My Big Weekend!

Well it's here!! The weekend I have been waiting for has arrived. I am excited and nerveous! I have the karaoke contest this Saturday and then we are participating in the Gospel Sing on Sunday. I have to say the gospel sing will be fun...the karaoke is going to be nerve racking...the idea of being judged is just freaking me out!! I know I need to just relax and have fun with it....but it is impossible sometimes for me to keep my nerves in check! I guess I will reley on relaxation and prayer to get me through.

I will post about all the excitement on Monday!!

Siblings

They look innocent enough don't they? One is 16 and one is 3 but when they are bickering it seems as if I am dealing with two 3 year olds! The other day we were riding home...from church I think...and I heard the fighting begin. They were arguing, over of all things, elbow placement between their two seats. G of course is in her car seat which has arm rests on it and C, my 16 year old, was sitting beside her. C made the mistake of resting her arm on G's armrest...which she wasn't using...and the fight was on. I glance in the mirror to see them elbowing each other back and forth so I say, "both of you knock it off NOW". Silence fills the van but as I glance in my mirror again I see G elbowing C again...in silence this time to avoid my attention. I tell her again to stop and she replies, "but C is poking me". Ugh!!!

I used to worry about G being so young and not having a sibling young enough to relate to but the more I think about it the less I worry. Our kids have adjusted so easily to our family. I know within the next 4 years my two oldest may be moving out and going away to college and sometimes I worry about how G will cope. She will be 7 then and I worry it may be too traumatic to suddenly become an only child. Then I remember that I was only 13 when my older sister moved out and I wasn't traumatized at all....instead I took her room over and I adjusted just fine.

I love to watch or listen to them interact. The three of them have their own special way of communicating with each other and there are times that the love between the 3 of them is just so explicitly evident that it's all I can do to hold back the tears. I pray that love will last them a lifetime and keep them close even after I am gone.


"J ,my then 12 year old, reading to G"


All three in the sun reading and playing with bubbles...

God's Plan

My last post said we were going to have to wait to finish the six tracks on our CD for two weeks due to everyones schedule being so tight...but apparently God had other plans! Within hours on Wednesday we suddenly had plans to camp in the studio Thursday night until all six tracks were done with the exception of editing which we don't have to be there for. As we began last night in the studio my partners voice was stressed and I was mixing up lines from a song. We were doing second and third takes on a song for the second time and we realized what was missing...and took a break for prayer. Afterwards the Holy Spirit took over and the night just flowed along. We had fun...and we finished all 6 tracks last night. Our studio guy says he has an open schedule today so he will have the editing done by this evening! According to plan I will have a shiny CD in my hot little hand this evening around 5 or 6!

Wednesday afternoon we got a CD with two of the completed tracks on it. G thinks it is just totally amazing and now as soon as we get into the van she announces "I want to hear the Mommy and Ms Dawn CD!" She sits in her seat belting out every note along with us and then says, "play it again!". She is our #1 fan!

Now people are talking bar codes and marketing and although we are as small town as it gets I still feel caught up in this whirlwind of anticipation.

I am still in awe that this has all come about so quickly and so easily. It just all feels so right. Thank you to all of you who have encouraged me. I have had a couple of people ask me what we call ourselves. We have decided on 'Ascending Praise'. I placed some of the definitions of ascending below...even though we all know what it means the actual meaning gives new light to how we view our music.

as⋅cend⋅ing

/əˈsɛndɪŋ/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [uh-sen-ding]

–adjective

1.	moving upward; rising.

2.	growing or directed upward

1. To move upward upon or along; climb: ascended the mountain.
2. To succeed to; occupy
3. Moving or progressing toward a higher level, (I especially like this one!)
   

Indescribable...

It's the only word I can think of to describe working last night on the CD! The down side is our next studio time isn't for two weeks, but we are so busy with other projects right now that I know the time will just fly by. We got two tracks down last night and the guy doing the recording for us will be working on the mixing and editing in the meantime. I had only been in a recording studio one other time and that was when I was about 17 years old so I had forgotten the magic of listening to a song 'come together'. It was truely indescribable...

Now we have the county fair quickly coming up. I am in a karaoke singing competition and in a 'gospel sing' there too.

G is still sleeping and it is 8:38am as I am typing. Thats a little odd. It's funny how she chooses mornings that I am inevitably awake early to sleep in...but any morning that I am able to sleep in,(sleep in being until 8am), she is up by 6:30 or 7!

I have Christmas on the brain and I know that is adding to the slight euphoria that I have been feeling the past couple of days. It doesn't help that Walmart has set up their Christmas section when it isn't even Halloween yet! G saw all the trees and decorations and now it is a mandatory stop to ooooh and ahhhh every time we enter the store. The kids have been giving me Christmas list items already too!

I truly love this time of year! I feel the season brings the world a little closer for awhile. There is a little more kindness, a little more compassion, a little more giving and a little more peace. The gearing up for the celebration of the birth of our Savior brings more thankfulness also. I am thankful this morning. Thankful for my family, our health, our home and our needs met. I am thankful for the joys in my life and the sorrows that help me to more appreciate the joys. I am thankful for the friends I have , especially for one that is becoming closer everyday and sharing this new spiritual and musical adventure with me. I am happy today and I know it comes from beginning to fulfill a dream I have carried around with me for a lifetime....

thank you Dawn...

It's Going to Happen!

Tuesday night my singing partner and I are meeting at a local recording studio to begin laying tracks for our first CD! I am nervous but oh so very excited. We sat down on Saturday and discussed what songs we want to include on it and everything just seems to be moving along swiftly. I can't wait to hear what it sounds like! I have so many things musically and spiritually going on I feel like I can hardly contain myself!!

Cowboy Church

There is a horse park in Williston and every Thursday night at 7pm you will hear one additional commotion above the kids playing and barrell racing practice. The sound of a dinner triangle ringing out signaling a spiritual meal...the beginning of Cowboy Church. The service is held under a pole barn right in the midst of all the activity. As darkness falls the sounds of gospel music fills the air and you begin to feel the presence of God fall among the worshipers.

I had the priviledge of being among this group of true cowboys,(and girls!)...true followers of Christ, last night. I witnessed the baptism of a young girl that gave her life to Christ only one week ago...she was baptized in a sparkling silver water trough...and she came up clean! Thats the wonder and glory of God. We don't need a building or fancy clothes. You don't need a Sunday or a Wednesday. You can experience the presence of God where ever and whenever you want to.

One of my very best friends in the whole world is also my singing partner. We sing christian music and last night we were the musical guests at Cowboy Church. We always sing best when the presence of God is welcomed and acknowledged. Last night we sang great! We were asked...for the 3rd time now...if we had any CD's available for purchase. Our answer is always "not yet!". I feel the urging from God to go ahead with our plans to make our CD. We have been saying we will do it for months now and I feel as though this is something we need to go ahead and do.

Cowboy Church was a refreshing new experience for me. We were there as guests to provide music but I think the giving and receiving went both ways last night. As my friend and I ministered my goosebumps weren't from an October night chill...my spirit was aware of His presence and I welcomed the flowing spirit of His annointing.

Dentist Fear

G has her first dentist appointment on Wednesday and I am worried because she has her mind set that she doesn't want to go. She isn't much on doctors with all she has been through. It took me a couple of days to finally find the dentist I wanted to take her to. (Why can't all dentists see kids? Most of them say no unless they are 8 years old and up!) So after about 12 phone calls I finally found a very non aggressive and highly recommended dentist that would allow me to go back with her for the appointment. No way is my 3 year old child going to be alone in a room with someone I don't know!! I haven't been talking to her about it very much because I don't want her to dwell on it. Whenever she does hear me mention it she tells me, "remember mommy, I said I don't want to go to the dentist". Isn't that insane?! She has never seen or heard about anyone having a bad experience with the dentist. She even has a couple of books about going to the dentist. I think she has some kind of phobia about people looking into her mouth,nose and/or ears. When we go to her pediatrician it takes lots of coaxing to get her to open up and sometimes she won't and the doctor has to use that horrible wooden stick to get her to open up!!

Anyone have any good advice to offer??

Happiness....

...cost only $4.00 at a consignment shop yesterday...


I don't know how many of you know who or what the Backyardigans are but my daughter G does and she loves them. Yesterday on a whim a girlfriend and I decided to hit up a bunch of consignment shops in town and when G saw this Backyardigan Uniqua outfit she carried it all through the store until I finished shopping. We bought it and she so badly wanted to wear it yesterday but I told her she had to wait for me to wash it. She put it on today and stood in front of the mirror beaming. The only thing that would have made it better would be if the outfit had been Tasha,(the yellow Hippo with the red dress in her lap), instead!

Uniqua outfit....$4.00
My 3 year old with a face that happy...priceless!!

Sleeping Beauty

I bought it...I told myself I could resist and that we didn't need every Disney, Backyardigans, Mickey Mouse, etc. movie that came out on DVD, but Wal-Mart is smart and they wrapped the movie up in a pretty box that held extra pretty princess things, like rings and a pretty lip gloss with a crown topper and princess nail polish, for my little girl to ooh and ahhh over. Then they set it on a shelf with only two other pretty boxes, and a bunch of plain Sleeping Beauty DVD's, so I would think that was all that was left when in reality they probably had 100 other pretty boxes in the back of the store! So I bought it and brought it home for my little princess. She had been asking for it since she had first seen the commercials for it to be released today.

We just finished watching it, all three of my girls and I. It had been a long time since I had seen it. There are allot of intense scenes that I didn't recall from when I was little. G did okay as long as she could look at me and say, "it ends happy though right Mommy?" Sometimes I wonder why Disney makes their movies so intense for such young viewers. Then I remember watching them when I was little and I never had any horrible nightmares from the movies...I loved them all. I especially loved the happy endings and when the evil witch was defeated. I haven't let G watch the parts of Tarzan or The Lion King where the parents die...I'm just not sure I want to try and explain that to my very literal little girl just yet so for now I am her movie editor!

I love to see movies with my kids that I remember and loved as a child myself. The new flicks are great too but nothing beats a classic!

Lost in "The Forgotten Zone"

I don't know how our society has gotten so very messed up. Why do people have kids if they don't want them? I ask this because I see so many moms and dads out there that just don't seem to care about their kids. I see them in the store with dirty kids...I mean really dirty kids. I see them with dirty clothes...no shoes....knotted hair. I see parents that are just plain mean to their children, like they don't even like them...much less love them. Sometimes it is just a case of seeing the child and the complete lack of happiness in their face. My 16 year old daughter C and I were in the store a few weeks ago and saw a girl that looked to be about three years old....same as G, who was with us too. This little girl was looking at C and I interacting and laughing with G. I mentioned her to C, and told her to look at how she was watching us. I smiled at the little girl...but she just looked on at us. She was dirty and her mom was not paying her any attention at all. C and I talked about how sad she looked and how sad it was because that little girl should be like G is...giggley, happy and secure, but that instead she looked so....lost. I wanted to run over and hug her and tell her it was okay and that she was a good girl and she was special. It hurts me to see this going on in our society so much. I know this is not what our society considers abuse, but to me this is one of the worst kind because these kids are the ones that no one can intervene with. They are the ones lost in 'the forgotten zone'. They are not what we have labeled as abused children. They are not considered to be in iminent danger. They are being provided with the basics of life... shelter, food and clothing. The fact that the food is scarce and lacking nutritional value and the clothes are dirty and appear to be on their last thread are not a major factor in our society. I don't care how financially burdened you are, your children can be in clean clothes and can be clean themselves. When my two teens were babies I was in a marriage that was disasterous. I was living in a small trailer with my kids and no car. I relied on my feet to get me back and forth to the grocery store and to church. I washed all of our clothes in our bath tub. I scrubbed them clean with my hands and rung them dry and then hung them on a line to finish. I did this when my babies were 2 years and 10 months old so all you moms out there know how many clothes I went through! My kids never wore dirty clothes. They were always clean too. I didn't feel one bit of bitterness or resentment while I was scrubbing those clothes...just love and protection. This just makes it all the worse for me when I see these kids out there looking sad, dirty and so lost.

I see little kids left in cars alone...
I see little kids with no one holding their hand in a parking lot...
I see them riding in cars with no seat belts or car seat...
I see and hear them yelled at and degraded...
I hear them being told they are stupid and worthless...
I hear them being told by their own parent that they wish they had never been born...

These poor kids don't know what it feels like to loved and snuggled. They don't know the security of mommy's or daddy's arms. Some of theses parents aren't going through anything stressful in their lives but instead they just really have no interest in their children at all. I know at times parents go through painful times and how it is hard when you as an adult are suffering and hurting inside to keep your heart open and joyful for your children. This is something you just have to do as a parent. I did it. I went through a horrible divorce with restraining orders and violence but never deprived my kids of giggles, laughter, love and snuggles.

So I wonder why people have children if they don't want them? Everyone makes excuses...

I didn't plan on getting pregnant..
I never wanted kids...
Being a mom/dad is not what I thought it would be...

So why not use birth control...and if it fails...why not allow a loving parent to adopt the baby?

I wish we were a society that had the resources to help these kids...

Not Again!

Last night G was up coughing like crazy. I was up with her at 2am giving her a nebulizer breathing treatment. This cough is the kind that sounds all junky...you all know what I mean...the kind you steer your cart away from in the grocery store when some mom was crazy enough to bring her very sick child into the store to do a weeks worth of shopping! And why is it when you see those poor kids that are coughing all horrible like that they are always dirty??!! I saw one in Walmart on Thursday and the poor kid was filthy, coughing and had green goo running down his face from his nose!!! How can these moms push the cart around with a child like that right in front of them without cleaning them up!!!

Okay...back to G. So I took her to the doctor today and now we are back on antibiotics, Zithromax this time, and she also put her on prednisone. We are also doing albuterol on the nebulizer every night before bed....poor little thing.

J is out of town at a football game tonight and I didn't even get to see her before she left...oh how I hate that. I like to see her off and tell her I love her...and drive her to the school myself. She was mad at me because I wasn't home to drive her to school to meet the bus this afternoon. She called me at the doctors office in a panic because she needed a ride. I told her who to call to get a ride and then she called me back and told me they were picking her up in just a few minutes....she never even asked me how G was or why I was back at the doctors with her. Its amazing how single minded the teenage mind can be isn't it?

Birds, Money, Sleep and I Won!

What a beautiful day. I woke up this morning and the thermometer(sp?) outside read 52 degrees. I had my windows, sliding glass door and my front door open until 1pm today!! G and I sat this morning in the quiet and listened to the birds singing outside.

Best of all this means my light bill won't be $330.00 this month!! With the cost of everything else going up it is nice to finally feel the temps outside dropping so at least the electric bill will go down. I cannot believe how expensive everything is! It seems like everytime I go to the grocery store certain items are a few cents more. This has been going on for a few months now and I have definetley seen the difference in our grocery bill. I try to do the coupon thing but don't always get to the paper boxes like I should to get the Wednesday and Sunday papers. I am going to try and do this though because I feel like I could make a more substantial difference in our grocery bill, especially feeding a family of five!

I am tired today. G and I stayed home all day and played. I have some sleep to catch up on but I don't know when to try and do it. If the girls would come home on the school bus I could try and catch some Zzzzz's but J has flag practice three times a week and we have church on Wednesday. That leaves Friday and there is usually a foot ball game then. Saturday everyone else but me sleeps in and on Sunday I am up and on the go for church. Ugh...

I won a contest today!! Nothing huge, but still I won it! Well, I co-won with someone...but it still counts I think....I have been sitting here trying to think if there has ever been a time in my life that I won ANYTHING...and I don't believe I ever have...not even a scratch off lotto ticket. So this is a big deal for me!!! I won for posting the most on a forum website I love to chat on, (hubby says I am addicted). I love the site because it has other moms and dads on it...real grown ups to talk to!! If I need advice or want another opinion on something I can post there and have several 'experts' that will respond with great insight and won't be wary of saying what they really think about something. Thats refreshing!