Ch ch ch ch ch changes...................

Wow, so much has changed from the
"I'm in a band" entry. To make a long story short, the traveling worship band (or so I thought) ended up morphing into a band that would write and perform songs in local clubs and venues. It was very fun and cool to be writing songs and being in a band with Ben. So to make the long story short........I ended up realizing that singing in a band and making music was not what I woke up thinking about. I enjoyed it but felt as though I was going to keep the rest of the band back because my passion didn't match theirs. So, it's looking like a new lead singer has been found so look forward to some great music coming soon. Ben and I still hope to do something low-key together so we'll see where that goes.

In other news I have started taking an art class from a girl I went to high school with. She is having all the students do an art exhibit for emerging artists at a local yoga studio in town. I entered about 7 or 8 pieces in and she helped me price them (way higher than I would've thought). They were all pieces that we have hanging in our house. Noel and daddy helped me name all of them which was a relief to me because that is not my forte. I just got news yesterday that one of my pieces sold! My first one! It was the one that Noel named "lonely meadow." I am still in complete shock but am very excited about pursuing a heavier interest in this. I have a new series of paintings started already so, I'll keep you posted!

Ace of Cakes anyone?

So, one of our favorite family shows is Ace of Cakes. Seen it? It's amazing what they can do with cake. We all enjoy seeing what Duff and the gang are going to come up with. They mostly work on fondant cakes. Needless to say the show inspired me to try my hand at it. I first attempted Annabelle's soccer cake above with homemade fondant. It tasted pretty good but was a bit greasy and harder to work with so for Noel's birthday I tried the store bought stuff (not cheap). It tasted.....well, let's just say it looked pretty but you didn't want to eat it. It was very fun to work with and Noel loved it. She actually designed the cake herself with the little curly bobs on top. The castle cake in the middle was for Leah's 7th birthday! Love this pink and princess phase. I'm glad I finally gave into it all. I plan on making something fun for Sydney's birthday this summer. She says she wants the same cake as last year. I am going to try and talk her into something else.

Cousins.....

We have been having a great time the last few months hanging out with cousins. Mom's and Dad's need breaks.........and cousins like to be together. We have had several slumber party's complete with movies and popcorn, playing dress-up, and also playing with our new favorite activity - "the treasure box." The treasure box is an idea that I borrowed from BSF which is a big tub full of rice and beans and all sorts of treasures like gold coins, rings, frogs, and all sorts of other miniatures. The kids can dig and sift for treasures and then record their findings. It keeps them occupied for quite a bit of time.

Also pictured above is the annual Easter Egg Hunt at Aunt Denise and Uncle Curtis's house. The kids look forward to that every year and have a great time with my cousins' kids.

Busy, busy, busy!

The New Year has already begun with a BUSY start. Life is good though. We are doing some extra planning at church for Easter this year. Every year we come up with cool ideas but never seem to see them realized, so this year we started early and have had a lot of extra meetings.

Ben and I are also part of a Worship band that is starting called the Separation State. It is a band that will be leading worship for teen events, conferences and whatever else comes up. We will basically have a set list of about 20 songs or so. Some original and some current worship songs. We will try and play 4-5 times per year as all of us have families and jobs already. It's exciting though. We had band pictures taken and everything. We actually rented a room in the Ace Hotel in downtown Portland and hired this amazing photographer. When we get the photos back I'll make sure and share them with you. So, all this is being done, hurried and put together for a possible show at Nampa First Church in April. Hopefully we will get it. A lot of work has been done in a short amount of time. We recorded a song (which you can hear on the Separation State's MySpace page), put together a MySpace page (Go Ben and Kevin), got photos taken and come up with lots of song ideas.

Thankful!

Wow! I have got to say that I am glad that Christmas is over, at least the commercial part of it. I learned a lot this year. I have made some New Year's resolutions for next year: no holiday baking (at least my version of it which entails making at least 10 different things), no Christmas parties and limited sewing projects. Hmmm, sounds like taking those things out might ease the stress a bit. All in all I enjoyed doing every one of those things and they were all simple in and of themselves. However, lumped together, not so good. But you know God gave us a life to live and not a year to live because it will take us that entire time to figure things out, and even then, at the end of our life, we will still be left with room to grow. God has been showing me that I don't need to linger in guilt over not having it all together but rather accepting it and enjoying the journey. That is what we're on, a journey. I guess I really do want to be perfectly prepared for whatever but what am I Wonder Woman? The true Wonder Woman is the one that doesn't throw in the towel but keeps going even if it's at a snail's pace.
The expectations that I have on myself are unrealistic and cause me stress and cause me to be impatient with the kids, which is not fair to them. But alas, I am making changes and if feels SUPER!
The picture at the top is of all of the kids on the Sprenger side of the family, all the cousin's kids (except for Leah and Ruth). They were so cute and were actually pretty patient getting the picture taken.
So yes, the title of this entry, Thankful: I have once again been reminded of how fortunate we are in America. Christmas gifts galore, amazing health ( for most of us) and good medical treatment if we need it. We not only have roofs over our heads but beautiful ones at that, and full of nice furniture, a million choices of clothes to wear and food to get fat on. So many all over the world are dying of hunger and disease .............and we get cranky if we don't get our Starbucks!

Just a little perspective that's all. Trying to give it to the kids too, they get it in small ways but can't fully comprehend it all now. I just feel overwhelmed with gratitude and i hope you do too!

Christmas

Wow! Hard to believe it's the Christmas season again. I always look forward to Christmas. It has always been a good time for me. No sad holidays yet that I can remember anyway. However this year seems to be extremely stressful. I'm not sure why but it seems that the workload has doubled in every way. We added a Christmas party (for our worship team at church) to our schedule this month. You'd think that a simple Christmas party would not come this that much stress but my goodness! My motivation is slipping away and I'm afraid that I'm not going to be able to finish getting ready (the way that I wanted to at least). For next year I need to prune way down the amount of things I try to accomplish for Christmas. It's not the things I do for my family. It's all the things I try to do for everyone else. I need to do less baking for one thing. I enjoy it so much but now it's becoming a burdensome tradition that I can't keep up with. I am also making several homemade Christmas gifts, which I also love to do, however, more time and more stress. Hmmmm, there seems to be a pattern here. It seems that I am putting too much expectation on myself and that I need to do less than that.

You know why Christmas was so fun and exciting as a kid? It's because everyone else did all the work and we just got to enjoy it all. We were the recipients of all the hard work.

So the question is...........do we, as the adults now do what our parents did to make Christmas so special in so many ways to make it equally as special for our kids. Or do we do less and set our kids up for success when they grow up with a whole lot less expectations???

I guess it all goes back to the real meaning of Christmas..............and it's certainly not the snowman in the picture above!

I am curious to hear what you all will have to say.

"Tuscan Sunset"

This was probably about my third painting. I really like this one too. Seems like some of your first ones are your best. Now I'm trying new things and getting out of my comfort zone. This was a Christmas gift for my brother-in-law. I drew his name and he requested a painting.........brave soul!