Week in Review

(Warning: LOOOONNNNGGGG post… I probably should have broken this into two)

Some weeks allow me lots of time to keep up on my blogging, while others not so much.  This week was the latter, although I’m not sure why.  It hasn’t been particularly busy, except for Sydney’s dance performance this week, but here’s a recap.

Last Sunday, we visited a new church, thanks to a friend at my work who invited us.  I’ve really been struggling to find a church that I like for me and for my kids.  My long time church had awesome praise and worship and I really enjoyed the pastor, but the kids program was a bit chaotic.  I hadn’t been for awhile and the kids were just terrified the day I decided to start going again.  I don’t think I’d been sitting for 10 minutes before my number was being displayed on the overhead.  At that point, we just had to leave.  Chase was NOT happy! 

Then, I decided a top priority for me was a good kids program, so I started going to a large Baptist church on our side of town in August 08.  The kids program seemed very organized, which made me (and the kids) a little more comfortable.  The praise & worship was better than I expected, but still not as exciting and uplifting as I knew it could be.  The pastor was always interesting and informative, but really lacked the passion that I was looking for.

Back to what I’d started to say…. last Sunday, we tried a new church.  Now, I’m not ready to sign up to be a member or pledge myself to the kids ministry, but I’m excited to report that the kids classes weren’t too crazy, the praise and worship was awesome and the pastor definitely had passion!  Taylor, who has never wanted to go to church, at least not since he’s been a teenager, is on a retreat this weekend with the Sr. High kids that he met last Sunday.  Can you believe it?  Can I get a “PRAISE GOD”!?!  We basically had to drag him in there, force him to go the youth service and the next thing I know, he’s begging to go on a retreat!  He has called me a couple of times since they left on Friday afternoon and sounds like he’s having a good time.

My plan is to go again tomorrow, so I’d better wrap this up and get to bed, so I‘ve got no excuses… like being tired in the morning.

Oh… I promised a recap….

Sunday afternoon after church, we took Taylor out for a two hour drive.  He’s doing great and continues to improve each time he goes out.  We also took the entire family to see “Up”.  I really enjoyed the movie, even if parts were really sad.  I don’t think Sydney and Chase liked it at all. I really like the Pixar movies, but the last one we took the whole family to see was Wall-E and it wasn’t any better.  My kids need something a little more exciting to keep them watching for an hour and half.   I’ll give it 4 out of 5 stars for Me and Taylor and 1 out of 5 for Syd & Chase.

Jason spent the better part of this week painting the garage.  He has done an excellent job and the colors we chose look great.  It seems like forever ago we were driving around looking at houses to see what color scheme we would like best. We carried all those little paint color cards and when we found a house we liked, we’d take turns jumping out and comparing the cards to the colors on the house until we found a combination we could both agree on.

He’s so creative with the paint, don’t you think???

All he has left to do is the rock on the front. My sweetie did an awesome job! The paint on the side is the same as the front.  The sun makes it look so much lighter than it really is.  It’s more like the picture above.

Today was Sydney’s dance performance.  Here are a few pics from today.  Here she is with other girls from her group before the show.  They kept them all in a big room with crayons and books to keep them occupied.  It really worked out well.

 

We weren’t allowed to film during the performance since they were having it professionally done.  I don’t think we were supposed to take pictures either, so we waiting until afterwards to get a picture of Sydney with all the flowers she got.  As usual, just no cooperation for a picture.

Sydney also had a couple of special guests come to see her perform.  Lynsey used to work at the kids’ daycare, mostly in Chase’s room, which explains why he flirted with her throughout the performance and acted so shy when he saw she was there.  It was totally cute.

Also, Jason’s Mom was there.  I think she really enjoyed getting to see Sydney perform.  Sydney was sick of pictures at this point, but Chase is still somewhat willing.

And finally, Mom makes it into a picture. (Thanks Jason!)