Another resurrection?

O.k. I admit my blogging posts have gone down the toilet but hey at least I'm actually making an effort to get back into it, right? I have to keep all two of my readers happy, right? So I'm not even going to attempt to catch up on the last 10 months. I'll just pretend they didn't happen. Not that they were horrible or anything. I'm just too lazy to turn on that part of my brain. So moving forward...

We are enjoying a visit from Brooke, who now resides in Williamsburg, VA and is the Production Supervisor of Themeing. In order to keep her status as a seasonal employee she needs to take two 28 day leaves during her 1 year contract. So April is the first and December will be the second. We are loving having her home and I know I will certainly shed some tears when it's time for her to go again.

The big girls went to a movie last night leaving Dad and Naomi home to spend some quality time together. We saw "Date Night". I'm pretty sure I'll have to see it again when in comes out in video. I didn't have great expectations of it but was pleasantly surprised by the humor in it. Mike would definitely like it.

We plan on hitting the zoo next Tuesday as long as the forecast stays the same and a trip to Ikea is on the agenda during Brooke's visit too.

I found a website I intend to start using to aid me in breaking poor eating habits. It's called Settingcaptivesfree.com. It has free programs for all kinds of destructive habits including drinking, self injury & sexual impurity. The program I'm using is called Lord's Table. I just started last night so we'll see how that goes.

Mike is revving up for softball season. He is coaching a team for the Freedom Center with his partner in crime, Kenny. They are in fact, at try-outs at this very moment. He was fretting that they may not have enough guys show up because of the weather and lack of information about it. He has been working diligently on his man cave for the past month and came upstairs fuming yesterday because a cat left a turd on his drywall. Yes, A turd, one little ol' turd. Funny how they target him for their dirty deeds.

I'm enjoying a little down time from events with the radio network. May looks like it's going to be busy so I better enjoy it while I can. Then when June comes its full steam ahead to The Big Ticket Festival in Gaylord, our biggest event of the year.

We are also hoping to get a visit to Brooke in during June before Jo heads to Alabama to her "summer home" with Nana & Papa.

June will be here before we know it but it's hard to believe it when I'm sitting here with frosty toes and a sweatshirt on.

Catching Up

Oh my, how did months pass by without a post? Time to get back into the groove and get updated. So where do I start? I think I left off about Easter time...so since then we have had Brooke's graduation from Oakland University, many a bike ride, a bird building a nest in our grill (several times), visited many garage sales, attended many Smile FM events and unfortunately attended one memorial service in honor of my Grandma, sans the family portrait above that was graciously taken by my cousin Kenny Dodd.
In addition mom recently had a heart cath and stint proceedure done and my long time friend, Terri Post came to visit.
Mike is on layoff from GM until July 13th but we were relieved to hear that his plant, Truck & Bus was not one of the plants that Government Motors will be closing.
We contemplated taking a trip out west with Mike's parents but after praying and investigating we opted not to take the chance of blowing up the truck trying to pull the trailer through the mountains. The truck is getting up there in miles/years and our trailer has it maxxed out as it is. Since we aren't in a position to be buying a new vehicle anytime soon we thought it probably wouldn't be a wise decision. We have always wanted to take a camping trip out west but it will have to wait. We may meander our way down south a bit to pick up Jo after her visit to Nana & Papa in Alabama since we have never seen their place. We haven't decided if we are going to try to camp it or just get hotels.
Mike has also been keeping busy, helping our friend, Chris Dickerson with his masonery business. I'm hoping he will learn the trade enough to do some projects for me this winter, hee-hee!
Naomi finally had a growth spurt and is wearing 18 & 24 month sizes. She's getting quite a vocabulary. She knows all the Sesame Street characters, Elmo is her fav. She knows most of her body parts, says Thank you to about everything - especially when she wants something, she will say tank-q, tank-q until she gets it and if she doesn't get it the meltdown begins. I believe she is warming up to the "terrible twos". She loves to go outside or "side" as she says. We have to sneak if you want to just run out to the mailbox because she will stand inside the door pleading, "sigh -d, sigh-d, sigh-d". I could pretty much limit my grocery shopping to cheese, apple juice, hotdogs & pineapple and she would be a happy girl. Cheese is a word we don't say out loud when she's around or we end up in a battle over it.
We just shucked out $470 for Chloe maintainence. It was $265 for her normal rabies/heartworm appointment and then the vet discovered an abcess tooth that required antibotics and a cleaning that they have to put her under for so $205 later...good thing I like her!
Jo is anxious for school to get over next week, on the 10th. We have decided to try homeschooling her next year. She has pleaded for this for 3 years and after giving it prayerful consideration Mike and I are at peace with this and will move forward to provide her with the best education we can. She is so thrilled that her cousin Natalie (Hogle), in GA., has a cell phone now and spends a ton of time texting to her. The Hogle family will be in Michigan the end of next week and Jo will be able to spend some time with them. They are spending a week with Nana & Papa at a condo in Gaylord. We will be up there too for the Big Ticket Festival. After that Jo will be leaving with Nana & Papa to wherever it is that they are headed.
So now I think I have this somewhat updated and will do my best to stay on top of it now. I'm sure I forgot a ton of snipets but I can always throw them on here randomly and confuse the heck out of everyone, right?

Glorious Day - He has risen!

No Easter drama this year. It has been a strange winter and spring without the chaos of being the costume nazi. Some days I missed it and others I rejoiced. I'm sure God knew what he was doing when it put it on the hearts of leadership to take a different direction this year. But to tell you the truth we weren't so sure what to do with ourselves on Sunday. After church we fumbled through with our friends the Scotts who are usually in the middle of the whirlwind on Easter and celebrated with a cookout of the biggest chicken breasts I've ever seen. Scary to think of the amount of steroids that must have been pumped in to these feathered friends. Anyway, back to Easter... We had a little egg hunt with the Scotts and the Taylors then feasted. It was pretty uneventful but refreshing. Much different I would guess from the day when Jesus rose from the grave. I look around my neighborhood and wonder if my neighbors are truly aware of the sacrifice God made for us or is it all about bunnies and eggs for them. What a sad trade off that is.

Naomi's Easter Bonnet

Why is it that my little asian hillbilly will only wear ridiculous hats? I've got a half dozen super cute hats that she won't have anything to do with. Naomi has become quite the Elmo fan and would watch Elmo in Grouchland all day if she could figure out how to run the dvd player. I wonder if they have Elmo in China. She has also turned into a pretty good mimic so we have to watch what we say these days. The other day Jo said "Holy Crap!" and we heard a little unexpressive echo across the room.

Jo is on spring break this week. We don't have any big plans but she is attending a birthday/bowling/sleepover with her friend Madasen Taylor and has plans for a couple of other sleepovers before the week is over. It's strange not to be elbow deep in the Easter drama this year (we didn't have it this year) but actually refreshing. I've been getting some things done that needed to be done. De-junking and donating it to the church garage sale. Aahhhh! Jo even dug into her closet and sorted out the clothes that don't fit anymore.

Brooke is in the midst of her final days of college with plenty of papers to write, exams to study for and portfolios to submit. Her graduation ceremony is the first week of May and we are looking forward to seeing this day. She just moved again, yes again, this time to a house with only two other roomies. She celebrated her 24th birthday last week and I was asked if Naomi was my granddaughter...how's that for feeling old!

My grandma (she's 71), Mamaw McCormick, fell and broke her hip on Friday. She had to have surgery on Saturday. I went to see her Sunday morning and she was still doped up on pain meds and thought she was participating in a game show. She thought the nurse call button was the buzzer and she would push it and then the nurses would ask a question. An intern came in and asked her more questions, ex: do you know what day it is..., which she answered wrong most of time. She was actually pretty amusing. She kept telling me that Hurley lost, I'm guessing that had something to do with the game show theme bouncing around in her head.

Sunday night we took Grandma Judy to the Pistons game against the Bobcats. We got tickets for an awesome price through the Upward Basketball program. Jo got to shoot a basket after the game.

We are looking forward to the Worship Blast at the church on Friday with some of my favorite bands including Benjamin Scott, Michael Maher and My Syndicate. The following Friday we'll be at the Rock and Worship Roadshow in Lansing with MercyMe, Jeremy Camp, Hawk Nelson and Tenth Avenue North. With all this busy-ness I am really glad I got some of that spring cleaning done. Now if we could just get the spring weather back again I would be real happy.

Mike is on 2nd shift until the end of this week and then he is off next week because he is required to use some of his vacation time in the first quarter. I'm sure he'll spend most of it working on the man cave. But I plan on getting my honey-do list whittled down a bit too.

We have our first of two required follow-up sessions with the social worker for our adoption on Monday. It seems so silly. She is really starting to warm up to other people and has actually stayed in the nursery at church during the entire service for the last 3 weeks. Hallelujah! Now if I could just get those naps under control...

I pray that all of you will have a blessed Easter holiday.

Bigger Big Ticket Festival

Such excitement! Two of our favorite bands will be gracing the Big Ticket Festival stage this June in Gaylord. I for one am so excited that the God given talent of our friends will be shared with other festival goers. Benjamin Scott and Michael Maher were selected at the Big Ticket Tour event in Highland last Saturday to join the festival. Now they are all hustling to get their accommodations (slim pickin's already) and tickets (before the prices go up on the 31st). The Big Ticket Festival is always an awesome time but this year is going to be phenomenal with these church families there. It's Happy Dance Time!!!! I can't wait

We survived WinterJam 09

Almost 70,000 decisions to accept Christ! That about sums it up and makes all my stories small in comparison. But I'll share them anyways. This year WinterJam was at 2 locations in Michigan. Grand Rapids on Thursday and then Ypsilanti on Saturday. What is WinterJam? For those who don't know, it's a concert with many very popular Christian artist performing and a speaker or two. There is no pre-sale of tickets, just $10 at the door gets you into this awesome event. This year it featured Toby Mac, Hawk Nelson, the Afters, Franchesca Battacelli, Stephanie Smith, New Song and Pure NRG with speaker Tony Nolan. Both locations came very close to selling out.

Eddie from New Song is one of my favorite buddies and we had a good time jawing backstage when they were in Ypsilanti. He took a trip with a few from the tour to see Motown's Hitsville during the day. JoJo got to meet Toby Mac's son, Truitt aka Tru-dog, who raps on a couple of his cd's. He looks about 11 or 12. She was star struck and didn't say a word. It was pretty funny. I used Brittney Maher as my assistant all day and she was put to good work during the show, playing a game called Banana Grams with some of the tour. It really was a great time. The tour manager is a great guy that we have worked with a few times so it went really well.

Naomi spent the earlier part of the day with her "Aunt Danna" and then later with her big sister 2 (B-2). Brooke. She is really making progress with getting comfortable with people. She goes to a few of our close friends that she sees on a regular basis and doesn't freak out when I leave anymore. We are overdue for our post adoption interview so that will be happening real soon I'm sure. I'll keep you posted on that.

This n that

Where did the days go? Mike has been busy getting ready for the softball season. He has taken on the role as co-leader for the Sports Ministry at the church. The softball drama is more than I can bare.
Jo's Upward basketball season is coming to an end this Saturday with her last game. Her team has made leaps and bounds in their skills and really played excellent last Saturday.
Brooke is still battling away with two biology classes in her last semester of college and talking about moving AGAIN.
Naomi has decided it is a blast to shut herself in the closet, sit in the dog food bowl and play in the water bowl. I had her pictures taken at the church last week from a company called Antiquities. They put the kids in costumes and have really cute settings then the pics are printed in the antique sepia style. I figured she'd look kind of silly in a lacy dress so I opted for the denim overalls without a shirt under and her hair in piggytails. She was adorable of course but decided she didn't want anything to do with smiling for the photographer, regardless of the fact that he had bubbles. For the fundraiser we got a 10 x 13 and then I got a package of two other poses for helping out with it. I'm actually pretty grateful that the pics weren't something I couldn't live without because they weren't cheap.
Mike and I went to a class at the church called Liberated that gives you hints about cutting your grocery bill. While we were listening to the great tips we were cutting coupons. I loved what Mike said: "if you had told me 10 years ago that I would be spending a monday night in a church cutting coupons....I would have told you -you were on crack". So we ventured out to test out our new knowledge at the Kroger in Grand Blanc last Friday night. A Big Date Night, eh? Mike was doing a happy dance when we left. We saved $75, about a 47% savings!
I'm having a busy week. We have 2 WinterJam events. One in Grand Rapids on Thursday and then one on Saturday in Ypsilanti. Jo's favorite, Toby Mac, will be there, along with Hawk Nelson, Franchesca Battacelli (spelling?), and one of my favorites, The Afters. I don't know how these artists do these shows night after night. It's crazy. Hopefully I'll have some good stories to blog next week!