Vinyl banner giveaway winner

The winner of my giveaway for the vinyl banner is my friend Dannielle. Congratulations, Dannielle!

You Capture: Sky

Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I couldn't participate in last week's You Capture theme, Depth of Field, because I don't have a camera with those fancy features. But "Sky"? Oh, yes! I can do that. ;)

The sky over "Cindy's pool," where we went for our niece's birthday party. (I'm not sure exactly why she gets all the credit, but the kids always refer to it as "Cindy's pool." I'm sorry, Kerry!)

A rainy sky on the way back home...


A beautiful sunset at the ball field on Monday evening...


Our weekly trip to the library on Wednesday...


Followed by our weekly trip to ALDI...


And then the drive home, when the kids asked, "Why are you turning around?!" I tried to explain how I wanted to get this shot, but gave up and told them they really didn't have to understand; I just wanted to.


Continuing the drive home...


And heading out again for church...


Check out other You Capture entries at I Should Be Folding Laundry, and join in on the fun!

Women of Joy 2010 recap...Part One

I've said it before, but it's worth repeating...I don't know when I've laughed so hard. I was telling one of my friends that I had more fun on this last Women of Joy trip than I did on the first Women of Joy trip last year. The reason? Last year was the first time I had been away from my kids where I didn't wear a hospital gown and come back with a baby.

My husband's parting words that year? "Don't wear a hospital gown, and don't come back with a baby!"

So, yeah, last year I was nervous about being away from my kids, missing them, and, yes, missing my husband, too, of course...This year, I missed them a little and had a whole bunch more fun.

Friday afternoon we arrived in Charleston and checked into our hotel rooms


before meeting up with the rest of our group just in time for supper. From there, we headed over to the coliseum and found some seats.


Travis Cottrell led us in our time of worship.


And then it was time for Anita Renfroe...and time to laugh...and laugh...and laugh. Anita said that her two ministry goals were (1) to bring joy where there is none and (2) to ruin every song you've ever loved.

I think she accomplished that.

If you're not familiar with Anita Renfroe--or even if you are--check her out on YouTube at these links: The Mom Song (William Tell Overture), A (More Real) Love Story, You Raise Me Up, Big Ol' Sweet Iced Tea, Don't Breathe, and Wrinkled Ladies. She performed all of these plus more.

If you only watch one, you have to watch The Mom Song. She followed that one up with The Grandmother Song, which had a big intro and then, "Whatever you want." ;)

The next morning, Travis Cottrell told how he was sitting in the audience watching Anita perform on Saturday night, texting someone about what he was having to endure among a few thousand women and praying, "Lord, come quickly" as she sang You Raise Me Up. So, yes, you need to watch that one, too.

My favorite quotes from Anita:

• I read somewhere that a rocket burns up 80% of its energy just trying to break free from the earth's atmosphere...You moms out there know what that feels like as you were coming here.
• On being over 40: I call it 39.95 plus shipping and handling.
• Any day you try on swimsuits is a two Prozac day.
• Is anyone here from the North? (applause) Yeah, you hold onto that pride for just another minute. (Part of her intro to Big Ol' Sweet Iced Tea.)
• I figure nobody's rocked the ukulele in South Carolina in a day or two. (Another part of her intro to Big Ol' Sweet Iced Tea.)
• Take God seriously; don't take yourself seriously at all.

~~~~~

Saturday morning, Liz Curtis Higgs brought us more laughter.

My favorite quotes from Liz:

• I was chemically dependent for many years (on hair color, that is).
  
• Why color it when you can polish it. (Talking about silver hair.)
• Bless their hearts, they have a gap between their thighs. (Talking about skinny models.)
• You are God's definition of beautiful for you.
• Ta Da!
  
• When Howard Stern tells you that you need to clean up your life...(She didn't finish this sentence, but Liz used to work in radio with Howard Stern, and he actually told her she needed to clean up her life.)
  

More to come soon!

For those of you who went to Women of Joy, what did you take away from that weekend?

Wordless Wednesday: Worship

Worship, led by Travis Cottrell and his team, with a few thousand ladies in Charleston, S.C. during the recent Women of Joy conference...

My chains are gone--I've been set free!
My God, My Savior has ransomed me.

Visit 5 Minutes for Mom for more Wordless Wednesday participants.

~~~~~

Check out my giveaway for a customized 24x36 inch vinyl banner! This giveaway ends May 26th.

Overheard: Women of Joy (The Anonymous Edition)

So my friends won't hate me for posting this For the sake of anonymity, I have omitted my friends' names. For the sake of hilarity and to give you a tiny reference point, I have left my own name. There was a lot of laughter this weekend, y'all. I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard or laughed so often. And although some of this won't make much sense at all, I'm sharing it anyway for my Women of Joy bloggy friends. ;)

There were a total of 16 of us in our group. To simplify things (for me), I'm sticking to WOJ (Women of Joy) #1, #2, etc., as the names of my joyful buddies. And to simplify things (for me), the designation of #1, #2, etc., changes with each new item.

~~~~~

We stopped for lunch along the way and one person was a little slower than the rest when it came to eating...one of the ladies was, um, urging her to finish quickly....repeatedly. This was the tail-end of the heckling urging.

WOJ #1: You're still eating? Are you going to finish today or tomorrow?

Everyone stops talking and looks at WOJ #1.

WOJ #1: Why is everyone looking at me?

Me: To see what you'll say next!

For the record, WOJ #1 said she was just joking around with the slow eater.

~~~~~

WOJ #1 drifted off to sleep in the car and woke to find me handing the GPS back up front to our wonderful driver; she thought it was a camera in my hand...

WOJ #1: Did you take a picture of me sleeping?!

Me: No, but if I did, I still wouldn't tell you. ;)

I can't promise that there were no photos taken of sleeping people, but I didn't take any.

~~~~~

WOJ #1 [apologetically, to our waiter]: We're heavy drinkers.

This is what she was referring to, since there were three of us seated together who were drinking Diet Coke--not whatever you had in mind:


~~~~~

What happens in Charleston stays in Charleston.

Well...if you don't count this.

~~~~~

Posted on Facebook:


Steven Curtis Chapman and Michael W. Smith tonight! Can't wait!

Immediately followed by:

uuhh concert that is.

~~~~~

After the concert, we headed over to IHOP. Our trip to IHOP could be a post by itself...Keep in mind all of this happened around midnight and we were wired from the awesome concert and tired all at the same time. Plus, there was a parade of ants who had found the syrup stand on the table to be an excellent dining area, and laughter helped keep our minds off of this...

WOJ #1 laughed about something and snorted. WOJ #2 immediately laughed and snorted, except she snorted on purpose to get WOJ #1 to snort again. They kept laughing and snorting, and snorting and laughing, and I was laughing so hard I couldn't speak (but I was not joining in on the snorting).

WOJ #2 [trying to get me and the rest of our table to snort]: C'mon, snort! Try it! It's fun!

WOJ #2 is a trouble maker began rolling up all of our straw wrappers and tossing them over to the next table where the rest of our group was seated. This may or may not have resulted in more paper balls, as well as one coffee creamer, flying through IHOP.

WOJ #2 also tried to start "the wave" going in IHOP (see "troublemaker" remark above)...

WOJ #1: You're going to get kicked out of IHOP!

WOJ #2: Like it'll be the first time that's happened...

Not surprisingly, WOJ #2 also tossed wadded up pieces of toilet paper into the bathroom stall of another lady in our group in a separate incident. Once this was discovered, and it was discovered who was doing the tossing, the victim had a question:

WOJ #3: It is clean, isn't it?

~~~~~

WOJ #1: What's something fun we can talk about...? [Considers this for a moment, and immediately turns to me] Amy, are you gonna have any more babies?

Nothing like putting me on the spot, huh? I think she had just been wanting to ask the question and needed an opening!

~~~~~

A part two to this post will (hopefully) be coming soon. If you'd like to add anything about the trip...anonymously, of course...feel free to leave it in the comments! :)

~~~~~

Check out my giveaway for a 24x36 inch vinyl banner! This giveaway ends May 26th.

You Capture: Yellow

This week's theme for You Capture is Yellow. Yellow is not my specialty, so I thought I would ask Grace for some help. ;)

Yellow, through the eyes of an exuberant four year old girl, who says yellow is...

"Delicious!"

Honeysuckle.

"Gorgeous!"


And really fun to run through...



Check out other yellow entries at I Should Be Folding Laundry, and join in on the fun!

~~~~~

Check out my giveaway for a 24x36 inch vinyl banner! This giveaway ends May 26th.

Robert and his white Lamborghini

Presenting...

Robert's debut performance on his new guitar, the "white Lamborghini," which he helped buy on his birthday! He's playing a portion of Eddie Van Halen's guitar part in Michael Jackson's "Beat It."




(Please excuse the shakiness--I had 4 year old Grace climbing onto my lap as I was recording this.)

Please show him some Comment Love! :)