Acappella Music

I am trying to share a couple lists of some of my favorite songs with some friends. I'm too impatient to wait for iMix to decide it's ready for me, so going to try and post them here. As many songs as I can link to youtube, I will.

a capella list (most songs by the group Acappella)

From the album All That I Need

1. Standing Right in Front of you
2. Jesus Knows
3. Abba Father
4. Begins
5. All That I Need (I love the beginning and end of this one)

From the album Heaven and Earth

6. Give me Jesus

From the album Hymns For All the World

7. Softly and Tenderly
8. Just As I Am
9. It Is Well

From the album Sweet Fellowship

10. Well On My Way A little 80s flashback for you. . . .I remember them singing this at Soul Lift after we'd opened for them
11. To Win As Many As Possible

From the album Traveling Shoes

12. Mountain Top
13. Easter Song

(my kids love Traveling Shoes as well. . . and it's a darn catchy tune)

From the album We Have Seen His Glory

14. Talk to Jah
15. Angels Long to Look
16. To Him Who Sits on the Throne

From the album Radiance

17. All Men Will Know

From the album Awesome God: A Cappella Worship

18. I Stand In Awe of You (has 2 other songs with it)
19. Lord Reign in Me
20. Firm Foundation
21. You Are My All In All

And, from the album The Best of the New Songs

22. There's a Stirring by Amy McCoy (I couldn't get this one to link up, but it's on iTunes).

May 5, 2009

Today was day one of my "lifestyle change". I have gotten to the point that I actually want to do something about the weight and am committed to spending the time doing it. So, today I started The Biggest Loser 30-Day Jump Start. I think it's a good program for me because it gives specific meal plans but uses REAL food (not the nutrisystem stuff I tried a year ago that was DISGUSTING!). So I've been following the meals today, as much as I can without all the shopping complete. Hopefully, that will all be done tonight. And I dug out the workout bag and the 24 HR. Fitness membership card and hit the treadmill and bike for 40 minutes today. The plan suggests starting at 20 minutes, but I knew I was capable of more, so I did it. It suggests adding 2 minutes a day to your cardio. . . my plan is to add 5 minutes. Frankly, I could've gone longer today with the exception of my ankle that I twisted a month ago . . . it needs some time to build up.

I have an iPod that is dedicated just to working out. It is my original iPod Nano that Andy gave me for Christmas way back in 2005. I quickly discovered it wasn't big enough to keep audiobooks and music on and ended up with a bigger iPod at the end of 2006. But this one is perfect for wearing while exercising, and this past Christmas I asked for the Moto Roker S9 headphones with a bluetooth attachment to use for working out. They work great and I don't have to worry about pulling the headphones out of the headphone jach when I'm working out.



Here is my current playlist set up for working out. It's quite the odd assortment of music. And I will say, not all of the music is okay for kids' consumption. I got the clean versions when I could, but there were some songs that I knew the beat would drive me, but there was an occasional word. Tehehe, then some of them ARE kids songs, but I like the tune. I have to say I think the most unlikely song on my workout mix is Eddie Coker's The Happy One. I just love that one for some odd reason. I put it on shuffle songs, so I never know what song is coming next.

1. Ain't No Other Man Christina Aguilera
2. Boom Boom Pow Black Eyed Peas
3. Disney Mambo #5 Lou Bega
4. Double Dutch Bus Raven-Symone
5. Drama Queen (That Girl) Lindsay Lohan
6. Get Ready for This 2 Unlimited
7. The Happy One Eddie Coker
8. I'm Yours (workout mix) Junior Torrey (this is the Jason Mraz song but upbeat)
9. Independent Woman, Part 1 Destiny's Child
10. Love Somebody Mandisa
11. Low Flo Rida
12. Men in Black Will Smith
13. Move it Like This Baha Men
14. Oh Yeah Yello
15. Our Lips Are Sealed The Duff sisters version
16. The Party's Just Begun The Cheetah Girls
17. Proud Heather Small
18. Pump It (Radio Edit) Black Eyed Peas
19. Pump Up the Jam Technotronic
20. Sexyback Justin Timberlake
21. Shut Up and Drive Rhianna
22. Single Ladies Beyonce
23. So What Pink
24. Stronger Kanye West
25. Superstition Raven-Symone
26. Together We Can The Cheetah Girls
27. The Woo-Woo Dance Eddie Coker

Hmmmm . . . .a 3rd of them are from my kids' iPods. . . how sad is that? Oh, and I have an audiobook on there that I accidentally added, so I need to get that out of the mix!

I'll gladly take suggestions for songs I should add. I've already had someone suggest I check the Biggest Loser iTunes workout mixes, so I'll be headed that way soon to check those out.

Sisterchicks in Wooden Shoes!

One of my favorite authors, Robin Jones Gunn, has a new book coming out this upcoming Tuesday, May 5th. From the time I read the 1st Sisterchicks books, I knew I was hooked. I even wrote an entry on my blog about my closest Sisterchick. And this series made my favorite things when I did a knockoff of Oprah's favorite things show.

These books follow different sets of Sisterchicks traveling all over the world and the antics they get in are hilarious! Plus, you really get why the women are such good friends, how their relationships are ones of sisterly love, compassion, and frankly telling the other like it is. Here's a summary of the newest book: "Summer and Noelle, two pen pals since 4th grade, meet for the first time in the land of tulips and windmills. An abnormal mammogram sends Summer on a quest to fulfill her lifelong wish before she begins the same struggle her mother fought against breast cancer. The story of these two Sisterchicks is brimming with hope and cheer and will bring encouragement for any woman who has faced a fearful future."

And the author . . .I'd love to claim her as a relative, but as far as I can tell, she's not. But doesn't she look so cute in these shoes?

April 29, 2009

I've taken quite the vacation from blogging, but am feeling like I want to get back to it again. I know that part of my lack of blogging was due to Elaine's diagnosis, treatment, and her passing. I just didn't feel like writing posts about the everyday goings on in our lives. I miss her terribly, and not a day goes by that I don't think of her in some way or another. Just tonight, we were talking about wired jaws and we talked about how Elaine and I made Chris a horrible malted milk when his jaws were wired shut when he was in college.

So, I don't know how often I'll blog, but it will be much more often than once every 6 months! I did pre-date one entry from April 25th that you can find below.

April 27, 2009

When you make plans and start a new day, you never know how that day will end, do you? The past reinforced just that for us.

This past weekend, Andy and I went with the church youth group to Mt. Lebanon in Cedar Hills for a youth group retreat. I'd teased Ian before we left that if he didn't socialize with the other kids, I was going to wave my hands, yell I had a spot for him, and hug and kiss on him. Tehehe . .he's teenaged enough to not want that! We tried to give him his space. We, being me. That mother hen, know where your kids are thing is hard to shake! I didn't really think I liked knowing that the boys were "mattress jousting" in their half of the cabin Friday night. They were sliding standing on mattresses towards each other. Ian apparently went against a senior. Hmmm. I said nothing and hoped the mattress jousting wouldn't occur Saturday night.

The kids were supposed to play some organized games shortly after lunch on Saturday. Something to do with throwing cantaloupes. I'm not exactly sure of the rules of that game, but the kids seemed interested in playing it. Ian and several other boys headed out to the field and did what middle school boys do. They found a way to entertain themselves with what they found around them. In this field, apparently that was a couple of cinderblocks and a 1x4. They apparently decided they wanted to see how far they could sail one of those cinderblocks through the air. From what I can tell, they rigged up a seesaw with the 1x4 and one of the cinderblocks. Then they were placing the other cinderblock on one end and someone jumped on the other end. They did this 4-5 times before the experiment went awry. The last time, Ian was bending down to place the cinderblock on the seesaw and the kid on the other end didn't realize he hadn't stepped away. Up the cinderblock went, right into Ian's mouth! Shortly thereafter, they chased Andy down in the family van as he was headed out to coach Alaina's soccer game. By the time I got to the field, Andy and about 10 or so others were searching the field for Ian's tooth. He was now without 1 (and 1/2). Here's the photo we took of him before we left the retreat. You'll notice he's not upset. . .boy was I surprised!



We drove together back home and dropped Andy off at the fields, then continued on to the dentist's office. The dentist was able to fix the chipped front tooth, and cleaned out the one to the left of it and put a dental bandage on it and gave us a referral to an endodontist. Monday am we got him in quickly (amazing how quick they'll get you in when you mention the words "#10 broken at the gumline" and "cross-section" in one sentence!), and she verified Ian would be needing a root canal. That has been scheduled for May 6th. In the meantime, it's a lot of eating on the right side of his mouth and retelling his story at school.

After the root canal, we'll be going through the process of getting Ian a retainer with a fake tooth (called a flipper -- anyone seen toddlers and tiaras? tehehe. . now Ian can compete!). He will get an implant around the age of 21, when they are fully sure that he will no longer grow.

Ian's take on the day -- if he could redo one day over, that would be the day. Not that they wouldn't try and flip cinderblocks off their homemade seesaw, he'd just make sure they had an all-clear signal! He's hating that he did something so permanent. I keep telling him I'm so glad he didn't get hit in the head. This could've been so much worse. It's just a couple of teeth.

I didn't realize it at the time (of course!), but this is now the last photo we took of Ian with his beautiful teeth. We took this in San Antonio on April 18th at the state science meet.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Elaine passed away this afternoon. We will miss her so much and are so sad that we can no longer talk to her, joke with her, play games with her. I think the hardest thing I've ever had to do was tell the kids about her. We spent some time recalling some of our favorite memories of Aunt Lainey. One of the first things mentioned was how fun our trip to Disney was because she was along. Even though our kids didn't know it, Elaine actually did a lot of the planning and suggesting of things to do as we'd never been. She was so excited by the thought of us surprising our kids with that trip. At the time, Andy and I hoped we'd create some memories that the kids could remember, even after Elaine would get so sick and eventually pass away. I'm so glad that will apparently be the case.

August 25

Back to the dated titles. . . they're just so much easier than using the brain cells to think of something witty! Here's some random Monday Ramblings.

Went school supply shopping for Ian tonight. . . you know, for the wierd things some middle school teachers want. I'm thinking that when the kids get schedules a week before school starts, they should have teacher supply lists up on the website so that every parent of a middle schooler isn't cruisin' Staples/Office Depot/etc for wide ruled notebooks on the first day of school! I saw no less that 10 families that I knew in that store while looking for supplies tonight. Happens every year.

Alaina's been after me to find her a giraffe print lampshade. She has a "little" obsession with giraffes and after getting her giraffe print bedding for her birthday last year, she's so over the lavender lampshade in her room. It so "doesn't match!" I had no clue there was such a thing as a self-adhesive lampshade until I went shopping with my sister today and mentioned the need for said giraffe shade. So going to have to get one and do her up a cute little shade as a surprise.

Have you guys ever visited to Vanilla Joy? I'd never heard of it, but saw a link to go there on Lisa Bearnson's blog. Has some cute ideas of things to do with kids, some interesting looking recipes. . . and most of all, some terrific scrapbook giveaways this week. You should check it out!

If you do not know the story of Steven Curtis Chapman's family's loss this past May, you should check out the article in the current People magazine. I'd stopped buying it several years ago, but did buy this issue (the one with Elizabeth Edwards on the cover) so that I could read the Chapman's story. The Chapmans (and the 3 older kids) were also on Larry King Live and GMA while Andy and I were in France. Especially interesting to me was Larry King's day after recap statement. Steven wrote a 4th verse to his song "Yours" after Maria's death and you can now find it on iTunes. The Chapman family has really been able to show the world how through faith, you can make it through the hardest times.

Another new school year

School started up again this morning and the kids were all excited to go back. Alaina spent all of yesterday saying "I can't WAIT for tomorrow!" Allison, as always, was perhaps a bit apprehensive. Ian was just glad to be getting back to school so he could hang out with friends. Unfortunately, he didn't get to do a lot of that this summer. Here are pictures of the kids before they left for school. I think this is the first year I didn't get all the school goers in a photo together! Last year, I made Ian get up that early to take the group picture . . .but then it was a LONG wait until he actually had to be at school. He's playing the baritone for the second year -- he's gotta lug that thing back and forth to school everyday. My next door neighbor told me this morning she wished he reconsider riding a bike to school with her daughter and the girl across the street. I think the days of him wanting to go to school with them are gone -- at least for now! tehehe . . .but told the neighbor there was no way Ian could balance that honkin' thing on a bike!



The girls were juggling backpacks, paint cans, and in Alaina's case, lunchboxes. We always buy something off the teachers' wishlists, if they have them posted, to bring in the first day of school, so Alaina's backpack was full of baby wipes. She was a trooper and carried it all in herself!



Each year, we bring the teachers a first day of school gift. For at least the past 5 years, it's been a decorated paint can. I had a bit of a hard time figuring how to make one look more manly this year, as we have our first male (elementary school) teacher. I fill them with whatever I can find that I either remember always running out of when I was a teacher or know might be something they'd need/want. This year's cans had: 2 packages of "teacher" stickers, a magnetic notepad, a calculator, rubber bands/various clips, a set of dry erase markers, post-it notes, hand sanitizer, some sharpies, and Hersheys Hugs and Kisses. I usually try to decorate them to match the teacher's rooms (as we go the Friday before school starts to meet the teachers), but this year, there wasn't any obvious theme for either teacher's room. So my goal for Alaina's teacher was for it not to look girly, and noticed Allison's teacher had bright colored curtains on her windows, so I went bright with her. Here's what I ended up with:



It's a little lonely around here. . . definitely a lot less noise! However, I am free to go shopping and out to lunch with my sister who ended up with the day off.