Our Friday Night

This post will be of special interest to you if you have a family where the husband is Bishop, the wife plays piano for everyone and their dog, and the kids are 7 and under.

An investigating couple who are being baptized this Sunday scheduled their wedding for tonight and asked Shawn to marry them. Sure, no problem. I met Amy on Sunday - really nice gal - asked if I could play piano for the wedding. Sure, no problem.

So off we go with kids in tow to the church tonight dressed in our Sunday best. We get to the church early so Shawn can get ready while I feed Aaron his dinner. Kaylee is watching all the picture taking and the pretty dresses. So far, so good. Time comes for me to start playing. Problem - do not recognize anyone to leave baby with besides Sis. Oliva who has her hands full trying to get all the photos taken. Where is Sister Brown when you need her? Seriously, I always have so much help with Aaron at church, it doesn't occur to me that perhaps I will not know anyone there (all non-member family members). Shawn takes Aaron and away I go. I play for 5 minutes or so and Kaylee comes wandering in by the piano with Aaron. Shawn follows after a few minutes and tells Kaylee to take Aaron to the nursery and play with him (I can smell trouble already). So out they go and Shawn disappears. Everything is smooth for another 5 minutes. Then the screaming starts. The groom is standing up at the front, they are about to start the processional (which we're not supposed to do anyway in the church but that's another story) and no sign of Shawn. I continue to faithfully plunk out Pachebels Canon in D, although as the screams continue it takes on a faster tempo. Up march the little girls, the bridesmaid, etc. and Shawn jumps in line just before the bride comes in. He gets them situated, gives me the nod to stop, and I walk as fast as I can around the hall and out the door to the lobby where my little girl sits holding on to her howling brother for dear life. She sees me - the face crumbles and the lips start to quiver. I send her into the wedding and take Aaron into the mothers room to try and calm him. I notice little white specks on his chin, but don't think much of it. He is calm after a few minutes and we head into the wedding where the couple got no postlude music, thank you very much.

Here's what happened WHILE I was playing. Aaron had gotten a piece of chalk in his mouth and when Shawn went out to check on them, he saw Aaron walking down the hall FOAMING AT THE MOUTH! He gets the chalk out, much to baby's distress - he was perfectly happy with the chalk - which produces the wail. All of this happened as the processional that wasn't supposed to happen was happening. Oh, and Kaylee wants me to tell you that Aaron bit her finger when she tried to get the chalk out.

So, what is the moral of this story, you ask? Well, it's simple. If you ever find yourself in the situation of the first and second paragraphs, you either say "no, sorry, I can't play if my husband is performing the ceremony because I need to watch the kids" (duh), or another acceptable alternative would be "sure, we can both help you as long as you make sure there is someone there we can trust to watch the kids" (preferably over the age of 12).

Have a great weekend, my family and friends. :)

I can't get enough of these kids!

I know, I know, it seems like that's pretty much all I post about these days, but when they're as cute as this I just can't help myself. Check this out...

Kaylee can make him laugh longer and harder than Shawn or I - believe it or not he was laughing even harder before I found the camera - I LOVE IT!!

Aaron has this fascination with buckles and belts. He loves to manuever them around and try and figure out how they work. This is how we find him often around the house.

I promise we don't encourage bulimia.

Blogging Mishaps...

I am SLOWLY learning the ins and outs of blogging. After spending a good part of the day yesterday trying to change my template, I have lost my blogroll. After spending a good part of this morning remeding this, I am certain there are blogging buddies I have left off the current list who used to be a part of the previous list. If you are one of those buddies, please leave me a comment and let me know your address so I can add it to my list...sigh.

I am open to comments on how not to lose widget info when switching templates. I need to research this, but in the meantime if any of you blogger wizzes care to leave the info in non-blogger wizzes terminology, I would be very grateful. I am switching templates from outside sources because all the blogger ones are so boring, and html is a foreign language to me. Whenever I go to switch and copy and paste the new template in, it invariably says that one or more of my widgets are about to be deleted....WHHHHYYYYY????

I will master this one of these days.... :)

This Happens WAY too fast!!

The first one taken July 7, the second one July 10. I want it to last longer!!!

4th of July and a great week!

We had a lot of fun this past week. Shawn's parents were in town, and in many ways it was a repeat of when my parents were here - out to eat, games, aquarium, beach, out to eat, games, fireworks, out to eat, games... you get the picture. Here are some highlights...

As always, the kids had a blast at the beach. We went after dinner...a perfect time because the heat of the day is past and the temperature is perfect. Aaron has become very comfortable with the beach, and crawls around like he owns the place. He heads right out into the water and will stop only when he gets a mouthful of it! It's interesting how he went from being scared of it to so aggressive after just a few visits!

This was taken just when the sun went below the horizon.

And this only a couple of minutes later.

The 4th of July was...you guessed it...HOT! We broke a record here by about 7 degrees and the temp you felt outside was 112. Eh. So we hibernated inside all day and about 4 or so I decided to get the baby pool out and the kids got in and splashed around for a bit. They loved it! Speaking of how fast kids change, I can't believe how different Kaylee is with the sprinkler this year - last year she wouldn't go near it and this year she gets right in the middle of it and wants it in her face! What a difference a year makes!

Then this little guy had some serious business to attend to once swim/bubble time was over!

After the sun went down we headed over to Cole Park. Kaylee had fun on the swings while we waited for the fireworks, and Shawn had fun with the new camera...

My Texas cutie...

And to top it all off - the fireworks, of course! They were way far away - we couldn't even hear the boom! It turned out for the best with Aaron though - he was happily oblivious to the whole thing and kept himself entertained crawling all over the blanket and his sister.

Somehow Larry and Dorothy avoided the pics this time...here's a couple of them on an earlier visit to Corpus. They just got a mission call to the Bulgaria Sofia mission - leaving in October for a year and a half. Larry got us all set up with some high tech computer program so we can talk to them over there for FREE... :) We're excited to hear all your stories you guys! Love you and thanks for a fun week!

Aaron is walking like crazy now - is venturing farther and farther by himself. I'll post another video soon. I am working the next couple of weeks at an opera camp at A&M and then girls camp here I come - YIKES!! Shawn just started teaching a music appreciation class for Summer II session today. Busy month, but fun month. Life is good. :)