During spring break, my family and I took a road trip up north to St. Augustine to explore to the Castillo de San Marcos in the oldest city in the U.S.
My Family at the Fort
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Monthly Archives: April 2010
Spring Break Earworms
A few weeks ago, I learned a new term: earworm. Although it sounds like something out of a Star Trek film, an earworm is a song or jingle that gets stuck inside your head.
Over spring break, my family and I took several road trips which forced me to listen to hours of Kids Place Live on XM and made me suffer through a variety of kiddie earworms.
For the most part, Kids Place Live plays songs that I enjoy (like Kira Willey or Lunch Money), but every once in awhile one really annoying song will pop up in the playlist and my girls think it’s hysterical to torture tease me by constantly singing these horrid harmonies. Every time they torture me, I threaten to call Absolutely Mindy to nominate the song for the Mom’s Veto so it can be banned from the playlist for a week.
“Mom.”
“Yes, Sweetie.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Mom?”
“Yes, Sweetie.”
“I want to be your personal penguin from now on.”
I have some beautifully evil children.
Since misery loves company, I thought I’d share these awful earworms with you.
The Phineas and Ferb ditties are tolerable, but how often do you hear porno music sampled into children’s music? Nothing like a “bow chicka bow wow” earworm stuck in your head.
You’re welcome.
Not Another Peep
Amy of Keeping Up with the Schultz Family introduced me to my new favorite Easter candy: Chocolate Peeps.
Now, I can’t get enough of these delicious heavenly chocolate covered clouds.
But, I need to put down the Peeps for a bit because I have a glucose test this morning.
Voice of a Savior
I love my church.
It took a long time to find a church to call home, but we finally found a place that offers all the warm, cozy caring comforts of what my Father’s home should be.
I was raised Catholic, married in the Catholic church and baptized my babies in the Catholic faith, but with all these rituals and customs, I always felt like I was living the law of God, but not, living for God. As a result, I felt a spiritual void in my life for many years.
Once we moved to our new neighborhood, I longed to find a church to fill my spiritual needs, but a Catholic church was no longer a necessity. I wanted my children to know God and worship Him, not rituals or repetitive prayers.
Several of my friends told me about a wonderful church, but despite all their praise and encouragement it took me about a year to summon the courage to visit a non-Catholic church. My Catholic guilt caused me to believe I would betray my upbringing if attended a church of a different faith. Then during one Lenten season, I decided to test the waters at my friends’ church and commit to attending it regularly for Lent. (You can take the Catholic girl out of the church, but you can’t take the Catholic practices and guilt out of the girl.)
So, with blind faith, I took a leap. During that first visit, I felt God’s presence and I found exactly the spiritual healing my soul had been craving.
The Senior Pastor, Pastor Matthew, is a remarkable teacher. He teaches about the Word, but doesn’t preach it. He reminds us constantly that God loves us, but doesn’t condemn us. Our Savior walks with us constantly.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve learned so much about the Bible, more than I ever learned during years of religious instruction in the Catholic Church. I’ve discovered real world application to the Word. But more than that, the church is a living example of what our pastor teaches and models in his own life. Everyone we have met there in the past two years has been kind, warm and welcoming and I couldn’t be happier with our decision to join this church.
I am home.
Then one Sunday, as Allan and I slinked into church late and shamefully snuck into a seat in a back row pew, the band began playing Voice of a Savior. For me, it was a divine affirmation about our decision to switch faiths and join a new church.
Then Jesus said to them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”
- Luke 9:48
My Mini Mozarts
Recently both my girls have begun to show an interest in music and our piano, so I enrolled them in piano lessons.
The first week, the teacher showed them the basics: position of their fingers, position on the seat, how to read the notes, etc.
I knew Allana was really ready, but I worried about Emmalynn. I didn’t know if she would have the attention span or capability to sit still long enough to learn how to play.
Emmalynn proved me wrong. She did fabulously! And like a sign from above to validate that I made the right choice enrolling her, Emmalynn’s first song to learn happened to be her favorite since she was a baby: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
As directed by her teacher, I put stickers on our piano to help Emmalynn practice.
During Allana’s practices, she needed a little help finding middle C. Although they didn’t practice every day, they practiced enough to impress their teacher the following week.
At our second lesson, their teacher said the girls are progressing very well and ready for more challenges. She didn’t expect to see such progress so quickly. This encouraging news caused me to beam with pride from ear to ear.
I like to believe they got their musical ability from me, since I took years of piano lessons in my youth, but I have to give Dad some credit since there’s some musical talent on his side as well. (Dad plays guitar, too.) Maybe the combination of both our genes made mini Mozarts.
Hosted by Cecily and Life With Kaishon
