Koinonia :)

Koinonia night, as always, was a huge succes. Tonight was something of a unique night, in that Joe was still gone in Reno for work. The Page family joined our group for the evening, as well, since the members of their extension had regretfully opted out for other obligations. It was awesome having them; we so rarely see the other families of the original large group if we're  not at one of those gatherings. I felt like we'd exhausted the typical food themes, so we went with a more simple menu of "finger foods."

I think this may've been the best buffet we've had yet! :) I think the highlight of the spread was the batch of whoopie pies that Cathie baked. Apparently, this is a Maine thing, because not only had I never heard of them before, I'd certainly not ever tried one. Yes, yes I will be asking her for that recipe ;)

Oh, and that little couch debacle we'd had a few weeks back? Well, leave it to Jarod and Jimmy to engineer an almost embarrassingly-quick remedy to that whole transferring of couches from room to room. Solution? Remove the door from the guest room and haul that sucker in. Really? Haha. I'm almost glad Joe wasn't here to witness this, since it was a pretty polar contrast to the hassle he and Jimmy had faced in the original attempt to store the Prescotts' couch in our basement..... or guestroom.... or the living room. Haha. This ended tonight with the loveseat in the guestroom; Jarod and Jimmy snapped a couple shots of their success. 

Pretty funny stuff. I love these people. I wish every Friday was Koinonia Friday :) 

xo | cmd

WELCOME BABY EMILIA!! [VBS Day4]

So as we all went to bed last night with the anticipation of little miss Emilia's arrival, the Babots headed to the hospital where Lara was induced at midnight. The journey started for them while the majority of us were asleep. This morning around 11am, little Emilia made her grand entrance!

I.. Am.. SO.. Excited!

welcome emilia leigh!

WELCOME EMILIA!!!!

[& Congratulations to proud Mama & Daddy Lara & Alex, and of course big brother Landon]

proud mommy, flawless & beautiful, as always :)
gorgeous daughter & mama!

I cannot wait to meet little Emilia, and I will gladly stand in that line to do so. We're continuing prayer for the proud parents, and perhaps even more proud big brother Landon! I pray everything goes well for the next couple of days and that you're home in no time. We are so excited for you. Yiieee, babies! ♥

----

Today, as we all know, is day 4 of VBS. It's been an energetic week so far, and we crossed the halfway point. I took a break from all things VBS to stop by Tracy's house and snag the giant bag o' T-shirts that were ordered for the Towerviewers participating in Relay for Life. I got them all home and separated them into labeled bags for the picking. Since my team co-captain is pictured above doing ridiculous other things like having a baby [sheesh... c'mon ;), heh.. jk!], I made sure to take care of this. It was a bit of work, but an oddly-refreshing breather from the cardio that is VBS music ;) Hah. Fun stuff.


relay for life | bellville il | july 20-21, 2012!

It's been a whilrwind week so far! We are so blessed :)

The almost-Friday is just around the corner!

xo | cmd

Towerview at the Ballpark!!

Due to the continuous construction that comes inevitably as part of our office build-out, we were granted two consecutive casual days; we all took full advantage of it and geared up in our jeans and t-shirts for the day. Mine was almost thwarted by an early morning client visit; luckily for me, this particular client happens to be within earshot of my house, so if you think I went home after my client meeting to ditch the business garb, you would be totally correct. Haha. Perfect timing on the casual day, too; I was headed straight from work to the Cards game.

baseball time!

Before I get into this one, let me first clarify that in my heart, I'm still Cincinnati, through and through. That being said, I also believe that if you're gonna live somewhere, be there. I'm leading up to the fact that I was pretty excited to get down to Busch Stadium tonight for what was my first Cardinals game this season.

* I never thought I'd hear myself say that. What can I say, I love baseball games. Period. :)

with dawne! :)

Anyway, what made tonight's game that much cooler was the fact that each seat purchased by a Towerview member was from a fundraiser we'd done a few months back as one of our Relay for Life fundraisers. Originally, it was planned that Joe would be accompanying me to this one, but with him in Atlanta this week, that clearly wasn't going to happen. I contemplated just passing our tickets off to someone, but then I remembered that I do in fact know people outside of our church [because everyone there was already going, hah]. I asked Dawne is she wanted to come along, and long story short, we partnered up and made a night of it. I saw some other familiar faces tonight; I'll tell ya what, this St. Louis place sure is starting to grow on me. Yeah, baseball :)

Dawne and I linked up and took the metrolink with Syd [who ended up overnight back at Dawne's because she is just that awesome] into St. Louis and rendezvoused there with the rest of the Towerviewers to enjoy the night. I definitely had no complaints for my first season run at the park. Speaking of which, Courtney from work was down there somewhere too, we just never found each other. Oh well. Next time.

cori. mo. lara

*Note to self, also. The MetroLink is not a force with which you should reckon if you're not entirely prepared. Haha. That is all I have to say about that. Be careful where you stop, and pay attention to where you load, otherwise you could very well find yourself traversing back and forth on that sucker for hours. I'm just sayin'. :p

Anywho, it has been some sort of night.. baseball and all. I loved every second of it, but I think it's about time I grab some sleep before I try to tackle Friday. TGI[backdatedthursdayentrymadesuperearly]F!

xo | cmd

Towerview Fundraising Breakfast: Relay2012

Hey Sunday! Thanks for stopping by :)

Today started off a couple hours earlier than the average Sunday; I was out of the house with little monster and en route to the Tower an hour or so before the usual departure time. With two cases of homemade muffins in hand, I unloaded toddler, Bible, camera, and eventually muffins into the most appropriate resting spots downstairs in the fellowship hall [well, aside from the toddler; those things don't ever rest...]. I spent a few moments snapping pictures of the helping hands and attendees of what was purposed to be a fundraising breakfast for the church's Relay for Life.

greg. ron. margaret
our trusted cooks! :)

my mini muffin monster!

breakfast

It was a huge success! Not only did we have a sturdy set of helping hands on board to flip pancakes, serve drinks and clean up, but the crowd elicited so easily by food didn't disappoint! I'm not one to regularly emphasize the strengths of individual denominations, but for what it's worth as it's relevent here: Southern Baptists have absolutely no qualms with cooking up good food, and we'll show that same lack of dissent when it comes to eating it. We love food, we love hanging out with each other, and we love coming together for a common and important cause. That being said, hosting a pre-Sunday school breakfast was guaranteed to be the hit it was.

When it was all said and done, we had $230 to put towards our [revised!!] team goal of $3,000. Our original goal was set at $1,500, but after just a month or so of We are getting closer!!! :)

pancake patrollers | lara & cori

on our way home.. cakehead ;)

After another home run sermon from our pastor [sorry for the inside joke; you'll understand if you were there], our 40 Days in the Word group [remember us? Yardsale?] rallied together at Lonestar to discuss the allocation of our yardsale proceeds.... and of course eat... again :). We nailed down some details on our next step in our plan to service our community, and did it with the usual flair of hilarious moments and musical-chair children.

I don't remember the next three hours following lunch at Lonestar; I'm going to attribute that to the fact that I spent that time napping :). I rolled back out of bed just in time to make it back to church for choir practice before coming back home again and wrapping up the day.

Oh, and I almost forgot about the grill Joe brought home yesterday. He spent a large part of the afternoon cleaning and configuring his new toy, and we wasted very little time giving it some exercise. Jarod, Jason, Alex, Jimmy & Mo stopped by after choir practice for some late evening grilling: burgers and chicken. I'm pretty proud of Joe: He didn't do half bad! :)

*Yawn.. Something about today indicated to me that this is going to be a great week. If the week's got other plans, too bad; I'm bent on making this a good one - and I've got God on my side :).

G'Nite!

xo | cmd

Lara & Emilia's Baby Shower

Today started off a little more on the sluggish side that I'd originally expected. Sydni and I both took a leisurely approach to the morning and were barely ready to roll when Mo showed up at noon. The three of us headed over to Babies 'R Us and then Once Upon a Child to do some gear shopping for Lara's baby shower before we raced back home to put the final touches on everything. By the time Jackie made her way over, we were all ready to get going.

lara! the beautiful mama :)

tea party time for little miss emilia!

Lara's shower for little Emilia was aaaaa-mazing! The lady who hosted it had transformed her entire basement from her kids' playroom into a tea party, decked from top to bottom in simple yet elegant decorations highlighting baby girl, complete with everything from little baby cupcakes to a banner with Emilia's name. We had a blast. 

adorable baby cupcakes!

presents :) [i love baby showers]





Oh, and it wouldn't have been a baby shower with these creative ladies without a craft session: Lara had it arranged for all of us to design little headbands for Emilia. Each of us picked out our own colors and patterns and put together an array of little elasticized bows, which I must say were all adorable. In the event I have another girl down the road, I may or may not - but probably may - borrow this fun idea. In hindsight, it might've helped out a lot when Syd was a munchkin, since she lacked hair off the bat and on more than 20 occasions was declared an adorable little boy by passersby. Hrm. Anyway, here's how those turned out:


bows [arrangement by yours truly :) ]



blueberry struesel muffins



Once we retired ourselves from the baby shower festivities, Mo headed off to do some babysitting on base for the Werners, otherwise I would've enlisted her services for the muffin-baking that consumed the rest of my evening :). We've got the Towerview fundraising breakfast tomorrow morning before Sunday school that's purposed as a fundraiser for our Relay for Life team. I'm excited for it! - Oh, and the muffins look stellar [thanks, Nancy, for the recipe!].

I made some pierogies & peppers for us while the muffins were baking, too. Yay for my [adoptive] Polish roots shining through! :)

It's gonna be a long day tomorrow; time to get some Z's!

xo | cmd

Small Group Goodies

just a taste of what our friends are like :)
i love 'em.

It was a small group night. You know how these go.

* We were a few men short tonight; Julie & her boys, the Sandvens, and the Sleemans were all MIA, but we picked up Jarod for the night, along with both Becky's mom and Lara's friend Kim, both of whom were visiting from out of town.

It should go without saying that I beyond love our small group nights; I'm gonna say it anyway though, and with gusto at that:

I:: LOVE ::OUR SMALL GROUP.
♥

Truth. See for yourself :). 

Oh, and the picture there is a depiction of inevitable social time after small group lessons, juuuuuus-so-yenno. We actually did have a fairly cored discussion tonight over Matthew 9, which ultimately resulted in adding a few more points to the already flowering list of reasons that I admire, adore, and cherish my small group. 

.. But I'm still spent. Night, folks. 

xo | cmd  

Mother's Day 2012

The number one thing on my mind this morning:

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!

the mamas of my family
niece cynthia | sister heidi | mama | me :)

I know that in my immediate family alone, there are four mothers. We each have our own style, our own tastes, and of course, our own daughters. These three women are three of the most incredible ladies I've ever known. They are among the ranks of mothers who constantly surpass the expectations of being mothers, and for that I admire them.

.. But they don't stand alone. For every mother, every where, I'm celebrating your victories today: both big and small! :) The world moves because of you. Thank you to my mom, my mother-in-law and all the other moms who are the example we need to follow. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

=====================

We started church off this morning with an incredibly fun performance of the Mom Song, sung by Robin & Rachel. Great job, ladies!

rachel & robin : the mom song! :)

Once church was out, we made a quick pitstop at the store and grabbed some last minute grub before heading over to base to the Babots. We joined Alex & Lara, along with the Gobles & all the little ones, and also Lara's friend Brooke, for a grillout. We filled the afternoon with eating and playing outside. Jason showed up towards the end, right before Lara got the slip-n-slide out for the kiddos. 

Here's how that went.....

tom. jason. alex. joe.

landon & jason | getting air!

kids tying each other up ;)

she's getting so darn big! :|

alex setting up the slip-n-slide

three little ones in a row
jacob. sydni. landon

i. love. this.
syd & jacob

water!

"mama, i'm cold. brrrrrrr!"

"daddy: march!

slugger :)

paparazzi ;)
brooke. lara. cori

what a beautiful day :)

time to go: that is one tuckered-out little lady ♥

 Happy Mother's Day, everyone :)

xo | cmd

*TIRED OF CANCER!* [Towerview Style]

As we dig deeper and deeper into our fundraising efforts as a church whole, I have to say that I'm quite proud of my Towerview family.

* I am this year's appointed team captain for the First [hopefully annual!] Towerview Baptist organized team for the American Cancer Society's trademark event: Relay for Life 2012. I feel almost sheepish sometimes holding such a prestigious sounding title, since the team Co-Captain, Lara, is really the superstar here; she drives so much of this that it kinda makes my head spin. I would be at a loss without everything she's contributed and the time she's invested into tracking down the right people, creating fliers, and just overall proliferation of response and enthusiasm from everyone we need, when we need it. Thanksxmillions, LB :).

Anyway, last night at the church, a small group of us rallied together to discuss current progression of our team in all areas: fundraising, fundraising ideas, event decorations, even utilization of the ACS-provided web tools. During that time, we decided and set in motion two of the handful of fundraising opportunities we dreamt up in the earlier stages of planning:

1. Sunday morning breakfast at the church, pre-Sunday School. [May 20th!!!, fellowship hall.. free plug yeah!]
2. The 400-lb tire that Alex, Joe, and now Jason play with like it's a toy, flipping it around the track on base like it's no big deal. Our thought was to paint that puppy up and drop it off in someone's yard. That person or those people then donate $25 to get it removed asap and sent off to another yard of their bidding.

We brought that idea to fruition with mad quickness after the meeting; the Babots went home and Alex proceeded to paint it up in the token RFL [Relay for Lif--c'mon, you know...] purple, with huge white letters exclaiming the ironic phase: TIRED OF CANCER.

Can't visualize that? Let me help you:

team towerview: the tire....
- makin' a pitstop at the woods' :) 

A W E S O M E . I love everything about it, and I'm almost a little excited about this puppy making its way to our house for a day or two. Should be fun. Team Towerview is an absolute blast. These are the things we love :)

-----------------

So the rest of today was pretty tame; it marked the end of our first full week sans Meagan; I realized I need to do some serious adjustment on something: time management, shortened lunches, ruthless increase of speed.. something to balance out the work. Hah. It's a good thing with the burst of business we're seeing, but man alive, we are swamped. I love it.

joe & josh: windshield maniacs

Joe's store manager from Atlanta is in town for the insane influx of business they've had in St. Louis post-hail storm; since he's out of his element here, we were more than willing to open up the Dills' hotel once again for an out of town visitor :). He's staying for a couple nights before he heads back to GA. It wouldn't be a real party with the glass boys unless we got to observe them in their natural habitat: They transformed our garage into a temporary bay for Mo & Jimmy's car; it was a seamless operation that ended just about as quickly as it started.

Cooooool. That's a wrap on Friday, folks....

Heeeeeey, it's the freakin' weekend.....

xo | cmd

RELAY: FULL SWING!

The 8 hours I spend at work each day flew by in the same fashion they seem to have been doing all week. I flew home to find Mo already there, and together we headed over to church for the Towerview Relay for Life meeting.

UPDATE TIME! Here's the latest scoop on our Relay fundraisers:

THE TIRE [stay tuned; I'll get you your picture] haha..
- There's going to be a 400 lb tractor tire making its rounds around the area once it's painted. All it takes to get it removed will be a small donation, 100% of which will go directly to our fundraising efforts.

BREAKFAST!! [Because who doesn't love free breakfast?!]
- NEXT Sunday, MAY 20 - at the Tower, downstairs in the fellowship hall. Come early, 'cuz we're starting at 8:15. :) Come hungry, and feel free to take it to Sunday School :)

** We'll have fliers for you... by tomorrow, for sure. :)

And if you haven't registered for the team yet, please do so! CLICK HERE :)
-- If you have any questions, please feel free to contact either Lara or myself, and we'll be happy to help!
-----------------

just lounging, ya know?

Oh, and tonight was a new for Sydni as she managed to coerce the dog into serving as an ottoman. We didn't teach her that, but it's surely innovative. Nice work, mini! Haha..

Mo & Jimmy are here, we're grubbing on pizza, and I'm pretty sure one of us is going to drop soon. Since I'm about to get Sydni tucked in, my best bet is that it's me.

In case I'm right.... goodnight ;)

xo | cmd 

Workhorses!

I'm friggin' beat. This was the first truly exhausting yet sheerly gratifying day of manual labor I've had yet this year. I loved it!

I started the morning off by sleeping in to a magnificant 8:30 [in mama-world, that alone is the equivelant of a mini-vacation]. Since Sydni was up late last night with all of her little friends here, I crept out of bed and left her to snooze while I got the laundry moving, cleared and cleaned the remnants of dishes and pans from last night, and tackled what ended up nearly an hour and a half cleaning up our basement, which serves as the kids' stomping ground during small group. I topped it off with a house-wide vacuuming, and when it was all said and done, I spent another near hour buzz-cutting our dog's hair down to a 1. It's not exactly the best look for her, but we do it a few times each year for a little relief from the summer heat. Come to think of it, she looks a couple years younger with short hair. Puppy mode :)
 

yeah, that's the same dog :)
before + after

getting started!
step 1.. movin' bricks

Once I'd cleaned up all the dog hair, given her a bath [and myself, since I was by then itchy and covered with dog shavings], Sydni and I loaded up for a pitstop at the store before making our way to the Gobles. We wasted no time getting right down to it; I managed to snag a few shots during breather breaks before and after. It wasn't long before nearly our entire small group was on scene and fully engaged in everything from ripping out weeds, gravel and brick, painting shutters and garage trim, tearing out rock and plastic liner, tilling, planting, mulching, and even chopping wood. In the midst of it, we even managed to have a little fun climbing trees, playing with the kids, and of course eating. Hey... we're actually a pretty cheap labor force: we'll work our tails off for burgers, hot dogs, and chicken, and not be a bit sorry for it! :)




repainting shutters | jackie

takin' breaks to play with the kiddies in the tree :)
becky. tom. cori. raymond. william. jacob!

mulch. lots of mulch.
jackie. tom. julie

ripping up gravel & plastic
jarod. becky. julie. alex

gettin' dirty!
tom. cori. joe. alex. julie

chopping wood
joe!

ax men
jarod. raymond. joe. landon

Tom, Jarod, Becky and I were the last men standing at 10pm as we unloaded the last bit of mulch from Tom's truck into the newly-planted flowerbed in the blasting glow of Jarod's headlights. We tidied up and sank down next to the fire pit to unwind for a bit before calling it a night and heading home with sleepy kids and dirt-creased hands.
Shower.. check. I think I might've even dozed off a few times during. I can't remember.
My bed has never looked so comforting..... Time to oblige it.

Church in the AM!

xo | cmd

Towerview Yardsale | Hail Storm?!

Rise and shine!

That's right. I was at church this morning, on a Saturday, earlier than I even leave my house every other day during the work week. Pretty insane, but absolutely for a good cause!

TOWERVIEW BAPTIST YARDSALE[is upon us!]



yard sale!

Back whenever we were immersed in our 40 Days in the Word study, each group was assigned to develop and execute a project based around Micah 6:8. It was aptly called the Micah 6:8 Project; our group was feeling especially zealous at the time and decided we would throw a churchwide yardsale. The proceeds from that would serve as funds for us to provide a day of free laundry at a local laundromat, and the remainder to go towards fulfilling a need of a local family. After that, if there was any left over, it would all go towards funding our youth group's local mission trip. For weeks, we've been staging the first step of this endeavor. 

[just a fraction] of the towerview family manning the event

It was 6:15 AM when I rolled into the Towerview parking lot. I was already behind schedule; half the crew was already assembled and hard at work toting all of the items out of the building for setup. I jumped right in and busied myself with aiding in the prep efforts. It was advertised that the yardsale wouldn't officially commence until 8AM, but by 7:50, we'd already made over $200 in sales for the early bird passersby.

mary. cori. lara
cash lane extraordinaires... ;)



It was a full day of register duty, assigned to Lara, myself, and Mary. The Pages were so gracious to serve as the childcare facility for the day; Sydni, Landon, Jacob, Alex, Raymond, Evan, and of course the Page girls spent the entire day I'm sure ransacking the Page house and playing to the point of exhaustion. A midday report from Adam confirmed at least that Sydni at one point wandered away from the noise and found a quick nap in Carlee's bed on her own accord. I sometimes wonder if she's not just a completely different child when she's at other folks' places... but I digress. Hah.

Anyhoot, the yardsale was an all day event, manned by the hands of Towerview Baptist, and attended by a few hundred people around the community. We watched as large ticket items like dressers, armoires, desks and tables were carted off, and we organized a bagging assembly line of sorts as the line of small-item buyers processed through the registers. It was an absolute blast!

havin' a little fun
jarod | becky & kallie | becky's new jessica rabbit getup ;)

Once it was all said and done, we broke down the remaining setup and loaded it into the truck that the Salvation Army sent over. It was amazing how quickly we tore that place down and restored it to its original operating order. Barely a trace of the mass event was visible by the time boxes were packed, tables dismissed, and floors swept. We made just under $1800 today, all of which will benefit local missions around our community, on behalf of our church. I. Am. THRILLED! Mary and I even found some less than conventional use for two of the Gobles' wheeled thingamajigs [I won't even pretend like I know what they're called....].

Exhausted but thrilled, Joe, Sydni and I regrouped at our house, expecting a calm remainder of the day.

Not so. 

hail?!



Mid-afternoon, the sky turned a dark grey, and Joe called me out onto the backporch where we both watched with wide eyes as the beginning of a funnel cloud swirled directly over our neighborhood. Jimmy & Mo called, asking if they could seek temporary, just-in-case refuge at our place since they are without basement; by the time they made it into our driveway, the hail was already coming down. We watched from the porch as it grew to the size of golfballs, pelting our neighborhood. We later saw pictures plastered all over Facebook of hail the size of softballs and cell phones that caused measurable damage to cars, buildings, and homes in some of our surrounding areas. Joe's already established that tomorrow is going to be a psychotically busy day for his business. Sad, but true.

We survived the rest of the afternoon and evening without much event... and with that being said, I think it's about time to call it. Here we come, work week. Here. We. Come.

xo | cmd