SMALL GROUP(S)!!!

I LOVE our church for many, many reasons. However, one of the tip-top ones is how amazing (and effective) our small groups are...they truly are the way to make our GINORMOUS church feel smallish, and help people feel connected in an otherwise overwhelming crowd. And to top it off, life-change is truly happening there. We've seen friends experience community (and in some ways, family!) in ways they have never experienced it before, all while growing closer to God and each other...and improving marriage/parenting/exercise/hunting/biking/bible study/whatever topic of choice may be.

However, J and I were a little hesitant about getting involved at first...we have been a part of slightly less than effective small groups in the past (and a couple of really great ones!), but didn't want to rush into it. Well, 2 years later, not only are we a part of small groups, but we are also leading them! This semester we are co-leading "Experiencing God's Dream for Your Marriage" with a FABULOUS other couple we're just getting to know. There are 10 couples in our group and so far we are really having a great time together (even though technically Jason hasn't been there yet since he left for Africa the day before we started!). We co-led "Love and Respect" last Spring and God really did great things in our marriage; we're excited about what He has in store for us this Fall!

I'm also co-leading "Running for Beginners." My friend and I are helping non-runners get introduced to the awesomeness of running by using the "Couch to 5k" program. Not only that, some of us are planning on sticking with the training through the winter and are running in a half-marathon (or 2!) in the spring. I am LOVING this group!! We've got 14 people training, and so far they are really getting into it. The program has 3 days/week training plan, and we are meeting on Sundays to do the day 3 regimen of each week together. Also, we've created an email list, so, for example, if you know you're planning on doing day 2's run on Thursday at 6 pm, you could email the group and see if anyone is interested in going, too...and so far, it's working great! I've yet to do a training run by myself; and I've already made a couple of new friends! SO fun!

Well, one of my sweet friends and group members asked me for my running playlist about 2 months ago. Being the wonderful procrastinator that I am, HERE IT IS!

Arise Highlands Worship

Rain Your Glory Highlands Worship

No Reason to Hide Hillsong

You Are Here/The Same Power (I skip this one if I'm on a hill!) Hillsong

General Dispatch

Our Love is Loud David Crowder

O Praise Him David Crowder

No One Like You David Crowder

Undignified David Crowder

I Saw the Light David Crowder

...neverending... David Crowder

Come Awake (also skippable!) David Crowder

You Are My Joy David Crowder

Happy Day Fee

Desire Phil Wickham - Singalong

True Love Phil Wickham - Singalong

Anytime Eve 6

We Shine Fee

Ants Marching Dave Matthews

So Much to Say Dave Matthews

Jessica Allman Bros

Blue Sky Allman Bros

Hangin Around Counting Crows

Highest and Greatest Eddie Kirkland

Statesboro Blues Allman Bros

Sing, Sing, Sing Chris Tomlin

Something Beautiful Need to Breathe

Our God is Love Hillsong Live

Your Name High Hillsong United

Say, Say Kristian Stanfill

Like a Lion David Crowder

Happy Running! :)

NEWSFLASH!

WE HAVE AN ALL-NIGHT SLEEPER. I REPEAT: AN ALL-NIGHT SLEEPER.

Actually, we have 2 of them. But last week, we decided it was time for sleep bootcamp for Will...and he passed with flying colors. I waited several nights to write this just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, but alas, I think there is rest once again in the Chandler household. Glory. I feel like a new person. Now, if I could just get Jason to go to bed before midnight...

And Will had a haircut shortly after this was taken...I promise that he doesn't look so much like a ragamuffin now.

Have a great week!

p.s. Jack turned THREE on Sunday! More on that to come. Jason's leaving town next month for a couple of weeks, so hopefully I can update on all the summer happenings in all that spare time I'll have. :)

Signs of Life...

I have always been a list-maker, a planner, and an (occasionally OCD'ed) organizer of my time. It is how I survived high school and college. I gained satisfaction and perhaps an ounce of self-worth from seeing my neat lists and I am almost ashamed by the amount of joy I got by putting a perfect little check mark next to completed items (and an "x" next to things that got bumped to next week or needed crossing off the list all together...that's where the "OCD" might come in).

However, I learned very early on in this trip called motherhood that flexibility is the key to maintaining one's sanity (what's left of it after 4 years of running a youth ministry, anyway!). I can be cruising right through my day and "to do" list and then, out of no where, BAM...I might be headed out the door when a child "blaps" all down the front of me. And him. And his carseat. And somehow into his diaper bag. Or a bad night of baby's sleep totally throws off his nap schedule...and our fun day that I had planned for us the night before. Or he decides the car/grocery store/shirt/lunch/park/etc isn't the right temperature/store/texture/taste/location/etc. And while I am no push-over, his timing and decision to throw a tantrum can be less than, shall we say...optimal.

So, awhile back I was riding out in the county and saw this road sign. I feel that it sums up some of our days nicely...

Thank goodness for tomorrows. :) And I wouldn't trade this journey, complete with it's sinkholes, for anything else in the world.

We live, we learn...

I took Jack and Will for haircuts this afternoon (mistake 1). By myself (mistake 2). Will went first (mistake 3) and was a perfect (wiggly) angel. Then, since Jack started pitching a fit, we let him pick where he wanted to sit for his haircut (mistake 4) - he chose the stroller. To keep Will content (and to hopefully let Jack see the reward of behaving), Will got a sucker (mistake 5) AND a popsicle (mistake 6). Jack screamed so loudly, I ended up holding him. To try to appease him so she could finish up his hair, the sweet lady gave HIM a sucker and popsicle (mistakes 7, 8 and 9). Now, the stroller, me, and 2 sticky boys are completely covered in hair and stickiness.

We got in the car to come home, and as we were leaving Jack stated, "Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?!".

I'm hoping to be able to laugh about this once my blood pressure returns to normal...and their haircuts DO look good, if I may say so myself.

My budding artist...

Jack just informed me that he is going to color a picture of "his Sarah."

All I've got to say is that this picture better be of a lovely young mom with short brown hair and 2 adorable little boys or there will be TROUBLE! Otherwise, who is this Sarah coming into my son's life, taking control of his creative mind and markers?!

I'll keep you posted.

OH WAIT. He just changed his mind and said he's going to draw a picture of a gun and a Wiggle (aka Wii) game. Random side note: is the idea of a gun just a part of the male DNA?! I have NO idea where he has learned about them.

I will post a picture of the outcome. Given the subject matter, it should be good.

Either way, my Gram would be proud of her great-grandson's commitment to quality artwork.

Note-worthy

In my attempt to keep my promise of never going a whole month without posting to the bloggity-blog, I feel that tonight, The Rocket offered the perfect opportunity to break my silence:

Jack, my precious, 2.82 year-old, 30-pound sweetheart of a picky little eater, out-ate his strapping, handsome (full-grown male) Daddy. Legitimately. I was not home to witness it, but allegedly Jack ate 4.5 pieces of pizza, to Jason's 3.5. Just for the record, that's over half of the pizza. The kid won't touch a happy meal, but if lasagna or pizza (or lettuce with caesar dressing!?) is in the room, WATCH out.

I would like to take a moment to offer a special thank you to Domino's pizza for taking the past 50 years to perfect your recipe to bring it to the perfect liking of The Rocket. And his Gigi will be buying stock in your company soon and attempting to master your recipe, I am sure, as she is convinced that her precious first-born grandson "just doesn't eat enough. [She]'s just concerned, that's all."

On a more serious note, we have had a rough couple of weeks and I am still processing a LOT. If the next few posts aren't exactly the entertainment that you've gotten accustomed to, please don't give up on us (As long as there is a Jack Chandler in my house, there will be more funny posts to come). Also, I started a post several weeks ago about Jack's near-drowning incident...and I promise I will finish it. At some point.

And lastly, I feel the need to summarize like I did for the month of May...

Another month in review:

Eh. Scratch it. Nothing new or too note-worthy to really report from the month of June...other than: I started a new job last week! Woohoo! We love our church and have since we first walked through the front doors a year and a half ago. At that time, I swore to myself that I would NOT ever consider going on staff there (or possibly, at any other church), as it had been made clear that being a stay-at-home-mom was IT for me. And here I am, so excited about being in ministry with SUCH incredible people that I can barely sleep (in luck on that one...Will must be so excited about it, too, that he apparently can't sleep either)! I have loved seeing God work ginormously in the lives of, well, everyone who comes to our church. I am honored, humbled and just flat-out excited to have been asked to be a part of the ministry team there. I love the "Dream Teamers" that I am so blessed to work with each week in Highlands Kids, people go above and beyond EVERY week to make each Sunday amazing for the kids that are entrusted to us while their parents attend worship. I look forward to being able to pour into them in the days and months to come and can't wait to see what God will do!

Perspectives

So, at church on Sunday I made a quick pit-stop in the ladies' room before heading into the service. As soon as I walked in, I immediately realized I was given a front-row seat for a conversation between 2 sweet grandmamas talking about their precious grandbabies (being in the restroom, I feel the need to clarify the "front-row seat" is figurative; don't worry, I had the door closed). Anyway, they were chatting away about the precious children learning how to share. One of them was going on and on about how her precious 2-year old grand-daughter would walk up to her younger sibling (presumably a baby), and announce that the baby wouldn't share, so she would snatch the toy out of the baby's hand and walk around continuing her announcement about the baby not sharing, all the while cradling the toy.

And the 2 grandmamas thought it was the funniest, cutest thing.

However, being the mom of a precious 2-year old myself, my blood pressure rose just picturing that situation in my house! OH! How hard we work at teaching Jack to share, and love on Bebe Will, and to find another toy and how he can have the one Will is playing with in just 5 minutes. And how snatching is WRONG. And it's infuriating when he just doesn't get it (or remember) and he makes another child howl. Maybe HIS sweet grandmamas are a bit more gracious than his mommy and find it cute and precious...I guess it's all about perspectives.

Another example: Anything that didn't happen in the past 30 minutes Jack refers to it as happening yesterday. I can try and try to explain, but at some point I have just learned to embrace it and say, "Yep. Yesterday. It snowed at Jack's house yesterday." (I WISH!)

And at my Beth Moore bible study group last night (that ROCKS, by the way - the incredible ladies and the material - I LOVE it!), we ended up talking some about conflict resolution...and how perspective can change everything. I think sometimes I'm really great at the whole empathy thing...imagining what it might be like for the other person and how they must feel. But at times, I truly suck at it (and what makes it worse, when I get to that point, I sometimes don't really even care!).

So my prayer has become this: Lord, give me YOUR vision for people. Let me view them as you do. Help me take off the part of me that can be an embarrassment to You and a hindrance to others. And show me how to LOVE.

It's all a matter of perspectives.

And oh, what I would give for 5 minutes of THIS right now... (by the way, this house can be yours! Just pay the $249,000 HOA dues for the awesome pool and we'll throw this house in for FREE!)

Quick Recap

Dear readers (all 3 of you...),

I am alive. And I promise not to take a month-long vacation again. It really has been a crazy month, but it's truly pathetic that I didn't even take 5 minutes to record SOMETHING to the bloggity blog. So, for memory's sake, here's a brief recap of the month...and as a heads' up, you might hear more about some of the stories in the next few posts.

May:

9 Mother's Day: I told J not to spend a dime due to the fact that I was about to get the next 2 weekends away...but he still surprised me with breakfast in bed, bottled Coke (otherwise known as amazingnessinaglassbottle), and Buffalo Wildwings...plus getting to spend it with my amazing husband, 2 precious babies AND at church. EXCELLENT day.

11 Jack's last day of Mrs. C's class! So sad! He had an incredible semester in her class and I'm SO thankful for the experience (and a few mornings of grocery store trips without a toddler). :)

12 - 16 BEACH!!!! With several friends...and not a single child in sight (between the group of us, there were 24 little ones left at home with daddies - and they all survived!). One of my favorite parts of this trip (besides the incredible company, awesome conversations, snow crab for every meal, and perfect weather) was that I got to sleep ALLLLL NIGHT LONG. 4 nights in a row....that's literally a first since I was pregnant with Jack (which was over 3 years ago, just for the record). Huge shout-out to J, my mom and J's mom for helping to make this getaway possible!

21 - 23 BEACH AGAIN!! This time, with the girls from my mom's side of the fam...my mom, sister, 2 aunts and 2 of my 3 cousins from that side of the family. Again, great company, lots of laughs, great food and perfect weather...but Will got to come on this trip (I just couldn't leave J with BOTH boys 2 weekends in a row). I tried very, very hard not to feel guilty about the beach time I got without J and the Rocket. But MAN, it sure was nice!

22 Jack almost drowned. Seriously. I will definitely be blogging on this later. Let me just summarize with this: God is faithful. And sovereign. And definitely still working on J and me over the whole ordeal.

So, those were just a few of the things that stand out. There were so many funny stories, laughs, things learned and messages that I felt God was shouting at me all month...sorry I'm too sleep-deprived to remember most of them. For the things that are still running through my mind, I PROMISE to not wait another month to write about them.

Love,

Me.

When it rains...

It pours.

I feel that I should be getting a frequent visitor reward at Dr. Greer's office. Or at least have a revolving door with my name gold-plated over it. Seriously. As we walked in yesterday, I told the receptionist that we were there for our weekly check-in. I know that having 2 precious little ones in "school" at least once a week is asking for germs to latch right on and wreck havoc in our house (Jack goes to Ms. C's class on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I take them both to Children's Day Out on Wednesdays so I can go to Bible study, plus of course church on Sundays). But this is getting old!

Four weeks ago Jason took Jack to the doctor (of course, I was convinced it was an ear infection). Turns out that both J AND Jack actually had strep. Thankfully Will and I were clear. However, since Will is so young, Dr. Greer put him on antibiotics as a preemptive strike. Thanks to the meds, Will ended up at Dr. Greer's office a couple of weeks ago with thrush (again, I was SURE it was an ear infection...somehow I had TOTALLY missed the funkiness in his mouth).

Well, last week the runny noses started back up. Will and Jack seem to be passing it back and forth, but in typical Jack fashion, his came with an extra dose of fussiness...and you guessed it! I immediately blame his ears. However, we took a HUGE step towards big-boyhood: he woke up crying Tuesday morning (at 5 am - ugh) and said, "Mommy, this ear hurts." Not only was I right, but he can finally pinpoint and name the problem! Life just got a little easier.

I was able to get him in to see Dr. Greer that afternoon. SO very thankfully, his buddy JP's mom, Mrs. D, lent us their portable dvd player to take with us...typically I'm not a fan of those, but 2 fussy babies in a waiting room has a way of shifting perspectives. :) Jack used to do fine going to see the doctor, but he was slightly less than thrilled to be there on Tuesday. We barely had to wait at all (another blessing!) and they took us right back. Jack was verrrrrrrry whiny (I guess waking up at 5 am and having an ear ache will do that to a 2-year old!), but I was thankful for the distraction of the movie.

However, when Dr. Greer came in, Jack was too aware of what was probably about to happen, so the movie lost his attention. Dr. Greer, in an attempt to win Jack over, pulled out his iphone...complete with the iFart app. Jack was (THANKFULLY) unfazed by the completely inappropriate noises and continued to cry. We decided to go ahead with me just holding him tightly while Dr. Greer checked him out and confirmed the TERRIBLE ear infection. As soon as Dr. Greer got his instruments put away, Jack calmed down and even smiled a little before we left. The whole way to the pharmacy, he and I talked about how God gave us Dr. Greer to help him feel better and that he was going to get us some medicine to fix that ear ache.

Fast forward to tonight: J and I were saying bedtime prayers with Jack, and we've started this new thing where Jack asks us to "help" him say them (we say a line and he repeats it). Once we finished, Jack said he wanted to thank "Our God" (compliments of the Chris Tomlin song) for Dr. Greer. I said, "That's right! He looks at your ears and God told him how to make you feel all better and what kind of medicine you need!". Jack paused for a minute and then stated, "And he taked out his phone. And he pooped."

J and I burst out laughing at the randomness...and then I remembered the iphone and Dr. Greer's app.

That was about 20 minutes ago, and I can hear Jack back in his room still repeating that conversation and laughing. While I thoroughly am enjoying the ability to share a great laugh with my child, I pray that the topic might get a bit more, ahem, civilized in the years to come.

ALIVE

I did some quick calculations the other day (no small feat for one who hasn't slept in several years), and realized that I've had a parasite for 3.5 years. Between being pregnant and nursing, my body hasn't been my own since December 2006...and in case you're wondering, that was a LOOOONG time ago. Now, add to the exhaustion of having another person literally depend on you for their livelihood the fact that the precious parasites seem to have an aversion to (night-time) sleeping and that one of them is a VERY busy 2 year old = I am BEYOND exhausted. Everyday. I gave up on my attempts of coherent thoughts about 2 years ago, but also know that this, too, shall pass...and have even somewhat embraced the fact that I will, at some point every night, unconsciously stumble into the nursery, pick up a screaming baby, and fall back into deep slumber in a glider/rocker/recliner/tasteofheaven for at least 1-2 hours, resulting in an even more tired state the next morning. It's actually quite a nasty cycle of sleep deprivation.

But thanks to my fabulous, thoughtful, self-sacrificing Momma, I got glorious sleep last night: 8 hours uninterrupted! And not only did J and I have a great time with our small group, but I also got to do something this morning that I rarely get to enjoy: ride alone in my car! And while I confess that having a minivan all to myself seems a bit superfluous (a nice little convertible would suit me MUCH better), I love being able to crank up the music, roll down a window or two...and worship. With all I've got. Hillsong United, Highlands worship, the new Passion recording. LOVE it. I had 45 perfect minutes in the car alone on my way to get the babies, and I enjoyed it for all that it was worth.

However, there are 2 fun little aspects of having Jack in the car that I miss when he's not there. Everyday, I play "Name That Tune" and lose. That's right; every time Jack hears a new song, he'll ask about 14 times what the name of the song is while it's playing...and I willingly oblige him, knowing that he will remember it well enough that he'll NEVER have to ask again. And not only that, within hearing about 3 seconds of a learned song, he can tell you not only the title of it, but also what song comes next on the album. It's awesome...and fantastically he does NOT ask for children's music, but is happy with my favorites. Win-win.

The other fun (and occasionally annoying) thing about having Jack in the car is that he has an impeccable sense of direction. Example: last Sunday evening, we went out S. College Street to have dinner at a friend's house who have a little boy named Finn. Everyday since, every time we've gotten on any part of College Street (it's about 10 miles long, and we live at the far North end of it), Jack has accurately pointed in the right direction and said, "Finn's house that way." He can correctly guide us towards the football stadium, church, Pop's house, Gigi's house, school, Winn-Dixie, the lake (Lake Martin!), James' house (280 West to Bham), Tiger Town and TCBY. He can direct you to the neighborhood pool, his buddy JP's house and to Chick-fil-a. One smart cookie.

In conclusion, if I could get at least 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night, I think I could take over the world with my productivity...or at least conquer my seemingly unending "to do" list. With a little sleep, I feel productive, sociable, motivated and, well, smarter. Maybe one day...