Wednesday, June 29, 2011

New Friends and Inspiration

A big THANK YOU to our friend Gina for introducing us to our new friends.

Gina had been pestering us for MONTHS to meet some friends of hers. They are family with 3 kids around our kids' age. But that's not what makes this awesome.

The reason Gina had been wanting to get us all together is because the husband, Jeremy, plays guitar. (and very well I might add!)

Matt has been a singer for years. But due to well...LIFE, he hasn't had much time to pursue his love of music.

Jeremy came over last night and they sat down and played around with some songs for a couple of hours. It was so lovely to hear my dear husband sing again. I had missed hearing him sing.

After he left we got the kids to bed and Matt watched his nightly episode of The Glenn Beck Show.

This particular episode was about Courage. Mr. Beck is gearing up for his Restoring Courage rally.

He told a story about how he recently had to deal with bullies.

His young daughter wanted him to go watch a movie at the park with her. He and his family went and as they were watching the movie someone "accidentally" kicked a bottle of wine, splashing the back of his wife's shirt and soaking the blanket they were sitting on.

His young daughter also had some people yelling unkind things to her.

The jeering continued until the end of the movie. At the end, when the Beck family got up to leave, those same bullies applauded their departure.

Now, he said there were a lot of GOOD people there, but nobody spoke up. Nobody told those bullies to cool their jets and just watch the movie!

I hope if I ever see someone being bullied, adult or child, I will have enough COURAGE to tell them to stop. I'm not a very outspoken person, but I believe in treating each other equally.

No matter what that person does or believes in, they are a human being, just like you and me.

You may not agree with the choices they are making, but it doesn't mean you can't show compassion towards them. You never know, it may be the only kindness they see all day.


So I kind of got off subject there, but I felt it was important to say.


The reason I wanted to share the COURAGE story is because after Matt watched that he went to the kitchen and did something I hadn't seen him do in YEARS! He sat down at the kitchen table and wrote a song! Jeremy came over today and they worked on putting the song together. I was very impressed with Matt's words. He inspires me to continue to pursue the things I love.

HE IS AWESOME!

Here is the song he wrote.
Courage to Conquer
The light shade has been pulled
shut because I can't watch the
hate anymore. The building of this nation
has been shattered into pieces.
Is there anyone to stand back up
to fight this disillusion?

I'm sitting alone, feeling the grief of a
million people dying. I pray to God
and the answer is clear to
stand up for what I believe in.

Even though I feel alone there
are others that are sleeping.
Wake up! Wake up!
Wake up because the
battle is coming. It's nothing new, but
it's my time now to raise the flag again for freedom.

Ask yourself, what do you believe in?
If you don't, you'll be deceived then.

Oh America the beautiful, God shed
His grace on thee, but now we've become
disillusioned that freedom is just free.
But oh America, sweet America, this
freedome has been taken. Lift up
your voice and sing with me as the
war continues brewing. And if it's blood
you want, then blood you'll get, but my
children will be free. Because you are few
and we are many, there's no chance you'll succeed.


Matt said this is just one of many songs that he will be writing, and that he may be adding more to this one.

I hope they continue to write songs and play them. I'm fine with them jamming in my living room (with kids running all over the place) as long as they can provide some songs for me to get happily stuck in my head.

Did I just turn into my husband's groupie? Yes, yes I did.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Muddy Cousins

This afternoon, I was charged to look after my own boys plus my nephew, Atom. No big deal, I thought. What's one more kid?

What I didn't realize is that a group of boys means mischief, especially if that group of boys are cousins.

I had been watching them from the kitchen where I was happily making homemade marshmallows. (They are delish!)

I peaked out once and they were digging in the dirt.

I peaked out again and they were washing the dirt off with the water hose and spraying each other with it.

I walked out the third time and found....this.














I had a moment of mental freak out where I said to myself "Their Dad/Uncle Matt is going to KILL them!! It's right in the garden area!!" But then I realized nothing was planted there and they were just having good um...clean, fun.

They wanted to go in right away and take showers but I insisted on taking them to the back and hosing them off first to get the top 30 layers of mud off first.
(I got no enjoyment on setting the hose sprayer to jet and watching them squirm, gotta get that dirt off somehow! *wink!*)

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Matthew

The other day we were all hanging around the yard when Matthew suddenly says "Hey Mom! Come take pictures!!"

Well, I am definitely not one to pass on an opportunity like that! So I grabbed my camera and we played around at the park across from our house while I took pictures.





A couple of days later Matthew had Day Camp with his fellow Cub Scouts. He armed himself with a camelbak full of water, hat, sunscreen and bugspray. He claims he had a lot of fun. It's not too hard to believe when he's bouncing up and down while he's telling me.

Of course we always have fun at home too. Especially when I get my camera out.