Wedding Videos

I tried to get some short videos of the kids at the reception. They were having such a good time dancing. It was so cool that as they danced on all the rose petals, the smell was awesome. I think I will forever associate the smell of roses with Jana's wedding.

The videos are really dark unfortunately. Sorry they're so random. I was just trying to get a sample of all the action.



Here is Harper Lee and her friend Alyssa, and then Olivia dancing with her friend Haley.



Some adults did get in on the fun, this is Jon's mom and Jon's co-worker. (I wish I would have gotten a video of my parents doing the twist. William's quote: "At least it's not at my school.")




My cousin's daughter, Brooke. I loved the serious expression she had the time she was dancing!




Jeremy and Olivia:

Jon and Jana - July 4, 2008

I will post more about the wedding soon. I feel like we are just now recovering. We all had a great time, and it was wonderful to have so much family together to celebrate with Jon and Jana.

The rehearsal dinner was at our house, and although it seemed like we would never get all the projects done in time, Jeremy pulled it off! We have had remodeling going on in one form or another since we moved in, and it feels SO, SO good to have the majority of the house "done."

If you are interested in seeing wedding pictures, and I somehow missed emailing you the link, here it is:

Jon and Jana
Just click on Photos.

Harper Lee's Piano Recital

I have been watching the videos Harper Lee has on our camera. I only wish the girl had more confidence in herself . . .

Another School Year Draws to a Close

We had Awards Day at Harper and Liv's school on Friday. I am so proud of both the girls and the year they have had. They are extremely easy to parent when it comes to school. Honestly, they both simply go to school and do what is expected of them. I am amazed at how much they have both learned and grown this year. And, I am so thankful that the girls had such wonderful, caring teachers this year. It will be hard to say good bye to both of them.

Harper was recognized at the awards ceremony for receiving straight A's, but more importantly her teacher tells me that she is a kind-hearted member of her class who shows love to the other kids in the class. I don't tell her nearly often enough how proud I am of her.

I struggled with guilt because Olivia's kindergarten experience was so different from Harper Lee's small private school kindergarten experience. However, Olivia had a wonderful teacher and I loved the short program we attended in her classroom on Friday. Mrs. Phillips had an award for each child and gave a short speech about what made that child special. Unfortunately, I didn't realize I had our camera set on the lowest resolution. I really hate that because the kids were so cute, and Liv even worked some dance moves when she got bored with her teacher's talking.








Since Harper Lee's awards were given as part of the school program, I don't have any video of that. Just a few pics.

View from the Backseat

Here's another video I just found, also from Easter morning. It's so sad that I don't even pay attention to what the girls are doing so much of the time. Here they were, being cute and creative and I had no idea what was going on. The music on this video is so loud that you might not be able to make out some of what they are saying (sorry - Jeremy and I probably listen to the radio too loud). If you listen closely, you'll even hear a confession from yours truly! :)

Easter

Just now posting pics of Easter. The girls were not happy with me -- they had no desire to take a picture due mainly to the cold temperature that day. I finally gave up because I know we'll get a good family portrait at Jana's wedding this summer.



As I was finally trying to get a ton of pictures organized today, I found this video. Apparently, I wasn't the only one whose Easter morning was not going the way I would have liked.

Dining on Crow

I try to reserve this here blog for cute stories about my hubby and kids, but I did want to let everyone in on the adventure I had Saturday night.

Have you ever thought you knew what you were talking about on a given subject and then found out you had it all wrong? That's what I found out Saturday night.

Jeremy and I went to see Ani DiFranco at workplay Saturday night, and I was NOT excited about it. I was planning on "suffering" through it to see Over the Rhine open. When OtR sadly had to cancel because of a death in their family, I was even more ready to walk away. I was grumpy about the fact that it was $43.00 per ticket!!!!, that it was at the Soundstage area (which meant we would be standing for the whole show), and mainly I was grumpy about the fact that for the most part I could not stand listening to Ani DiFranco's music. Jeremy raves about her guitar-playing all the time. I found her songs to be angry rants and I just didn't get what was so great about her.

Then, she walked out onto the stage and ROCKED the frickin' roof off of that place. It was awesome!!!!!!!! I truly don't even know how to describe her guitar-playing. It sounds like there are two people playing with her sometimes. Amazing. BUT, the main thing that changed my mind about her music is that she didn't come across bitter at all. She seemed sweet and even a little goofy. I expected her to scream "I HATE MEN!!!" between every song, or something along those lines. I guess that's a wee bit extreme looking back on it, but, like I said, I hadn't take much time to actually listen to her music. This video on youtube sums up her concert persona (at least for the one concert I saw) - a sweet song, but with a little Ani spunk. :)

Now, obviously, I do have to consider that I have only seen one of her shows, have only two of her CDs, and know virtually nothing else about her, but I have at least seen enough to say I am now a fan.

Just felt like I needed to make a public retraction for some reason.