Yes, Another Post About Brooke Fraser…

Posted on 01.06.09 in General and there are 7 comments.

I have been playing this song over and over for days...sadly, I can’t find it on any of her albums or for sale anywhere.

Listen and enjoy.

My Girls

Posted on 01.06.09 in Family and there are 8 comments.

I’ve decided to be a little more laid back about pics of my kids.

So for those of you who haven’t seen them before, here are my girls.

The Small Person is on the left and The Smaller Person is on the right.

Aren’t they beautiful?

I Eat Snails

Posted on 01.05.09 in Family and there are 33 comments.

Jimmy’s family is very unique. They’re true Texans - they have a family ranch, they hunt, they build things.

But they’re also very French. Jimmy’s grandmother survived Nazi occupied France during WWII. Jimmy’s Grandpa was an American GI. They met, fell in love and moved to the States.

French culture runs deep in the family from the wine collections to the family trips to France to the snails we eat every holiday.

Yes, I said snails.

Every holiday they serve things that test my family loyalty. Pate....goat cheese. And things with antennae. Like escargot.

And every holiday I pretend I’m on the Amazing Race and I force myself to consume at least 1 of everything.

(Please note that my in laws ROCK and no one insists that I eat any of this. I just think it’s fun. Because I’m weird like that.)

So here is this years proof that I eat snails.

Your Turn

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?

Dancing In The New Year

Posted on 01.04.09 in Family Parenthood and there are 18 comments.

I hope everyone had a great holiday!

I am so excited about this year. I have great plans and dreams for it. You’ll see a few changes around here and a lot of exciting new stuff happening at the Bloggable Music Network over the coming weeks and months. So stay tuned!

But to properly ring in the New Year, here is a video of my son dancing (and doing some sort of beatboxing thing..). Maybe it’s just ‘cuz I’m his mom, but I think this is hilarious!

Blogging Break and Live Chats

Posted on 12.18.08 in Tech Stuff and there are 5 comments.

I’ll be taking a blogging break for the holiday.

I’ll still be Twittering and I may find my way to a Tokbox chat or two, but otherwise, I will be planning for the new year and hanging with the family.

Crazy Live Chat

It’s absolutely amazes me how incredible technology is. Last night I chatted face to face (via laptop) with some people I’d never met before. There’s a new site/service called Tokbox that allows anyone to embed a multiple user video chat on their site.

So, there I sat in my office garage (hence the toolbox behind me) talking to and laughing with Brody, Crystal, Los, Mark, Jason, Randy, Michael and several others. We mostly sat there staring at each other saying, “Wow. This is so cool.”

Then Brody and Randy had us take pictures of our fridges and post them on Flickr. Mark did the wave. Michael told us that Casting Crowns was on TNT and let us watch it on his TV.

Clearly a life changing time. Actually, someone did try to ask a deep question, but we were really way too enthralled with the cool new technology to, you know, do anything useful with it.

Of course, once Los Twittered the chat address, the room EXPLODED and it was pretty unusable. It can only handle about 10 people or so at a time. Fortunately, I left before the craziness began.

Anyway, be sure to follow my twitter feed and maybe we can all chat sometime. I’d love to see your faces and hear your voices!

Happy Holidays

Well, have a very Merry Christmas. I pray that you’ll have a wonderful holiday full of peace, rest, fun, joy and a deeper understanding of how desperately God loves you.

Til 2009.

-Kat

Contentment

Posted on 12.16.08 in Great Quotes Family and there are 4 comments.

“Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, it is the realization of how much you already have.”

-Unknown

Music Monday: No More Lame Kid’s Music!!!

Posted on 12.15.08 in Music Monday Music and there are 2 comments.

Today is Music Monday over at Bloggable Music Network. Be sure to check it out.

If you’re a parent, aunt, uncle, grandparent or anyone who has been subjected to the endless variety of horrible kids music, you are SO going to thank me for what I’m about to share with you.

A dear friend gave us a scripture memory cd for kids by a group called Seeds Music.

AND IT’S REALLY GOOD.

Shocking, I know. I mean, of course the lyrics are good - it’s the B-I-B-L-E - but most of the memory verse music I’ve heard has been pretty cheesy.

This is different. It’s really, really good. There are 4 other albums in the collection and I definitely plan on buying them.

Here’s the link to the Seeds Music website where you can listen to the music and buy the cd’s.

You’re welcome.

Well, That’s The Best Excuse I’ve Heard In….Ever

Posted on 12.12.08 in Family Parenthood and there are 15 comments.

A Recent Conversation With My Daughters

Me: “Go clean your room, girls.”

Daughter: “I can’t Mommy. I want to finish praying for these missionaries first. Ok?”

Me: “Um. Yeah. Well....sure thing.”

What?!

Who Are These Children and How Did I Get Them?

It was missions week at my daughter’s school. They had prayer cards for each of the missionaries and, apparently, my daughter collected one of each and now had them laid out on the floor all around her.

She was on her tummy with her chin in her hands, her mouth moving soundlessly as she looked at each card.

Soon enough her 4 year old sister joined her and after a brief argument about “who gets to pray for Nairobi first” they taped all the cards under the counter and spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the cards and praying for the missionaries.

Really. When I grow up, I want to be like my kids.

Our Turn

If you know a missionary, tell everyone about them in the comments so we can all pray for them today.

Retreat Your Way To Success: How To Take A Yearly Retreat

Posted on 12.09.08 in Faith Family Productivity and there are 11 comments.

I’ve already written about the importance of taking a Daily Retreat and a Weekly Retreat. Today I want to write about the Yearly Retreat.

Last year I took an amazing 3 day weekend retreat.

I think that the key reason I’ve had such a great year is the retreat that Jimmy sent me on in March. )It was amazing. Gorgeous weather. An adorable Bed and Breadfast. Historic Libraries to read in. And a Dave Barnes concert to top it all off.)

You can read about it here.

I had 2.5 days to relax, read, pray and plan. It revolutionized my year.

Why Take A Yearly Retreat

To Relax
There’s always something that needs to be done. It can be hard to make time to relax. On my retreat weekends, I intentionally take things slow. Last year, I spent the first night in my room with yummy takeout and enjoyed a fun movie.

It’s important to be productive, but it’s also important to relax.

To Recharge
If you’re a parent you know that a full night’s sleep is sometimes a luxury. Retreat weekends are a great time to go to bed early and try to catch up on some sleep.

To Get Direction
“Alice came to the fork in the road.
“Which road do I take?” she asked.
“Where do you want to go?” responded the Cheshire cat.
“I don’t know,” Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland”

To Plan
I think the main thing that most people lack is direction. We don’t set clear goals and therefore we don’t accomplish as much as we are capable of.

It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in the day to day tasks. But it’s like running on a hamster wheel unless we know that each task is leading us to a particular goal.

How To Take A Yearly Retreat

photo by lanuiop

1. Make It At Least 48 Hours
If at all possible, take at least 48 hours for your retreat.

You want to have enough time so that you don’t feel rushed.

2. Dedicate Day 1 To Offline Activities
The internet is wonderful

And very, very distracting.

It’s incredibly important to unplug, and just spend a day reading, praying and listening. God wants to teach us, but we need to turn off all the noise to hear Him.

3. Outline Your Agenda
Before you leave on your retreat, outline the things you want to pray about and plan.

3. Pray
When I went on my retreat this past year, I spent the first part of the day reading my Bible, praying and listening. It was so refreshing to not have to confine my time with God into a 30 minute time frame. I spent a lot of time asking Him questions, waiting for answers, reading and being inspired again by verses I’ve read a million times. Sometimes when we give truth space it can speak new things.

4. Plan
After I spent time praying and journaling the things I felt I needed to focus on for the next year, I spent the rest of the day planning.

I set goals for the year. Then I broke them down into monthly and weekly goals.

5. Have Fun
Make sure you don’t try to accomplish too much on your retreat. I really only spent a few hours “working.” My last night I walked down to a coffee shop and heard Dave Barnes and Andy Davis (two of my favorites) play a great concert.

Conclusion

We could spend our lives in the trenches - just taking the next task in front of us - reacting to life’s ups and downs.

Or we can decide where we want to go and forge a path to get there.

I hope you’ve been encourage by this series and will adopt at least one of the retreats (Daily, Weekly, Yearly) into your routine.

This has been one of the best and most successful years of my life and I think that this habit of retreating has played a key role.

Your Turn

What would your “dream retreat” be?

(This post is part of WFMW.)

It Starts Early

Posted on 12.09.08 in Parenthood and there are 8 comments.

My kids were watching Clifford yesterday. I looked over and saw my son chilling and clinging to....

....the remote.

It must be ingrained or something.

Music Monday: What’s In Your Player?

Posted on 12.08.08 in Music Monday Music and there are 11 comments.

Our family has been listening to Phil Wickham’s Singalong a LOT lately. It’s really such a great album. We’ve only interrupted it to listen to Christmas music.

Phil sings so passionately and it’s amazing how he can create such a full sound with only his guitar and his voice.

If you don’t own this, you really need to go download it. After all, it’s free.

This post is a part of Music Monday at the Bloggable Music Network. There’s also a new FREE song posted at the BMN site. Check it out.

Your Turn

What’s currently on your music player?

I Wouldn’t Have Believed This When I Was 6

Posted on 12.08.08 in Family Tech Stuff and there are 9 comments.

We’ve been video chatting a lot lately with my incredibly awesome sister-in-law (who may possibly be mad I posted her picture here, but hopefully won’t be because I called her incredibly awesome) and her equally incredibly awesome husband.

Now, I love technology as much as the next person.

(Ok. Fine.....M-O-R-E....than the next person.)

Anyway, I’m still pretty blown away that my daughter can read her school book (and show the pictures) to her aunt and uncle who live several states away!

Jimmy and I have even talked about planning a virtual date night with my sis and bro in law. We could cook the same dinner and try to come up with a game we could play via video chat. If you have any game ideas, let me know.

So, what’s something you do now that you wouldn’t have dreamed of when you were a kid?

Jeremy Camp Is My Babysitter

Posted on 12.04.08 in Music and there are 11 comments.

I didn’t sleep much last night and my fun-o-meter was pretty low this morning when I agreed to do some emergency babysitting for a friend.

Me (slightly sleepy and grumpy) and four kids 4 and under. Now there’s a recipe for tears.

But in that awkward space between the mom leaving and her kids REALIZING she’d left, I hit play on Jeremy Camp’s latest cd (Speaking Louder Than Before).

Immediately, all the kids started dancing up a storm. And if you’ve never seen two 1 year olds dance up a storm, you’re seriously missing out.

It, apparently, involves a lot of squatting and arm flapping.

And smiles. Sweet, sweet smiles.

The two older kids ran to find guitars (or ukelele’s as the case may be) and started shredding like only Mark Lee can do.

It was really the most adorable sight and it went on for several songs (which is amazing considering the attention span of small children is normally < .4 seconds).

So, if you're in need of good music or a baby sitter, Jeremy Camp is your man.

Your Turn

How many of you did the babysitting thing when you were younger?

(I had one babysitting gig in jr. high. I made $2 an hour. I never babysat again.)

The Cookie Momster

Posted on 12.04.08 in Thoughts and there are 7 comments.

Photo by splityarn
I bought 48 cookies for Bible Study at our house tonight.

We had to cancel the meeting at the last minute.

Now I have 48 orphaned cookies.

What to do...what to do?

On a scale of 1-10 (10 being will power of steel) how good are you at resisting freshly baked chocolate chip cookies...when no one is around?

(In the spirit of full disclosure, there are no longer 48 cookies. I will, however, refrain from counting how many are left and revealing the true depth of my gluttony.)

JJ Heller Interview, The Next BooMama, Why I’m Giddy and Futher Validation of My Musical Crush

Posted on 12.03.08 in Music Blogging and there are 10 comments.

My dear blog friend Annie just did a stellar interview with JJ Heller (who is due any day now with her first baby).

JJ is due. Annie wrote the interview.

I felt the need to clarify.

Annie is an amazing writer. When I’m talking about my blog friends to Jimmy I refer to Annie as “the next Boomama."

She’s THAT witty. Even her emails have me cracking up.

So go check out her interview with JJ at the Bloggable Music Network.

Bloggable Music Network - Big Things Ahead

Speaking of the Bloggable Music Network, can I just say how excited I am about it? The blog has only been up about 3 weeks and we already have an average of over 100 unique visitors a day and nearly 50 RSS subscribers. And I haven’t even tried to promote it yet!

So many people have expressed their excitement about it, like Artlady, Kristin and Kara.

I’ve been contacted by several artists and have had great responses from the artists I’ve reach out to. I’m really excited about the future of the site.

Brooke Fraser

I know, I know. I talk about Brooke Fraser all the time. I’ll keep it short this time, though.

I mentioned last week that Christianity Today picked Albertine as the Top Album of 2008.

Well, CCM Magazine just picked it as their Top Album of 2008 too!

If you haven’t downloaded her free song, you can get the details here.

(If I’m this excited about a perfect stranger’s musical success, you can imagine how obnoxious I am at my kid’s soccer games.)

Just Curious

How many of you own the album Albertine?

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