31 Cent Ice Cream

Tonight is Baskin' Robbins 31 cent scoop night! From 5-9 p.m. you can get a scoop of your favorite flavor. They are raising money for firefighters. So not only do you get a great deal, but you support a cause at the same time! That's a win-win!

A new dress & dino

For Kaleb and his new dinosaur from Nannie, it was love at first bite:

Kaiya wearing the new dress I made her. Alli - thanks for sending the pattern! Not quite as cute as the ones you have made for Emerson, but not too bad for my first try. :)

Ted Haggard at Elevation

Two posts in one day? *Gasp!*

But I just couldn't wait to post this one. Sunday at Elevation Church is going to be interesting! Here's a little news video clip that shares what is going on this weekend at our church: Ted Haggard at Elevation Church

If you think of us on Sunday, would you pray that the story would be told effectively and that God would work?

Roaches & STDs

You had to know this one was coming, right? I haven't posted on vaccines in awhile. The general consensus from a large majority of people is that the Gardasil vaccine is a bit sketchy. So the reason I post about it again, is not to try to convince you to spare your daughters (& sons) from this one, but to show you another example of the unethical practices of pharmaceuticals and the FDA. Is anyone else seeing a pattern here?

Gardasil Contains Roach Killer?

Verbal Abuse

Kat, our nanny, has begun suffering verbal abuse on the job. In the span of 24 hours, here's what happened:

Kat was moving one of the riding toys and bumped against something. Kaiya yells, "Be careful, you idiot!" Kat asked - "What did you call me?" Kaiya: "Idiot!" Apparently she learned this lovely phrase from Sebastian on The Little Mermaid. She got a time out and was told to remove the word from her vocabulary.

The next afternoon, both Kat and I were home, relaxing in the living room. I can't remember what prompted it, but all of a sudden Kaiya looks at Kat and says, "You are ugly!" After making an attempt to explain what ugly means. In case you are wondering...this is not easy to explain to a 3 year old. I used several Disney analogies and did my best to communicate the hurt that these words can cause. After some probing, I discovered that she learned this line from Sound of Music. One of the boys tells Frauline Maria that her dress is ugly.

Seriously... the kid is a sponge right now. And she watches TV with her breakfast and again while dinner is being made. Which I thought was a reasonable amount. We may be coming up with a new game plan... Then again, maybe this is just part of being three.

I didn't watch the pageant this past weekend, but have read plenty about it over the past few days. Does anyone else just want to give Miss California a hug? The poor girl is being lambasted by the media and supposed "friends" over her answer to the question. If you missed it and haven't seen any coverage of this, here's a video from YouTube:


Could someone release a positive statement of support on this already? Makes me wanna send the girl some fan mail.

When being good doesn't feel so good...

Friday night I headed to Harris Teeter to get some flowers. They had flats for $6, which is about half of what the rest of the city has them for. I had decided to buy 2 flats to plant around the house. I picked out my flowers and took them inside to pay for them. The cashier rang up the flowers and I noticed that my total was only about half of what it should have been. You know what saving money does to me. I've mentioned that it is like a drug addition for me. :) Not many things make me happier. So inside my mind I am thinking... is he done scanning the flowers? Am I gonna get all these flowers for $6? He tells me the total and I scan my debit card, pay for my purchase and leave the store. As I walk to the car I can't believe my luck! Gobs of flowers for $6.44! I'm almost to my car and I really start to feel like I need to take the flowers back inside and get my receipt adjusted. So I trudge back inside... you know what I mean... where you want to drag your feet behind you and are practically having a Jim Carrey moment in the parking lot where you are throwing yourself forward and backward and practically dragging yourself into the store. Yeah that was me on the inside. For appearance's sake I managed to keep it together. I waited at the customer service counter reminding myself that Harris Teeter gives you the item free if they overcharge you and you catch it. Maybe they will do that for undercharging me too! Umm... they don't. When you tell them you think you were undercharged, they stare at you in disbelief and tell you that "no one" comes back for being undercharged! As if I needed another reminder of the alternative plan of taking my deal and running!

I paid the difference and trudged back to my car. When I went to the store I was fully prepared to pay $12 for two flats of flowers and still all I could think about was... that sucked. On my drive home I really started thinking about how doing the right thing doesn't always give you the warm fuzzies. Sometimes it really does suck. Sometimes you hate every minute of it. But that doesn't change the fact that the right thing is still the right thing. It could be having a tough conversation with someone that you have hurt. It could be swallowing your pride and admitting you are wrong. It could be saying no and risking social rejection for not doing the popular thing. Bottom line is that we aren't called to do the right thing because of how it will make us feel. We do the right thing because He asks us to.

Pink Cake

One of Kaiya's favorite parts about church is the snack (no surprise here... the girl loves to eat). Typically she gets goldfish crackers for snack, which is great because it becomes something special at church and I don't have to buy them at home. A few weeks ago I picked Kaiya up from Sunday School and we were heading out to the car and she told me that they didn't have goldfish at church. I asked her what they had for snack and she said, "Pink Cake!" Tony and I exchange a look that is translated, "They wouldn't really do that, right?" And so we keep peppering her with questions:

Are you sure it was cake? Yes.
And it was pink? Yes.
Did it have anything else on it? Yes, pretzels?
Pretzels? Yes. On your cake? Yes.

So now we think that she is possibly making this story up. But she keeps insisting. I don't think she has ever had cake before, so I asked her what it tasted like. She said, "It was good." Well, that would probably be true of cake.

Then I remember that I can call a friend who has a little girl in Kaiya's Sunday School. So I text her and ask what Jasmine said they had for snack. She replied back that Jasmine said they had cake. So that solves it. Kaiya is not just making things up. They really did serve cake to the 2 year old Sunday School class at 8:30 a.m. I couldn't believe it.

Fast forward to the next week at church. I very sweetly ask the teacher if they know ahead of time what snack will be each week. She said they never know... as someone else is in charge of that and just brings it in each morning. She asked if something was wrong with last week's snack and I just said that Kaiya told me they had pink cake and we really don't allow her much sugar and so I was just curious. She smiled and said - oh! Snack last week was a small rice cake with strawberry cream cheese frosting. And then they put smile faces on with pretzels. We had a good laugh over that one. And I told the teacher that snacks like that would be fine.

Aha! Doesn't that make complete sense! Pink Cake! Because of Kaiya's inexperience with cake, she had no idea what she was actually eating for snack. She heard them call it cake and so cake it was!

Elevation Church Easter Opener from Elevation Church on Vimeo.

Thought I would share this neat video with you. Our church put this together for Easter. Tony did a little digging and we found it! We thought it was pretty cool.

Happy Easter!

Praising God this morning for the 100+ who accepted Christ at the 8:30 service.

Now that's what I'm talking about!

This past Sunday at church, we were gearing up for Easter Sunday... like most churches around the country. I learned something new and saw some great ideas that I thought I would share because I thought they were so cool. This is possibly because I lack creativeness in general... unless of course, it involves saving money. Then I can get pretty creative. :)

During the service I learned something new. When you think about Easter -- for churches it is one of the biggest Sundays of the year. And so doesn't it make sense that pastors and their families would be going through some of the toughest spiritual warfare during the days surrounding big Sundays? I needed that reminder this week. Check out this insightful post by my pastor's wife. And pray for your pastor this weekend!

Cool thing #1: Everyone was given a box of Peeps with service times for Sunday on them. Mission - give the box to someone you want to invite to church.

Cool thing #2: When I went to pick up the kids from their classes, we were given two sets of door hangers. I thought this was so creative:


So now we have a very non-threatening way to invite our neighbors with kids to church! And... I've also figured out that minivans and SUVs have the perfect door handles for these. I've left a few on cars parked in the "with small children" parking spaces at Harris Teeter. :)

Happy Easter!

Shouldn't the "choice" in pro-choice be for doctors too?

A friend recently brought this to my attention and I thought I would pass the information along. If you believe that pro-life doctors and nurses should have the choice about whether they will perform abortions and whether or not they will be discriminated against in terms of receiving funding based on whether they perform abortions or not, then you will want to visit this site: http://www.freedom2care.org/ They explain it much more accurately than I, and from this site there is an easy link to send a Message as a Patient or Message as a Healthcare Provider to let your voice be heard. The deadline for public comment on this proposed plan is tonight, April 9th, at midnight - so please visit now! It's a really easy form to fill out - they have done most of the writing for you! I encourage you to share the link on your blogs or on Facebook so that we can get the word out!

Boys

Being in a family with boys is a new thing for me. I grew up with two sisters so I have quite a learning curve when it comes to raising boys. But I'm loving every minute of it... and it provides daily laughs for me.

Last night Kaleb was taking a bath, he stood up and I couldn't get him to sit down. I've learned from previous baths that this means he has to pee. And apparently, he prefers to do this standing up. He yells out the one of the only words in his vocabulary, "Bah!" and begins peeing. Like past times, he surprises himself and is completely enthralled with the fact that he can pee. He reaches down to grab the pee with his hand, which somehow interrupts his concentration and the flow of pee immediately stops. He stands back up a little bit and then starts peeing again. Reaches down... sure that he can catch it this time... nope! It stops again. Starts back up... Third time is a charm, right? Yep! He caught it this time! And boy was he pleased with himself! I swear I could hear him humming "Bad" by Michael Jackson...

Fear of the Whoopie Cushion

A video of Kaleb's fear of the whoopie cushion. I'm slightly antagonistic as Tony so kindly points out. Don't judge y'all. :)

Oh where did the diapers go?

**update below**

Have you heard the VeggieTales hairbrush song? I've been singing it all day, except substituting my own words. Oh where did the diapers go? Oh where did the diapers go? Oh where oh where oh where... did the diapers go?

I went to Wal-Mart to purchase Kaleb's diapers and nearly fell on the floor in a heap when I saw that the brand I usually buy is no longer on the shelves. And there wasn't even a gap where it used to be. I was frozen in my tracks. You know how you get so used to buying what you buy that you could do it in your sleep? And God forbid they ever move things around in the store. It was like I didn't know what to do when the diapers weren't there. I just stood with my mouth gaping open staring at the diapers. I must have said, "This is not good." Because a few minutes later I heard Kaiya saying it repeatedly... meanwhile I was still in shock.

I trudged off to find a Wal-Mart employee. I knew they wouldn't know. And of course, they didn't. Where have the White Cloud diapers gone? Not only are they cheap - they are also one of the only kinds that Kaleb doesn't actually leak out of.

Back to the diapers I went. Staring at the packages I think... "Is it too early to potty train?" Finally I decide just to get the Parent's Choice brand in a small package until I can come up with another game plan. I reach over to the shelf and *gasp* they don't have his SIZE!!!!! He's right on the fence with sizes so I get a size down and call it a day.

I called my sister and had her check her Wal-Mart. Gone there too. Obsessively I went online to see if I could get these diapers anywhere else. They are exclusive to Wal-Mart. But their website is still up and running so maybe they aren't gone forever. I'm about to write a letter begging for the diapers back. Certainly they can at least wait until I have Kaleb potty trained before they discontinue the diaper. That's not unreasonable is it?

**********
The following is the response I got to my contact w/ the company:

Thank you for contacting the Consumer Helpline regarding the White Cloud diapers. Unfortunately the White Cloud diaper line has been discontinued; however the Parent’s Choice brand will still be available. (She forgot to insert here that they SUCK.)

The White Cloud diapers were a brand that was exclusive to the Wal-Mart retailers; therefore they are not available at any other retailer. If you’re looking for something comparable to the White Cloud diaper, we manufacture the Member’s Mark diapers for Sam’s club.

***********
Guess I'm off to Sam's Club today to give Member's Mark a try. :(

Two memos

Memo 1:
To the woman whose positive pregnancy test picture I stole off Google Images:

Thank you! And Congratulations.

Memo 2:
To everyone else:

Gotcha! :)

Love,
Rachel

Wordless Wednesday