Heartbroken

I received an email last night from a childhood friend last night about someone that I have respected most of my life. Steven Curtis Chapman's music is the soundtrack of my Spirtual teenage years. I have always loved his music and I have such a deep respect for what he has done for the adoption community. I am so completely saddened for this family and my heart breaks for them. Will you please join me in prayer for this sweet family.

Here is the article from the Tennessean:
Steven Curtis Chapman’s youngest child died Wednesday evening after being struck by a car driven by her teenage brother in the driveway of the family’s Williamson County home.Maria, one of the Christian singer’s six children, was taken by LifeFlight to Vanderbilt Hospital, which confirmed the death, according to Laura McPherson, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Highway Patrol. The 5-year-old was hit by an SUV driven by her teenage brother, she said. Police did not give the driver’s name.The teen was driving a Toyota Land Cruiser down the driveway of the rural home at about 5:30 p.m. and several children were playing in the area, McPherson said. He did not see Maria in the driveway before the vehicle struck her, she said.“It appears to be a terrible accident,’’ McPherson said. No charges are expected, she said. The accident was witnessed by two other children; the entire family was home at the time, McPherson said.Singer/songwriter Chapman, who recently was inducted into Music City Walk of Fame, is one of contemporary Christian music’s most recognizable and most awarded names. He and his wife Mary Beth have long been supporters of international adoption, having brought three girls from China into their family. Maria was the youngest.The couple is so active in the cause that they formed an organization, Shaohannah’s Hope, to aid families wanting to adopt. With his latest music tour, which came through Nashville in November, Chapman started a campaign called “Change for Orphans”. He asked audience members at each stop to bring spare change to the concert, where it was counted and given to a local family to aid in their adoption process.“I don’t know of anybody who loves his children more than he does and is so committed to the adoption concept, and to lose one, no matter what the circumstances, is heartbreaking beyond all comprehension,” said John Styll, president of the Nashville-based Gospel Music Association.“He talks about his kids all the time. That’s his life. His kids are more important to him than music, that’s for sure.”The tragedy was announced during Wednesday-night services at Harpeth Hills Church of Christ, which the family attends. Maria had just graduated from the church preschool.And word spread throughout the tight-knit Christian music community on Wednesday evening.Styll got the news not long after Maria’s death.“I’m confident I can speak for everyone in the community to say we will do everything we can to support this family, as we would do at any time, but especially at a time like this,” he said.Most of the Chapman family was at Vanderbilt children’s hospital after the accident and could not be contacted. The long, gravel driveway leading to the home west of Franklin was blocked off by Williamson County sheriff’s deputies.

Compassion International

Well, even though I am out of school I seem to stay pretty busy!!! For Mother's Day Michael asked me what I wanted and I told him I wanted another child. He gulped thinking back to the day that he had the big snip snip. But then I calmed him down when I told him about Compassion International. So on Mother's Day morning we sat down as a family and sponsored a little boy by the name of Max Ferson. He lives in Haiti and is the same age as Zack. All of my information came in today and I am very excited!!!
I had heard about Compassion before but through one of the blogs I read (Boomama) I learned much more about it!!! All of these bloggers took a trip to Uganda and blogged about their experience in African visiting Compassion projects. It was amazing to see what they were experiencing. Go check out her story. It will make you laugh, cry and give you a better understading of what Compassion is all about.

p.s. I have some camping pictures coming soon...

Happy Mother's Day!!

To all of the Mothers out there...Happy Mother's Day!!!
I am enjoying mine!! Little of this, little of that, equals a great day!!!

I promise I am still here, I have been done with school since May 1st, and you would think I would have all of this time to post, but I just haven't!!! I have lots of fun stuff to blog about, so hopefully this week!!!

Enjoy the day!

One Month and Hangin' in there!!

Well, today marks four weeks since I started Weight Watchers and I am down 12 lbs.!!!! I feel good and it's not as hard as I thought it would be. I just have to be prepared!!!

On Fridays we like to order pizza and rent movies. So we ordered a pizza that was just for me. It was from Papa John's and it was the Thin Crust Garden Fresh. Each slice was only 5 points (Dinner is usually 10-12 points) and it was sooo good!!! That made me very happy that I can still join in on the family fun!!!!

Mommy/Carter Day is Back Baby!!!

So today is a Mommy/Carter day and I am so happy!!! This is a picture of what Carter likes to do when we are home...this is probably the third costume of the day!

I am at the end of my semester and things are really winding down. I finished my tutoring last week so today is a real day off!! I have officially finished two classes and I have two projects to turn in, one tomorrow and one Monday and then an exam next Thursday!!! I will be done on May 1st and don't go back until May 29th!!! I am very excited for the time off!!

This semester has been a little disappointing for me. I took five classes and only two of them were really worth my time and money. One class that I was excited to take was about Inclusive Education. I felt like this class would really be a good one, since I knew NOTHING about it! Well, I still don't!!! The professor was such a FLAKE! We never knew if anything was due. Rather than meet the two scheduled days she decided to only meet once a week. We had a presentation due yesterday but I noticed on Sunday that I already had a grade posted for it as did my other group members!! Yes, you read that right, I had a grade posted for something I had not done. We got 100%. So yesterday when we went to class we kept our heads low and she NEVER asked us to present!!! AAAHHH!!! Luckily, I had an awesome Reading class and Math class, so all is not lost.

Now on to summer semester...

WW Week 3

I am .2 away from 10 pounds!!!! Michael and I did our Taco Mac date night last night and I had chips and salsa (NO QUESO!!!), club sandwich with no bacon or cheese and steamed veggies and I only had ONE BEER!!! I only dipped into 2 of my weekly points! So far so good!!!!

Spring Break '08

I'd love to say that we had an awesome spring break, but it was not very exciting. Unfortunately for the boys it was not my spring break from KSU. Luckily for me, they really don't know that people go to all sorts of neat places on Spring Break! So here is how our week went:

Monday: I skipped class because the class is dumb and I'd rather be with my kids. So we hung out at the house and drove to Roswell to pick up my nephew Sam so that he could babysit the next day.

Tuesday: I was in class all day and Sam babysat the boys. This was his first time and he did great and of course the boys loved having their big cousin all to themselves. Then we drove back to Roswell to take Sam home and we spent some time with Josh and Aunt Molly!

Wednesday: No class for me! We went to Michael's office for lunch and met his boss. The boys were impressed with the toys in Michael's office. Then we came home and played on our n'hood playground with our friends Rory and Quinn.

Thursday: I am back in class and my friend Aileen (Rory and Quinn's mom) watched the boys. While there, Carter scratched Zack's eyeball and we spent the afternoon at the eye doctor. After that long day Aunt Muggy, Maggie and Matthew came over to watch a movie and keep Zack company so that me and Michael could go on a quick date and recover from the day.

Friday: Michael had the day off so we kicked around the house and went to look at some more wood flooring options. We rented movies and chilled out at home.

Saturday: Our friends the Newman's came from Warner Robins to spend the night. We were able to go to the Etowah Indian Mounds and that was really cool. We played outside and played the Wii!

Sunday: RECOVER and PREPARE for the week ahead!

So even though it was not terribly exciting, the boys had a good time and it did not cost me a trip to Disneyworld! That will be next year...