My little seedlings...

Yesterday was a beautiful day...and so I thought to myself "If I were a plant, I'd want to be outside today." So I put my little seedlings out in the driveway for some fresh air, breeze and sun. Two of them actually had a little mold on them -- and I knew the sunlight would take care of that.
The wind knocked them down.
The sun dried up the soil quickly.
They looked a little parched.

So I moved them back inside.
Krissy later said to me "I guess you just have to think of them as newborns...." Hmmmm.

The experimentation continues.

Bill's Favs!

Bill has now had time to listen thoroughly to his new Birthday Playlist on his IPOD. After some runs and a few grass-mowing sessions, here are the ones that he says he likes the best:

Lovely Day, Bill Withers
Viva la Vida, Coldplay
You Found Me, The Fray
All Will Be Well, Gabe Dixon Band
October Road, James Taylor
The Man Comes Around, Johnny Cash
Only Grace, Matthew West
I Am, Mark Schultz

Thanks again, friends. We both think it's so much more fun to use our IPODs now. And, if after reading Bill's Favs, you think of any others we could purchase; we're still chipping away at our credit in the ITunes store -- Suggest away!

And lastly: I've officially added Funeral (Band of Horses) and Disappear (Gabe Dixon) to Alli's Favs and I've also purchased the song "Ever After You" from the Gabe Dixon Band. Woo hoo Gabe.

Andrew in the Big Apple

We had such a blast. Andrew and Mommy took a weekend trip to go and visit my brother, Uncle John, in New York. He cleared his calendar, we got beautiful springtime weather and we hit the town with Andrew.

We went to Central Park, got ice cream, climbed rocks.

We took Andrew to a Thomas and Friends Live on Stage show. He loved it!

We just hung out with John and Matt. And even got to see Uncle Jim and Aunt Sheli. We rode LOTS of "underground trains." And even an occasional taxi. Andrew hailed his first cab.

We took Andrew to FAO Schwartz just to play! I love that it never even crossed his mind to ask for anything to be bought. And honestly -- the window with taxis going by was probably better anyway (pictured above).

We walked to Riverside Park, threw sticks (of course), hit the playground and saw where Captain Sully put the American Airlines jet down right in the water a few weeks ago.

Our trip brought rest to John, Matt and another friend, Joe. They said they'd never taken a walk in Central Park in 12 years in NYC. And it'd been a year since John had just sat down on his couch mid-day and watched some basketball. So -- REST was what we brought with us. And we gained knowledge of every mass transportation vehicle possible over 72 hours - Planes, mini-busses, cabs, trains, hired cars - you name it. That was Andrew's favorite part. My favorite part was just getting to spend some one-on-one time with Andrew and remind myself again what an amazing kid I have.

There's life!!!

I didn't really believe it! There are things growing. I guess I didn't really believe that anything would grow. I mean, it was just a seed and I have no idea what I'm doing. But - look! Things are growing. And it wasn't really me. I mean - I put them in the dirt and watered them, but really I have no idea why they're growing. Amazing, isn't it??!!

1 Corinthians 3 talks about this...check it out... "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor."

Turns out I don't need to know much to grow something. My work was to prepare and water, the growth was the easiest part! As a matter of fact, I don't even know how it happened. That reminds me of a comment my roommate made to me in college about studying business and how pointless it was (she may have been right!) but I said back to her - "well you're studying biology and it will happen whether you know about it or not!" I guess we were both right from certain angles.

I knew God was going to teach me through this garden and it's already started. How little faith I seem to have in Him that He can do His Job... that things will actually grow from seed, sun and water. And how slow I am to want to prepare. My obediance and effort just set the stage for God's Big Show - the growth. Awesome.

Now, seriously, I can't take these outside until late May -- what do I do now? Am I going to have to find them a bigger container?

We have all good things

Yesterday was a great moment for me to realize the Lord is fulfilling this in my life "Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts! We are filled with the good things of your house..." That is a quote from Psalm 65 and a promise from Jesus to me. He chose me. He brings me near to Him. He gives me good things that only He can give.

Yesterday was Easter. Some of those good things are: Him. My relationship with Him...his nearness to me, his voice, his presence in my life. That's the best stuff. Yesterday I also saw this in...

• all the children of my spiritual family (Mac, Bode, Honor, Mac, BabyValentine, Irene, Ezra, Tobias, Kate, BabyManuel, Hannah, Leah, Jeremiah, Andrew and Luke). These kids ARE the Lord's blessing in our lives. Wanna see where the Lord is blessing a community? Check out the kids.
• David Russell's cheesecake

• the amazing collection of women in my life (Kelly, Mary, Dora, Krissy, Lori, Kate)


• The fun of the egg hunt and kickball! (Krissy said "what is this nonsense about "kids-only?!")

We feasted...it was a great celebration of life. The life we have now. The life we will always have.

'Alli's Favs'

This is the name of the new playlist I created for my IPOD. We have a very small library of music. But it was fun looking through and picking out my favorites...just wanted to share them with you. I, too, was blessed by Bill's birthday gift of music from our friends. This list include a couple new ones. But the absolute best one is "All Will Be Well" Gabe Dixon Band. I would LOVE to play the piano underneath that tune. And wow...I could hit replay 10 times in a row on it.

Anyway - enjoy perusing my list and please please suggest new tunes for me to buy: we have about $18.00 of credit to splurge on some new tunes... any ideas based on this list? C'mon - my friends must be better than Genius.

All Will Be Well - Gabe Dixon Band
Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel
Come Ye Sinners - Todd Agnew
Daughters - John Mayer
First Cut is the Deepest - Sheryl Crow
The Good Life - Bruce Hornsby
I'll Always Be Right There - Bryan Adams (our wedding song!)
I'm Yours - Jason Mraz
Made to Love - TobyMac
Only Grace - Matthew West
Say - John Mayer
True Colors - Phil Collins
Undo - Rush of Fools
Viva la Vida - Coldplay
Waiting on the World to Change - John Mayer
When it was Over - Sara Groves
Where is the Love? - Black Eyed Peas

Bill's 35th Birthday!

Saturday was Bill's birthday. It was a great day. I was reminded of how great it is to have wonderful people in your life. Even Adam, the man who owns Big Apple Bagels, loves Bill. I stopped in to get his favorite breakfast sandwich and walked out without paying. Adam said "tell Bill I say Happy Birthday!" And he tried to give me free coffee too (but we'd already had enough!).
Our boys, of course, are favorite people of ours...the day wouldn't have been complete without Andrew singing lots of "Happy Birthday to Daddy." Here they are helping Daddy open presents at lunchtime. Among other things, I got him a new bathing suit and flip-flops for our upcoming Bahamas trip.And all our other favorite people (aka: our friends!) came over last night to celebrate together. They all went together to buy songs and update Bill's Ipod. We are musically illiterate...but thanks to our friends we are now up-to-date with new Play Lists and all. Steven really went the extra mile to completely organize our music library and create a new play list of all the new birthday songs. Awesome! Some favorite tunes of our friends include songs from: Gabe Dixon Band, John Mayer, Coldplay and Kanye (a DR fav!).

And the topper (and my personal favorite present to Bill) was his chocolate cake. This was made with LOTS of love... Happy Birthday, baby!

Food Chat

I've been doing some thinking about food lately - leftovers, gardens, RioGrande carry-out, family meal-planning, fasting, food for Bill's birthday party, kids meal ruts, the Last Supper... just lots of food thinkin'. So I'm interested in a couple things from (all?) you people that are reading this blog:

• What's the best kids meal that your toddlers like(d)?
• What's your favorite (Cincinnati!) place for cheap carry-out?
• What's a good thing to keep in the freezer?
• What's your best simple family meal?
• Do you ever do communion with your family? When? How?
• Is chocolate cake with chocolate icing just too much chocolate?
• Should I be doing anything yet for my garden? Germinating? Huh?
• What's your favorite homemade hot sandwich?

Ok - answer one or as many as you please. Just answer, people.