Quartet practice, Ladies’ brunch, and a trip to SDC (May 2, 2009)

As you can tell by the title of this post, Saturday was a very busy day!

 

We woke up and I started getting ready for quartet practice. Noah (our high tenor) wanted to record some demos as well, so I set my computer up along with our equipment. He's planning on sending the demos to Gold City since their in the process of looking for a high tenor with the departure of Steve Ladd earlier in the week.

 

Lydia got ready for the Ladies' brunch being held at our church for mothers and daughters. Mysia got to go with her, and got to participate in a little program. She was supposed to be a flower, but since I haven't got a chance to view the video, I'm not sure of what all it was about. Perhaps I can get Lydia to do a post on it!

 

While Lydia and Mysia were gone, the guys came over for practice. Noah arrived first and we immediately got him started on the recording of the demos. I tried to keep Malachi quiet and occupied… not an easy task!!! I ended up putting "Emperor's New Groove" in the dvd player in the other room it hopes it would be a temporary babysitter. It worked for 15 minutes. Greg and his son Jacob showed up not too long afterwards, and that got Malachi's attention.

 

It took a while for Sam to show up, so Noah got a good chance of recording several songs through. I kept the computer recording when we started our practice. The plan was to run through our program for Sunday evening. And we did a pretty good job, time wise! There were a few rough edges on a few of the songs we had to work on, so we spent the next few hours doing that! I'm not sure we were completely satisfied, but it was very good practice over all!

 

I worked on Noah's demos, setting them up in mp3 format for him to be able to email. Lydia and Mysia showed up, and reported how well it went. At that time, it was past lunch, and poor Malachi was getting tired and was hungry. Well… so was I, so I made us some sandwiches.

 

When the guys finally left, Lydia and I slowly started getting ready to leave. We had planned to go to Silver Dollar City because it was the last weekend for the WorldFest, a festival showcasing many of the countries around the world. When we finally left, it was already after 2pm!

 

The kids both napped during the hour-long drive up there. The weather wasn't really the best, but we didn't care! We went ahead and loaded the kids in the double stroller and headed into the park! After the restrooms our first destination was to see one of the shows. We ended ups seeing half of an outdoor show before heading off to see one of the grander shows. The outdoor show was a Mexican whip-cracking demonstration and other feats of wonder! It was neat, and the kids enjoyed it!

We then saw the Feet of Fire, an Irish dance show that featured a full band, a stand-up comic, a harp player, a female vocalist, ladies dancing duet with fire, and a whole group of dancers! It was quite a show! Both kids did well, but wanted to be held back and forth, so I didn't get any pictures or anything.

 

After the show, we went to kiddy rides. I took Mysia and Malachi on the flying butterflies (like the flying elephants, but for little kids). Mysia rode all by herself, and I sat behind Malachi in another butterfly. He didn't like that at first… he wanted to be right with me. He was a little afraid, but that didn't last long!

 

We got off that ride, and headed over to the Frogs… Malachi didn't want to ride, he was satisfied to sit in the stroller (another surprise!). Mysia, however, rode it twice in a row!

 

We were about ready to leave, and Mysia asked to ride the Tea Cups. Lydia gets motion sickness easily, so I got to take her! I'm not complaining, just explaining!

 

Anyway, when we finally got home, we were all tired and ready for bed! It had been a long day!

~Matt

Let this blog continue!

Howdy everyone!

Matt here!

Just so you know, I'm now going to try to post on here regularly, now that I'm moving all my updates and posts here! I used to post on yahoo 360, but the site has frustrated me enough to cause me to stop posting!

Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy reading my family updates, rambles, and rants!! I'm going to try to post here at least 3 times a week! Perhaps I'll get Lydia to once again post something on here from time to time!

Oh yeah... before I forget, if you want to keep updated on what's going on in our lives on a constant day-to-day basis, check us out on facebook! All photos and videos are updated regualary there, and don't forget our constant status updates!!!

~Matt

3 Christmases and a New Year!!!

Well, if you haven't figured it out already, we have been very busy over the last several weeks. We celebrated Christmas 3 times... Christmas Eve we slept in, a little, the kids internal alarm clocks don't turn off very easily. When we got up we had the kids come into our room and we read the Christmas story, then we went into the living room where the kids got their first look at their presents, Malachi got a big boy bed and Matt had set it up the night before. Malachi enjoyed climbing all over it while Mysia opened her present from Mommy and Daddy, it was an educational computer game. Can you tell that we were a little bit practical in our gifts this year? Then Matt and I opened our gifts, I got a camera and Matt got a Remote Control All Terrain Vehicle, we had both been wanting these items and spent the rest of the day playing with our new "toys". The kids also got each other gifts, Mysia got a doll, that she absolutely loved, from bubby and Malachi got a pair of remote control cars from Sissy. That evening we went to our church's candle light service, it was very nice, a good reminder of why we celebrate Christmas, that it's not just about the gifts but it is about the greatest gift of all - eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
On Christmas Day, we went to have Christmas with the Paasches. Ben and Ana were down, for the last time before little Elijah is born, and it was great to get to visit with them. We all got a lot of cool presents and also had fun playing "Dirty Santa" everyone had gotten a $5 gift that would be nice for anyone and we drew numbers to see who went first, then we went in order and picked a present, we un-wrapped the gift and then the next person got to choose ifthey wanted to pick a diferent gift or steal that one, it was alot of fun!
Friday we stayed at home and did a whole lot of nothing!
Saturday, we celebrated Christmas with the Keim side of the family and had alot of fun there as well.
New years eve we went to church for the first half of the service the kids were getting tired so we left early, I fell asleep about 11:40 Matt stayed up and saw the new year in alone!
On New Years Day we had the members of Steppin' Out Quartet and thier families over, Greg and his family were out of town, but everyone else came, that would be Noah Lyons and his family and Sam and the Paasches, Noah and his family left a little early, Noah had to meet with a detective about recovering some of the stuff that had been stolen form his house earlier that week and his family had soem things that they needed to get done in preperation for leaving for the mission field in a few days. Garry and Vicki left for the mall to do some shopping soon after, leaving Sam and Abigail with us, we played dominos and Matt's new card game Morff with them and had a lot of fun just hanging out. That pretty much is what we've been up to for the last week or so. Taxseason has started and I'm working for Block again this year so I anticipate being very busy over the next several weeks/months. But I'll try to keep things up to date!
Till then
~Lydia

Thanksgiving Weekend!

Holidays are always very busy time for our family, so a couple of years ago Matt and I made a decision to split up the holidays between our families in order to cut down on our travel time and make them a little more relaxed for us as well. So we spend Thanksgiving with my mom's extended family, and since Matt's brother Ben got married last year, we have spent Saturday with his family, Friday is our day, we set up decorations and enjoy some time together as a family. Then on Christmas it's usually reversed and we spend Christmas with Matt's Family and on New Years we celebrate Christmas with my family.
This year was no different, at least to start with, Thursday we went to Aunt Sharon's and had a good time visiting and playing with all the cousins who were able to come, it was especially nice to met my cousin Jeremy's fiance' Elizabeth, they will be getting married in January, in South Carolina so it was nice to get to see them since we won't be able to make it down there for the wedding. My cousin Jacinda and Joshua were also there from out of state and it was nice to see and visit with them. And even those that live here in the area, Thanksgiving is one of the few times a year we manage to get together so it was really nice to see everyone and catch up on what everyone is doing now.
Friday, shopping day, well actually we started Thursday as some of the stores had thier Friday specials online on Thursday, so there was only a couple of stores that we actually needed to go to to get a few items but those items were good enough deals that we set our alarms for 4am and (after sleeping through them) got up, grabbed the kids and rushed to the store. Unfortunatly we weren't early enough and missed out on some of the good buys... I really wanted to get some of those sheet sets but they were already out when I got there at 5:30 (they went on sale at 5)! But we were still able to get some good deals and Mysia was excited cause she got to go to the store in her jammies. When we got home I went and donated Plasma which took about 2 hrs. and Matt played with the kids and watched Rudolf and Frosty, when I got back I went online to order a few more items that had not gone onsale until Friday and we helped the kids decorate thier Trees for thier rooms. This year we got them the little (1-2 foot) Trees for thier rooms and pink and blue ornaments to put on them, we also got them some little clay ornaments which we put in our 24 days of Christmas calendar and they take turns getting a new ornament for thier tree each day. After that we ate lunch and put the kids down for a nap and Matt and I worked on getting the decorations up in the living room. That took most of the afternoon, Matt started working on the outdoor lights but discovered that half of the lights weren't working, so he gave up on that for the time being as I was needing to get ready to leave to go to a surprise shower that the girls were hoasting for Elizabeth, it was avery nice shower and she got many pretty gifts.
Saturday, unfortunately I had to work part of the day, with me only being avialable on Saturdays it makes it dificult to get hours, so I have to work when I'm asked to. I did limit my self to 2 o'clock though and that helped some. Ben and Ana came by shortly after I left for work and picked up Matt and the kids to take them to his parents house, they also got a bunch of stuff for Baby Elijah, stuff that Malachi has out grown, clothes, carseat, ect. After I got off work I joined them and we played games and celabrated Garry's Birthday (which was on Wednesday) untill about 6pm then Ben and Ana left to have Dinner with some friends and we headed out to the church to get the van before rushing over to my parents house for a quick supper and a couple of rounds of UNO, with my siblings and thier signifigant others, Adria's boyfriend Ivan was in town with his brother Tim, and Silas' girlfriend, Kristi joined us as well
It was a fun and busy weekend but we enjoyed every minute we got to spend with each of our families and look forward to getting together again at Christmas.
~Lydia

The Winds of Change

Well, it has come to our nation whether we wanted it or not, Change! and not for the better. It was heart wrenching to watch the speeches last night. As Obama made his acceptance speech I fell to my knees in Prayer and Tears for my country. For the first time in my life I am not proud to be an American, for the first time I questioned my ability to recite the pledge of allegiance. I listened in horror as thousands chanted "Yes, we can! Yes, we can!" I thought of the days ahead and wonder just what they would hold for me, my family and my children. The fervor of the crowd reminded me of the videos I have seen of Germany when Hitler rose to power, and quite frankly it scares me, I wonder how soon it will be before Christians will be hauled away for speaking out against Homosexuality, how long will it be before my children are ripped from my arms because I chose to teach them the truths of God's Word and educate them at home, how long before free speech disappears? I must remind myself that God is still in controle and no matter what happens He will take care of me and my loved ones. As I morn my country taking another big step in the wrong direction, I can only pray, "Lord Jesus come quickly!"
~Lydia

The Lamentaion of America

America, America what have you done?
You've turned your back on God's own Son
America, America what did you do?
You've turned your back on God, now He's turned his back on you?
America, America what have you become?
Once a christian Nation, now you follow the "rising sun"
Babies are abandoned and left alone to die,
No one to see the tears no one to hear them cry!
Men marrying men - a most unsightful thing
and all of this in the name of Change!
Let's tax the rich to feed the poor,
let's take and take and take some more!
We can all get along, we can all agree,
as long as you think like me!
America, America, oh, why did you not heed?
The messages of warnings that God gave to thee!