My Dancing Queen

Last night was one of my favorite nights of the year. We go downtown to a big auditorium and watch my baby girl dance her little heart out. She has prepared all year for this night in the spotlight and she loves it! She loves the costume, make-up, hair, and attention. For the first time last night she was nervous. She has performed for the last 4 years and has never seemed nervous. But she was very brave once we prayed together and never missed a step! As I was watching her last night I was remembering all the other dances. The first year she was only 3 and her daddy had to play a horse for her! Poor guy had to be on his hands and knees on hard ground in front of hundreds of people. But she looked so cute sitting on top of his back blowing her kiss to the audience! Then the next year she was a cute ballerina in tu-tu and all. The third year she danced to "Achy Breaky Heart" which was right up her little cowgirl alley! Then this year it was "Dancing Queen"! I just laughed when I found out what their song was going to be! Not that I love the song, but it was from my time and the title so describes my daughter! She used to literally spend hours dancing in our living room for us. She loved the colors of her costume this year. I think the costumes in the past were cuter, but I think she thought this year's was more grown up! :-( Her daddy gave her a dozen long stemmed red roses after her performance as well. Once again reflecting on years past...the first year she danced, we ALL gave her flowers. She was so tiny standing there in her red cowgirl costume with an arm load of flowers! She was completely overwhelmed and for the life of her, she could not figure out why we were making her hold so many flowers while we took 2 million pictures! Last night we saw another bewildered little girl with an armload of flowers while about 15 adults stood around with flashing cameras and I just laughed to myself!

These dances require a lot from both mom and daughter. On Thursday we have rehearsal. I check her out of school just a little early and go get gas. I then have to run my car thought the car wash because we will see everyone we know! In the car wash I have her change into her costume! Then we race into town. Once at the auditorium we find a place to sit and wait. Once her class is called up they practice several times and we get last minute costume inspection and instruction. Then we have to wait at least 2 hours so we can practice the Finale! So we get to bed late this night. Then again the following day, I check her out just a little early and we head home for a bath and hair washing! We get her dressed up in a cute dress and apply heavy stage make-up by the very specific instructions, put her hair up still wet and practically glue it in place. Then we grab a snack and drink and head to town again! This time we go straight to the dressing room and change there (on performance night you can't wear any part of your costume in the general public!). We take several pictures and make last minute costume adjustments (I take needle and thread!) She is then taken with her class to wait in the wings and entire hour before the show begins! We then head to find seats (Grandmother is with me and helping me this year!) We meet daddy and the boys and everyone else coming to see our little DQ. She is about the 6th dance and after she is done, I run to the dressing room to meet her. More pictures. Change into cute dress taking even the ribbon out of her hair. She comes to out seats and sees everyone and watches a couple of dances with us then she and I head back to the dressing room and get back into costume. This year I watched 1 too many dances and we are the last one to change. Her whole little class is ready and yelling "hurry Sarah, hurry!" Never mind we have at least 9 more dances before finale. We get back into costume in record time and she joins them as they are going upstairs again to wait in the wings. I head back to our seats, finish the show and race once again back to the dressing room. We change back into the cute dress for the last time! We gather all our stuff and head back to the seats to rejoin everyone for more pictures. Finally we head to a restaurant to eat and rest!!!! I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!

Welcome Eden Marie!

Jana and Brad welcomed their second baby girl into the world last night at 9:26! She was born after a frustrating day for mom and dad. Jana began having contractions at 9:00 that morning and sometime after 10 they decided it was time! They got in the car and Brad asked Jana to tell him when the next contraction began. She said she just sat there and sat there! Once in the hospital she had a few more then they hooked her up and she just sat there again! Finally they decided to let her go but felt she would be back soon. Sure enough just 4 hours later she was back and she was serious! Less than 5 hours later little ( ummm, big) Eden made what seemed to be an almost effortless entry! (At least effortless on my part- heehee!) She weighed in at 9# 4.8 ounces!! and over 21 inches long! She is adorable and seems to have a very mild mannered personality, but we all know time will tell the truth on that one! Emily was very excited to see her new baby sister. She was so gentle with her. I took tons of pictures, but mostly with Jana's camera. I will post one soon with her permission.

Our Easter Egg Experiment

Sorry it has been so long since I last posted. March has been difficult this year. But I finally thought, life is too short to feel so down all the time. My sadness won't change anything for the better anyway. That's not to say that I was under the covers all month, but I certainly did not feel like blogging or talking about it. I had picked out a nice blog to post on mom's site and never did. Maybe I will still do that but for now it is not there. We did go to her grave and took some daffodils from the yard. I don't go there very often even though it is just practically next door. I don't know why, maybe it is because I have three kids and had rather play with them. But it was nice to go with my family. We still have not ordered her headstone and I have been beating myself up over that one. I want it to be perfect and have not decided EXACTLY what I want to put on it. But I think it is time to decide and get that done too. We will have a family get together soon where lots of extended family come and we clean up the cemetery and I want the headstone in place before that. (Don't want everyone to think we are neglectful!)

Anyway that is just a little reason why I have avoided this spot for a while. Now on to fun stuff! See the eggs. Take 3 guesses as to how I got them so red!!! Yes they were plan old white eggs from the store. Are you ready for this! Onions! Did you guess right? I took the skins of 15 yellow onions, boiled them then steeped them for about 30 minutes then brought it to room temperature and boiled my eggs in the strained liquid! They were absolutely beautiful! We learned that the Greek tradition is to dye eggs red to remind them of Christ's blood and the egg represents new life. So we took this little basket to guys who run our wonderful local Greek restaurant. It was a great experiment and good lesson for the kids.

New adventure!

People look at my plate and think it is overflowing on all sides. I guess that is one way to see it, but I look at it and see all the wonderful things in my life. I think I love almost every activity in it. I do complain some about being tired or too busy but I guess I am strictly a type A personality. I love projects and challenges. I love to keep my mind and body active. I hope the only casualty of my busy life is a clean house.

So are you dying to know what I got myself into now? I have just recently signed up to be a Southern Living at Home consultant. yeah yeah yeah, I know it is direct sales, but I am really excited. I went to a party just because it is the polite thing to do. While there I got interrupted by a small "emergency" and left with a quick order and a catalogue. I agreed to host a catalogue party to help out my friend that gave the party. I must have looked at the poor catalogue a thousand times. Every day I changed what I wanted. My list only grew longer the more I looked at it! I feel in love with everything they have! So I am going to try this. I haven't sold anything other than books at my book fair fundraisers since I was in high school selling ice cream at the mall. At the fundraisers I always enjoy meeting people and talking to them. I think that will be one of the real perks about this new adventure.

So, if you get an invitation for a party, just know I am only trying to share one of the new interests in my life with you. I promise not to be pushy or sneaky. Just excited! Oh, and if you want to host a party (wink, wink) I'll be thrilled!

You may check out my web page at www.southernlivingathome.com/angietitus
You can actually browse the latest catalogue and order online from my homepage! Just click on the "Our Products" link on the left. The entire catalogue will come up and you can browse each wonderful page!
Happy shopping!

Can you tell it is flu season?

I have been so busy lately. I seem to have very little time to do anything but stick swabs up noses! I know we say this every year, but this has been a bad season for us. All three of the docs I work with have gotten sick this season and I have had to fill in more than usual. One of them had flu and then pnuemonia a few weeks later. I feel like I am waiting for the other shoe to drop and for my family to get sick. Then of course we have been swamped. Today, by the timeI finished seeing the patients in the first two rooms, I had to send them both to the ER because they were so sick!

I think Josiah just got over his second bout of pneumonia as well. I say think because he had x-rays that looked okay and progressively got worse until we started antibiotics almost a week later. My poor kids have to be on their death bed before I give them antibiotics! And of course we were out of town when he got so sick. Steve stayed up all night in the hotel watching him one night. We didn't come home early because I was scared to have him on the road sounding like he did. Anyway he is much better now.

So I hope you all are staying well. Wash those hands! Cover that cough or sneeze and remember Tamiflu only helps if started within 48 hours of onset of symptoms!

Dedication

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 2 Peter 1: 3 (NIV)

Isn't this the sweetest picture? Steve took this Sunday after Josiah's dedication. We just went out in the backyard and took several shots. There were a lot of good ones, but I like this one the most. If you look close you can see the cross embroidered on his little outfit.

Dedication day is so important to me. I really think this is one of the most important days as a parent. We put a lot of prayer and thought into his "life scripture" and prayer. It is so hard to pick out just one scripture that you desire to represent what you hope for this child. Steve and I consider it a great privelege to be able to raise these precious little ones. They are such a blessing. They bring joy and laughter to the adult world. They bring innocence, love and trust. They are very special little people. I pray that we raise them the way God desires.

Father, thank you for the privilege of raising Josiah. We pray that your Spirit will live in him everyday of his life, and that his passion will be to seek and fulfill your will and calling in his life. That he will proclaim your Word to others, and that his life will create a legacy of faithful service to your Kingdom.

6 months already!

Happy Birthday Tiger!

Well it is not exactly his birthday. That was a few weeks ago. But yesterday we celebrated his 5th birthday. So why did it take so long to celebrate? We had a joint party with his best friend. They are about 6 weeks apart in age and we tried to pick the middle. We rented the local inflatable jumping house and invited all their school friends and family. I think we had close to 30 kids there! It was a zoo, but so much fun! He has wanted to have a party at this place for some time so he was on cloud 9. He grinned all day long!

Hogan is my "life of the party kid". He lives life to the fullest. He loves just about everything and everybody. He stays on full throttle as long as he is awake! He reminds me that life can be fun, I mean lots of fun! Give him a bad situation and he will make lemonade from lemons! This little guy is teaching me to love life by just watching him. I think he will set the world on fire someday. He has the energy, tenacity and the bravery to do it! Now if I can just survive his raising to see it!!!!

We have called him Goose since he was an infant. He made this little noise as a newborn that we said sounded like a goose. Well it stuck and we have affectionately called him Goose for 5 years. Well a few months ago he said, "Mommy me not goose, me Hogan." I was stunned but very politely ignored it. Then a few weeks ago he told us he did not want to be called goose anymore, just Hogan. My heart was crushed, but we are trying to respect his request and not call him Goose anymore. I say trying because old habits are hard to break. We called him Goose as much or more than Hogan, at least at home. So this is my Hogan.