EDIT: more pics below

I planned a surprise party for Jim last night. I wanted to write about it here SO bad, but I knew if I did it would be the rare time that he would read my site. I took him shopping for his birthday while everyone arrived at our house. I know that he had suspected something, but he doubted that I had time to pull it off. So I think he was really surprised, at least by the number of people who showed up.

He kept saying in wonderment that he didn’t think that anyone really cared. That’s so surprising to me because I know how much everyone cares for him!

His really good friend Isaac made this plate for him.

He doesn’t look 30 does he?

It’s funny because this is Jim’s signature “logo” to go along with his internet persona, Mac8mypc.

Here I am with his matzo crust cheesecake. It wasn’t too bad.

All in all, I think the party was a big success. Thanks everyone for coming!

The following pictures are courtesy of Kevin Decker. Thanks Kevin!

Jim being surprised.

Me and Jim

My mom and Honor at the party

My friend sarah and her new baby, Beau

Our photographer Kevin with Landon, Jim’s business partner

Our youth pastor, Josh, with his fiance, Heather

Isaac (the plate giver) and Jill

Brooke and Brian

Eden with her buddy Madison, Brooke’s daughter, as if you couldn’t tell

Jim’s dad and his wife, Cindy

Landon and Niccole and their children, Christopher and Jonathan

Adam and Rich

We didn’t get a pic of my little sister who worked SO hard to get this all together. Also no pics of Jim’s sister, Nancy, and her husband, Paul.

Today is Jim’s 30th birthday. 30 years ago today, his parents barely made it to the hospital before he was born. Today I am thinking about HOW much of my life he is. I can’t imagine my life any other way than living it with him.

I think about what a wonderful man he is. Everybody who knows him loves him. I think that it’s so easy to see his character. When he was laid off 3 years ago, he really stepped up to the plate and made a business out of nothing. He has worked SO hard to support our family.

He’s a wonderful father who loves his kids so much. Every night before we go to bed, he goes in their room and checks on both of them and says every time, “I really like them. They’re such cool kids.” (In Jim speak that’s saying a lot.)

Some of you may disagree with me, but I have the best husband EVAR!!! He’s as patient as he can be with me. He loves me more than I deserve. I love you Jim. Happy Birthday.

I just can’t believe how crazy busy things are around here lately. Today, after I got home from the office, I tried to focus on outside. I planted all my flower seeds in the back (haven’t gotten to the front yet) and I painted the front steps. They needed it!

I’m really happy with the color I chose.

I’m thinking of painting the door the same color… hmmm.. we’ll see.

Notice how the bush is overtaking the front porch? Last year Jim hacked the poor bush so bad that my mother begged him to never “trim” the bush ever again. She said that next time it needed trimming that she would come do it. But here it is over taking the steps. (hint, hint, Mom) Jim’s threatening to trim it himself.

It’s just phenomenally amazing HOW much work the yard is! Especially when the kids are dragging their toys all over the stinking place.

Monday
Spaghetti with Marinara and grilled Italian Sausage

Tuesday
Steak and Baked Potatoes

Wednesday
Taco Bell tacos

Thursday
Jim’s 30th Birthday I’m making cheesecake with matzo crust (hopefully this isn’t gross)

Weekend Options
Brats and Sauerkraut

Pasta Salad

Sunday is the Superchic[k] concert, so we’ll eat whatever we can grab.

Jim’s new baby aka early birthday present. (Can you believe he’s going to be 30 on Thursday???)

All I have to say is that I didn’t have sterilized play sand when I was a kid.

This weekend begins Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We celebrate Passover rather than Easter. This is an unusual year in that Passover doesn’t fall right at the same time as Easter. I’ve talked before about our alternatives to Christmas, and I think this kind of falls along the same lines. When we first discussed all this before we married, I thought it would be hard for me to give up Easter, especially when we had children. But it hasn’t been, at all. I’ve just started to view things differently.

I find it important to observe Jesus’ death (and resurrection), and I’m glad that Passover affords me that opportunity. But all the other “stuff”; Egg Hunts, Easter Baskets, Easter Clothing, just doesn’t matter to me anymore. I guess that after I realized that all of those traditions don’t have anything to do with God and in fact have roots in Paganism, I’m fine with the kids “missing out” on it.

I say missing out, but really I don’t think they are. We’ve got a lot of fun things going on. Saturday night we will have a huge dinner hosted by Jim’s oldest sister. Eden and Honor will enjoy playing with their cousin Abbey. I always make up a bunch of (unleavened) treats, such as

chocolate spiders
chocolate oatmeal cookies
mexican wedding cookies
coconut macaroons.
I also make up some parchment bread, which is really yummy and crispy. Jim’s got a long list of snacks he likes to have around, so trust me, we’re not going to starve.

We don’t get into all the Jewish Kosher laws. Our thought process is that if the Bible says that it needs to be unleavened bread, then that’s good enough for me (since we’re not Jewish anyway.)

And I like to buy the kiddies a present! This year we got them a pop up play tent to use in the back yard. Last weekend we bought a gazebo for our back porch (I count it as an early Passover present to ourselves) so we’re outside ALL the time.

(click here for the full sized photo.)

I think I’m going to go eat a doughnut before it’s too late….

The concert went, well… I’m just too tired to write about it now, I’m going to take a nap and write more later..

EDIT:

Ok, Tuesday was such a crazy day! I was up at 6:45am and we got to bed around 2am. The concert went fairly well, except for the fact that the headliner didn’t even get to play. The concert was out at the fairgrounds and of course it had to be the windiest day EVER in Grand Junction. Toby Mac was almost done with his set when they decided that it was so windy that it was getting dangerous. I was sitting at one of the product tables when I heard the announcement that Audio Adrenaline wouldn’t be going on. I was shocked! I really think that most of the people came for Toby Mac anyway, so I didn’t really hear too many people complaining. It was so cold out there that I think everyone was just glad to come inside.

photo courtesy of my friend Kevin.

Other items of note:
*I drove many of the various band members around, including Toby Mac and Mark, the lead singer of Audio Adrenaline. They were all nice, just really…. normal.
*After the concert, the crew was bringing down the (huge wall of) speakers and they flew out and knocked a monitor onto the 40 thousand dollar sound board (that’s how windy it was.)
*There were 1217 paying people, which isn’t too bad for a Tuesday night. Not what we were hoping for, but it seemed pretty full.

I’m still wiped out. We’re doing one more concert, May 1 (Superchick), and after that I think we’ll all go sleep for a week!

I just got back from Sams Club. There I purchased 288 bottles of water, 192 cans of soda and various other items such as yogurt, hot tamales and salsa. Why you ask? Our company is promoting a large scale concert. These are national level Christian bands – Audio Adrenaline, Toby Mac, Kutless and Hawk Nelson. The show is tomorrow and I’m in charge of the food. No, I’m not dumb enough to prepare it all myself, but I’ve arranged for the catering and bought all the snacks and beverages. Let me tell you! Catering is so stinking expensive. I think we’re definitely in the wrong business.

When I think that we spent all of three maybe four hundred dollars on food for our whole wedding, I cannot believe how much it is going to cost us to feed forty eight people lunch and dinner. It’s amazing all the “stuff” that they require. Certain brands of tea, specific kinds of soda and the really strange thing: One (just one) 16 ounce bottle of orange Gatorade. Please keep your fingers crossed that I can find a stinking 16 ounce bottle of Gatorade!!! I guess it could be worse, they could be asking for a bowl of M&M’s with all the green ones picked out… it could be worse.

I will be so glad when all this is over.

I lined the white clutch I made last week. I’m really happy with how it turned out.

I should have used white thread to sew the lining, but I was being lazy and didn’t want to change the bobbin.

Here’s the back

I threaded ribbon through the handles to keep them from stretching out too bad (my mom’s idea.) It seems to be working out great. I made this bag because I needed something that wasn’t green to go with my (few) non green clothes. I really wanted to use the green with white polka dot ribbon I found at Walmart, but that would have been defeating the purpose. I guess I’ll have to make another one. It’s really getting ridiculous how much I like green these days.

EDIT: Buy my cabled purse pattern here!

This week will be spent finishing up all of the leavened products in the house. It all has to be gone Friday night before Passover begins.

We’ve got two frozen pizzas, corn dogs, croissants, graham crackers, bagels, animal cookies, angel food cake, hamburger buns, bread, cereal, almost a whole case of pretzels (I’ll take those to the office)…I think there’s more, but that’s all I’ve found so far. I know, it looks like we’re going to be eating SO healthy! I just hate to throw all this stuff out, so we’re going to eat it!

I’m also starting to get excited for Passover and the following week of unleavened bread. We eat such yummy things around this time!