Jourdyn has been working very hard to learn her saxophone. She is now 1st chair in the band. Here's a video clip of her practicing. It's not very clear because it was taken with my cell phone.

Leap Year

So every four years we have this extra day to deal with. It would be great if this extra day was just that - an extra day. One that could be spent in bed or just hanging out. No work, no school. But no it's just another day! It does however, give me one extra day before the mortgage is due! I guess that's a bright side! Of course not really since February's always two days short anyways!

Nadine was born in leap year 2004. Which means she is going to be four in just a few short days. March is birthday month around here! All of our children were born in March. Which really only means that late June/early July is usually a pretty busy time of the year for us. Well, at least in three years out of marriage. :)

Rob and Nadine have been vomitting since yesterday. Well, today neither of them have thrown up (yet) but they are both sleeping. Nadine is coming down with a fever now. So pray for them to get better. (And that no one else gets sick!)

Total lunar Eclipse - 2/20/08

Rob was on midnights last week - so when he went to work on Wednesday - I went out to see the lunar eclipse. Here are some of the pics I took. They aren't great because I need a new digital camera but you can get the idea.

There's no day like Snow days!

Unlike many districts - this is not our last snow day! We have several more! So bring on the snow!

Rowan wasn't quite to sure what we were doing out there - he just watched us for a while - then joined in and when he saw that we built a snowman - boy, was he excited!!!!!

Make a postcard - it's easy!

Bubble Blowing

On the way home from school, Jourdyn and I blew bubbles. It quickly became a "look how big this bubble is" competition. Ice Breaker cubes make pretty good bubbles! And they don't stick to your glasses!

Also you can see little bit of Jourdyn's self-hair cut. We are going to get it fixed this weekend. Although I don't know what they will be able to do with it.

Daddy Did Rollerskate...

...and we have pictures to prove it.

Valentine's Dinner

This evening Rob and I had a date night. My women's ministries council and I planned a Valentine's Dinner & A Story. Dinner & A Story is our take on Dinner & A Movie. We have dinner and one person shares their walk of faith. Well, since it's February (the month of love) we decided to ask a couple to share and opened the dinner to men as well as ladies. 36 of us went to the Spaghetti Warehouse in the Downtown Warehouse district. It was nice. We had the whole lower level to ourselves.

Our friends, Doug and Tracy shared their story of how God brought them together and how He's been working in their lives. Our nephew, Curt and his wife, Nicole came and they brought their friends, Nicole and Jason. It was great!! I had fun!

As promised...

pictures of the New-to-Rob speedracer - a 1992 GMC Jimmy!!!! This is a great throw back to the days of the Green Monster (Rob's 78 Grenada) and the Champagne SuperNova (Derek's car)! Hey, but it runs good and the whole family fits!!!

Rollerskating

Well, it's President's day so that means NO SCHOOL! Jourdyn's school's parents club has a Skating Party today. So we all went and had some fun!!!! I love to rollerskate, however, learned that it is really hard to go with an almost 2 and 4 year old. They had a ball though. The rink has little skates that they could wear. The wheels are tightened so they just barely roll. They all fell a couple of times.

I had an idea while I was there. The skates slowed Rowan and Nadine down tremendously, maybe I should buy them some to keep them in around the house. It's either that or buy me some so I can keep up with them. What do you think???

Jourdyn has since a she was a wee one been called Roo. So now she is my little roller roo!
Other BIG news!! She had a quiz meet yesterday and she got a GOLD ALL STAR!!! Which means a perfect score!!!! WooHoo!!!! I was so proud!! I'm sorry I missed it though. Rob was working and you're not allowed to take the little ones to the meets. So she road with one of the coaches.

Still working on pics of the "new-to-Rob" vehicle! I'll get them tomorrow. One thing i think is really good about this car is that it has already got him out there and working on it. (The heater blower was out - so he had to replace it) This is good because working on cars is something he had done with Jack (his dad) and really hasn't done at all since Jack passed. I think it really gives him a sense of peace, as weird as that seems. He's excited about fixing up the car. The next project: a new fender.

Make a postcard - it's easy! Also wanted to say that I realized that it is almost the end of February and I have only posted 7 times. School has been so hard. There is a lot of reading this class! I haven't even had time to work out in the past week. I am going tomorrow though. And I also had two more revelations this week: Jourdyn is going to be in 6th grade, which means Middle School and it's a Leap year!

Out of Debt

Okay, so I want to clarify that getting out of debt #1 isn't easy for anyone no matter how little the debt or large the debt #2 it's not something that happens over night #3 it is more a change in lifestyle than anything else - it's a decision you make to stop using credit cards, to stop buying things you don't have the money for and to prioritize your money, like you prioritize your life!

No matter how rich you may think someone is - most likely they are just as in debt as you are or even more in debt. If your household makes $29,000 a year - YOU are in the TOP 7.74%richest people in the world!, yes, that's right, 7.74%. - YOU ARE RICH!!!!! Much of the world lives on less than $30 month - it takes much more than that to run our household's in one day! Get over it! You are not poor!!!! Rob and I are not poor!!! We ALL just need to learn that God never intended for his people to live in debt! We need to adjust our attitudes and figure out that we make many bad choices concerning our money. One-fifth of every word that came out of Jesus' mouth was about MONEY! We need to learn how to manage it and how to be good stewards of His money - because none of it is ours! It is from Him!

So that all being said - Rob and I trying to get out debt is something that will take us a long time and a lot of work! But in the end we know that having done it will allow us to give of our time and money to God when He asks us to without having to worry about how we are going to pay this credit card or that car payment, etc. YOU CAN DO IT TOO!!!!!

Also we have a new car - a 1992 GMC Jimmy! Rob got it from a guy at work. He was the only owner and we got it really, really cheap! Praise God that He has already blessed us in our journey to having Financial peace!!! I'll post pics of it later!

Snowy Day

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

Remember to pause the music in the box at the bottom.

Home Sick

Today, will be the second day that Jourdyn is home sick from school. Yesterday, she had a headache and a belly ache. Today she just has a belly ache.

Now that school has started back up for me. I haven't really had any time to do anything but school and our daily tasks. My grandfather is also in the hospital with pneumonia. He is almost 92 so this is not a good thing.

We have been desperately looking for a car for Rob to drive. It's not going very well. We want to take this opportunity to be that much more out of debt, rather than run out and borrow money for another car. So we have cash but we are unable to find a car. What's happening is that investors are getting the newspapers at 5 am and going out with cash and buying private owner cars the same day they show up in the paper. Then turning around and selling them for what dealerships sell them for to make a profit. It really stinks. Because we can't get our hands on a cheap car. I refuse to pay a couple grand for something that has 100,000 miles on it.

I have been going to a Financial Peace Seminar at Cedar Creek on monday nights. It's great. Rob and I are going to try to do get out of debt. So that we can enjoy life more and be able to give more.

Waiting for Spring

Well, the weather here has pulled some more craziness! We had snow over the weekend then 50 degrees and rain. Yesterday, it went from rain to snow in a matter of minutes. It has just been weird and I'm ready for spring. Spring is always fun because it means birthday time around the McQueary house. All three of our children are March babies. (7, 11 and 23) So this year we have an Easter birthday! YEAH!!! And Jourdyn is very excited to share her birthday with our celebration Jesus' resurrection! I believe we are going to have her share in communion at church Easter Sunday. I want her to really remember that this year was a special birthday.

We haven't planned any parties. It's funny because Rob and I were discussing what to do for them. And he said well let's just have a family party at the house for them all. And I said, who are we going to invite, Julie, Bro and your mom. So I don't know what we are going to do. Probably not much. Jourdyn will most likely have a sleep over. Maybe we could take her and some friends to Holiday Inn overnight or something. We'll see. Spring break does follow her birthday.

The kids and I were going to go to Idaho for Spring break, however, with the car situation, we can't. We are looking for a new second car right now. Something cheap and reliable. Pray that the right car comes along and everything works right for us.

About School: My current class is History of Christianity II: Reformation to Present Day. It is quite interesting so far. I am learning an infathomable amount of information about Christian History. Pray for me on that too! It's very hard to have the kids around and try to read as much as I need to read! That's the one thing about history is having to read a whole lot! I really think they should make my class books books-on-tape! :)

Footprints in the snow?

My children get amused with the smallest things! Like footprints! Rowan was walking around in circles today - kind of following his footsteps! It was very cute!

Carmina Burana - Toledo Symphony

First, here are some more pics of our night with Chuck and Char last week!

Well, a big thank you to my favorite talk radio station, WSPD. I won tickets to the Toledo Symphony's performance of Carmina Burana. Dad came over and watch the kids this evening so Rob and I could go. It was awesome! I've posted a video, not from tonight, but it will show you what the music was. You will know it! It's very popular! BGSU's choruses song in the concert! One of my old profs was in the chorus.



DON'T FORGET TO PAUSE THE MUSIC AT THE BOTTOM! On the video, you will see the Latin lyrics, which are actually medieval poems that Orff put to music in I believe the 1930's. But here are the translated lyrics. They are quite interesting.

"O Fortune, like the moon you are changeable, ever waxing, and waning; hateful life first oppresses and then soothes as fancy takes it; poverty and power it melts them like ice. Fate - monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel, you are malevolent, well-being is vain and always fades to nothing, shadowed and veiled you plague me too; now through the game I bring my bare back to your villiany. Fate is against me in health and virtue, driven on and weighted down, always enslaved. So at this hour without delay pluck the vibrating strings; since Fate strikes down the string man, everyone weep with me!"

Cataloging Artwork

Here are some of the art pieces that Jourdyn did last year in 4th Grade. We need to save them in some fashion, so this is what I came up with! Taking pics of them.