I'm a little overwhelmed with how my life has taken a turn for the better lately. My awesome husband bought me a computer (macbook, of course) and a cell phone! For so long I have felt so detached from everything, and now I suddenly have all this access into my OWN cyber/cellular world! How exciting!! Notice in the picture my cute pink phone (it was free, so its even cuter!). I found out Charis has the same one (in white). Sweet! That's cool. And, yes...that is my facebook page on the monitor. I finally have one. So come on...be my friend!!

Okay...so the coolest thing happened on Sunday!! We weren't able to meet at the school on Sunday night for church, so instead we had church at Brad and Becky's house. Becky and I were watching the kids inside, while Brad was teaching outside. There are a cute group of little kids whose families have been coming pretty regularly to our services. One little girl, Ava is a sweetheart! She loves Laney and Laney loves her! She needed to go potty, so I took her (and Laney followed) to the bathroom and she sat on the toilet and pee-pee'd. She and Laney were laughing back and forth and then Laney said "I paw-ee, I paw-ee." So, to appease her, I then sat Laney on the potty. To my surprise, SHE ACTUALLY WENT!! What?? I was so happy! We made a HUGE deal of it and she got a treat for going potty. Later that night...she went again on the toilet! And from then on, she has been going pee-pee in the potty. What a big girl! She stinkin' potty-trained herself. She even pooped in the potty today. To quote Jaye-day, "what the what?!?!" So, that's my cool story. I have the best daughter ever.

Here are some pictures from Hayden's birthday party. We played and ate hamburgers and cake at a park and then walked across the street to the beach to build sandcastles and swim in the water. Happy 4th Birthday, my SUPERHERO! I love you!!

Okay...it's been so long that I don't even know what to write. Really, so much has happened! But, if I were honest with myself, I don't think anyone even wants to read what I have to say, they just want to see pictures! So...HERE THEY ARE!!! (February until now!!)

Little Bit of This....Little Bit of That

We are gearing up for our launch day on Easter. Pretty exciting! Tomorrow, a guy from Portable Church is coming out to help us determine what we need for CrossChurch. They are the coolest! They supply everything you need to start a church...from the sound equipment to the staging and screens, welcome tables and signage, to everything you need for your children's ministry. Then, they create very organized portable units to store everything in and they deliver it all to you in a trailer with your church logo on it. How sweet is that?!? March will be quite the month! That's when all of our mission teams start coming. God is so good!

Yesterday, I stayed home and cleaned ALL day. I worked my butt off, but I rather enjoyed getting it done. I organized a ton. Living in my parents back house has been a blessing, but it really is too small back there for a family of four. We all share one closet, so needless to say, it needs organizing every now and then. I got rid of a bunch of the kids clothes that didn't really fit anymore to make room for all the ones we cant hang up (because there just isn't enough space). Laney is 18 months old and she is still in 12 months clothes. On Sunday I tried to get her to wear a little denim dress that is so cute...but it was too small! Her first 12 month outfit that she is too big for. My little girl is growing! And she is getting lots of teeth! She has 11 teeth and just yesterday three more popped through! She has a terrible diaper rash.

We had a breakthrough yesterday with Hayden...it was the first day he did not get his underwear wet! I know!?! He has had SO much trouble with this. He goes potty in the toilet good, but the problem has been that he doesn't realize he has to go until it's too late and his underwear is wet. So, we have been bribing him and it finally worked! He gets a new Hulk toy because he went all day without having to change his underwear.

We stayed up last night to watch the 10 million dollar cases Deal or No Deal. It was on from 9:30 - 11pm! SO long and she didn't even get the million dollars. What a waste of time.

Oh, here's big news...Scott auditioned to be on Jeopardy! I've been waiting for this day! He has all this useless knowledge...that boy has GOT to get on! He took the online test. Now we just wait and hope they call. (Only thing is, it could be anytime in the next 18 months....good grief!)

Becky's mom is coming into town today and tomorrow, the three of us are going to a taping of the Ellen show. Should be fun! Praying she gives away something good...

Okay...so I know I haven't blogged since the beginning of December. It sucks not having my own computer! I can't keep up with anything. Scott's computer is a pain because it doesn't accept my camera, so it is incredibly difficult and time consuming to get my pictures on my blog. I am SO behind! I'll catch you up quickly and then post pictures when I can.

DECEMBER 25, 2007 - Christmas - Was great! This was the first Christmas we have spent with my family in 6 years! (Actually on Christmas day) The kids of course raked in the gifts. Hayden got his first computer (actually, he got two computers! -- what do you expect, we live with Dave Pollard now) and he loves playing them. I love it too, because they are all learning games and it keeps him occupied other than watching movies all day long. By the second day he had mastered the mouse! He is so smart! I think Laney's favorite present was the baby stroller. She pushes that thing around all over the place. Sometimes she pushes her little baby around in it, but mostly she pushes around her blankie (or bee-bee, as she calls it).

January 15, 2008 - My Birthday - What a hoot! I went to Hollywood for two days with Becky. She took me to the Dr. Phil show and the Price is Right. What can I say...it didn't all go the way we had planned. We made a lot of memories, some I think we both hope to forget. We arrived Monday night (Jan 14th) late. Our hotel was really nice...and really inexpensive for the location - we started off pretty good and super excited about the two days of fun we had ahead of us!...That is, until Tuesday morning rolled around. We were up and parked in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (parking for Dr. Phil) by 7 AM. We entered into the holding room where a woman was speaking to the audience about "saggy pants"...what? Could this possibly be the topic for the show? You have got to be kidding. Sadly, it was. We were supposed to be excited about talking about saggy pants. Woo hoo...?!? When we got in the studio, they separated Becky and I. They took me down to an empty seat and told me they were going to shuffle me around throughout the taping. They didn't end up doing that, but they did take me out before the show was over, so I missed the end. Just in case you were wondering, the show aired yesterday. I'm SO SORRY if you missed it...! (That was cyber-sarcasm, in case you couldn’t tell.)

After the show, we tried to get into the second taping, but it was full. For the next large portion of the day, we drove around looking for a hotel room for the second night (because our hotel the night before was sold out). I'll spare you most of those details except to say that "Hollywood" is not the beautiful place you think it is. When you walk into a hotel that looks creepy and still costs over $100/night and ask the Indian man behind the counter if it is safe and he, in broken english says, "I have been here for 27 years and I'm still alive...that is the best answer I can give you,"...lets just say, we would have rather slept in our car. We finally found a hotel where we felt reasonably safe and that was affordable. The rest of the day, we drove around and shopped in stores where scarves cost you $7,000 (Fred Segal). We hoped to get a glimpse of someone famous, but no such luck. On to bed...to rest up for a better, more exciting day on the Price is Right!

January 16, 2008 – We arrived at the CBS studios at 6:30 AM ready to "COME ON DOWN!" When you arrive, you receive an “order of arrival number” and we were pretty high up on the list, so we were excited! We had to be back by 8AM to get in line. We kept asking people around us if they had been there before, hoping to find someone who would know what we were in for…but to our surprise, everyone we talked to was there for the first time, just like us. We soon figured out why. We had to wait in the cold, on cold hard benches until 3PM – for 7 HOURS! And, mind you, the whole time we had to remain in numerical order. We were stuck on the end of the bench next to this old guy who told me he liked it when I “vibrated” (because of the cold, my leg kept shaking). Every so often, they would come by and move us from one bench to another, but only to wait for several more hours. The worst part about all of this is you don’t know what’s happening next, so you have no idea how much longer you have to wait, and you don’t want to give up and leave because you have already spent ALL this time waiting! After we got our name tags, they lined us up for the audition process. We finally got through that and made it into the studio, only to be sat in the WORST seats possible. We were behind the production table, so we were pretty much blocked from seeing the stage or Drew Carey. We had to look up at the tiny screen above us the whole time, so our necks hurt terribly by the time it was over. At the end of the taping, they offered to have anyone stay for the second taping because they had plenty of extra seats. We were in no mood to stay for another taping, we just wanted out of there. The only good part about it was Drew…he really was a great host! If in like 10 years we ever forget how terrible this was and decide we want to go back again, we did figure out what we need to do to have a little bit better experience the next time.

The best part of this day was going to Sprinkles. It is a little cupcake shop that we learned about on Oprah. They have GREAT cupcakes. We got a box of them to take home. My favorite was the chocolate coconut…yum, yum!!

Becky, I love you and thank you for taking me to Hollywood for my birthday! Even though it didn’t go as well as we would have liked it to, I can’t imagine anyone else I would have rather shared those days with. I really did have fun making those memories with you (many of which I did not mention here…) I look forward to our next road trip together! Love you, girl!!

Going, Going...GONE

Once upon a time Brad Graves had hair. He loved his hair and struggled with whether or not to part with it (though his wife and friends told him it was a good idea). Then one night, after much nagging from those surrounding him, he decided to seek the wisdom of the Lord and asked God to show him what he should do about his precious hair. He randomly opened his Bible and before him was Micah 1:16, "Go make yourself bald and cut off all your hair..." And he did. The End.