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September 27 I'm so proud......of my husband. He has been working 13-14 hour days for the past 4 days with two more to go. He hasn't complained once and hasn't tried to sleep in and has really enjoyed going to work. He is loving meeting so many people at the ministry, meeting the artists performing, and just serving. I'm really proud to be his wife.
Tonight he got to play with the praise band that was opening for Chip Ingram. I got to hear him live on the radio playing drums and singing tenor. He rocks my world!  September 25 Mark LowryTonight for FLM' s 50th anniversary week it was Mark Lowry and Lordsong in concert. I have loved Mark Lowry since I was in high school so I totally signed up to work tonight! Got to see part of the concert and got to meet him afterwards! Very cool. He was great and Lordsong's harmonies are amazing. They do an a cappella arrangement of "Lord of the Dance" that just sends chills. I love it. Had a fun night. Late night, long hours on our feet, but a fun night. If you want to hear any of the concerts this week you can listen LIVE online at www.fln.org . Tomorrow is Greater Vision, Thursday is Chip Ingram, Friday is Denver and the Mile High Orchestra (we have tickets for this one!!) and Saturday night is Scott Krippayne. All events begin at 7:00...I believe the live broadcasts start at 6:30 with interviews and behind the scenes stuff. Hope you enjoy it!!
September 24 Back to the emergency room...Well, the pictures of Hannah in the last entry were taken MOMENTS before I heard a scream in the back yard. The girls were playing in the sandbox and Hannah dropped a metal bucket full of sand directly on her big toe. It looked like a nasty cut and it was split at the point of impact. I called the doctor's office to see if they thought stitches would be in order and found out they don't stitch in the office and they recommended we go to the ER.
This was Hannah's 5th trip to the ER ...I think...I've lost count. She not a terribly accident prone kid and most of her trips were minor...but sheesh! Of course the one time it wasn't minor, the broken leg, the ER said she was fine...but that's another story I guess...
Anyway, it was just about dinner time at this point so I packed some sandwiches and fruit and off we went. We were there for two and a half hours waiting, waiting, and waiting. There were a lot of people there tonight. I'm so glad I packed food for the girls! Hannah got a lot of practice on this week's spelling words, too! We were supposed to pick up Steve at work and go to our friend Jay's ordination tonight...but I had to call Steve when we were supposed to leave and tell him we hadn't even been seen yet. The nurse practitioner said the cut didn't require stitches. It would have just traumatized the wound (and Hannah) to the point where it was better to leave it alone. (Why didn't they tell us that when we checked in? That was the whole reason we came, just to get it looked at...I knew it wasn't THAT serious.)
They took some xrays just to be sure and they looked fine. (of course I couldn't help thinking that the last time the ER told us her xrays looked fine she actually had a broken femur...) Hannah was soooo relieved that she didn't need any shots or anything else that would cause more pain. She was so worried. I was a little disappointed that we wasted all that time and the staff's time for nothing, but it is definately better to be safe than sorry with an injury like that.
She is getting around better now and we are all exhausted. It is extremely draining entertaining 2 little kids in a hospital waiting room for over 2 hours. They were so good, though...and we will be sleeping great tonight!!!! Hannah and Emily are growing in their faith!Yesterday after church I asked both girls to tell me what Bible verses they were learning. With Hannah in first grade now they are no longer in the same kids worship class so they are studying different things. Emily said her verse perfectly with the reference and I had to get it on video! Hannah knew hers as well, but she's the youngest in her group and it was a harder verse. She got it mostly right...the Hannah paraphrase was pretty accurate!
Also I saw a woman in church that I met at the Y that I hadn't seen there before. After the service I talked to her and found out yesterday was her first Sunday in years. Her daughter was in Hannah's kindergarten class last year. She told me that the only reason her nervous daughter would go into her Sunday School class was because she saw Hannah there. When I told her that, Hannah said she wanted to keep praying for her friend to keep coming to church. Also she wanted to pray for another friend who was too sick to be at church yesterday. I'm really proud of how prayer is becoming a normal part of her life and the friendships she is making at school!
Setting up at the Jazz Fest was a good experience. I got one appointment and several others took my information and were interested. That is worth it to me!! Also, it was a beautiful weekend and just sitting our along the quaint street with the leaves changing was relaxing and enjoyable to me. I hope I can find time to research more about what I want to do with photography and maybe buy a new camera for Christmas...
This week Family Life Ministries is celebrating their50th anniversary with a big name concert every night this week at the center. Steve is working all day and all night the entire week and I will be going 2 nights this week as well. It should be really fun...but really exhausting. Because of all this and Steve's schedule I have to get a babysitter 4 nights this week (that's in addition to the babysitters I need while I'm working during the day.). I'm stressed about scheduling sitters, paying sitters (or begging them to do it for free), not seeing my girls, and being tired myself. If you can pray for us this week and into the coming weeks of fall we'd appreciate it!
September 21 Amy's Newborn AngelsI have been very excited this week preparing to set up a table advertising my photography business at the Jazz Fest this weekend. I am loving photographing babies and children and I was newly inspired today with Emily. I got some great shots of her. I've been reading on the subject, putting together an album of sample pictures, printing paper work and business cards, and I'm looking forward to hopefully getting some more customers this weekend with the exposure. September 16 Exciting Weekend!!"Exciting weekend" does not even come close to describing the experience I just had. God used this weekend to encourage me like never before. There is so much to tell I'll just start at the beginning.
Steve and I along with our worship pastor, Vaughn, and another member of our worship team had the privilege of attending a worship seminar in Buffalo Thursday and Friday. It was put on by one of the biggest names in worship music, Integrity, and the speakers were some of the best worship leaders from around the country. If you are familiar with worship songwriters this will be very exciting to you as well, if you are not so much then I'll try to explain as much as I can!
The video shows musicians from New Life Church in Colorado Springs, CO. Ross Parsley has been the worship pastor there for like 16 years and has written tons of worship music and lead several national recordings of the worship team. He is also a teaching pastor as recently he acted as the temporary senior pastor when Ted Haggard (maybe you heard about this in the news last Spring) was dismissed for moral failure. ANYWAY...he was one of the speakers at the conference along with his songwriting buddies who all have top CCLI songs and who all lead different ministries at the same church!! Yes...imagine that! So here are the guys in the video and what they are most recently known for:
The guitar on the left is Jon Egan (worship leader for the youth at New Life). He wrote, "I Am Free" and co-wrote, "My Savior Lives." The singer on the right of Jon is Ross Parsley (worship pastor)...he wrote, "On My Lips" (currently my favorite worship song). The keyboard player is Jared Anderson (leads worship for Sunday night services) who wrote, "Amazed," "Hear Us From Heaven," & "Rescue." Then on the end is Glenn Packiam (worship leader for young adult ministries) who also co-wrote, "My Savior Lives" with Jon, "Your Name" with Paul Baloche and wrote, "Fairest" which we are also doing at Victory. Wow!! And...again...all from the same church! Wow again...
I went to Jared's class on songwriting and I was able to give him a copy of the worship song I wrote and my card. I'm totally not expecting anything but thrilled to be able to say I gave my song to Jared Anderson!!!
As if that day wasn't exciting enough...then came day 2 of the conference. The headliner that day was Don Moen. Do you know him? He's been writing worship music since the 80s and his big hit was "God Will Make A Way." He is a HUGE name in worship songwriting. I also went to his class and at the end he asked if anyone would want to share a song they had written and he could critique it...uh, yeah!!! So I raised my hand and he had me come up to his keyboard and I sang my song for DON MOEN!!! Plus a room full of professional worship leaders from all over. No Way. I sang my song for DON MOEN!! (I've been saying that about twenty times a day the last 3 days!!) He was very positive about it and gave me some honest feedback. He said I could do a little more with the chorus. We talked about it for a few minutes and the class gave some feedback and then he sat down with my music and started playing it and said, "what about something like this?" and gave me some suggestions for that melody in the chorus. DON MOEN was playing my song!! I scribbled down was he was doing, praying I'd be able to recreate it when I had time! After the class, several of the other worship leaders said it was a good song and I should do something with it. One guy gave me his email address and asked for a copy of it when I was finished with it.
Let me just tell you how encouraging this whole experience was for me. I am filled with so much excitement for this project. Steve and I are already talking about saving up some money to get it recorded so we can get it out there. Just to be able to say I did it is so exciting to me! And I sang my song for DON MOEN!!!!!
 Later that night we got the opportunity to sing with Don in his back up choir at the concert. That was amazing to be on stage with those musicians!! What a thrill this conference was!! And the worship was breathtaking. We got to just bask in God's presence and be filled by Him over and over.
Steve and I stayed in our hotel two more nights and got a little vacation out of it. We were only 20 minutes from Niagara Falls...what a waste to not spend some time there, ya know!  So we spent all day Saturday there, went back to the church where the conference was this morning for service, then back to Niagara for a few more hours before heading home to our beautiful babes. It is good to be home, but reality hit us the moment we walked through the door! And of course they picked tonight (while we were trying to unpack, run laundry , and clean up) to not want to go to bed. It was a real struggle tonight, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. God is blessing our family and we are so grateful!! Thanks for reading all of this and it is our prayer that God is moving in and blessing your families as well!September 09 Earrings from the past...As I was frantically looking for something in my jewelry/makeup/odds and ends drawer in my dresser this morning when it was still dark (AGH! I hate that we are losing sunlight in the mornings already!!), I accidently spilled my whole drawer on the floor. Bobby pins, perfume, and 3 containers of old earrings went all through my carpet. We were running out of the house for church so I had to just leave it, but this afternoon I was going through everything and realized almost the whole drawer is as it was in college. It just moved as is from place to place since then! And it came with me to college just because it was all my stuff from home. I finally threw away Midol that expired in 1997, old scrunchies with no elasticity left in them (do you know how long it has been since I wore scrunchies??), and nail polish that had petrified. I was going through all my earrings and they brought back so many memories. I could remember outfits from middle school that matched these earrings. I remembered who gave me certain pairs. I remembered vacations, school dances, dates, and trips to the mall with my girlfriends...because you know that EVERY public event in middle school and high school required very careful scrutiny of the outfit and accessories.
Whew! what a trip down memory lane! Like going back into a different world. Then my 5-year-old appeared in my doorway when she was supposed to be taking a nap and BOOM!!! The worlds collided! Very weird. I'm so glad I'm in this world. I love this world. That world was hard and awful...but fun and exciting too. Sometime it would be fun to relive some of it, but for now I'll focus on putting both kids back to bed (for some reason both are having a hard time napping today), cleaning my kitchen and putting away the clean laundry.
I also need to pick out my outfit for tomorrow and the accessories. Something professional but comfortable...I think silver earrings and a bracelet...but I need to wear my gold ring on the opposite hand so they don't clash....
Ok, some things never change!! September 07 Finishing TouchesI put finishing touches on the "princess" bathroom today thanks to an adorable stencil that Mindy let me borrow. It has purple flowers with a pink jewel in the middle of each one, green and pink accents, silver glitter and ribbons. Holy cow I would have loved this room when I was younger! ( OK, I love this room right now!!!)
 Hannah will be home from school to see it in about an hour. I have the rest of my house to clean and a shower to take...ta ta!!
September 06 We love Sunday School!Tonight Steve and I had worship team rehearsal and no babysitter so we took the girls with us. They played with some toys we brought for them and with some other kids who were there. About an hour into practice Emily comes to me and asked, "is it time to go to Sunday School yet?" She thought it was Sunday morning (we practice for an hour before the services begin) and that Sunday School would come after practice! I told her that today wasn't Sunday and we don't have Sunday School tonight and she just burst into big crocodile tears like I broke her heart! "But I want to go to Sunday School!" I love it. So cute. I guess we really love Sunday School!!!
Here are some videos of a Big House (the preschool program at church) presentation done on a Friday night so the families could join in! I was so glad to be there to record this precious part of my kids' lives that I rarely get to see. Hannah is "graduating" from Big House this week and she will be attending the grade school program, PowerHouse! This was one of the last times Hannah got to participate in Big House! In the Big House video you will also notice Kristen M. In the Jump Into The Light video Hannah is next to Abigail B. and you will notice Abigail R. and her little brother Dominic in the background of Create In Me. (That little narrative was mostly for Kendra!) ;)
Hannah's first week of First grade is almost over. She wanted to ride the bus this year. She gets on and off at our neighbor's house with her friend, Grant. She loves it and she loves her new teacher. So far, so good! And no phone calls from the school nurse the first day of school! (Last year Hannah had a broken leg and we didn't know it!) Here are the first day of school pics!
September 02 AS IF...again!!!I did it again. Redecorated another bathroom! This time I got Steve's help and we did it together. It was a ton of work for such a tiny bathroom! Hannah and Emily are spending the weekend at Grammy & Grandpap's house so Steve and I are on "vacation" home together. It has been great, but busy. I can't seem to escape busy for some reason. We finished the bathroom LATE last night so it is ready for our princesses to be surprised when they come home! We worked hard the past 2 days on the bathroom, laundry, and house cleaning but now that we are all caught up we are looking forward to worshipping God in church this morning and spending some great quality time together. I love this time. I wish we could do it more often. Thanks to my parents for being willing to have the girls!!
So here are new pictures! A bathroom fit for 2 little princesses!
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