plants grow, bloom and turn into food fascinating. I've always considered myself to have somewhat of a black thumb, but we have been super successful in our gardening endeavors this year and plan to expand as much as we can next year (which probably won't be much given our space, but we'll do what we can). We're working on pumpkins right now and I found a blog yesterday that talked about pumpkin blooms needing to mate (there are male and female blooms) in order to make pumpkins, and how the gardener can perform a kind of IVF. That is so cool, and I'm looking forward to giving it a try. This girl also said that one pumpkin seed took over half of her 10'x13' garden. Um, ours is 3'x4' and we planted 12 seeds. Methinks we'll be thinning it out!

7. I hate silence. I have to have sound at all times. I love quiet times, i.e., when the kids are in bed, but total silence can drive me batty. I need to have music or the drone of the TV at all times. My iPod constantly plays at work. I can't concentrate without it. On a side note, I think the iPod is the most wonderful invention ever. I can load close to 800 songs on it and not hear the same song twice all week long. That's incredible!

8. One of my fondest memories is being the "Band Geek" in Jr. High. I started in band when I was in 4th grade, and by the time I graduated from middle school I was second chair clarinet in concert band and first tenor sax in the Jazz Band. I absolutely loved band in middle school and formed such wonderful relationships with my fellow musicians, a lot of which I am still in contact with and see from time to time. I remember the sense of accomplishment when our jazz band played at the NAU Jazz Festival and we played a ballad ("The Way You Make Me Feel") that featured the first tenor (ME!), and our band got a superior with distinction (the best) rating... and we were the only middle school in the competition. Everyone else was high school. It was such an honor! The concert band also took a weekend trip to California at the end of each year, which were so much fun. Seeing Broadway shows in LA, going to Universal Studios and Sea World, all with every one of your best friends? It doesn't get any better than that!

9. I love how Myspace and now Facebook has reconnected me with so many people that I love. After high school I lost touch with pretty much everyone. I met Andrew in 1999, less than one year after graduating, moved to California the following year and moved into the career world when most of my high school friends were still in college. After joining first Myspace and then Facebook I have reconnected with so many people and love to be able to keep up on their lives and talk to any of them whenever I want. I feel immensely blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life.

10. I am a horrible housekeeper. That's not to say that my house is always a mess. I definitely make an effort to keep things tidy and totally hate clutter. But when it comes to things like vacuuming, sweeping, mopping and scrubbing, it pretty much doesn't get done. It's not that I dislike doing it. I actually find it therapeutic to give my house a good scrubdown. But I just don't have the time. I would absolutely love to have a cleaning lady come in even once a month and do the things that I don't have the time to do. Maybe someday!

Hey, I did it! That was a lot harder than it seemed like it would be in the beginning. Now it is time to pass the torch. I tag my brilliant friends Alisha and Nancy.

Change

From the man behind the curtain (i.e. Andrew), I just wanted to let everyone know that I have changed the Comments feature to only allow comments from registered users. Additionally, if a fake profile is used in an attempt to post anonymously, I will delete those immediately as well. While people do have a right to say anything they want in regards to our posts, there have been a few "anonymous" comments lately, and if people aren't brave enough to post their name along with their negative comments, then they won't be posting on our blog at all. I apologize for the inconvenience to those of you who don't currently have Blogger or Google accounts. Thanks to everyone else for their positive comments and words of encouragement, and I hope whoever has been leaving negative comments anonymously will either grow a pair and at least post their name along with it. Or even better, in the words of the band Third Day, and countless mothers around the world, "If you can't say nothing nice, don't say nothin' at all".

200 and Counting!

Wow! We've had this blog going for over 3 years, and I have apparently been blogging my little heart out this year. We have reached our 200 post mark! I love being able to keep a record of the things we have done and the progress the kids are making. This blog has really turned into our kids' scrapbook (since who has time for actual scrapbooking!). I love looking back at old posts about when Josh was little, or when Ben was brand new. I think its better than flipping through the pages of a scrapbook. You can access it anywhere you are without having to lug around albums! I tend to be a little long winded (have you noticed?) so this is a great medium for me to keep a family record. I hope that our 3 readers enjoy reading our little corner of the internet as much as we enjoy writing and sharing it. Thanks to anyone who takes time out of their busy day to check in on us. We love you all!

Now, onto 201... I'm a blogging addict!

Rock Me Like a Hurricane!

What a whopper of a storm did we get last night! I have lived here my whole life and I don't remember a storm as severe as this one. At about 8:00 last night, the sky tore open, shaking our windows, the lightning and thunder were pretty much constant and the winds were unbelievable. We probably got about an inch of rain in maybe a half hour. It was insane, and at the time I had no idea just how out of control it really was.

So this morning we go out to inspect the damage, and find our roof looking like the picture above. That's not good... thankfully we didn't get any leaks, but we didn't want this to go unrepaired. Thankfully, my mother-in-law had recently given us a referral for a roofer they have known for a long time (we had already lost some shingles from prior storms) so Andrew got him on the phone this morning and he agreed to come out and got it all fixed up this afternoon. It worked out well because Andrew was already planning on being home because Ben still had remnants of a fever. Anyway, I packed up Josh and we headed off to school. After we got off of the freeway in Phoenix, most of the traffic lights were malfunctioning, or just plain not working at all. I was thinking that I didn't have a good feeling about this. Then I heard people calling in on the radio saying that schools that were close by to daycare were closed due to lack of power. Uh oh. Then we got to school and saw a downed light pole and found out that school was indeed closed for the day because they had no electricity. Too bad I didn't know that before I drove 25 miles in! But what can you do? So I took Josh back home and just worked from home for a good portion of the day.

I guess the destruction downtown was massive. Major arteries for rush hour traffic were closed down due to downed power lines (I believe there were about 10 on 7th Street), there were even multiple spots where large portions of roofs were laying in the middle of the street. There were reports of wind gusts of about 100 mph, and the practice stadium for ASU was completely destroyed. It was just crazy. Don't believe me? Check this out! http://www.azcentral.com/commphotos/azcentral/7667/1/69/

Thankfully the monsoon season is nearing its end. It has been a pretty impressive season this year. The storms can be kind of cool to watch, but not when they are causing millions of dollars of damage around the city. Hopefully this will be the last of its kind for quite some time.

Randy

We had an awesome experience on the way home from work one day last week. Where we get on the freeway to begin our lengthy drive home, there is frequently a homeless man standing on the median asking passers by for a little help. Andrew has taken to trying to have a bottle of water with him at all times for such an occasion. But on this day the only water we had had been sitting in the car all day, and would have been shall we say, less than refreshing. But feeling like we wanted to give him something, we gave him the cash we had on us. When Andrew handed him the money, he asked him what his name was, and our new friend introduced himself as Randy. Andrew shook his hand and told him we would be praying for him. It was so awesome to see Randy's huge smile at the idea of someone caring to know his name. After our light turned green, we got on the freeway and went about our way home. After a minute or so, I turned around to Joshua and asked him if he saw the man that Daddy was talking to. I told him that was Randy, and explained that Randy doesn't have a house, or a bed to sleep in like we do. When I asked what we should do for Randy, he said "we should pray for him. We should pray that Jesus gives him a house." It was too sweet. So we prayed for Randy and continued on our way.

Joshua must have continued to think about our new friend, and made a very profound observation... "Randy doesn't have a house. We have a computer." I don't think he probably meant it the way it sounded, but it spoke volumes to us, and helped us to put the whole thing into perspective. Randy doesn't have a house. Not only do we have a house, 2 cars, beds to sleep in, air conditioning, tubs to bathe in, food whenever we want it... we have a computer, which is probably the most frivolous thing we own.

It's easy to get caught up in the "keeping up with the Jones'" and obsessing about all the stuff we want and think we need. Experiences like this really make us extra thankful for the things we take for granted in our cushy lives, and motivates us to do a little more for those less fortunate than we are. I guess it all comes down to being Jesus' own hands and feet. I hope we see Randy again, and can continue to be a blessing in his life.

Pictures

I really wasn't digging the layout and some of the features of Shutterfly, so I am now in the process of moving the pictures over to Picasa/Google. The link has been updated, so feel free to check it out. We now have captions on some of the pictures, and I believe it is easier to comment on individual pics. I'll get most of the old albums moved over... eventually.