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Thursday Theater

Goddess hosts Thursday Theater. Wanna join in? Go add your name to the list!

This week’s theme is supposed to be Food – but I’m going to be a rebel. Simply because…I can 🙂

These are not the best quality videos … they were taken with my cell phone and YouTube has just the one size (which is a lot bigger than necessary with these). I tried Vimeo, but the wait to upload one 11 second video was over 100 minutes. For real??

Anyway – here’s the fearless Logan going down the slide in the back yard.

(11 seconds)

This one is Logan again, but you can also see Burke and Maggie on the see-saw in the background.

(11 seconds)

Way Back When-esday

Cheryl over at Twinfatuation hosts this one. Go on over to see who else is playing – and join in too!

More from my scanner…

Jim, Cathy, and Nancy

Jim, Cathy, and Nancy

Cathy Pushing Nancy in the Barn

Cathy Pushing Nancy in the Barn

Nancy's PJs

Nancy's PJs

Struggling No More

If you remember a few weeks ago, I wrote about my spiritual struggle. Well … I’m no longer struggling. We took the advice of pretty much everyone and tried out a new church on Sunday.

Wow.

All I can say is that the buzzing atmosphere alone when we first walked in was completely different than “our” church. And the kids! There were kids everywhere!! At our church, I could probably count the number of kids on two hands. There were too many to count at this new church. And there’s a PreK Sunday School class. With three teachers. The only option at our church is the nursery.

The minister is a young guy (with a Southern accent heh) who has a lot of energy and seemed to be fairly upbeat. His sermon was short and to the point. The hymns were upbeat. The woman sitting next to us kept looking over at us with the three kids (who stayed upstairs for the entire service) and smiling. She was super nice and chatted with us afterward about how things work and some opportunities and things.

The second-in-command minister (I have no idea what her actual title is) recognized us as new people and came over after the service to chat and give us a tour! She brought us down to the nursery and to see the PreK room and to meet all of the teachers. They have a (paid) dedicated woman in the nursery and then members rotate through the Sundays to help out…there is never just one adult with any of the kids at any time. Same with all of the Sunday school classes.

They have a whole system for dropping off and picking up kids, and they keep the kids – both in the nursery and in Sunday school – THROUGH coffee hour!! Mike and I can hold adult conversations without interruption! Holy cow.

I didn’t really realize how uptight I was about the whole thing until the peaceful, relaxing feeling came over me when we got home that afternoon. It’s amazing what you realize after the fact.

The clincher for me though, is that this church says “trespasses” during the Lord’s Prayer instead of “debts” LOL Since I grew up with the “trespasses” version, my brain freezes a bit when we hit the “debts” part at our church.

…Or should I say, our old church.

Recipe: Crock Pot Corned Beef and Cabbage

With the maiden name O’Daniel, you’d think I’d be head-over-heels for Corned Beef and Cabbage. Not so much. (Unless you count that packaged Buddig Corned Beef…)

Not so much, that is … until we found this recipe last year. I don’t even remember where I found it, but we liked it so much it actually made it into my recipe book.

I figured I’d post this today so that if you’re interested in making it for St. Patrick’s Day, you have enough notice 🙂

Crock Pot Corned Beef and Cabbage

Ingredients:

  • 4 1/2 lbs corned beef brisket
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 2 medium onions, quartered
  • 3 Tbsp vinegar
  • 1 head cabbage, wedged
  • 3 Tbsp sugar
  • 2 Cups water

Directions:

  1. Combine ingredients in crock pot with cabbage on top.
  2. Cook on low 10-12 hours or on high 6 -7 hours.

(You can put potatoes and/or carrots on the bottom as well.)

Baby Picture Sundays – Go Green!

Debi hosts the Baby Picture Sundays. Hop on over there to see who’s playing, and join in too!

This week’s theme is Go Green – for St. Patrick’s Day!

The following pictures were taken on St. Patrick’s Day of 2005 – the kids were just about 2 and a half months old 🙂

Maggie

Maggie

Burke

Burke

(He kind of looks like a football player with scrawny legs here LOL)

Maggie and Burke

Maggie and Burke

Towers and Sunshine

The kids had a blast making Lego towers with Daddy the other day.

Cheese!

Cheese!

Concentrate...

Concentrate...

Look!

Look!

Do you like my boat?

Do you like my boat?

They also provided a little bit of sunshine with some Easter themed dress-up hats.

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100_4091

100_4095

100_4102

100_41051

100_4106

Pay it Forward

I loved the book (MUCH better than the movie – but isn’t that how it always is? …except for maybe in the case of Shakespeare’s stuff LOL), so when I saw this on Debi’s blog – it jumped out at me.

I wish I lived my life by paying it forward a little more. I do what I can (less now than before the kids came along) – but I should really be doing more. My life has been very good so far, so it only makes sense to try to make others’ lives better… even if it’s a small gesture like playing along with a blog “pay it forward” thing.

Feel the same way? Then play along with me!

The rules are easy:

  1. The first 3 people to post a comment on this entry will receive a gift from me sometime during the year. When and what are surprises to the winners!
  2. Post about this on your blog & come back and leave your comment telling me you are Paying It Forward as well.

(So, ya. This does not mean if you would be the fourth to leave a comment that you shouldn’t play along! By all means, everyone – please, join in! Who knows, perhaps I’ll be feeling generous and choose a few more people to pay it forward to 🙂 )

Thursday Theater – Song

Goddess hosts Thursday Theater. Wanna join in? Go add your name to the list!

This week’s theme is Song. The following clip was taken by my nanny at the time, Brenda, on her birthday – November 21, 2008.

Now…if you really wanna see Maggie go crazy – check out this post from September: Weekend in Vermont Part 3

Way Back When-esday

Cheryl over at Twinfatuation hosts this one. Go on over to see who else is playing – and join in too!

I got my scanner working! Now, it’s just time constraints that thwart the scanning of old pictures. 🙂

This week’s photos come from the ’70s. *grin*

Nancys First Birthday

Nancy's First Birthday

Holy COW look at all those patterns. Yikes! And yes, those were our kitchen cabinets…for a long, long time.

Nancy Playing on the Hay Escalator

Nancy Playing on the Hay Escalator

I must have been about Logan’s age here. I have a *lot* of memories playing on this thing…higher up when I got a little older. Growing up on a farm provided lots of “playground equipment” LOL

Grandad, Grandma, and Nancy

Grandad, Grandma, and Nancy

This one always makes me smile. And you can see where the red hair comes from 🙂 My Grandmother was tickled to pieces when Maggie came along with her bright red hair.

(Hm. I’ve always spelled Grandad’s name that way. Apparently, it’s supposed to have another “d” – who knew.)

I’m Going to Have a Good Time

All through my life I’ve had friends who are…shall we say…negative. I’m not saying that I’m all smiles and roses, but these people are extreme. For example, we’d be talking about an up-coming party or high school dance and the negative person would predict that it was going to suck and she wouldn’t have a good time.

Well…duh. If you go in with that attitude, of course it’s going to suck and of course you’re not going to have a good time. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hmm. I suppose when they get old, they won’t be plagued with laugh lines…

My problem, though, is a bit different. I know when I finally get to the place, I’ll have a great time…it’s just getting myself motivated to GO that takes me a bit. I’m somewhat of a homebody – the total opposite of the social butterfly that I was in High School and College. So if I have an upcoming event – say a twin mom’s meeting – I have to really push myself to get out the door. My lazy butt would much rather – at that point in time – sit on the couch and read or watch TV in comfy clothes. As soon as I walk into the meeting though, I have a great time (creating lots of those laugh lines) – as I knew I would. So it’s worth getting up and going…and I know it is…I just wish it wasn’t always the internal struggle that it is.

Hmmm. Now that I’m thinking about it, I feel bad for women with no laugh lines. I’m fairly sure that mine indicate I’ve had a pretty good life so far.