The Day He Wore My Crown

I have finally gotten pictures for our Easter musical "The Day He Wore My Crown." A good friend of mine, Terri Greene, took these pictures. She has a great camera and always does a great job capturing the event. Thanks, Terri, for sharing these photos with me. There were too many to choose from, so I tried to pick out some of my favorites and share them with you in a slide show. I hope that you enjoy them. The song playing is the title song from the musical which I sang, however, this is obviously a professional and not me singing on the recording. Sorry the captions on the pictures are so small. I didn't realize that the video window would be so tiny.

What's Been Happening

Wow, I have been really slacking a lot lately in the blog department. To be honest, I have been really busy, but I haven't really known what to blog about. Last weekend we had our Easter musical at church. It is called The Day He Wore My Crown, but we add a lot of drama and a few extra songs to put our own spin on it. The actual musical itself is about 25 years old and the church has been doing it for a number of years, so they try and change up some of the songs and the scenes each year to keep it fresh. I had the great honor and priviledge of singing the solo on the title song. I wish I had some video of the program to share, but because of copywright laws, I don't have a video, so I will just have to share some pictures when I get them.

I have been doing a lot of scrapbooking lately. For a long time now I have been wanting a die cutting machine called a Wishblade. I finally got one off of eBay and have been playing around with it a lot. I LOVE IT! I went to a Creative Memories workshop last night and had a great time. I have continued my scrapbooking all day today. I know that Daniel thinks he has lost me to my Wishblade, but I am going to get my money's worth out of it. I have already made a lot of cute pages with it. I am currently working on Thanksgiving 2007. My goal is to get to Taylor's 1st birthday before the baby comes. Hopefully I will be able to do that.

Tomorrow we have a special service planned for Palm Sunday. ALL of the children are singing in the service and there is a special luncheon and Easter egg hunt afterwards. I have been so busy that I forgot to wash Taylor's dress. I guess she'll just have to wear a different one. Her Easter basket matched it perfectly too. Oh well.

The First Day of Spring

Today is the first day of spring and it has been a glorious day. Daniel came home early from work, so he decided to get some much needed yard work done. I say much needed because it has been bothering him for a while now and we have been out of town so much that he hasn't had time to get out in the yard and work. He loves getting outside and doing yard work. This afternoon he did some digging in our flower beds out front. On one side of the flower bed in particular we tend to get an exhorbitant amount of weeds. He also wanted to dig down into the beds a little bit to make it deeper for mulching purposes. Patsy sent me some beautiful hibiscus plants from QVC for an early birthday present that Daniel is going to hopefully plant for me tomorrow. They just came in yesterday. They don't look like much right now, but they should start growing soon after we get them in the ground. One of them can grow to be as tall as 6'. The shortest one is 3' and the others are about 4 1/2 '. I can't wait until we get them in and they start blooming. The blooms are about 12" in diameter. Bud is going to come over tomorrow morning to help Daniel in the yard. We have a massive mess of azaleas that have overgrown in the backyard and Daniel wants to get that cleaned up. Who knows what else is growing in that mess.

While Daniel was working in the flower bed this afternoon I thought it would be nice to take Taylor outside and us just enjoy the beautiful weather that we are having. At first she wanted attention from her daddy, but then she just started running around and playing. At one point she was digging in a little hole in the driveway. She sat there for at least 30 minutes digging with her stick.

Taylor has become quite independent and does not mind very easily, especially when we tell her to come. She had ventured down to the shed and would not come out when I called her. I was afraid that she would get into something that could harm her. She continued to talk back to me, so I spanked her bottom. I carried her back up to the driveway and she went straight to Daniel. I explained to her what she did that was wrong and that she needed to obey Mommy and not talk back to me. We made her apologize and then I got a kiss from her. A few moments later Taylor was playing with a broom and was hitting one of the bushes with the end of it. This would not have been a big deal, but Daniel had previously seen wasps in the bush and was afraid that there might still be some in there. At first Taylor said "NO!", but then she did the funniest thing. She gave herself a spanking and said, "Obey." We cracked up laughing, which, in turn, made Taylor laugh. We told her that was right, that she did need to obey. Maybe we are getting through to her afterall.

After all this I went inside to start dinner. When I came back out I found Taylor digging in the dirt in the flower bed, but this time she didn't have a stick. She was grabbing dirt with her fingers and eating it. I wish I had gotten a picture of this, but I didn't have my camera handy and all I could think about was getting her cleaned up and giving her something to drink to wash all that dirt out of her mouth. YUCK! The crazy things kids do.

Taylor's Musings

I may have mentioned before that Taylor has gotten good at saying "no" but doesn't say "yes" much. Well. recently she has started saying "okay". Sometimes she will talk to herself and say something like this: "Listen to Praise Praise? Okay, listen to Praise Praise." Today I was getting her a snack. First she asked for cheese, so I gave her some string cheese. She asked for more cheese, so I asked her if she wanted fruit treats. After that she wanted more fruit treats. It was getting close to dinner time, so I didn't want her to eat too much. I asked her if she wanted Cheerios and she said "no", then I asked if she wanted gold fish and she said "okay" in the sweetest little voice.

We got Taylor a new Praise Baby DVD for our trip to Greensboro. She has already been learning the songs on it and have been singing along with the video. There is an arrangement of All Night, All Day and Jesus Loves Me on there. I had already been teaching Taylor Jesus Loves Me but she has already picked up on the other part too. She amazes me how quickly she learns. One of her favorite songs is Holy, Holy, Holy. She knows most of the words to the first verse and it is so cute to hear her reciting it. She can sing the whole first half of the first verse on her own without my help. She might miss a few words here and there, but she gets the gist of it.

Taylor has also learned to count to 10. Lately she likes to just say 8-9-10. One time I was trying to get her to count 1-2-3 and she said 8-9-10 instead.

Yesterday she said "why" for the first time. She likes to stick all her fingers in her mouth and sometimes comes close to gagging herself. I am not sure why she is still doing this. I don't know if she is still having reflux problems or if she just thinks it is fun. When I told her to take her fist out of her mouth she asked "why". It surprised me at first because she had never done that before.

A couple of weeks ago we were in Albany shopping and decided to take Taylor into the pet store to run around a little. There were some chihuaha puppies and she looked straight at them and exclaimed "pig!" We laughed so hard before we finally told her that they were puppies and not pigs.

Although Taylor's speech is getting clearer and clearer there are still times that I have a hard time understanding what she is saying. Every once in a while I will have a breakthrough and figure out what she is saying. It is fun to see her learning and growing though.

Grandma's Funeral

This weekend was Grandma's funeral. I don't know why, but I have not been that emotional about it. It's not that I didn't love my grandmother because I loved her very much. Perhaps the older I have gotten, the easier it has been for me to deal with death. Perhaps it hasn't really hit me that she is gone. Although she went down quickly, it was harder to see her in the state that she was in than to let her go. She is in Heaven now with a glorified body and none of the pain that she had here on Earth.

We drove up to Chattanooga on Thursday night after Daniel got off work and spent the night at my parents' house. We decided to go there first instead of driving straight to Huntsville because there is no easy way to get to Huntsville from Americus and we would have been driving all night. It is about a 7 hour drive, but you have to understand that with a toddler and a pregnant woman in the car we have to make stops every 2 hours at least for potty breaks and time to stretch our legs. The next morning we decided to hang around for a while and let Taylor get a nap before heading on down to Huntsville. We figured that we would have plenty of time to get to visitation because they were on Central Time. We had breakfast at Chick-fil-A and then took Taylor over to the play area at the mall to expel some energy. While at the mall we took her to one of those walk-in beauty shops to get her hair trimmed. By the time we had lunch and got back to the house to get Taylor down for a nap it was after 1:00. We had planned to leave around 3:00 our time, but it ended up being closer to 3:30. We still had to eat supper and get checked into our hotel room and changed before going to the visitation. I was not going to be rushed and get flustered. I knew that we would be late, but we ended up being almost an hour late. I felt bad about it, but not many of the people coming for visitation knew us anyway. The visitation was from 7:00 - 9:00 our time and we had thought about leaving early to get Taylor to bed, but we decided that we'd better stay the whole time since we were late. It wasn't going to hurt Taylor to be up late this one time.

I never know how Taylor is going to be around a lot of people she doesn't know. She could either be really shy and clingy or she could be wild and running all over the place. When we finally got to the funeral home (we had to call for directions because our GPS wouldn't find it) Taylor was a little clingy at first. She went to Grandmommy (my mother) immediately. She held her a while and showed her off. Taylor also sat in my Grandpa's lap for a little while. I was glad that she did that. He really gets a lot of enjoyment out of the great-grandkids. After Taylor warmed up and more people started leaving Taylor acted as if she had free reign of the place and started running around everywhere. I couldn't keep her contained. My sister's family had already left, so Taylor was the only little one there. She followed me into the bathroom and after that it was as if she had discovered a new play area in the hallway and the lobby. There weren't that many people there by this point, so I didn't try to stop her. I pretty much just tried to keep an eye on her so she wouldn't get hurt or run out the door.

I was really impressed with how friends came all the way down from Chattanooga to support my family. My parents' Sunday school teacher came to the visitation. He prayed with them and while they were praying Taylor came and stood right in front of them and looked up waiting for them to notice her. She then sat down in front of them still looking up at them the whole time. I wish that I had gotten a picture of it. It was almost as if she wanted to pray with them. The pastor who married Daniel and me came to the funeral with his wife. That really meant a lot to see them there.

Once visitation was over we were going to just go back to the hotel room and go to bed, but Daniel was concerned that Taylor was too wound up and wouldn't go to sleep. (We had never stayed in a hotel room with her before, so we weren't sure how she would do with us in the room. We have slept in the same room, but we would always leave the room while she went to sleep and then sneak back in later). We decided to go to Grandpa's house and visit with the rest of the family for a while before going back to our room. I was glad that we did. It gave me some time to be with my family. We don't get to see each other as often since we are spread further apart now. At one point we all ended up in the living room in kind of a circle and Taylor was in the middle of the floor - the center of attention. She was doing sign language and singing songs for everyone. She LOVED all the attention. I think she is going to be a lot like me in the fact that we are both shy around people we don't know well, but once we feel comfortable we really like being around people. I am not one who likes the center of attention though. I do think she gets her energy from being around other people and I am the same way.

The funeral service was on Saturday morning. As we were getting ready I was already regretting letting Taylor stay up so late the night before. It was almost midnight our time by the time we got settled in bed. Taylor did sleep a little later than usual, but every little thing would set her off and I was afraid that she would be grumpy the whole day. My only hope was that she would let me hold her during the service and she would cuddle. Well, I was completely wrong. As soon as we got there around the rest of the family she perked right up. It was like she went into performance mode again. She was happy and running around everywhere.

The service itself was quite formal and suited Grandma very well. She was a very educated and intelligent person and enjoyed trained musicians. My grandparents had just started attending a Methodist church closer to home, and Grandpa loved the Music Minister's voice, so he asked him to sing. Chris has a beautifully trained baritone voice. I was a little bit disappointed that Grandpa hadn't asked my sister and me to sing, but it was for the best because I got sick on the way up and wouldn't have been able to sing a note. The funeral was held in the chapel at the funeral home. The family was kind of backstage behind a wall where no one could see us. This was nice because I knew that we wouldn't be able to keep the kids still. Alicia and Darrin's kids did pretty well. All the kids made a little noise, but that is to be expected of small children. Rebekah did start to walk toward the stage at one point, but I caught her and told her to come back to her seat. She looked a little bit upset, but at least she complied. I didn't get much out of the service because I was so worried about keeping Taylor quiet. Toward the end of the service I was trying to get her to whisper and she did right the opposite. The preacher was praying, so Daniel scooped her up and took her out through the flower room which was also backstage. At the end of the funeral, they closed the curtain and the family walked out the stage door to the hearse. Daniel was already outside with Taylor. I had Daniel's keys and Taylor's shoes in the diaper bag, so Daniel had to put Taylor in my parents' van (which just happened to be unlocked) because she was wanting to get down and walk in the rain in her tights.

Grandma was buried in a crypt on the outside wall of the masoleum. I don't know how many of you have ever been to an internment service at a masoleum before, but it is pretty nice. I assume that most masoleums are pretty similar, but this one had a little place in the middle like a chapel with pews. Since it is made of stone, everything echoed in there. This part of the service was fairly short. If my memory serves me correctly, Chris opened with a hymn, the preacher shared a few words, and then Chris closed with Blessed Assurance. This was probably the most memorable part of the entire day for me. When the preacher prayed and started speaking, Joshua yelled out, "AMEN!!" It was so cute and timely. As Chris was singing Blessed Assurance I wanted to sing along, so I just mouthed the words. Taylor must have been watching me because she starting singing along. The longer the song went the louder she got. It seemed like at the end she was singing at the top of her lungs. I couldn't help but laugh. Everyone thought it was so cute. I don't know how Chris kept his composure. He has small children though, so he knows how they are.

After Grandma was buried we all met back at Grandpa's house for lunch. We had a nice time together as a family until we all went our separate ways. Daniel and I went back to my parents' house in Chattanooga to spend the night again. Taylor was afraid that we were leaving Grandmommy and Granddaddy for good, so we let her ride with them. I was so surprised when they told me that she slept almost the whole way home - and that is a 2 hour ride. She needed the sleep since we kept her up so late the night before. On Sunday after lunch we came home. Taylor did pretty well for most of the trip. I can't complain. She does a whole lot better in the car than she used to. God has really answered prayer in that respect. I think we all pretty much crashed when we got in. Daniel and I are still recovering from all of the traveling. It has worn us out. We are glad to be home though and are not planning to go anywhere for a long time. Now it's time to concentrate on The Day He Wore My Crown - our Easter musical.

If you are interested, my sister posted my Grandmother's obituary on her blog.