Birthdays...

Yesterday was my Birthday. My sweet husband took the day off. In the morning he stayed home with Liam so I could go get my hair done. (I had a gift certificate from one of my clients as a Thank you from a birth - to go to Bangs salon. I hadn't used it yet and decided to take advantage of the chance on my birthday.) The High school had a half day thrusday as well as friday, so we had a babysitter for the afternoon. Bill had gotten us tickets to see a show in town at the VBC. It was the Keeping Christmas Alive concert series, http://www.keepchristmasalive.org/guests.html
but we went primarily to see Mark Lowry. http://www.rhapsody.com/mark-lowry
We caught a show on t.v. that he did 10-12 years ago, and liked him, so we bought his CD. http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Mark+Lowry&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7SUNA&um=1&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#
We've loved him for years, and so when Bill said he would be at a show at the VBC in Huntsville on my Birthday, and asked if I'd like to go see it, I said yes.
We went to the Matinee show at 2:00 since our Ward Christmas party was scheduled for that night.
It started out with a Gospel Choir from Chatanooga. My standards are pretty high at this point, especially with the Christmas Festival being only a week ago (not even a full week). Our Choir is so amazing!!! - the choir at the show was o.k. then there were several other acts... One was a group called 3 Lambs and a Ram (a 3 sister and 1 brother violin group), from here in Alabama.
http://lambfamilymusic.com/NewsArticles/Woodmen%20Lamb%20Family%20Article.pdf
Another was a 4 brother group that sang harmonies. The Ball Brothers They were really good, and we bought their christmas CD. http://www.theballbrothers.com/ball2008/about.html
Another little group that we really enjoyed was Mike Ball and the Madison Mountaintop Band. It is a bluegass group with Rep. Mike Ball. He wrote a Christmas Song several years ago, and I really liked their bluegrass sound! Wish I could find a link for his music on line somewhere...

One supposedly big name lady, sings with the Metropolitan Opera, came to town for this concert from Jamaica, and was too tired to sing twice in the day, so they broke the news she'd not be singing to us at hte afternoon performance. Then later in the show, the poor MC had to announce that due to weather... Mark Lawry was not going to be performing. He was finally on a plane and would be there for the night performance and anyone was free to ask for either a refund on their ticket, or we could come back for the night performance... We watched the rest of the show, then rushed home to take the family to the Christmas Party at the Church.
After the fun Christmas party (lots of yummy sweets and foods), a sing along - and someone ratted me out and had the whole ward sing me Happy Birthday! They even made me stand up! I liked the young men who sang the Primary Birthday Song in the middle of everyone else singing the traditional birthday song everyone else was singing. I told my no longer friend who ratted me out, it was a good thing it wasn't a few years ago and that I was medicated because having to be spotlighted and I have been known to cry before by that type of thing... (o.k. so perhaps some of my children come to this shyness thing from me!!!)
Anyway we also had a visit from the 3 Wisemen (I really liked that instead of Santa).
Then we drove the kids all home and though both Bill and I separately thought about just going on in the house (it was 8:30 at night... I was tired), but we headed back to the concert... We got there right as intermission was ending - what timing!!! We got to hear the Blulegrass group - Rep. Mike Ball and the Madison Mountaintop Band. Then the whole reason we had gotten tickets was for Mark Lowry. He was absolutely Hillarious! And then for his finale... he sang Mary Did You Know (which he wrote). http://www.rhapsody.com/player?type=track&id=tra.6574040&remote=false&page=&pageregion=&guid=&from=&hasrhapx=false&__pcode=

We love how he sings it, with such passion and conviction. We wish they would play it on the radio rather than all of the other versions of it. Not that they aren't nice too, but we LOVE the way Mark Lowry sings it himself!

It was a good birthday! One of the best I've had. Thank you to my sweetheart for working so hard to make it good for me. And thank you to my kids for helping out and being good.

End of School, Water Fun and Concerts!

School is out, and I now have 2 going to High School, and one headed to Middle School and only 2 in the elementary school next year. Everyone did pretty well, Rebekah only had to take one final exam, after having taken the AP exams for two classes. Sariah had an awards ceremony and got a certificate for being on all 'A' honor roll all year. Then she was completely shocked when each teacher gave out two special awards for the best in their class at either the subject or for being the most improved, or something else. She sat and watched as the other names were called out went up, and then, her homeroom teacher called her name and she got a citizenship award! A trophy with her name on it. I was proud of her! Bill commented that it was certainly a good group of kids up there on the stage, and so many of her friends, and what caliber of friends she has.

Rebekah and Amanda auditioned for the marching Band. Amanda's French horn has needed to go in to get fixed for a while, so she hasn't played it in a long time! Rebekah was able to borrow one from the high school for her to practice on in the afternoon, before auditions.

We went to the church for many hours Thursday night, to sew some more of the trek clothes. It takes sooooo long, to trace the patterns, then get the fabric cut out and start sewing... Bekah and Amanda came along about 10 p.m. we were at the church until 2 am! Bill had gone earlier to help a family move and ended up hurting his back, which I didn't know about, so he was trying to take care of Liam and couldn't even lift him up. He said Liam cried for about 2 hours at some point. Sorry to both of them, but it sure was helpful to not have to have Liam running around getting into things while I was trying to sew!

Friday Dad went to our Stake camp again (I think this is about 4 weeks in a row), to work on some things to get it ready for all the Girls camps this summers task for the day was to move 2 Refrigerators from the main pavilion down to each pavillion at each of the camp sights. His back was really hurting! He was about in tears a couple of times durring the night and that was with medication. I was really worried about him, hurting himself worse. He was lmping around and coldn't even stand up straight before he left. He took a couple of the young men from church with him to help do the work. When he left the house to go pick them up, I had Reekah call one of them to tell him to keep an eye on Bill! and not to let him LIFT anything! They did a great job, and lots of hard work, and Bill literally supervised! they didn't let him lift a thing! (thanks J! and C and T).

I spent the day with Rebekah who I had promised her a shopping trip for some things, and while we were out, we found something cute for each girl. Hannah is a self proclained tomboy, and has been wearing big baggy boys football type shirts. We found her a cute 'football' type Jersey, that is green (her current favorite color), and it is a bit girly (closer cut, not so boxy). and she loves it! yay! The kids played in the water on the slip and slide at home.

Saturday Bill got up and took Hannah and Sariah with him out to Camp Hulaco. His back still hurt, but not as bad as the day before. The men from church went and did a lot of work, they also finished off building the dock at the lake. Sariah did some lawn mowing, and weed whacking, and later they all swam in the lake. Sariah has been having alergy problems, and something up t the camp while she was cutting down all those grasses and weeds, about did her in!!! Poor thing came home with her eyes all swollen and itchy and red!

Afer they left in the morning, I did some weeding in my garden. Things are growing, but the grass that keeps creeping in...! ugh! While I was in the garden, I heard Liam coming out to see me. He had a wet diaper and decided to take it off and bring it to mommy... wasn't that thoughtful??? so there I was muddy hands, and now I had Nakey baby running around in my garden as well! Then he saw the slip and slide and wanted to play on it and turned on the water.

What a silly boy! Luckily it was still fairly early in the day and I didn't have to worry about him getting a sun burn in sensative places!!! (ouchie!)

Then a bit after noon Rebekah and Amanda and their friend M left for Post. They sat in the HOT sun for hours and hours so that they would be RIGHT in front of the GATE to get in at the MWR concert on Post. They were there by 1:15, and the gate didn't open to get in to the concert until 6! We got there around 5:15 and by the time we got in, M and Rebekah had staked our claim on the ground for the concert.

This was the 2nd time we have gone to theconcert on post. Last time it was Carrie Underwood, and Liam was a newborn. This time It was Kelly Pickler, and we were pleasantly surprised that she could really sing! After Kelly was Ronny Atkins, then was the main event with Taylor Swift. We all had a great time. Sariah was so miserable because of her eyes, she just laid down and covered her head and went to sleep. Amazingly Bill was feeling better! He was able to do some work at the camp durring the day, and was able to have kids sit on his shoulders to be able to see better at some parts of the concert! Marissa eventually fell asleep as well (after she got back up to sing and dance with the first couple of taylor swift songs). And finally, Liam fell asleep, almost at the end of the concert! We just put our chairs all around our blanket so no-one would trample on the kids as the crowd swarmed to leave the concert grounds. We figured we weren't in a hurry, since then we'd just be stuck in traffic anyway! As everyone left, you could see the trash left all over on the ground. Rebekah, Amanda and M. were so disgusted at the people! When I told them that most likely it would be soldiers having to clean up the trash all over the field, they felt so bad! And on Memorial day weekend when it should be a day off and celebrating them for all that they do and give for our freedoms!

I have a bunch of pictures on my phone, but don't know how to access it at the moment.

I was so proud of the girls. They went and got a trash bag and can and started picking up the trash around us. Then the circle widened, and they had to get more and more bags for more and more trash. It was amazing how much work our girls did! They ran around pretty happily, picking up trash! A few people saw our girls (and Bill ) picking up trash, and picked up a little bit here and there. Eventually our little group (other than the sleepy heads, who were out cold!) , in aobut an hour, filled up 8 HUGE bags of garbage and cleaned nearly 3/4 of one whole side of the Concert area. Talk about good citizens!

At the end of it all, Bill had taken all of our chairs, and Hannah to go get the van and see how close they could park so we wouldn't have to go quite so far, especially with sleepy kids! When they pulled up to the parking lot near the back gate, they saw a croud by the fence, and realized that Taylor Swift was signing autographs. Bill left Hannah in line with paper and came to get us. I took Liam (who was still asleep in the sling) and went to stand with Hannah in line. He went and woke up Marissa and Sariah to come and get autographs. I couldn't get any pic's, since I'd taken pic's with my phone of the kids at the concert (and Camera's aren't supposed to be allowed, so we left it home), but she did sign a couple of concert tickets for the kids, and she signed the notebook that Hannah had. It was so cute, she was very sweet! She leaned down to Hannah and said, let me see your eyes, Oh my, you have beautiful eyes! and then signed I 'heart' Hannah, you are gorgeous! - Taylor Swift. So sweet!

We didn't get home until after 1 a.m. this morning.

Then this morning poor Sariah woke up with her eyes still messed up and her one eye was swollen shut! So seh stayed home from Church, and Liam had a yucky cough and gross stuff coming out of his nose this morning, and I didn't think that that they'd want him at nursery today, so we stayed home also.