Snow Day!

The Children Present

Well the weekend is almost over and I am now able to sit and look back at the amazing weekend.  This past weekend we had our children's presentation at church.  I get the extreme pleasure of directing these amazing kids and working side by side with some of the most outstanding adults out there.  This year's presentation was "Meet Me At the Manger" and it was filled with the usual "interesting" moments.  Before I share some of the more funny and scary stories I will say that God was glorified, these kids were used and I know that God was pleased with our efforts.  I am always encouraged by these little hearts that give up their time, do things that are REALLY out of their comfort zone and do it with a smile.  Why?  Because they are doing it for Christ and His glory.  How can you walk away from that and not be encouraged in your own walk.  

The first scary thing we had to deal with was the weather.  I know that there was a lot of praying that went out, just hoping we were going to get to do it.  God was good and held off the big stuff.  This was the first year that I had all three of my kids involved in the presentation.  My two youngest were in the pee-wee's.  Sarah was actually fairly uneventful, got up on stage with a smile, sang the songs and off she went.  HUGE change from last year.  Adam, however presented some, um, embarrassing moments.  For the first presentation he became very concerned that his shirt was untucked.  So on the stage, front and center, he starts trying to tuck it in.  Well he is really digging down to achieve this task and as a result he spends the entire first run of "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus" with his hands down his pants.  And then there was the third presentation where I spent a few minutes chasing him around the stage.  Finally I picked him up and handed him off to grandpa.  When I asked him if he wanted to sing or go to grandpa he said "no, I wanna play with the mics"  Fantastic.  

Alex managed to keep most of his antics to the rehearsals for the big choir.  He was in trouble almost all the time but he turned it on for the presentations.  In fact he was even trying to "parent" the other kids so they would stay on task.  His hair was a bit of a distraction for him, but that's the price you pay for good rock star hair.  

Some of the other great moments were from other kids.  One girl hit her face with a mic right before her solo, that was great.  There was the pastors son playing air guitar during one of the songs, which the audience loved.  There was the kid that when I asked the choir what their secret weapon was, he said, without missing a beat "gas".  I was looking for cuteness.   There was the kid that thought he needed to show his neighbor how awesome his thumbs looked sticking out of his shirt right in the middle of the big serious moment for the choir, and he was in the front row.  Of course Mary couldn't find baby Jesus for the opening scene last night, caused mass confusion for the manger scene crew.  Then the biggie, the phone call at 6:00 this morning telling me that my lead girl had the serious stomach flu.  God was good and had her little sister right there willing to do it.  Amazing that she pulled it off.  An hour before the presentation she went through it for the first time on stage, the other actors helped her along and at one point she had to use the script on stage, but she did awesome and we were still able to present all the hard work.  Lastly there was the multiple times I almost pulled my skirt off last night.  The lace kept getting stuck in the heal of my boot and when I would go to stand the whole skirt would get pulled down.  Really frightening a few times.  Seriously the stories could go on and on, but over all I have to say it was amazingly fun, really encouraging and as always a chance to see God's hand at work.  He is faithful and good and never leaves us to do it alone.

photo shoot

OK, so I am going to attempt to post some pictures from my most recent photo shoot with my good friend Valerie Hibler.  If you do not go to this girl for pictures you are nuts, she is amazing!  Check out her website  www.valeriehiblerphotography.webs.com and see her work.  What I am posting is mostly proofs from a cd she sent me, so they are not as beautiful as they will be when finished.  She has this amazing ability to make our pictures so flawless and timeless.  She can even move heads, that's right, move heads.  Moms know how fantastic that is because we have such a hard time getting everyone to look at the camera.  Or we finally get the kids to look wonderful and we have a horrible double chin!  She can even take a few pounds off if you want her too :)  There are no family pictures here because they needed to much tlc from her still, when I get a nice finished product I will post it.  Most of you will be getting our Christmas card this year and I can't wait for you to see the awesome picture she took for that.  I am really pleased with how it turned out.  Enjoy a few pictures of my kiddos and call this girl, you will be so glad that you did.
















 

Seattle with Sarah

It's been a while since my last post.  I have missed it terribly.  I love writing down all the crazy, special, discouraging moments in my life.  It's great therapy!  Last weekend Kyle and I took Sarah to Seattle for 4 days.  We go every year for Kyle's work and have started taking one kid at a time to spoil them rotten.  Sarah did great, and it is really right up her alley as the girl LOVES to shop.  She did have a hard time hearing no after a while, got a bit of a princess complex, but she slept great and loved all the new adventures.  The princess complex has reduced significantly since returning home to two brothers that need mom and dad too.  The first night was just in the room as we didn't get there until 8:00.  We got to our room and she took one look at her big bed and was so happy.  She couldn't believe she got a whole big bed to herself, she tried out all 100 pillows (why do they put so many on those hotel beds?)  until she found the one that was just right.  On Sunday we slept in, had breakfast with daddy and then hung out while daddy worked a bit.  By the time we were headed into the city she was more then ready for an adventure.  We parked over by the Seattle Center so we could ride the monorail into the shopping district.  She thought the space needle was really cool and really wanted to go into it.  She had to settle for a snow globe of it instead.  After the train ride we shopped for several hours.  She loved the bookstore the best and bought herself her first Ameillia Bedillia (sp?) book.  She loved retelling the story to her brothers after we got home.  On Sunday we did some Christmas shopping while Kyle worked and then went to IKEA.  We always like looking for odds and ends for home there and we actually really like the meatballs.  Sarah liked the pre-made rooms that they have there, she found a little nursery and was right at home playing house.  We then took her to see Bolt, which was really cute.  I recommend it to anyone.  The hamster is super funny.  Sadly Monday we had to head home, although I was really ready to see my boys.  Sarah did not want to come home, so I know she had a great time.  Next year we will be taking Adam, which may have a totally different flow to it.  Who knows, we may get kicked out of the hotel with that one :)  (the above pictures are from our day downtown)

Here is Sarah enjoying our deck.

Treasured Moments

The last week has had some unexpected and nice moments of peace and some really fun times too.  Here are a few pictures from the last week in the Kivett household.  

Here is Adam all ready for his first Birthday party where he was the Kivett kid invited.  He was so excited, that he carried his invite around for 2 days, sleeping with it and everything.  The theme was Wall-E and so we went and got him a sweatshirt to wear to the party, here he is sporting it.

Everybody's Kung Fu Fighting!!!  The extra's on DVD's can be so fun.  Here the kids are learning some kung fu Panda moves.  They also enjoyed the "learn to draw" section of the DVD.  We killed probably 2 hours going through the extras, really fun.


Here is my amazing husband enjoying his time in front of his Jazz Band.  He is so cute and I am so proud of him.  He had a really fun swing dance fundraiser last weekend.  They give lessons for 30 minutes prior, then the schools jazz groups perform.  Last they have a local jazz band play for 60 - 90 minutes so everyone can dance.  Really fun.
Kyle's brother-in-law delivers fire trucks.  Last Monday our doorbell rang and I thought one of the kids must have called 911 because there was a fire truck parked in our street.  It was Chris and he swept Alex out of bed and took him for a spin around the block.  Alex LOVED it!!!  Chris even honked the horn for him.  What a way cool uncle.
Here is Alex holding our dear friends, the Griffith's, baby.  Brian was our best man so it is so fun still being a part of each other's lives.  The baby is beautiful and Alex loved holding him, he keeps saying he wants a new baby brother.  Sorry to let you down bud, but it isn't gonna happen.
Sarah with her current stuffed love.  She goes everywhere with this baby Simba from Disneyland.  To bad the puppy also really likes it and keeps trying to steal it.
Alex thinks he's a rocker, but really he is just telling me how much he loves me.  I think I won't fix that, I'll take an I Love You however I can get it.  Although he actually hands those out pretty freely.
Last here is my cute baby, and he is growing up way to fast.  I just really liked this picture, he has the camera strap around his neck and was thinking I was silly for taking his picture.  But who could resist such a cute subject!

Take Time To Enjoy

My life has been crazy busy, always is this time of year.  But yesterday Kyle was gone all day for a concert at work and I decided I was going to take time to enjoy.  I was going to enjoy my sleep, enjoy my kids, enjoy my house, enjoy my projects, enjoy all that God has given me.  I think that my favorite part of the day came as I put all the kids in their baths.  They are all so different in what they like.  Alex wanted a bath alone, no toys, with his music.  He wanted to "relax".  How many 7 year old boys want to relax in the bath.  He laid back, closed his eyes and enjoyed the peace of it.  Sarah was all about practicing her swimming technique, luckily our bath is just big enough for her to feel like she can do some of that.  She also just LOVES feeling how long and flowing her hair is under water.  She will lay for several minutes just feeling her hair.  Adam wants to be in my shower and clean, clean, clean.  He loves a wash cloth so he can wash down all the walls several times.  They are funny to me, and precious and when I stop and really look at them they are very easy to enjoy.  Now, I need to go find joy in my laundry.  

So Much Candy!

Halloween was a blast this year.  My kids looked amazing, but I know I'm biased.  Sarah was Belle, and so beautiful.  Adam was Peter Pan - really isn't he a true Peter Pan personality.  I thought it was the perfect pick.  Alex was Jack Sparrow, black eyes and everything.  We started the night off at Emily's for a neighborhood chili feed.  The chili was yum, and I really enjoyed my chili dog.  We had some great carmel corn and deviled eggs to go along with it.  There were several families from our neighborhood and quite a gang of kids in their costumes.  It was really fun, and felt very festive.  We started trick or treating at 6:00 and I was amazed at the turn out.  We had people bussing in to our neighborhood and Cambridge.  CRAZY.  I handed out 150 or more, pieces of candy.  It felt like and small town in days gone by.  Large groups running around, houses decorated, tons of families out.  It was really fun.  Sarah of course, fell on the second house.  This was a bummer because it took forever for her to truly recover and start moving at a pace that was less like a snail.  Adam got tired on about the 6th house so needed carried.  At one point I was carrying Adam on my hip and holding Sarah's dress up so that she wouldn't trip.  Why she couldn't hold her dress up is a mystery, but it just became "too much!"  Alex was well ahead of us with his current crush Sarah.  It was funny because Alex was with big Sarah and Adam was with his little tiny Alex and then Sarah went outside the family names by hanging with Becca.
  Adam pooped out about half way through and stayed back at our house with Grandma, who was kindly passing out candy.  The other two were out for an hour and a half.  I was amazed, I guess the need for sugar will really drive kids to achieve.  The saddest part of the night was the lack of their father.  Kyle had to work and so missed all the fun.  Bummer.  I hope everyone had such a great night, enjoy some of our pictures, the top pumpkin pic is what Kyle did with the kids a few nights.  Sarah's is the happy one, Alex is the scary one and Adam's is the silly one.  If you can't tell Adam's is standing on his head :)