Think Pink

I sure have missed hanging out in the blog world, but the real world around here has been super busy.

For the past few days I have been expending all of my techie brain cells in the development of home movies on our Mac. I was trying to figure out how to upload my masterpieces to a video hosting site for all of you to see, but I have been encountering some technical difficulties, remember I am a Luddite at heart. Maybe when Adam gets back he can help me figure out what I am doing wrong.

Yesterday I felt like a true domestic goddess. I cleaned the whole house, I cooked a yummy dinner of Kung Pao Chicken and then even did a few loads of laundry. I am not sure what possessed me, it seems way to early for nesting? :)

I have one cleaning item that I could NOT live without, my Dyson vacuum. I know they are expensive, but let me tell you I could not live without that thing. We when move I am always worried someone may take off with my Dyson, this has not happened yet, other things have been stolen but not the vacuum, thank goodness.

If you do not have a Dyson here is your chance to win one. Heck, I am going to enter too, wouldn't it be a luxury to have one Dyson upstairs and one downstairs to eliminate the lugging. I might even vacuum upstairs more, or maybe not, but I COULD if I wanted to.

Thanks to 5 minutes for Mom for another great giveaway. If you just can't wait and have to have a Pink Dyson right now, they are only available at Target and $40 from each sale will go towards Breast Cancer Research. The contest ends Monday October 1st, may the best woman win.

If you have a Dyson feel free to share your Dyson love in the comments. They really don't lose suction even with all of the dog hair we vacuum up. Amazing!

Expansion

If you are a regular reader you may have been disappointed at the recent sluggishness in the frequency of blog posts. There is a good reason for that. The time that I would normally spend blogging is now being spent....sleeping. Adam left town for about a month to attend some training down in Florida. The day after he left I went to the doctor and found out that we are expecting, yes you read that right we are pregnant with #4. That bring us to 60 toes, we are going to have to change our blog title eventually. :)

So it has been extremely busy getting the kids back in school, keeping up with cooking, laundry, housework, yard work, etc, and feeling nauseous and exhausted all the while. So needless to say, blogging sort of fell to the bottom of the list. I am thankful Adam made it home for a few days to help me out around here before he is off again, hey I will take what I can get.

We waited to tell the kids because we wanted to both be there when we told them. Adam flew in Wednesday night, we picked him up at the airport and went straight to dinner where we would spill the beans. Adam was like a kid brimming with excitement and couldn't wait to break the news. We have not been down this road in quite a while, over 6 years to be exact. Laura did not believe us at first, she looked at me and thought "she looks the same". Emma, was excited but a little disturbed, she knows how these things happen. :) Andrew who obviously does not, blurted out "How did the baby get in there?" It looks like he and Adam will be having a man to man talk soon. :)

The whole dinner they proceeded to discuss things like names, who would now be sharing a room, Emma even noted that when she goes off to college this baby would be seven years old.

We are all truly excited and look forward to meeting this little one sometime in April.

If my blogging is a little spotty, I know you will understand.

Safety in Action

Today Adam was out mowing the lawn and I had to laugh and think back to his safety post. Here he is in all his glory...well protected. It is hard to see the ear plugs but they are there.

Changed Everything

I just realized that Monday is almost over and I have not posted my musical selection.

This week's selection is not the silly upbeat song that you find many weeks. Instead it is song that will reflect on the horror we all lived through six years ago. So much changed that day...forever.

Recording session

I am still trying to post all of the fun memories we had on our family vacation to Colorado this past July, OK so I am a little behind. We actually wrote some of our blog ideas out on paper and it has just taken me awhile to get them typed in. So here it goes...

The day we spend in Colorado Springs we visited the headquarters of Focus on the Family. They have a very extensive campus not far from the Air Force Academy. The day we visited the book store and Welcome Center were the only parts of the the campus that were open but this was plenty for us.

They have a great Welcome Center and you know I always enjoy book stores. The Welcome Center has displays that share the 30 year history of the Focus on the Family ministries. It was amazing to see all that God has done over the last three decades through this organization.

They also have a kid's section themed around their radio program Adventure in Odyssey. If you happen to be hungry or thirsty you can stop by Whit's End Soda Shoppe, just like on the radio. The kids and I did a scavenger hunt that is set up that took us through the entire exhibit. We had a great time searching high and low for the different items. There is also a huge slide that is three stories tall called A-Bend-A-Go, get it? Charlotte and all of the kids did this, I think I was too tall or something. :)

The highlight of the visit was the chance for the kids to tape their own Adventures in Odyssey Radio show. If you want to do this I recommend being there when they open because it is really cool and even better, it's FREE. Each of the kids were assigned a part and given a script to practice while we waited our turn in the recording studio. When it was our turn Emma and Andrew positioned themselves behind their microphones and Laura and I stepped into the sound effects part of the booth. We received a few instructions and then began our taping. It was really fun. The kids did a great job reading their lines. Laura was cute and did a great job making sound effects like a slamming door, sharpening pencils, sweeping the floor and walking on a gravel road. The kids had a great time and when it was all said and done we walked out with a CD of our recording. The kids loved hearing their voices recorded. They both asked, "Do I really sound like that?" Do you remember first hearing your voice in a recording?

If you are ever in Colorado Springs I recommend taking the chance to stop by and visit Focus on the Family.

Never too young

Last weekend at church something funny happened. I had to sub in Laura's Sunday School class for the second hour. When I got there to relieve the first hour teacher she said Laura made her laugh. That is quite believable, I just wondered why. She had turned some music on in the background and Laura perked up right away and asked "Is this tobyMac?" The teacher could not believe that a 5 year old would discern such a thing. I told her we were huge tobyMac fans and that Laura knows most of the songs. Her coot.

This brings me to my next bit of news, ALL 50 toes now possess tickets to the upcoming tobyMac concert, even Laura is going to go. The kids are so excited, we can hardly wait. Our only concern is that Adam will be in town, but we will have to roll the dice on that one. If he can't make it maybe one of your would like to join us?

The Road to Abilene

“ On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably
playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles north] for dinner. The wife says, "Sounds like a great idea." The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, "Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go." The mother-in-law then says, "Of course I want to go. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time." The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted. One of them dishonestly says, "It was a great trip, wasn't it." The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." The wife says, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored. The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon."

I'm sure many of you have studied the "road to Abilene" paradox at some point in your studies.



Have you ever had your own "Road to Abilene" experience? I know that we have. The State Fair is actually a success story for us this year. We were on the verge of making a trip to Abilene by way of the State Fair then as we were discussing when we'd go to the fair one of us said, "I don't really want to go to the fair." This response was quickly agreed with and now neither of us is dreading a trip to the State Fair. Yeah. Let's here it for communication in marriage.

Organ Donor

What do you call someone riding a motorcycle without a helmet?

In our family, we call them organ donors. We will often be driving down the road silently (yeah right...at a dull roar with tobyMac blasting or the kids arguing) and Laura will yell out "Organ Donor" when a helmet-less rider drives by. She seems to notice them the most.

There is no helmet law in Oklahoma, so many of the people who ride motorcycles exercise their right (and I suppose it is their right, but it still seems stupid) to not wear a helmet. I guess they like the feel of the wind in their hair as they tear down the turnpike at 75 MPH balanced on two wheels and passing trucks with 18.

In our safety conscious family we can't imagine such reckless abandon. A portion of your tax money has gone to ensuring that I'm highly trained to recognize unsafe situations and take action to prevent the loss of life or equipment. I've been permanently ruined through numerous safety stand downs, safety schools and operational risk management training. But you'll be glad to know that your tax money has been well spent because as a bonus to you I am passing said knowledge down to my children.

Oh, and I look like a dork when I mow my lawn with my certified safety glasses and my ear plugs in....but I'm safe.

Lazy Pirates

It is hard to believe that it is already Monday. I thought when the kids started school I would have all of this free time to do all sorts of things one of them being....blog. It hasn't worked out that way. I am still trying to get us all on some sort of routine, maybe this week.

This week Andrew chose our Musical Monday selection. If you are Veggie Tales fans at all you may find this amusing, if not you might just be wondering what in the world this song is about.

A few years ago when Laura was EXTREMELY into Veggie Tales we bought this CD called Veggie Rocks. It is album full of Veggie Tales songs with a rock twist. We love them all.

This is one of our favorites, "The Pirates Who Don't do Anything" by Relient K. I see a trend developing here, this is the third Relient K song we have picked.

What do you call it?

Most of your who have spent ANY time at all at 50 toes know about my love for Diet Coke. You might not know that I also love maps, I haven't been as vocal about that. Today I was blog hopping and when I was over at Rocks in my Dryer and stumbled upon this.

I never thought I would have a reason to combine these two favorite things in a blog post, diet Coke and maps...who knew? Like I have said before, you never know what you will find here.

What generic term do you use when referring to soft drinks? Pop, soda, coke, or something else. I would love to hear in the comments. Do you match the map?

When you ask a friend," do you want a __________?" Which word do your use.

I personally use Coke even though anyone who knows me knows that means a diet Coke or sometimes a diet Dr. Pepper, it never means a fully leaded Coca-Cola.

I once heard this said, You know you are from Oklahoma if you have ever had this conversation.

"Do you want a Coke?"

"yeah"

"what kind?"

"Sprite"

What do you call it?

"The Fair is in September"

"That's not fair!"
Is there a parent on the planet who hasn't been told this?

A friend of ours has a response for anyone who makes this statement. Our family has adopted his reponse.

"The Fair is in September."

An odd statement....maybe. It's not odd if you know the state fair of Oklahoma is in...you guessed it September.

How many times in life have we felt something that happens to us is not fair? Unfortunatley, this feeling is not restricted to children. I'll admit that even recently I've wanted to yell "it's not fair." But you know what, life isn't fair. The sooner our children learn this lesson, the sooner they'll be able to avoid all the destructive thoughts that come with feeling 'wronged.'

One funny story from this saying, one year the kids were so excited for September to arrive because "now everything will be fair." They were disappointed to learn that even in the month of September....everything is still not fair but THE fair is in September.