Music Makes Your Heart Sing

One of the things that both of our girls enjoy is music. You will hear them singing, composing, playing and listening to music at some point during each and every single day. I love hearing their sweet little voices belt out familiar tunes as well as spur of the moment melodies they sing as they happily go about the day. Emma-Caroline enjoys singing in our church's children's choir and both girls love their music classes at school with Mrs. Parker. On Tuesday, I was invited to chaperone Emma-Caroline's class field trip to the Knoxville Symphony at the Tennessee Theater. I was thrilled to go and hear the orchestra play in one of my favorite venues. I snapped a few iPhone photos to document our day. It was a wonderful trip with my favorite little second grader!

February Celebrations

With the arrival of Miss February 2013, we have been busy attending many parties and events that our dear sweet month has planned for us to do. February is such a short little month that it seems everyday is jam packed with one wonderful thing to do after the other. This past week, we attended our church's annual Mardi Gras Celebration which was also a fundraiser for the annual mission trip to Bolivia. The very next day was Ash Wednesday of course marking the beginning of Lent (more on Lent to come.)

Valentine's Day followed the next day and also was our dog Lucy's 17th birthday!

 

We celebrated our dear wonder dog in grand style with a doggie birthday cake for our fur babies and chocolate cupcakes for us.

It's a good thing sweets are not what I gave up for Lent or I may have felt a little uncelebratory in not being able to eat a cupcake :-)!

Lucy couldn't wait for to eat her birthday cake so the girls rushed out of the bath in order to sing happy birthday!

The girls enjoyed heart shaped doughnuts on their way to school on Valentine's Day morning.

And we all received lots of cards, gifts and flowers to celebrate the day of love.

Emma-Caroline put her sewing skills to good use and made an elephant squeekie toy for Macy as a Valentine's Day gift.

Macy preferred to play with her new toy instead of having her photo made!

We ended our week with a fun family outing to see Phineas and Ferb Live.

It was a great show and later we headed to our favorite restaurant, Tupelo Honey for a nice tasty dinner.

We did a little indoor window shopping at some of our favorite down town stores as we waited for a table for dinner.

The girls purchased two new "puppy dogs" to add to their collection and wanted to pose with them for a photo op.

We finally made it to Tupelo Honey for a wonderful meal together. While we were eating, it began to snow a beautiful heavy snow. It only lasted for a small bit, but it made it feel even cozier as we dined on some of favorites. Today we are enjoying an extended weekend in observance of President's Day. Although February is a short month, we have many more celebratory days ahead including Grandparents Day, a trip to the symphony and a sleepover birthday party. Miss February sure knows how to warm hearts and bring smiles even during the cold winter months!

The Greatest of These is Love!

         The month of February seemed to tip-toe in silently during the wee small hours of the evening. One day I was checking my calendar, watching January clinging to every last second of 2013, and the next thing I knew, February had already moved her sweet little self in and had hung heart covered curtains in the windows. How is it that time, that finite number of minutes, hours, days,  . . . can sometimes move so slow and other times pass us by in the blink of an eye?
          As February made her appearance, so too did a lesson on love arrive at my doorstep. Last week, I sat at my desk tapping away at the keys on my computer as I diligently composed the words that would make up the lesson plans for the the children's services on Sunday. The subject matter seemed fitting, 1 Corinthians 13, "Love is patient, love is kind . . .". After all, February is the month of love so discussing what love actually means is appropriate. I guess those who determined the order of the lectionary readings also found that placing 1 Corinthians 13 somewhere in February was appropriate also. The children were enthused in our discussion of love pointing out quickly all of the people that they naturally loved like mommy's and daddy's and their dogs and cats. They were more reticent to admit that they loved their brothers and sisters and somewhat surprised that they needed to love their siblings and friends even when they did something that was not to their liking.
         In almost every lesson that I teach, I find myself learning a lesson or two from the small yet very sage little friends sitting in front of me. This past Sunday's lesson on love was no exception as one child raised her hand and said, "I think love is hard. I mean when my little brother pulls my hair and messes up my room, I just really want to punch him real hard on the arm. But I don't do it." When I asked her why she didn't, this little student of mine simply said, "Well, because I would get in trouble and then I'd have to talk, like forever, with my mom and dad about how I am supposed to love my brother and all."  I always find that children  have such a wonderful way of getting down to the nitty gritty point of most things. And this little girl hit the nail on the head! The message of love is exactly the act of not punching your brother when he makes you angry. Love endures all.  It does not harbor ill will. And love is hard. It takes strength not to let the forceful emotion of anger or resentment or self gain to get in the way of love.
         In thinking over the response of my little student to what she perceived love to be, I wondered to myself if I show that much patience and strength to people that I am "supposed" to love. Do I always hold my tongue and not say something right back in defense of myself to a perceived wrong? Is the fact that there is not a parent there telling me that I should be patient and kind in spite of feeling wronged giving me false permission to not be patient and to defend myself in order to feel instant gratification in being righted of my wrongs? The more I pondered this idea, the more I painfully realized that I actually was less loving at times towards others than a child who showed restraint to getting even with her little brother's wrong doings. This little girl actually got it. Love indeed does endure all things. Love really is patient and kind.
         As  adults, we all experience different degrees of love for family, friends, and coworkers. What is somewhat ironic is the fact that as our degree of understanding of love has grown with our maturity as adults, our ability to practice the act of love is sometimes less than what we practiced as children. Thankfully, as Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 13: 13, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." The act of love as humans will always be difficult and uncomfortable at times; however, we know that through our faith and hope in God that we are strengthened in his love and in turn we are able to love others as he asks us to do. We can all take heart that Love indeed is the greatest gift we receive and that we can also bestow on one another.

Life Lessons Through the Game of Basketball

Sometimes in life, the going is not, well, always easy. I guess there is truth to that verse in that Billy Ocean song "when the going gets tough the tough gets going", or something like that. Anyway . . . for my oldest sweet girl, this lesson has been a hard little pill to swallow. Emma-Caroline has always been a quick study. Failure is not an acquaintance she has ever met, until recently when she entered the game of basketball.

 Now I am not saying my girl got out there on the basketball court and totally bombed. She did, however, find that she was challenged, and that's always a good thing in my book. Emma-Caroline is very analytical as well as systematic. She can visualize anything in her mind, assemble it and execute it almost perfectly every time. In reading and fine motor activities, Emma-Caroline never has had a problem. She excels in all academic subjects, art and could take a computer apart and put it back together again with great ease. In sports, however, Emma-Caroline quickly gets the game, but her gross motor abilities don't always want to cooperate.

 I will again say, she is not a clumsy lump as she plays any sport, but muscle memory takes much more time and patience on her part than she is sometimes willing to give.This has been true with all of the sports she has played from soccer to tennis to basketball. Each of her coaches has said that she knows the game and strategy very well, but she needs practice with getting her body to do what her mind knows it should do.This is where the life lessons come in to play. Midway into basketball this season, Emma-Caroline was ready to throw in the towel.

 We have had battles of wills in getting her out for practice and game days, reminding her of other sports that she loves, like tennis, where she now is excelling because she has practiced it over and over again.

 As the season with the Lady Hair Bows has progressed, Emma-Caroline has improved. Her wonderful coaches, Coach Bowman and Coach Sykes have taught her a lot of valuable skills in playing on a team as well has having perseverance and team spirit. They have encouraged her and cheered her on and we are very blessed that Emma-Caroline has had this opportunity to play basketball with all of her friends.

 Today is the last set of basketball games that Emma-Caroline will play as a Lady Hair Bow. Through her participation, she has learned that in life, things don't always come easy, but that with determination, patience and practice, you can achieve your goal and actually have fun in the process.