Pumpkins on Parade

My mom is a member of the Raytown Kiwanis.  She and other Kiwanis members took on the HUGE project of Raytown's First Annual Pumpkins on Parade.  After my aforementioned Saturday morning meltdown, I met my mom at Cave Spring in Raytown to help set up for this AMAZING event!  Basically we had almost 500 pumpkins carved by local families, organizations and groups and lined the trails of Cave Spring with them.  Then over 1000 people came through the trail!  It was AWESOME!!  


I was crazy enough to have my classroom carve pumpkins.  Yes.  That means 24 second graders armed with kid-friendly carving knives and pumpkins.  It was so much fun!!!

This is a picture of one of my students and myself at our classroom carving.  I got permission from her mom.  :-)

Here are our final products!  I was SOO proud of my kids!  And I loved that so many of them came out to see their pumpkins.  

Here are some more pics from the night!  SO MUCH FUN!!!

COOL Pumpkins:

COOL Pumpkins by my mom:

Happy Halloween!!  Go carve a pumpkin!

Saturday Morning Melt Down

I melted down.  Saturday morning I was out of my house at 7:30 and at my parents' by 8:00 to clean their house (something I've done for the last few years for some extra cash).  By 8:20 I was sobbing into a bowl of cereal at their kitchen table.  Hmmmm....stressed much?

I've always been able to handle a busy life.  I've always been able to pile one more thing on my work load and handle it with grace.  Not this school year.  I have never felt like more of a failure as I do this school year.  Between the never-ending papers of grad school and the weekends spent working at school and my house that hasn't been cleaned in weeks, I just can't do it anymore.  Saturday morning officially ended my cleaning career.  I'm exhausted and stressed and I just want to enjoy life again!  Some of my work/grad school friends and I have decided to form the "I Hate My Life" club.  Obviously, we're kidding.  We don't really hate our lives, but things have been that miserable and overwhelming.

But can I just say how glorious our Father is even during these hardships and stresses??  I love Him for 2 Corinthians 12.


And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." 


Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Lord knows I'm at my weakest right now.  And I love Him that He will work through me -- especially when I'm weak.  


We had conferences this past week.  And I was blessed many times over.  In one conference, I was talking with a mom who is just lovely!  She was telling me that her son lreally struggled with his spelling tests last year and how it really upset him to not do well.  I was kind of flabbergasted to hear this because he's one of my students who has scored 100% on every single spelling test we've taken -- and we take one every Friday.  The mom was telling me that she asked her son what he thought was different this year -- why was he doing so much better on his spelling?  


His answer is heaven sent.  He said, "Mom, I think it's my teacher.  She makes me want to learn."  


Lord, have mercy!  I love you, Father!  He knew that I needed to hear that my stress and hard work is paying off.  It MEANS something.  It means a BIG something.  I know that beyond the stress, beyond the long hours -- I am exactly where I'm supposed to be, doing exactly what I'm meant to be doing.  


Thank you, Lord for the beautiful reminder.  Thank you for being strong in my weakness.  

A Prayer

Father, I want to know Thee, but my cowardly heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting.  I come trembling, but I do come.  Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival.  Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious.  Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

 A.W. Tozer

Nothing Beats Monday Night Football

I very well might be the happiest girl on the planet right now because....it's football season and my Chiefs are back!!!  If you don't already know, I'm kind of in love with the Chiefs, and I'm going to love them no matter how terrible the season!!  (Side note -- my future husband, Tyler Palko, got cut from the roster a few weeks ago.  Gave me a heart attack!  He's now on our practice squad which means I don't get to see him play anymore.  Boo.)

Our home opener/season opener was a couple of Mondays ago (I know I'm working on unfashionably late here, but I've been busy!) against the Chargers.  For you football fans, you understand how big that is!

MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL!  

HOME/SEASON OPENER!!  

AGAINST ONE OF OUR RIVALS!!!  

I could barely concentrate all day long I was so excited!  Here was the bummer, though.  The game didn't start until 9:15pm.  That's right.  The game didn't start until 15 minutes after my bedtime.  Needless to say for someone who NEEDS her sleep like I do, I took the next day off.  Good thing, too.  I didn't end up in bed that night until almost 3am.

My dad was going out of town early in the morning the next day so he gave up his ticket.  Some fan he is.  We missed him, but it gave us the opportunity (us being me, my mom and my sister) to hang out with my Aunt Patty (who really is my mom's bff from college but we call her aunt anyway) who lives in St. Louis.  She drove in Sunday afternoon and spent the day Monday entertaining my mom.

After a little confusion about when we could actually get into the parking lot to tailgate (and after sending my dad to pick up some YUMMY Kansas City BBQ for the tailgate he wasn't going to attend), we headed out the door!

Here's the view we had as we pulled out of the house.  A little drama, wouldn't you say?

Here's the view I had when I turned around.  Also a little strange...

And look at my Aunt Patty!  She's a Rams fan and we've got her all decked out in Chiefs red.  She had no idea what in store for her for the rest of the night.  A little Chiefs red was just the beginning...

We got to Arrowhead pretty quickly (my parents live right close to the stadium) and joined the other billion people tailgating and preparing for the best game ever!  We decided to go low-key this tailgate and do Gates BBQ (YUM YUM YUM), broccoli salad and brownies.  I requested the brownies.  Again - YUM.

After a little food and drink we headed into the stadium at around 8ish.  

Gettin' CRAZY!

We made the trek to Arrowhead (we park in the po' folk lot).  And we were greeted with a bajillion CRAZY Chiefs fans!  Oh, I was in heaven!!  Aunt Patty, not so much...

PREGAME!  HOLY COW!!  IT WAS NUTS!!!

Here's the aerial view of the stadium.  AWESOME!

And, yes, dear friends....Billy Ray Cyrus sang our national anthem.  Mullet and all.  Someone needs to tell the man that it's 9:15 at night and sunglasses really aren't a requirement when there's no sun.

LET THE GAME BEGIN!!!  Unfortunately not only did the game begin, but starting about the second quarter, so did the rain.  Not too bad at first....

And then it got heavy enough that I ran upstairs to the team store and bought the last four crummy plastic emergency ponchos.

I think Aunt Patty was starting to wish she had stayed in St. Louis at this point.

It rained and rained and rained.  But did we care?  NO!!!  Why you ask?  Because.....

WE WERE WINNING!!!  (This is not something we're used to with Chiefs football.)  Although, I think you can tell who was excited and who didn't really give a rip.

If you look closely you might be able to see the hole that Aunt Patty made in her poncho so that her drink was more easily accessible.  :-)  And I have no idea what was up with the thumbs up with me that night.  I need something else to do with my hands during pictures!  And by this time it had gotten chilly which explains the half on/half off hoodie that I have underneath my poncho.  The things we sacrifice for football.  

And after almost losing it in the last 2 minutes of the game, the unbelievable happened.

Seriously.  One of THE most fun football games ever.  Even in the rain.

Pops in the Park

There are a few events that I look forward to every year.  Pops in the Park is one such event.  As a lover of all things music, I love the Kansas City Symphony.  I love it even more when the Symphony plays somewhere awesome like Shawnee Mission Park.  Pops in the Park has become an annual tradition for my family.  We pack a cooler, grab the lawn chairs and head across the state line to enjoy a night of the Kansas City Symphony.  We've managed to coerce some friends of ours to make it a tradition as well.  When we arrive, it's still light out and usually VERY warm.  This year, however, we had an unusually cool and VERY enjoyable afternoon/evening outside.  No sweating today!

The Pops in the Park gang.

This event has become incredibly popular!  It makes my music teacher heart SOO happy to see so many families outside enjoying the symphony!

I had invited Courtney and her family to join us this evening, but they had company in town.  I was disappointed but I understood.  I was just sitting in my lawn chair enjoying my surroundings when I looked up and look who I saw!!  It's the Gustafsons!!  I was SOOO excited to see them!!!  What fun!  This was Georgia's very first concert -- look how cultured she is!  The music teacher approves! :-)

After a few minutes of screaming and laughing and chatting, Georgia was anxious to get back to her cousin who is apparently much more fun than I am!  It was good timing, though, because the symphony was getting ready to begin.  Not that it's surprising for me to have a blanket in the summer, but it was getting chilly.  Here's my few of the stage.

Like I said, it makes my music teacher heart so very happy to see all of these people enjoying the symphony.  But I was completely distracted by any of that because I FELL IN LOVE!!  There was a family just behind us and to our left with two little boys.  One of the little boys (who couldn't have been more than 3 or 4) stole my heart!!  LOOK AT HIM!!!!

If you can't tell, his "violin" is a plastic toy guitar and his "bow" is a drum stick.  He played his "violin" to EVERY STINKING SONG!!  And at the end of each piece when the audience clapped, he bowed!  I could barely take my eyes off of him!!  Dear Jesus, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me have a child like this!!  :-)    Be still, my heart!


And apparently while I was oohing and aahing over the new love of my life, my dad got a little sleepy...

What a glorious view.

Random Stuff

It's been a busy start to school, and I haven't had a chance to post a couple of things.  A couple of weeks ago, my friend Allison invited me to go to Starlight (a beautiful outdoor theater) to see The Producers.  Of course, I said yes!  I stopped by her house before the show to see some of my favorite babies!  Ava was getting ready to start pre-school and just got her brand new backpack!  She was very proud!!  In fact, she was more interested in taking a picture of her new Dora backpack than she was taking a picture with me!  I love her too much to hold that against her.

And baby Luke is getting SOOO big!!  

Here's me and Allison after the show.  It was an unusually cool summer night.  Jackets were a must!

I love the theater!  Especially the theater with a great friend!!

Not only do I love theater, but I LOVE football, and this past week was the Chiefs' last preseason game. My wonderful mother put together another amazing tailgate spread and we headed out to the stadium.  

Unfortunately, the weather was not choosing to cooperate.  It turned very chilly and rained on the majority of our tailgate.  

Even my mom stayed out in the rain.  But not even holding an umbrella will keep her from her ice cream!!

While my mom and some of the macho boys ate their dinner under an umbrella, I chose to eat in the comfort of the car.  :-)

When the rain finally stopped, we were blessed by a beautiful double rainbow!!  It was on that note that we packed up our tailgate and headed into Arrowhead to witness our first preseason win!  YAY!