Five minutes

Take 5 minutes to watch this. (Click on the word this...not sure why it didn't underline.) It won't disappoint. I promise.

Video Montage

Here are three videos that we've shot in the last few weeks - we think they give great insight into how fun our life is with Turner around! She is quite the ham for the camera! Here are a few short snippets of funny things she does on a daily basis - she constantly keeps us laughing!

"Don't knock down my blocks!"
We are wondering when we will start to regret the fact that we find this so funny? I am sure at some point we'll want her to actually OBEY us when we say not to do something???


"The girl can sing and dance!"
This is an idea of Turner's every day personality! She does this in the mornings when we pack for the day and again in the evenings while we cook dinner! You can imagine my pride that she seems to be exhibiting musical tendencies early - I swear she's singing the ABC song and has nice pitch! :) Notice the stomping at the beginning - that was the first stage of dancing. You'll see her progress in the next video, and we don't even have the newest version (stomping both feet) on camera yet!


"I feel good!"
Tootsie and Pop gave Turner this singing dog for Valentine's Day. She figured out quickly that if you push his foot his tail swings madly and the music starts blaring. Obviously, (again my heart swells with pride) Turner has a strong penchant for soul music and it makes her really want to dance!
;

My favorite game

It is always a fun day when our collegiate loyalties join forces in common disdain for one particular SEC school. We have been looking forward to our trip to Tuscaloosa for a few weeks now, mainly in hopes of watching our MSU Bulldogs destroy the Crimson Tide in basketball. (I always say that when MSU plays Alabama, I have to be the biggest Bulldog fan in the arena!) As an added bonus, we stopped in Birmingham to pick up my sister who wanted to tag along - mainly to spend some time with Turner! :) Let's just say that despite the outcome of the game, we had a wonderful visit with Aunt B and a great Saturday spent together as a family! Here are a few of my favorite pictures.


Mark and Turner outside Coleman Coliseum (I can't believe I actually took a picture of this, nor the fact that we had to walk through the Bryant Museum to get there. I counseled Turner on the way through as to how she should view all things Alabama. Sorry Brooke!!)


My favorite picture of Turner and Mark


Turner loves her Aunt B


The power of imitation is strong - Turner has obviously watched me down a few sodas?


A true sports loving family, intently watching the game!


Thanks Daddy for taking me to see the Bulldogs play!

Life as we know it

So, it has been a while since I’ve posted any real details from life in the Armstrong house. Let me enlighten you to what life has been like in our home for the last three weeks, I think the lack of posts might make a little more sense.

Three weeks we drove to Andalusia so that we could spend time with my family for part of the MLK long weekend. We returned to Auburn and enjoyed a productive MLK Monday before returning to work. Shortly after we returned to Auburn, Mom called to tell me that she and Dad had some type of virus. Immediately we hoped that the sickness would avoid our home, but alas it did not. Turner threw up 5 times in 4 hours in the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday (the 20th), and then a couple of more times on Wednesday. (*Let me take a moment to brag on my husband here. In those 5 hours we went through 9 sets of pajamas between the three of us, two sets of sheets, and several towels. In between helping me try to get Turner calmed down and cleaned up; guess what Mark is doing? Washing the clothes. And he had some major events going on at work the following day – which he handled on 1.5 hours of sleep. In case you can’t tell, he’s pretty awesome. Helpmate = Mark.)

By that weekend life seemed to be returning to normal, filled with things such as picture hanging, baby showers, new furniture being delivered, etc. Mom came up to help entertain Turner, but again called with news of a stomach virus before she got back to Andalusia Sunday night (the 26th). Again we hoped that the virus would avoid our home, but alas it did not. This time it came after me with a vengeance and it pretty much knocked me down for three good days (out of work for two days). It is important to note that on the first two days when I was at my worst, Mark had major events at work again and this time he had to take Turner with him – she experienced her first official Auburn callouts! She was such a trooper and though she didn’t get settled in at home until 10:30pm, she went to sleep like an angel. Because of this virus, I had to cancel a dinner date with a friend, a doctor’s appointment, and not fulfill my school breakfast duties on Friday. As I am typing, I realize these events just happened last weekend, but it truly seems like an eternity ago.

This past Monday, I was hopeful that my virus had somehow avoided Mark and Turner. And so far it has – praise the Lord. Sunday and Monday I noticed that I felt a little strange, and I noticed some runniness in Turner’s right eye. By Tuesday (Feb 3rd) I had no voice, and Turner woke up with her eye stuck shut with “gunk”. I ran her to the doctor during my planning period, and of course it was pink eye. On the way to pick up the eye drops (while trying to call school and alert them that I wasn’t returning the rest of the day) I got pulled over for speeding. Bless his heart, once the officer heard my voice and saw Turner in the back seat sound asleep I think he just felt sorry for me and issued me a verbal warning – Hallelujah! Today is Sunday, and I still can’t talk normally and am coughing up a storm…so let’s just say I haven’t been well in over a week. I am ready to be well again and I am still hopeful that all this sickness will skip over the rest of my family. Feel free to join me in praying that they are protected from the germs!!

We have actually had a very productive and seemingly long weekend, and even accomplished a goal of ours to restock our freezer with Mark’s homemade spaghetti sauce and my homemade seafood gumbo! Boy we love nights when we can just pull those out of the freezer and have delicious dinner quickly! Today we had a surprise visit from my parents, Tootsie and Pop. We always enjoy seeing them and appreciate them driving up to spend the day with us! Words can’t express how thankful I am that Mark and my parents are so close and get along so well. He honestly looks forward to them coming to visit, and they treat him like he’s been in our family forever. I know I am blessed.

Here are a few pictures from the last few weeks and some from today with Tootsie and Pop! There are a few that will need to be viewed in succession as they move in the slide show....one set highlights her antics in getting in and out of her mini-recliner, the other set at the end highlights her expressions and dancing to the singing dog that Tootsie and Pop brought. We'll post video of this soon - Turner is quite the dancer! Enjoy!!

Words cannot even express...

...what it is like to teach 6th grade. I have done this for 8 years. You'd think by now I would be used to the crazy questions, the hormonal outbursts, the nasty notes, etc. Oh no, this year may be the one that completely does me in for good.

Today in class I had created what I hoped would be a thought provoking and fun activity to drive home the concept of unit rates to my kids. I purchased individual packs of chips and cookies, and the assignment was to work with their normal partner to figure out the unit price I paid per bag, and furthermore the unit price per cookie/chip in their bag. After doing this, they could eat the goodies while working a few challenge problems. Sounds like fun - right? Maybe for them. NOT for me. Let me just allow you to step into my world for a second and experience some of the things that actually occured today in my classroom:

When the number 6.895 was on the board I was told emphatically that the 5 was in the hundredths place. Bear in mind, we covered this unit 6 weeks ago. (Nevermind the fact this is NOT a 6th grade skill, but a 4th grade concept.)

"Mrs. Armstrong - what do you mean by work with a partner?" Um....the person whose desk connects to yours and has been your partner on a daily basis since January 6th?

A little boy comes to my desk and asks, "Mrs. Armstrong, how are we supposed to know how many cookies in our bag?" This is followed by a long pause by me while I sit and stare at him in disbelief. Um.....maybe you should open it and count them?

And the final straw, which sent me into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, was when I looked up at a girl in 5th period as she took a huge swallow from her 12 ounce Diet Dr. Pepper. In the middle of class. With no shame. And when I questioned her on it (since sodas aren't allowed at all at school for students), she had the nerve to simply close the top and try to stick it back in her backpack like she was going to save it for later. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? P.S. Her parents are both teachers!

Seriously, I am about to run screaming from the building.

3, 2, 1 Happy New House!!

The last 18 days have been a whirlwind (has it really only been 18??). I am not sure that I haven’t avoided this post because I was too overwhelmed at the task or too fuzzy on the details to do it justice. Nevertheless…

Rewind to my last post – our 6th anniversary, 12/28/08. We were busy packing boxes and preparing to close on our new home, which we did on Tuesday 12/30/08. We were very productive on Tuesday evening, emptying our mobile attic and reacquainting ourselves with belongings we hadn’t seen in 5 months. The next day we began the process of moving our lives from Payne Street across town – a process we thought might take a full day of work and maybe two u-haul trucks loaded down. Let’s just say that Saturday afternoon (yes – I mean 3 days later) we finished that process. We did spend our first night in our new home on New Year's Eve, which was an exciting way to ring in the new year (and yes, for the first time in years I did actually make it to midnight)! For the next few days, balancing the two locations proved to be more of a challenge than I expected – wanting to be at the new house working and organizing, yet needing to clean and have closure at the rental house.

However, we are in our new home. And we love it. Building a house was a tremendous task; but one that I enjoyed immensely and would do again in a heartbeat. It makes me smile each time I walk into my kitchen and see my black granite counters and hardwood floors and think, “This is just what I wanted.” What a treasure to be able to design your home into something you love.

Here are the pictures of the interior final product. Thank you to the many people I encounter on a daily basis through face to face interactions or blog comments who have complimented us and encouraged us along this journey. Your encouragement helped me be confident that we were doing a good thing. Enjoy the slide show!

(Disclaimer: I am a little neurotic about organization. If you can’t identify with that, you probably want to skip this paragraph.) Settling into the house was (and still is) much more difficult this time than in the past – mainly because we have a 14 month old underfoot constantly calling for our attention and time. And she deserves it – so she gets it. There are still boxes unpacked, and pictures unhung, and a garage full of things with no “home” yet - and it’s driving me completely mad. At night I get this “I think I might explode” feeling when I try to balance being a mom and wife and all the activities that go along with those roles, with the internal urge to get the house “fixed”. And to be quite honest with you, I fear I am doing a pretty stinky job filling all of my roles right now. Thus a vicious cycle - feeling guilty about not being a good mom/wife/etc. yet wanting to ignore all of those roles to finish the task at hand. As I have battled these demons, I came across a Christmas version of 1 Corinthians on a friend’s Sunday School class blog and it really gripped me with conviction. Oh how I lose perspective sometimes. So, I adjusted it for non-Christmas plain-old life, and plan to frame it and hang in my kitchen as a visual reminder of prioritizing my life correctly. Here’s my version; those of you who see me regularly please hold me accountable.

Perspective from 1 Corinthians 13

If I decorate my house perfectly with exquisite flowers, pristine vases, perfectly leveled pictures, and fine rugs, but do not show love to my family, I'm just another decorator.

If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of cakes, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to my family, I'm just another cook.

If I work at the soup kitchen, sing at the nursing home and give all that I have to charity, but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing.

If I bake meals for friends in need, attend a myriad of social gatherings, attend church regularly, and sing in the choir, but do not focus on Christ (and share Jesus), I have missed the point.

Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband.
Love is kind, though harried and tired.
Love doesn't envy another's home that has coordinated china and table linens.
Love doesn't yell at the kids to get out of the way, but is thankful they are there to be in the way.
Love doesn't give only to those who are able to give in return but rejoices in giving to those who can't.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.

Can I tell you a couple of things to do and not to do for people who are in the process of moving? Please know that I don’t mean this to be as a complaint, but I realized through this process that we do so much for people who have babies, or experience loss, and we tend to forget that a move is a major life change (read: ministry opportunity) as well. We had amazing servants helping us physically move our belongings, but I think that those of us who maybe can’t physically help can minister in other ways:
1. Drop off a meal or deliver a restaurant gift card to the family.
2. Offer to babysit children so that adults can be productive without constantly having attention diverted to a child.
3. Don’t ask people two days after they’ve moved whether they are settled – they probably aren’t. Along the same lines, don’t tell people how quickly you got settled when you moved. If they are like me (slightly neurotic I guess?) that only adds to the guilt they feel for not being settled.

One of the neatest things about this process to me was watching God’s plan unfold for us. We sold our house in 8 days. A rental house (clean, big, and convenient) was immediately available to us for as long as we needed. We build a house we love in 4 months and 2 days (not the year that some friends projected). And to put the cherry on the top, the day before we closed on the house interest rates fell one more time – to me that just stirred something in my soul that said, “Here you go Mark and Sarah. Here’s one more specific blessing, just because I love you.” God is good.

So, this is what 6 years gets you?

Day old left-over pizza, tomato noodles, and two large frostys from Wendy's.

Let me explain...today is our 6th wedding anniversary. We have developed a dinner tradition for our anniversary over the last few years and normally enjoy a delicious Italian dinner from our local restaurant Provino's. We had actually planned to eat there tonight and even had some childcare in mind for a dinner date! However, I have a terrible cold and pretty much cannot taste anything I eat. I told Mark that I saw no purpose in going to eat delicious food when I couldn't really enjoy it, so I'd like to take a rain check for next weekend when I can taste things again! (And I am sure we'll need a treat after a week of moving!)

As I said, I am not exactly feeling 100% and my ultimate comfort food is tomato noodles - so that was my dinner choice. Mark decided to eat our leftovers from last night, and I really have been craving a frosty for the past few days....thus our anniversary dinner was born. This is almost as good as the birthday dinner I provided for Mark a few years back...chili dogs at Sonic. Classy huh? :)

I am so thankful for our marriage and the way that God has molded and shaped it over the last 6 years. We marvel at the fact that it honestly gets better and better each day, and we laugh at how we thought we loved each other on Dec. 28, 2002. Oh we just had no idea...God is good.

For your viewing pleasure, a couple of engagement photos taken in September of 2002. My digital wedding pics are at school or I would post one of those... If we only knew then what we know now about this wonderful blessing called marriage...