a lovely evening

I had SO much fun last night!!! it was just wonderful! The restaurant was amazing. it's a small dark room, lined with couches, & tables where you eat your food. After i arrived, the waiter came & washed our hands with the most wonderful smelling water. (rose oil maybe?) The owner (Chef Karim) was so friendly & kept checking on us. We talked with him awhile and he told us all about Morocco & its history, language & culture. He served us a beautiful four-course meal, which we ate mostly with our fingers. Fantastic! Then the belly-dancer came out... and of course, my cruel girlfriends had to tell her that we were celebrating my birthday. *sigh* so.... i got up and had a little belly-dancing lesson.. but not before making all my friends join me. it was *so* fun! even though i'm terrible at it. :) Afterward the belly dancer sat down and talked with us for awhile. What a beautiful woman! She's been married for 25 years , & started belly dancing when her 2 kids were 2 & 5.... and still does it 20 years later! then she ran off to dance upstairs for a bachelor party. :)

and in the midst of experiencing the fun of the restaurant, it was so nice to spend time with my girlfriends. . it's such a great group of women who know each other well, & can talk on all levels from superficial to heavy. i just love them! ... such a wonderful night!

they took a few pictures... don't know when they'll be sharing, but i'll try to post some if they do.

excited

after trying for a month, to get together for my birthday, my girlfriends & i are going out for dinner tonight! i'm so excited, because we're trying a new exotic place, Chef Karim's . I've never been, but i hear it's an amazing Moroccan resaurant... i've never had moroccan cuisine before, but i'm just excited because they have Belly Dancers! i mean, how much fun is that!? i hear they get people to go up and dance with them... as much as i'd like to learn to belly dance, i don't think i'll be doing that. :)

Chloe's birthday

Soooo much to say! so little time.

We had people at our house every day last week. God's been doing a lot in our hearts over the last month. i'll try to write about it soon, but it will be a LONG post. For now, Chloe's birthday:

Chloe turned SEVEN on saturday. so fun!! After going back and forth all week, we finally just decided to do the jumper & hope for the best. It worked out perfectly, and there was no rain. Yay!! ...thank goodness, because we had 20 kids and about 10 adults. it was CRAZY! and would have been even more crazy if we had been inside.

I had planned on taking tons of photos, but it was so crazy that didn't even think about it. i'm glad a couple of my friends picked up my camera a few times. :) Here's a picture of the kids right before we had cake. There are a few missing, but i'm impressed we were able to get that many kids to be still at all. :) Chloe's the one in the orang shirt. And that's my Grandma in the background.

What to do?

this saturday is Chloe's birthday. After months of discussing what she should do to celebrate, she decided she wanted to invite all her friends over for a birthday party & have a bouncer in the back yard. Now, the weather people say it's going to rain. AK! we have about 15 kids coming, which is a bit much to keep indoors. so we don't know what to do! we 've thought about chuck e cheese. That's a ways away, though, so some people probably wouldn't make it... that would also cost us quite a bit for all those kids... any suggestions?

Happy Birthday!

Today is my blog's birthday. my first post was one year ago today. makes me feel all weepy and sentimental.

update: Mom emailed & asked why I was being weepy & sentimental. So i thought i'd put your minds at ease & let you know that I was just being sarcastic. :)

Rubbing it in

For those of you who are sick of your ice cold winter, and are waiting desperately for spring, I thought I'd let you know that it was 80 degrees here yesterday. :~P

Happy Birthday, Mom!

My very cool church

The western church has always bothered me a bit. I bothers me how everybody gathers in a building, listens to someone talk for an hour & then leaves, w/very little connection or interaction. It just doesn't seem like the community or unity that the Bible talks about. Well, Our church recently changed the way it does things. Instead of just the traditional service in the morning, they've added a 2nd service in the evening (same topic for the sermon, just a different format). so instead of the usual: arriving at church, sitting in your seat to listen to a sermon, & then leaving; we have dinner together. So we all sit down at round tables & begin the evening w/some praise/worship. Then the pastor puts some discussion questions on a screen & we all have dinner & discuss the topic. afterward, he'll give a shortened version of the morning's sermon. It's very cool, because there are people in our church that we see every sunday, but hardly say two words to. Now, we actually talk and get to know each other, and share our needs & pray. in my humble opinion, this is what church *should* be like! I've so enjoyed getting to know and connect w/people who i've seen in church for years, but hardly spoken to. I love it!

Zachary

I had fun trying out my new flash the other day. Here are some pictures of Zachary:

The other day, when we were running errands, Zachy told me he thought it was mean to put people in jail. So i asked him, "if someone did something bad, what would *you* do with them?" His answer? "I'd catch him with a net and fight him with my shiney sword. Then I'd stomp him with my boots and poke his eyes with pointy things so he couldn't see. Then I'd throw fire poison balls at him til i killed him!" Because that's a lot nicer than putting them in prison. ;)

123

I just got tagged by Josh for "tag 123". Here are the rules for those who have been tagged:

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more (no cheating!)
Find page 123
Find the first five sentences
Post the next three sentences
Tag five people

it's hard to tell which book is actually the closest, since I have a bookshelf right next to my computer. So I just grabbed the fattest book on the middle shelf, which would be "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis. Page 123 falls on Charpter 3 of "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe." My 3 sentences say:

Still there was no answer.
"Just like a girl," said Edmund to himself, "sulking somewhere, and won't accept an apology." He looked round him again and decided he did not much like this place, and had almost made up his mind to go home, when he heard, very far off in the wood, a sound of bells.

Now I tag Heather, Glenna, Gwen, Ruth, and Tonya. :)

Sweet Dreams

A few years ago, before Zachary was born, I had some cute fabric, so i thought it would be fun to make little patchwork pillows for the kids. After several hours of very hard work, i finished them & swore i would never do that again. That's why Zachy & Evelyn have store-bought pillows.

Each of the kids has a blankie that he/she is attached to, that they can't live without....except Gideon. He likes his blankies, but it's his pillow that he loves. --which is nice, since i worked so hard on it. Well, it's been so well loved, that it's become lumpy and stinky, and now had a big irreparable hole:

So I finally broke down last friday, and bought some fabric at the store, to make a new pillow. I thought i'd make it similar to chloe's:

So i cut my pieced & started sewing them together on Saturday. The last time i used my sewing machine was to make those last pillows. It was really funny watching the kids. They all stood around watching this cool new machine. :)

Anyway, Sunday, during the superbowl, I finished! :) Here's the final product:

It was a lot of work, but not as bad as I remembered. and Gideon's ecstatic, which makes it all worth it. :)

Cultural education

Every year around this time, our city has a huge film festival. I never know it's going on, until i hear the news about all the movies stars who were in town. And I think, "i never do anything 'cultured.' I should go to these film festivals & see all these 'cool' films." Well this year, i got my big break. Chris has a basketball friend who is an up and coming movie producer, who wrote a short film. So, Chris & another buddy decided they should go see it, to show their support--which meant that I got go, too! :)

This film was only about 20 minutes long, so the way it worked was, the official people picked out about 7 short films (10-20 minutes), & showed them all in one sitting. Our show was second to last, so we had to watch all the others first. Oh My Gosh!!! They were terrible!! --all for different reasons. some had terrible acting. some had terrible videography. some had terrible plots. some had all of the above. There were a couple that i actually thought were decent, but then they had sudden endings that left you hanging. Anyway... the one we went to see (Looking Up Dresses) was actually pretty good --well written & humorous. we really liked it. :) but When all the shows were done, we came out laughing at how terrible they were & said we would never do it again.

At least now, i can pretend to be cultured & say i've been to a film festival. :) AND, if "Looking up dresses" makes it big (which is the only one that should, IMHO) , i can say i was at the premier. :)