Because I only have time for bullet points

– I have just a short amount of time to spend on the computer today so this is going to be a random bullet list of all the things on my mind today.  Aren’t you excited?!

– I was at church until 11:00 last night rehearsing for the musical which opens this Thursday!  Please come watch it if you’re in town.  It’s going to be great.  Tonight is dress rehearsal, tomorrow we have the night off and Thursday we open.  There are six performances you can attend and you can purchase tickets here.  There are only a few tickets left for the Thursday evening show and the Sunday afternoon show, but Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night all have plenty of seating still available!  Bring your kids – it will be fun for everyone!

– It’s amazing how productive I become when my schedule is jam packed.  Already this morning I’ve bathed, fed and dressed three kids; I’ve vacuumed the floors in the entire house; I’ve folded a load of laundry and I’ve cleaned a bathroom.  I will be gone most of the morning helping set up for the musical, then I plan to stay busy this afternoon getting my house in order before going back to church.  Whew – it’s like running a marathon.

– When I gave the kids their gluten free cereal with Almond Milk the other day, Sloan asked me if I was feeding them poison.  Nice.

– On the plus side, I did manage to get Landon to eat an entire plate of Salmon yesterday!  And Sloan and Tia both polished off a large helping of broccoli last night.  Landon took one bite and gagged, but at least he tried it.  We’re making progress.

– While I’m done with a majority of my Christmas preparations, I still have a lot to do.  Next week will be as crazy as this week trying to prepare.

– I went to a Bible study yesterday morning that really convicted me on my need to be more intentional about educating my kids on the true meaning of Christmas.  I came home with a ton of ideas.  Now if I could only find the time to implement them…

– I really want to send out Christmas cards, but I’m not sure it’s going to happen this year.  We’ll see how next week pans out.

– Every morning after Sloan gets on the school bus, I let Tia watch Handy Manny and the Imagination Movers.  I feel a little guilty about allowing her to sit and watch TV for that long every single morning.  But it allows me to get things done like blogging, showering and cleaning up so I push the guilt aside.  Is that terrible?!

– I feel sad about the Tiger Woods situation.  My heart hurts for them.

– I just sneezed all over the keyboard.  I need to go get some cleaner and wipe this up.  Have a happy Tuesday and get your tickets for the Christmas dessert musical theater at First E-Free this weekend!

Ba-Bye.

Taking Care of Business

– First of all, I am going to announce the winner of the Testament Focused drawing.  I now know why I don’t like doing giveaways.  I wish every one of you could win and I hate that I only get to pick one winner – or that Random.org only got to pick one winner for me.  If I could afford it, I would buy and ship a book out to every one of you.

But I can’t afford it, so you’ll have to buy your own!  Ha!

Anyway, drumroll please…

The lucky winner of the Testament Focused drawing is…

Number 9 – Nicole from Here’s the Diehl!

Congratulations, Nicole.  I’ll get that book to you as soon as it comes in and I’ve had a chance to look through it myself 🙂

To the rest of you – thanks for playing and I am really sorry you didn’t win.  But you can still get a copy for yourself and don’t forget that 100% of the first 25 copies sold goes to Soaring Wings Ranch

– It was another busy weekend for the Stuart family.  Daddy was out of town, which always lends itself to insanity.  We watched the movie Up on Friday night.  I laughed to not cry through the first half hour of the movie, then genuinely laughed the second half.  It’s a very sweet film.

– While Lee was gone, I noticed it was rather frigid in our house and realized the furnace was blowing cold air.  so, with Lee talking me through it over the phone, I managed to relight the pilot light on the furnace thereby restoring warmth and order to my home.

Because I am She-ra.

– Saturday we got to stay home in the morning and I got some laundry done while the kids attempted to drive me insane  played quietly around the house.  Then we headed out the door to visit with a sweet friend who’s in town for a little while before going home to greet her husband who is fighting for our freedoms in Afghanistan!

We love you Jeremy!

– Sunday I woke up to discover that my voodoo face cream apparently works by burning the skin off my face.  I guess I got it too close to my eyes because both eyes were swollen shut and the skin was rather enflamed.  An ice pack and a lot of lotion later, I headed out the door where I spent the next 11 hours at church leading worship, making Christmas crafts with Sloan, singing Christmas carols for the craft workshop and previewing scene one from our upcoming Christmas musical!

Whew – I’m still exhausted.

– When I returned home, I wrote this article for the St. Louis Blogger’s Guild in which I took a rather unpopular opinion on an incident that took place here in St. Louis.  You’ll have to read the article to know what I’m talking about, but I still firmly belive that while Kurt Greenbaum may be known as a bit of a jerk around town, the person posting the comment had no business doing so from school grounds and I therefore think he is suffering a dreadful consequence for his foolishness.

Not many people agree with me.  There is widespread belief that Kurt Greenbaum violated an unspoken code of conduct on the web and he is being slaughtered for it.  Perhaps that is the case, but the fact remains that this school employee still made a foolish choice.

It’s a tough situation.

If you haven’t read the article you have no idea what I’m talking about.

– Now I’m home, still nursing swollen eyes and trying to gear myself up to put away the mountains of laundry I washed this weekend.  I also may pull out a few Christmas decorations, much to my husband’s chagrin.  He has this crazy idea that we shouldn’t start celebrating Christmas until after Thanksgiving!

I know, right?!

Photos and Links

We’ve had a beautiful Indian Summer this past week, but alas, I know it is soon to draw to a close.  My hydrangea bushes still have some beautiful blooms on them and rather than see them shrivel up in the coming cold and rain, I decided to enjoy them just a little bit longer:

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-My sister-in-law, Becke’, has just finished her first book and it’s amazing!  It’s called Testament Focused and it combines her love of God’s Word with her love of photography.  It would make a great Christmas gift.  You can preview the book here.  I highly, highly recommend it.  And, bonus, 100% of the profits from the first 25 books sold go to an amazing ministry called Soaring Wings Ranch

– I am participating in our church’s Christmas musical called A Time for Christmas and it opens in just a few weeks.  It’s a broadway style musical filled with singing, dancing and a whole lot of Christmas music!  It’s been a pretty big commitment but I think it’s going to be worth it as the play is really starting to come together.  Tickets went on sale this past Sunday.  You can purchase them here (just click on the link that says Purchase Tickets).  The show runs from Thursday, December 10-Sunday, December 13.  I would love it if you could come!  I’ll be the one singing the high D and shattering all the glass in the room.  Good times…

– The Tooth Fairy made a second appearance in our home the other night after I pulled out Sloan’s second wiggly tooth.  And, for the record, I don’t like pulling teeth out of someone’s mouth – even if that someone is my kid.  It’s gross and it set off my gag reflexes big time.  Here he is sporting his large window. 

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Notice the crooked smile?  Yeah…Guess who has massive amounts of orthodontic work in his future?!

– And finally, I got my hair colored yesterday and I was feeling brave.  So I told her to make me a brunette, and that she did! 

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You only get to see the back of my head because I haven’t washed or painted my face yet today and yes I’m vain enough to know not to put a scuzzy looking picture of myself on the interweb!

Happy Wednesday!