Alyssa's got talent

About three weeks ago Alyssa came home from school and asked me if she had any talents. I started telling her about all of the talents I thought that she had, and her face immediately lights up as she says, "I know, I jump rope" I tell her that's a great talent, and after we finish talking about talents, she throws a paper at me about the upcoming school talent show. She asked me if I thought that she could be in the talent show, and I tell her that of course she can. After she repeatedly says "really" over and over again, she decides that jump roping is indeed what she is going to do. For the several weeks leading up to the talent show, she practices and practices jump roping. She had three nights of talent show practice, and 1 night of rehearsal. Alyssa worked so hard on this, and I was so proud of her for wanting to do this all on her own. Anyone who knows Alyssa knows that she is painfully shy, and I knew that being in the school talent show would really help boost her confidence. You should also know that when Alyssa first picked up her jump rope, she could barely jump. She taught herself in three weeks how to jump rope backwards, how to jump rope on one foot, how to stop the jump rope, seriously I was impressed. There was absolutely no coercing from Kevin and I, she did this all on her own.

Last night was the talent show, and I got a little nervous as I thought about Alyssa entering onto the stage. I wondered if she would end up getting stage freight, if she would mess up, and wondered how she would hold up. All through dinner, she kept saying that she was so nervous. She practiced right before we left our house, and just kept stumbling. At our dinner prayer, I just prayed that she wouldn't be nervous when it was time for the actual performance, and that she would be able to concentrate on her jump roping. Well, let's just say that I was so pleased with her performance. I lost all composure as I watched my sweet, shy, not so little,girl perform like a super star. Her school has got some serious talent, the other performers were just as wonderful. What a great night.

Here is our jump roping video, hope you like it. I know that we do.

Dr. Oz

I love watching Dr. Oz, talk about one smart doctor. He knows about everything. In my case, he also knows about brain tumors. I was able to meet with him in person, and he reviewed all of my medical findings. He told me that my doctors here at Vanderbilt where missing a large piece of the puzzle, and what they thought wasn't cancerous tissue was in deed very cancerous. I was also to have a bone marrow transplant as soon as possible. Dr. Oz was so kind as to escort me out of the room where my husband stayed waiting for my return. I talked with a nurse for a few minutes and asked her how this could have turned cancerous when I was almost guaranteed that it would stay benign. I told her about how the tumor was aggressive, and could lead to things like blindness if it went untreated but I was never told about the cancer. As I went back to my room, Kevin was just in tears and he told me that he had known about the cancer all along. He just didn't want to make me worried.

So glad that this was only a DREAM, talk about giving some one a heart attack. Kevin always tells me that everything isn't a conspiracy theory. Maybe that's just my problem, I think everyone is out to get me including him.

I'm still praying for good results come this spring/summer with the radiation results. Keep your fingers crossed that I don't end up going to see Dr. Oz.

Frosty the snowman

Well you have heard me talk about our first snowfall of the year which only amounted to about 1/4 of a centimeter or so, hardly enough to make even a snowball. Then a greater surprise happened about two weeks later, we got more snow. This time we got about 4 inches which in Tennessee is a lot of snow. School was closed for 4 long days, and people were just going crazy about the snow. All of the kids around us were just enjoying the snow. We saw a lot of make shift sleds made out of laundry baskets, cardboard, swimming rings, and other stuff. It was pretty funny. It was even funnier watching our kids go outside to play and only wishing that we had snow gear for them. We don't have sleds, we don't have snowsuits, we don't have boots, and most importantly, we don't have a snow shovel. None of that even seemed to matter though, and the only thing our girls cared about was making a snowman.

With such a good snowfall the snowman making wasn't going to be a problem. Kevin ventured out with the girls, and the three of them made the perfect snowman. We snapped a few pictures of Frosty, and then everyone came back inside to warm up for a while. It wasn't but maybe 1o seconds later that we heard Kelsie screaming with her ever so pleasant scream about how there were some boys outside knocking over their snowman. Kevin literally was outside in the blink of an eye screaming at the top of his lungs, and informing the three little assailants outside ruining our precious snowman to get off of our property. They were riding on their dune buggy and said that it had spun out of control onto our lawn. Yeah whatever! Seeing the perfect trail that lead from the bottom of our driveway right to the snowman which was pretty close to our front door. I don't think so. Kevin pretty much scared the living daylights out of these boys. Over and over you just kept hearing the boys say, "we are sorry sir" Kevin was very forceful and repeatedly used the words "Get off of our property"! For some reason when the boys went to leave, their dumb little dune buggy got stuck. Without any sympathy, Kevin was counting for them to leave. As they were trying to push it out of the snow their bodies were seriously trembling. All the while, Kevin's counting down and telling them that the police are on the way over. I was watching from the door, and couldn't stop laughing. For starters, I had never seen Kevin raise his voice like that. Let's just say that I didn't know a voice like that could come out of such a small stature. Holy cow! Alyssa and Kelsie were crying hysterically, they said it was because they were scared of the way that Kevin was yelling. It didn't help either that their precious snowman was now just a pile of nothing. As the boys started running away without their dune buggy which was still on our grass, I told Kevin that maybe he could go and help the boys get their dune buggy unstuck. Very grudgingly, he went out and helped them. Basically the boys were told to never come back. I did see them riding their dune buggy later by our street. They turned around quickly as the were approaching our house. Just writing about the event doesn't even do justice. I wish that I had a video of it. It still is just making me laugh out loud. Frosty came back to life don't worry, this time he decided to be in the backyard instead of in the front yard. Nobody would bother him there.

On a funnier side note: A couple of hours after this all happened, Kelsie comes to me and asks what a jerk is? I start getting upset wondering who told her about jerks. She then says, "Mom when those boys were here breaking our snowman, you said to "get off of our lawn you little jerks." Whoops, just when you think they aren't listening, they really are!

The things you do for Love!

or out of desperation for a baby who has been crying non-stop for days suffering with an ear infection. Audrey did make us laugh though even though she had been being so cranky. I was so glad that I could capture this on video. It's way too funny not to share. Enjoy the video.