Choir concerts

So tonight was the girls' choir concert at Aloha High. I dropped them off early since they volunteered to help set up the dessert table ~ yet another fundraiser for Hawaii!
They decided to get into their outfits at the school...if you'd like to get their opinion about these dresses, check out their blog! Something about shower curtains... :)
The girls dutifully saved the little kids and I a place to sit. Unfortunately, I never did spot the single sweatshirt that was put on the seats on the RIGHT, Laurel. Not the LEFT, as you explained to me on the phone. :)
It all worked out because we got to sit with Jean's family (although we missed you, Jean!).
As I settled in my seat, it made me remember just how in love I am with singing and how much I enjoy hearing teenagers sing too. The songs were funny, and entertaining and even serious at times. I had such a good time! Even the little kids sat nicely for the program ~ I did pack some apple slices for Quentin & Claire, that was probably cheating on my part :)
Once the girls saw the picture, they finally believed me when I told them the outfits would look fantastic on stage. Here is the concert choir ~



Right after the concert, we ran into someone really special. Let's just say the girls must have really been praying hard about playing softball next spring...

I got a few more great pictures of the girls ~



They are so beautiful! And here is another set of twins in concert choir with them. Aren't they all so adorable?! They could be brothers and sisters! ;)





Just to make sure everyone knows their silly side, here are a couple more ~




It was a really good night, and hopefully more friends can come to their Christmas concert!

Friends and Facebook

Having teenagers brings a different perspective to my life as a mom. They find ways to reintroduce me to all the fun I had in high school ~ just with a high tech twist! Take Facebook for example. I've never been a big fan of any social networks for various reasons...until the girls showed me their friends on Facebook.

I was curious about what I saw, and agreed to let them make a profile. After a couple days they had all kinds of flair buttons, favorite books and songs, bumper stickers, you name it. Now, I was intrigued. This seemed to have a lot more personality to it than I had first thought.

You guessed it, I made my own profile. Now, I don't take time very often to hang out there, just like this blog! But, it's nice to have around. Every once in a while someone from my hometown will find me and send me a message, or a friend will send me a great piece of flair. In fact, I was very excited to find out tonight that my best friend just joined Facebook. I sent her some great pieces of flair! They will make her smile, just like I did when I saw her friend's request.

With all the heavy stuff going on in mine and my kids' lives right now, it's pretty cool to have something light-hearted!

Yay for friends and Facebook! :)

My Girls

I am so happy that I was blessed with beautiful baby girl twins 16 years ago. I am not old enough to have kids that age...am I? Holding those two little peanuts after they were born, who would have guessed that they'd be taller than me by this time?! I shouldn't be surprised I suppose. But I'm still getting used to the fact!

Wow, 16 years old! And they have different priorities than I did at that age. At 15 I immediately went out and got my learner's permit. Then at 16, I got my driver's license. Not these two ~ they still don't have their permits yet! Apparently there are more interesting things to read then the drivers' manual. Like LOTR, Artemis Fowl, and the Eragon series.

It's been another fun-filled birthday week in our house! On Wednesday we stopped in at the bakery and picked up a big birthday cake for the girls to take to youth group. My younger kids were hoping that some leftover cake would make it home...not a chance! We are talking about teenagers here. ;)

Remember when I commented about P & L being camera hogs? I thought that I was guaranteed some great pictures from the celebration with their friends. Was I ever wrong about that! When it came time for me to download, I found TWO pictures! Only 2...can you believe it?!!! And they weren't that great either. Silly girls - definitely my blond ones through and through. ;)

Later in the week, they got gift cards for Nordstrom from their dad. It was a nice gesture on his part, and the girls will never turn down the opportunity to buy clothes. Especially when they keep growing to the point of having a 35" inseam! Unbelievable! The surprising part about his gift was that each card was for $50.

This would have been a step in the right direction for Tom if the girls and I hadn't received a call later that evening from my life insurance agent. Turns out my agent is actually the vice-president of the insurance company. He had been working late that night and decided to go over some of the accounts. Mine came up and he found something to be a bit peculiar.

He could see that my policy was still in force, but Tom's showed up as being cancelled back in March. He was concerned for me and wondered if I was aware of this. I explained to my agent about the divorce being final in March. He said that he had wondered if that might have been the case, and that's what prompted his call to me.

Of course you can guess that I wasn't aware of the cancellation. Tom has been telling me all along that his life insurance was up-to-date. I've had my suspicions that he was lying, so it was good for me to hear the truth ~ even if it was from someone else! We figured that the amount of the girls' gift cards would have paid his monthly premiums. We'll never understand how his priorities are so different from ours. Oh well, I think the girls have some comments about that, you might check out their blog this week.

It's been a long journey to realize that the one person I thought would be there for me and my kids, never really showed that he wanted to be. I spent several years grieving the loss of something that I never actually had. This summer has been so healing for the kids and I. Through it all, my confidence has been placed in my Heavenly Father. He has proved his love and faithfulness to me countless times in my life!

Especially recently ~ God has brought the most amazing friends and loved ones into our lives. True friendship and love that we weren't even looking for. It makes me sad at times to think about how long I lived without the amazing relationships that I have now. It's pretty cool how God knew just what we needed even when we didn't. I'm just so thankful for each and every one. I am so blessed!

Many of our great relationships are beginning to feel like part of our extended family! Like Keone & Angie with their adorable and fun kids, and of course Erik, Buni and soon getting together with their family. We have fallen in love with them! Maybe it's Keone's trampoline and Wii RockBand game, or Erik's discounts at Nike and Converse. ;) It's fun to tease about that!

P & L were especially thrilled about the shopping discounts yesterday. Buni was out of town for the weekend, so we missed seeing her. Erik was brave and took the girls and I to the Woodburn Outlet Mall. Now that, was a good time! The girls entertained us for the whole ride down. I thought they were getting a bit out of hand, and giving them "the look" wasn't helping. So, I grabbed the nearest weapon I could think of...my water bottle! You'd think that getting wet would've quieted them down. But noooooo, it was like putting gas on a fire. Then Erik chimed in with the girls to give me a hard time. I was outnumbered for sure!

The Nike Factory store was a bit of a bust. That's okay, I think we'll stick with the Nike Employee store from now on. The Converse store, on the other hand, was awesome! We walked out with the COOLEST shoes, and hoodies, tees and the best hat for Paige. THANK YOU ERIK ~ we love your discount and your shopping savvy! Did your credit card break a sweat? ;)

The drive home was so much quieter 'cause the girls actually slept the whole way. That's how I know they are still just kids ~ they fall asleep on a short road trip! Their special birthday dinner request was sushi. And when we arrived at the restaurant they woke right up! Now that the younger kids have discovered they like sushi as well, we chose a big platter to-go.

The kids weren't too disappointed to miss out on the shopping trip because they had a great time at Keone & Angie's ~ jumpin' on the trampoline all day! We picked them up and all came home for dinner. Then Erik surprised the girls with a birthday treat ~ Homemade Butterscotch pie...yummmmmm!

Tonight, our cousin Alicia is bringing over some ice cream to celebrate with us too! Everyone has come to realize just how much we love food! It's a great relationship we have with our loved ones ~ they bring something over for us, we make something for them, and we all get together and eat! Everything is better with food!!!

I love birthday parties!

Last night was the party that wouldn't stop! You know that kids' song (it's from a show that P & L used to watch as little girls), "This is the song that never ends, it just goes on and on my friend. Some people, started singing it not knowing what it was, and they'll continue singing it forever just because...this is the song that never ends..." You get the idea. :)

It started out with cosmic bowling in the afternoon with my most favorite people in the world and some incredible new friends too! I'm pretty sure that the kids scored better than some of us grown-ups. We took some really great pictures ~ although P & L hogged the camera most of the time. (Anyone want to donate camera batteries for a worthy cause?) Like my friend Angie said, time to invest in a charger with some rechargeable batteries! Honestly, P & L have more than enough energy to power up a camera...how could I get that one to work, hmmmmmm?

The younger kids had the bumpers put up and Claire quite perfected the skill of making the bowling ball appear to be in a pin-ball machine. :) Then, the kids decided they were hungry and all changed their names on the score-board to "I WANT CAKE!" Ha! Such a sense of humor, those kids. Of course, not to be out-done, the younger ones took it upon them selves to change their names too. It came out something like this: "lkfjg'oagjal" Between the antics of taking funny-faced pictures and changing all the names, we were quite entertained by the kids! Too bad none of them got along or were having a good time. ;)

By the time bowling was finished, we were all getting hungry! We headed over to Keone & Angie's house for pizza ~ and cake. The kids were already so wound up, I don't know what we were thinking was going to happen after they had cake and candy from the pinata! Fortunately the Liddels have a trampoline and a big play structure. That worked off some of the excitement...or did it?! How many kids can you fit on a trampoline? I think they broke the record for sure! (At least they didn't break anything else)

Let me explain something about this particular birthday party. When an intelligent and successful man turns 40, but deep inside he's like a kid who never grew up, what kind of theme do you have? You give him an X-MEN birthday! That sure did surprise Erik! And it's not easy to do, we can tell you that ~ he's so good at figuring things out. We all had to work together for this one to happen; everyone's kids were in on it. They did so good, too!

The pizza was fantastic, but then, pizza always is. Thank you Keone & Angie for picking that up for us! And loads of thanks to Buni for making a way for this whole celebration to happen - we love you! While I'm thanking people, everyone should know that my favorite sister-in-law, Dalia (well, she is my only sister-in-law!) gave us the recipe for the most incredible cake and frosting made from scratch you'll ever taste. I guess it helps that she's a beautiful young woman from a wonderful Romanian family. When it comes to baking, you can't get any better than the Marincus women! Thank you Dalia! :)

It was almost dark outside by the time we hung up the pinata for the kids. It's kind of a bummer nowadays, because the pinatas are all made with ribbons to pull. What ever happened to taking a baseball bat and whacking the thing? Oh well, the kids took turns pulling the ribbons until finally Paige picked the right one and candy came pouring out onto the ground. The kids literally PILED on top of each other reaching for the goodies! More sugar...what were we thinking?!

By this time, it was dark enough to go inside and start up the RockBand game. Who knew we had so many musicians for friends? :) Claire and Brooke started out on the drums with Olivia on the guitar and Erik singing (he did great!). What's so nice about this game is the kids can all get a chance to play something or sing. It's probably their new favorite!

So, the party that began at 3:30, was finally over at 11 o'clock. Everyone there had such a good time. What's really special for me, is that in our circle of family and close friends, we have 5 birthdays in 5 weeks ~ after yesterday it's one down and four to go. I love birthday parties!!!

Hawaii

I remember very well the times I went on choir tour in high school. It was so much fun ~ and we went to such exciting places like IDAHO, and WASHINGTON. Hmmmm...things sure have changed!

Last spring, Paige and Laurel announced that they had both made it into Concert Choir at AHS for this year. At the same time, they joyfully shared how their choir was scheduling a trip for spring of 2009 ~ to none other than ~ HAWAII!

My first thought was, "no way!" My next one was, "won't you need a chaperone?!" As it turns out, yes, they will need some chaperones. We've even had offers from my adorable brother and sister-in-law to help chaperone as well! My brother, Nathan even went so far as to say he might be able to find a suitcase to fit into. Ha!!! If you've seen my brother, you'd be laughing hysterically! He's well over 6 feet tall. :)

So, the trip has been put onto the school calendar ~ it's official. Now, comes the work. Because the kids and I have done fundraising with our church for camp over the past 10 years, we thought it would be a good idea to help out the choir. Every summer, my kids have taken part in a car wash-a-thon. They've always made enough money to get themselves to church camp. Last year, P & L each raised $325! That would pay for almost 1/3 of the cost for the trip! Very cool. :)

The girls designed all the pledge sheets and receipts for the wash-a-thon. They've been working with their choir director to get each students' email to send out all of the information. And, P & L already made the call to Burger King to set up a time for the car wash. I just love seeing them take on projects like this ~ ALONE.

But, I didn't get out of it completely. Yesterday, the girls came home and gave me a letter from their teacher. "Sorry it's such short notice, mom." As I read the letter, it explained how this Wednesday, all of the parents are being asked to come for a travel planning meeting.

I guess that I'll go ~ it is HAWAII after all!

Garage Sales

What's up with me and garage sales anyway. Honestly, I've only been to a handful this summer. One of them had a huge impact on our lives in July, but that's a different story for another time. Today on my way home with P & L, we passed a garage sale sign. Paige just had to point it out, of course. I really wanted to get home to work on school with the younger kids (they had stayed at home to begin their math and reading) Then I remembered that I'm learning to take time out and do things that aren't necessarily "in my schedule". :)

Good thing I listened to her! We found a Harley Davidson scooter for Quentin ~ only a few bucks. (his old one finally broke this week). She even had some in-line skates for sale in my size ~ also a few dollars. Now I won't have to borrow P & L's roller blades!

It turns out that the seller was my little kids drama teacher from this summer. She shared with the girls and I about how much she'd been blessed to have them in class every Wednesday. She also told us that time was spent at the beginning of every class to share stories of what the kids had done that week. Olivia, Claire, and Quentin always had a story to tell that included me and the girls, or my brother and his kids, or other close friends and family. She explained how that made her realize that our family was very loving and devoted to each other.

Wow, what a testimony! That made me feel so good. Of course, we talked about the goodness of God, and she was so happy for us and all the great blessings we've had. I'm sure we'll be keeping in touch ~ I just love meeting up with people that way!

Bookworms

When I pick up P & L from choir class in the morning at Aloha High School, they're typically already walking towards home. Today was no different, except for one thing ~ they were both reading as they were walking!

After getting in the car, Paige told me how she was actually walking into tree branches 'cause she was so into her book. Laurel admitted that she had actually wandered out into the road and fell into a ditch!

If the girls read while they walk, what's gonna happen when they start driving? Should we be scared?!