Tagged

I usually don't do these "tags" as they're called, but I'm giving in for the first time.
Who am I tagging back? Anyone who is reading this and has a blog of their own...you're it! Yes, I'm talking to you!
The rules are as follows: List 3 Joys, 3 Fears, 3 Goals, 3 Current Obsessions, and 3 Random Surprising Facts About Yourself.

Joys:
1: Being a momma, and hearing three beautiful, fun children call me 'momma'!
2: My husband, you are truly my sole mate. Love ya!
3: Knowing I am in God's Will, and that He is in charge of my life. It may sound a bit cliche, but it's more than just Christian jargon to me. It's what gets me through the good and the bad, and what truly fills me with joy!

Fears:
1: Spiders, to an extreme. This is not just a little fear, but a crazy, neurotic fear I have blogged about before here.
2: Dying. I'm not afraid for my life in heaven, but afraid of dying at a young age and having to leave my children behind. The thought of them having to grow up without a momma bring tears to my eyes...literally...I'm tearing up right now!
3: Regret, I don't want to look back at life and wish I would have done something I passed up doing. I've had a few regrets already...not playing college softball because I thought I needed a break is a big one! I sure miss that sport!

Goals:
1: To go to far away places, like Ireland, Africa, Greece, London, Switzerland, etc., etc.
2: To always be the kind of mom that my children can look up to, want to be with, and share their life's aspirations and secrets with, no matter how old they get.
3: To accomplish one of my dreams, like to someday write, illustrate & publish a children's book.

Current Obsessions:
1: 24: Season Four. We've watched the three previous seasons on DVD box sets and it seriously takes no more than one week to watch all 24, 1 hour episodes. We've been known to stay up until 3 a.m. watching 24, because once you start, it's hard to stop! Every episode includes a crazy cliffhanger...gotta love Keifer Sutherland as Jack Bauer too!
2: Organization. I am for the most part pretty laid back, but there's something about a mess that can make me a little uptight...poor Jason! He's always making messes, lol. I just like for things to be where I can find them when I need them, and enjoy a clean home. {The funny thing is, I'm not the best at the actual organization part, and could use some help deciding how to best get organized!}
3: Blogging! I've always loved to write, so what better than to have a reason for doing it everyday! {I guess I'm particularly obsessed with blogging today, as this makes my third post for Tues., Aug. 19! I'm sure I have some work I should be doing instead...}

Random Surprising Facts:
1: I love roller coasters, but am actually scared of heights. Talk about a dilemma!
2: My childhood dream was to be an architect. This lasted for several years, until I realized that my poor math skills would be a detriment to my profession.
3: I love to sing, but have a major case of stage fright. I have sang many duets in church, but have yet to sing a solo due to my overwhelming anxiety. {I could include this in the above 'goal' section by the way, as a fear I'd love to overcome!}

3 Kids on a Couch

I had been upstairs this morning doing a load of laundry. When I came back downstairs, this is what I saw:

Gabe had gotten the boys' little recliner from their room and put it up on the couch because, as Gabe explained to me, "Cooper likes to sit on it and he wanted to sit right by Chloe and me!" So what you're looking at is Cooper sitting in a little recliner that is sitting on the couch.
All three of them were watching cartoons, and don't they look slightly hypnotized?!?
{Just a side note: In light of the recent posts displaying photos of my kids watching TV, I have to add that they really don't spend all day watching TV. They have already been outside playing this morning for about an hour, but it was 'too hot,' they said. I promise, the television is not a babysitter in our house, lol! Ok, now I've gotten that straight, for the record.}

I Love Photoshop

I guess this is a bit of a technical post, a little departure from my kid & family themed updates. But I thought I'd share a little hobby of mine: Photoshop.
My hobby started when I took a publication design class in college for my Journalism minor. Then when I worked at a newspaper, I again used Photoshop on a daily basis. When I became a stay-at-home mom and got my Nikon digital camera, I of course HAD TO have Photoshop to edit all of those precious baby pics! And when I started doing freelance graphic design from home and used my camera to take photos for client publications, I was definitely able to justify the cost of this expensive program. It's quite a pricey program, but it's worth it!!!
I really enjoy using Photoshop to play with the different effects when editing my digital photos.
I recently took a photo of one of the giant sunflowers in our garden. I was then playing with it in photoshop, and came upon a filter effect I haven't used in awhile. It's called 'diffuse glow.' It works best with landscape shots, as it tends to add too much distortion to people. But I really liked the effect it had on the sunflower photo. Here's the results:
The first photo is of the sunflower with no filters, straight out of the camera. I love the colors and the contrast of the yellow flower against the blue sky & clouds.

Here's the photo with a diffuse glow filter added. To me, it makes the flower look whimsical and almost 3-d, like you'd imagine in a fairytale.

And of course, my preference towards black & white prompted me to put the photo into grayscale...{but I do admit, it's hard to go black & white in a photo with such vibrant colors, although I do like the contrast created.}

Growing Up

My little girl is growing up so fast! She’s already 15 months old, and it won’t be long before she’s not a baby anymore. Even as I type this, I realize that technically, she's probably not a baby anymore, but instead a toddler. But let me be in denial just a little longer please.
I was talking to a friend who also has three kids and we agree that there’s something about the third child that makes every moment fly by. Maybe it’s because you’re so busy with three kids! Anyway, I thought I’d share a few of the new things Chloe is doing lately.
She has become a couch potato. She climbs up onto the fireplace hearth, then onto the oversize chair that sits next to the fireplace hearth and just sits there watching everyone. If the television is on, she sits and stairs at it. Her favorite shows are The Little Einsteins and Barney, which is funny because the boys never liked Barney. But Chloe really enjoys the singing, and tries to sing and dance along with every song, which brings me to the next fact about Chloe...
She loves to sing! Her new favorite song is ‘London Bridge is Falling Down.’ We recently watched ‘The Spiderwick Chronicles,’ and one of the girls in the movie sings that song. Chloe picked it right up and now sings it all the time. And she’s quite animated, bobbing her head back and forth while she sings it...too cute! I really have to capture her performance with the camcorder soon!
Chloe is also becoming a little parrot, mimicking everything you say to her. First it was, “No, No, No!” Then, “You’re silly,” which the boys are always saying to her and then laugh when she repeats them. At t-ball, she must have heard someone call for the ball, and now has been saying the phrase, “I got it, I got it!” She’s definitely a talker, which is adorable now, but I’m sure may reach a not-so-cute phase when she’s a little older.
I am definitely enjoying every minute of her sweet, playful personality, but am also trying to figure out how to slow down this growing up! I guess it’s inevitable, we all have to grow up sometime. Well, on second thought, Jason’s just a big kid, so I guess some of us never grow up :) Gotta love him!
I'm determined to have Chloe wear pretty dresses. If she turns out to be a tomboy, she'll be a tomboy wearing dresses :) Below she's wearing one of my favorite of her summer sundresses!

Here's Chloe watching her favorite show, Barney. Just look at the joy expressed through that cute little face!

Chloe Loves to wear mom's sunglasses! Come on, doesn't she look way cute in those ginormous shades! {I know what you're thinking...Angie just misspelled a word! But nope, 'ginormous' is gigantic & enormous morphed into one all-encompassing word, so get with it, lol!}

Sleepless & Thinking

It's late...1:30 a.m. to be exact. And since I'm having trouble sleeping, why not blog, right?!?
One word to describe how I’ve been feeling lately: BLESSED! It would be easy to say, ‘sick,’ as I’ve had some sort of 'bug' reeking havoc on my body for the past few days. But while my wonderful husband has been putting in overtime helping to take care of our three little ones so that I could get some much needed rest, I’ve had plenty of time to think...you can only sleep so much. And those of you who know me well know that I tend to over-think things a lot. I think too much, too long and too hard sometimes. But these past days as I’ve been thinking about my life, my kids, my husband, and the love of Christ that binds us all together, all I can do is thank God for giving me such a ridiculously blessed life. Things aren’t always perfect, but they’re certainly not too shabby most of the time!
I have a random photo I wanted to post, so I will post it with this entry. This moment was captured between a little girl & her daddy shortly before we left for Nicaragua. Daddy's scruffy face can always make Chloe laugh!

Nicaragua Accomodations

I wanted to provide a glimpse into how we lived while we were in Nicaragua. As I have mentioned in previous posts, we take so much for granted in the US...clean running water, indoor bathrooms with toilets that flush and showers, electricity and appliances. We had none of these things while ministering in the country's mountainous villages. And believe it or not, we survived.
It's amazing how we tend to complain in the United States. We're so easy to tell others how awful our circumstances are, yet we live in such a privileged country. Once you've seen how meek some lives are lived, it makes it pretty hard to complain about anything we may have to endure in our wealthy country.
When we were in Ocotal, where we stayed at the beginning and end of our time in Nicaragua, we stayed at a church/house. The church and house were connected by an open 'courtyard' where the family hung their laundry to dry, which of course had been washed by hand, and where you could see garbage collected on the ground. It was typical to see garbage lying anywhere and everywhere in the country.


Below is the sink in the home. All I can say is, we have a very different standard of clean in the United States. I wished I would have brought my Clorox clean-up from home!

The girls stayed in this small room big enough to fit four sets of bunk beds and that's about it.

While in the village of Santa Maria, we stayed in this small three-room home at the right side of the photo below.

We slept in this large open room of the house. There were two cots set up, but we stayed on the concrete floor in our sleeping bags.

Adjacent to our 'bedroom' was this 'living room.' This is where we sat for our meals of pre-packaged food. Our two main meals were tuna fish and rumen noodles, which wasn't bad at first but quickly got to be a little too routine.
It wasn't unusual to see cockroaches and other pests in the house, and the outhouse was their breeding grounds. You definitely learned to drink only the minimum so that you had to use the outhouse as little as possible!

Zip Line Adventures

This post is coming a day later than I said it would because of our busy day at the state fair yesterday, which I will post about soon. Anyway, better late than never, right?!?
To end our mission trip, we spent a day in Managua, Nicaragua, exploring the city. One of the adventures on our itinerary was taking a Zip line tour.
When I had initially heard we were going to go on a zipline, I was excited! I thought this was going to be a blast! But as we drove up to the zip line tour and looked out over the course that was in the middle of the city, I could see that this course was not what I had pictured. It was a course that would have us suspended 300 foot above the trees, with a lake in the middle...not exactly the little tree top to tree top zip line adventure I had imagined in my head. So needless to say, I was a bit scared. Well, more like a lot scared.
The fact that these zip line guys didn't speak English made it worse for me, especially when it came time for my turn. I had kept moving further and further back in line, and everyone in our team had already gone except Debbie. So, she's my only witness, but I got hooked up to the zip line cable when I panicked and told the guy that I couldn't go, that I wanted down. He thought I was asking for clarification as to where to put my hands and proceeded to place my hands on the lines for me and push me forward. So, I tried to chicken out, but it didn't work. And I'm actually glad it didn't, because it was so much fun. Scary, but fun!
Here's some photos from our adventure on the zip line...
Here's our group all fitted with the harnesses and ready to go. Behind us is the first of three zip line stations which make up the course.

Here's a view of the zip line cables above the water.

This is a closeup of the cables we were suspended from.

Below is our XMA guide, Terry, ready to go.

Here's Tracy being rescued by one of the zip line workers. She didn't weigh enough to make it to the first station...she's so tiny!

Below is Luke on the zip line.

And here's Luke's brother, Logan.

Here's Allie making a landing into the first zip line station.

Here's a view of Aaron on the zip line.

Alex, one of our Nicaraguan interpreters, is in the photo below.

Here I am going from station 1 to 2.

And here's Debbie ready to go!

And our smiling faces show it was a good time for all...

Sights of Nicaragua

I thought I'd do a post to show some of the common sights we saw while in Nicaragua. This will serve to take care of some of the random photos I have to share. Enjoy, and stay tuned for our zipline adventure in tommorrow's post!
So here it goes...

Kids walking on this wall in Santa Maria...

And our group proving they could do what the locals do.

Beautiful mountain views...

And corn growing in odd places, like on the sides of those mountains.

Men with sawed-off shot guns guarding banks in the city...

Juan Valdez look-a-likes in the country.

People selling fruit in the country...

& hammocks...

& stores like this in the city.

A beautiful garden in Ocotal...

where we saw gorgeous flowers like this.

A chicken restaurant in the city...

And already toasted bread in the store.

The busy streets of Ocotal...

And a beautiful centuries-old church.

Laughing Pads

Gabe had surgery this morning at 8 a.m. to have a tube removed from his left ear. Gabe had originally had tubes put in his ears when he was about 14 months old due to reoccurring ear infections and fluid trapped behind his eardrum. They are suppose to fall out on their own, which the tube in his right ear did, but the left ear tube was stubborn and the doctor decided to remove it.
The surgery was fast and easy and Gabe was the perfect patient...'very brave because I'm gonna be a kindergartener,' as he says.
But after we returned home, Gabe decided to take his shirt off because he was hot and found that the nurse forgot to take the monitor pads off his chest.

"What are these?" Gabe immediately asked me as he pointed to the pads stuck on his chest. I decided to take the opportunity to have a little fun with him...
"Oh wow Gabe, the doctor put laughing pads on you when you were asleep," I told him.
"What in the world are laughing pads," Gabe asked.
"Well, they're pads with buttons on them. When you push on the buttons, you'll laugh!" I explained.
"No way!" Gabe replied, laughing already.
"What? You don't believe me? Then let me push them and you'll see what happens!" I said.
Gabe replied, "No, you can't push them," still laughing, and covering his chest with his arms so that I couldn't touch the pads.
"Come on, just let me show you what they do!" I told him.
"Ok," Gabe said, and slowly uncovered his chest.
As soon as I pushed the buttons, of course Gabe started laughing.
"They really work!" He said.
This kid is so ticklish, he doesn't need any buttons to push anyway! He's too funny!

Una Photo

Cameras were a hit in Nicaragua, especially with the children. They do not have cameras and so they were amazed by them, especially with the digital LCD screen where they could instantly view their image.
As soon as a camera was spotted, the kids would swarm and beg, "Un Photo? Un Photo?" meaning, "Could you take my picture please?!?" This was great at first, but eventually we started trying to keep our cameras hidden a bit because we were tired of taking photos!
When the kids would look at their photo on the digital output, they'd just giggle. It was too funny! Anyway, due to their fascination with our cameras, I have no shortage of photos of the kids from the villages. And they were such cute kids! Take a look...

Here's me with a girl named Selena. She was a sweet, quiet girl who would just come stand by me. On one particular evening, wherever I went, there she was. {Just a side note: I have double jointed arms, which are quite evident in this photo. Jason asked me if my arm was broken when he saw this one...very funny Jason.}

The kids who went to school go only in the mornings all year long. They wore uniforms to school and were so cute walking together.



The kids thought Aaron was very 'alto' or tall, which he is. Aaron is well over 6-foot, probably about 6ft 5in would be my guess.



Here's Logan with some boys from Santa Maria.

I thought this photo was funny. It's like a Where's Waldo...I'm behind all the kids piled on top of me.

The two boys below were a few of the rowdy ones in the village. They were always in front of the camera!