A Songbook's Ten Commandments

Last night I was working on writing a devotional thought for a book of thanksgiving we are putting together at church. I will post those later however one of the thoughts I was writing has to do with the hymn Count your Blessings. I have an old songbook that my father used to own (once upon a time he was the songleader at church) that I was referring to. Well really it is not that old, the copyright is 1977. On the inside cover were listed a songbook's ten commandments. I thought some of you would enjoy these as much as I did.

1) Thou shalt not bend my backs together.
2) Thou shalt not mark on me.
3) Thou shalt not fold nor tear my pages.
4) Thou shalt not use me to hit the babies. (this one is my favorite)
5) Thou shalt not let the children play with me.
6) Thou shalt not throw me on the seat at the end of the song service.
7) Thou shalt not borrow me without returning me to my owner.
8) Thou shalt not use me as a fan.
9) Thou shalt extend my life with proper care.
10) Thou shalt use me often and understand with thy heart my words.

It is no wonder our kids don't know how to take of their books. We as adults apparently cannot even take care of a book we use (or used to use since the invention powerpoint) for maybe 30 minutes in church. And the sad thing is someone actually had to hit their baby once for someone else to think that one needed to be a rule.

Learning to dive

Here are some photos of Kaitlyn learning to dive. I finally got my roll of 35 mm film put on a cd so I have them to upload. She went to swimming lessons this summer and really already knew how to swim so she got to try some more advanced stuff. She didn't quite get the diving down. You can tell from the photos that she had the stance but then just jumped in really.

Birthday presents

You know as you get older you don't really get gifts for your birthday. You wanna know what I got for my birthday -- a new driver's license. Yep didn't see that one coming did ya? I just wasted about 30 minutes (although not as long as I anticipated) of my life today renewing my license. I was at the ten year mark so I had to physically go down there and get a new picture and everything. Oh well my sister-in-laws bachelorette party is this weekend, what do you think are the odds I will get carded with my new license. And my stepmom did take me out to eat at Fleming's and I am going out to eat with my mom in a few minutes.

Sick on your birthday

Being sick is never any fun but especially when you are sick on your birthday. My birthday was yesterday and not that I would have done anything fantastic for it but this is the first time I have been out of the bed in about 24 hours. I still have a pounding headache but no stomach ache anymore. Kaitlyn was sick with me. It seems as though we always get sick together, this has happened the last three times I have been sick, she was sick too. So no work and school for us. But of course John was mean enough to leave Kyle at home today also. He is only (almost) 4 and doesn't really understand that mommy does want you climbing all over me or yelling or fighting with your sister. I blame John for this.

Good-Bye twenties

Well I only have about an hour and half left of my twenties. Tomorrow is the big 30 for me. I am ready for a new decade in my life.

The things kids say (warning TMI)

All of my blogging friends are posting some funny things their kids have said this last week so I thought I would follow suit. Last Sunday a friend of mine (Jennifer) came up to me at church and said I have to tell you the funniest thing that Kyle said. She and her husband were the teachers in the 2-3 yr. old Bible hour this month. She says "Kyle stood up, grabs himself, and says in a very confident tone 'my daddy has nuts'" I thought oh dear. So then I had to tell her why he said this. The other night he was sitting on the end of our bed and I rolled over and kneed (is that how you spell it, really is that a real word?) him and he got mad at me and said very loudly 'Jennifer watch it, you just hit my nuts'. Kyle turns around and says very inquisitively (again a word?) 'Daddy you have nuts?'. We of course could not answer because we were laughing so hard. So my friend Jennifer, Leigh and I are standing in the auditorium laughing so hard we are crying at this whole story. I told John later he should be glad it was Chris and Jennifer in Bible hour this month and not some older ladies. I can hear some of them now "What are those Luttrell's teaching their kids". I warned you this might be too much information for some but I hope you had as good of a laugh as we did!

Mandisa

I went to a benefit dinner for Agape on Saturday night. I go to this every year. A friend of my mothers always gets several tickets and she lets me go with them. The food is always real good, I guess it better be for $75 a plate. There is always some type of entertainment. In the past the entertainers have been Chonda Pierce and Steven Curtis Chapman. This year Mandisa (from season 5 of American Idol) performed. She was very good. I got to get my picture made with her and Ms. Judy gave me the CD that she received and got it signed. Some random person that was there took my picture with her since my camera on my phone would not work right in the amount of light that was in the room. So I have to track down that photo but it exists somewhere in the world right now.

too busy to blog?

I have not had an opportunity to write on my blog in about a week. I don't know why, I love doing this and keeping a record of my everyday boring life. I am a big believer in the fact that you find time for the things you like. I hate when people say things like "oh where do you ever find time to do that" (usually in reference to my stamping or scrapbooking hobby) or "Oh I am too busy to do anything like that" or "I do not have time to do ______" and fill in the blank with whatever or "oh I meant to ______" usually in reference to helping someone else out . You will make time to do the things you want to do. Like I found about an hour of time today to take a very much needed nap. So anyway here I sit at 10:45 when I should be in the bed just typing away. I have so many things I want to write about, after all it has been a rather busy week. They are coming soon to a blog near you!

Bedtimes

Bedtime is such a hassle in our house. Last night I physically put my kids in their beds at 9:00 (we are still working our way back to a normal bedtime from the summer). They were up and out of their beds for the next hour and 30 minutes. This is after several spankings. Kyle was still awake at 10:42 playing in his room. John allows them to come to our bed to fall asleep and then moves them to their room. Obviously we disagree on this subject. Tonight we started a little before 8:00. Kaitlyn screams from her room that she is scared (for long periods of time both nights now). She finally fell asleep after a story and an hour. Kyle is still up playing is his room. When we picked them up from daycare they were so cranky. We planned to go eat but ended up going through a drive thru because they were acting so bad. I know it will get better with some consistency and time but it so frustrating for the time being. Can we say Benadryl?

Music on the blog

Yes there is now music on the blog. It is the same playlist that I have on my myspace page. Some of the songs that are on there I cannot find to download on itunes and I really like them (especially the Beatles ones). I originally thought that blogger was blocked at school but it is not. So while I am on my planning time, I can open a new tab and listen to the music from my blog page. Now I am more motivated to add more songs and update it more often. It saves me the 99 cents per song that I pay on itunes for a song I like.

First day of 2nd grade

Kaitlyn was very excited this morning for here first day of second grade. She got up (without nagging), got dressed (complete with a new outfit), brushed her hair and teeth and was ready to go in no time.

Dancin' with chuckee

Cheese that is. Yesterday we went to my niece Jade's 1st birthday party. Kyle loved dancing with chuck e cheese and every time he would come out and dance, Kyle was right up there with them. He would even stop playing games and run over to dance.

Shoes

I love shoes, really. It is a sorta obsession of mine. In fact in the last two days I have purchased 3 new pairs of shoes. I bought two on clearance through Chadwicks, one pair I needed to go with a dress I recently purchased and the other was just oh so cute. Today Kyle and I went to the Collierville mall (in the 100 degree weather). That mall is my favorite because it has a Liz Clairborne shoe store, a Clarks and an Eddie Bauer all in a row. A girl is in heaven. I got some cute blue flip flops with rhinestones across the straps. There were only $14.99 and to think I almost bought them when they were $49 and then again when they were marked down to $29.99. My patience actually paid off and I do not usually have patience or self-control when it comes to buying shoes.

Darling Diva

So I do actually have two kids, even though a lot of these posts seem to be about Kyle. I took Kaitlyn shopping tonight for some school outfits. We waited until about 7:30 thinking maybe some of the crowds would have died out. I was wrong. However I was able to buy Kaitlyn a few things. Here is one outfit she wanted:

She is such a teenager.

Christmas time at the mall?

Okay so I must have had a death wish today because I decided to go and meet up with Paula for lunch in the mall. Now keep in mind two things for the rest of this story, 1)I had both of my children with me, 2)It is a tax free weekend in Tennessee. You would have thought it was the day after Thanksgiving. I mean really people how much money are you really saving. There were NO parking places. You know how around Christmas time you have to follow people to their cars to find a place to park. It was that way today. Then even the food court was a mad house. On our way out Kaitlyn found a backpack in JCPenney (and I did tell her I would buy her a new one). There was at least 12 people in line. The bag was $14.99. I would have saved about $1.50, not worth the time to stand in line. Now I also wanted to go down to Target. I was at least smart enough to go to the Trinity Target. Not nearly as crowded (and oh so much nicer). Of course a trip to Target for a backpack and toothpaste turned into a hundred dollar trip but hey I only paid 45 cents tax!