The DeLoach Family 2006

My first bloggy award...

Wow! I was given this special award by my friend Kathy and now I get to pass it along to some of my fellow bloggers! Please read below to find out more.

These are the rules!

1.The recipient must link back to the award's creator. ( The Babblings of Mere)
2. You must post these rules if you receive the award.
3. You must chose 5 people to receive the award after receiving it yourself
4. You must fit the characteristics of the recipient of the award, as posted by Mere.
5. You must post the characteristics of a recipient.
6. You must create a post sharing your win with others.
7. You must thank your giver.

Characteristics for the Smile Award:
1. Must display a cheerful attitude. (not necessarily at all times--we are all human)
2. Must love one another
3. Must make mistakes
4. Must learn from others
5. Must be a positive contributor to blog world
6. Must love life
7. Must love kids

Now passing this award on to 5 other great bloggers I love to click on each day...

1.) Suzanne - The busiest girl on the block, she always takes time to update her blog, her cake business blog, her SS class blog, and I am pretty sure she even created a blog for her daddy. She deserves an award, and I am giving it to her!

2.) Hailey - This girl is a teacher that loves her kids and the big responsibility of teaching high school freshmen. She is a good blogger that has a great mix of sweet, serious, and funny. She's been married a few years and makes me remember the pre-kid days with a little bit of nostalgia...

3.) Nicole- I first "clicked" on her blog because she is good friend's with my sister in law, Kim, but have really enjoyed reading as she learns to balance being a new mommy, a kindergarten teacher, and all that comes with those two big jobs.

4.) Kara - Very new to blogging, and I don't want her to get the big head winning an award so soon, but I am going to go ahead and bestow her this great honor! She is also a brand new mommy and still technically a newlywed, so reading her day to day life reminds me so much of the way things were about 8 years ago.

5.) Anne - This girl just completed her 100th post so where some of my other friends blogs have an understandable lack of activity, blogging has stuck for her! She meets the challenge each day of wrangling 3 preschoolers and is transparent about the joy and even occasional frustrations that can bring.

Thanks, Kathy for the challenge and the award! It was hard to pick just 5, and I tried to pick a variety of people who a.) won't all award each other and b.) whose blogs make me smile & think.I am sure that they will pass this Smile Award along to other bloggers that I also love...

Sliding Day

Yesterday Heath participated in Sliding Day at Millsaps Baseball Camp. Parents were invited to come watch so we headed down there to watch the boys perfect their slide and have a lot of fun. After the boys were done, Perry followed the lead of a lot of other little siblings and did some sliding of her own!

Put this on your calendar!

A Little Fun in the Sun

Yesterday, with Heath at baseball camp, I decided to take Perry back to Jellystone Park to meet Leah & Avery and some other ladies and kids from her Sunday School class. They had a great time of course, and Perry finally learned how to put her whole head under water in the pool. She is very proud!
Perry playing at the "beach"
Running back to the pool from the "Splash Pad"
Swimming makes you hungry
Perry & Leah on the way back to the waterslides

Another baseball weekend... with a little music in between

Trey, Heath, & I started Friday night out with Heath's baseball game in Pearl, while Perry went to Hayden's birthday party with her surrogate parents, Rob & Kim. The Moccasins followed up their Friday night win with two more wins on Saturday, putting themselves in the semi-finals for this afternoon. After winning a rematch with our favorite opponent, the Lil' Red Dawgs, the Moccasins just couldn't pull it out to win the tournament and came in second to the Gators. They were a little disappointed, but happy to bring home the 2nd place trophy.
Heath had a great fan section this afternoon with the entire DeLoach family, the Brown's, and the Archie's cheering for the team. I really appreciate everyone making Heath feel so important as he plays this game that he loves.

I also received quite a blessing this weekend through the church service this morning. A new music minister came in view of a call this weekend, and we had a wonderful rehearsal yesterday morning followed with a beautiful service this morning. Our church is moving in such a positive direction, and I feel very lucky to have a place where I feel God's presence in such a real way. To see the new members each week, new faces and returning ones in the choir, and the joy in the congregation is such a blessing to me, especially after the hard times that our church has faced. I cannot wait to see what else God has in store!

There is comfort...

Yesterday, was one of those days that just leaves you satisfied. A day in the sunshine, swimming and splashing with 3 year olds was fun, followed with dinner with family, and an evening with all four of us in our bed watching a little television between tickles and snuggles with the kids. It's not that common for Heath to want to do that anymore, so I found myself being thankful for the moment while wondering if that was the last time for this type of family time.

Although this week has been pleasant and simple for our little family, it seems each day I have heard about another family that is suffering terrible tragedies. Parents that'll go home without the newborn for which they had planned and prayed; a young man whose life has ended unexpectedly, leaving his family and friends with unanswered questions; family after family plagued by cancers, surgeries, unidentified illnesses, and accidents. And with all these unique circumstances come the universal reaction of despair and fear that come when life seems so out of control.

I have been there myself ~ that place where the circumstances seem too much, too hard, too impossible. At that point where you feel completely alone, even though you may be surrounded by people, flowers, food, words, and all the best intentions of others to bring comfort in the midst of unspeakable sorrow. My faith has been shaken to the point where I had to decide if what I believe is true and if it is enough to to pull me through.

But the answer has always been yes. There has always been enough strength, enough peace, enough comfort, and enough hope to bring me through these storms. This morning I pray for each heart that is broken and searching right now to find that same hope and that same promise that can only be found in Jesus.

Dude, you're killing me...

Heath is having a friend spend the night, and they have been in every room of this house, playing with every game and toy they can find. Trey & I are sitting here cracking up while we listen to them play and talk because every other sentence starts with the same word, dude.

"Dude, you got a homerun!"
"Dude, where'd you get that?"
"Dude, I could stay up all night."
"Dude, you want something to drink?"
"Dude, you wanna play pool now?"

I am pretty sure they know each other's name, so I guess this dude thing is a right of passage into third grade or something. Maybe I should go teach them about synonyms and some other choices for that word~ pal, man, buddy, comrade...  But, Dude, that would be really lame.

Walking in Memphis

We headed to Memphis on Thursday afternoon to spend a couple of days with Mawmaw. We were busy on the 4th, starting with a swim at the hotel, lunch with Mawmaw at Belmont, a visit to the Pink Palace, and dinner with family. The day wore Mawmaw out so the four of us headed to Germantown for fireworks. They had nothing on the fireworks at Liberty Park in Madison, but we enjoyed the show. Some pics from the trip...

Outside the Pink Palace Museum
Heath & Perry learn to hunt treasure with a metal detector.
Perry running from yet another picture
Happy Birthday America!

Quite possibly, the longest one ever...

This weekend, I have received a couple of messages that friends have started their own blogs. First is The Davis Family. Kara & I have been friends for a couple of years, after sharing the stresses, long drives, and laughs of grad school at MC. She & Brady have recently welcomed their first baby, Whitney, and in the year 2008, the birth of a baby pretty much ensures the birth of a blog! Kara is hands-down one of the funniest girls I know, and her blog will no doubt be worth reading.

The second new blog is The Bounds Family. Christy & I have been friends since high school, sitting next to each other in Mrs. Bishop’s Physics class. She has a couple of super cute little girls, and the oldest will be in the same ballet/tap class as Perry this year. I am sure that life with two girls under 3 is quite the adventure, and I look forward to reading her blog as well.

I love reading blogs, and new ones are great because they generally have the most frequent updates. I have been blogging for a little over 2 and a half years. One night, after reading a few blogs for a few months, I just decided that I could do that. I didn’t really think much about whether I really wanted to “put myself out there” or if I was putting my kids at risk by using their real names, I just thought it would be a good way to share pictures, funny stories about the kids, and get me writing again.

Now, I in no way claim to be an expert blogger. But I do read the blogs of some actual blog experts. They know their audience, know their strengths, and most importantly, know themselves. Their blogs are worth my time, even though I don’t personally know most of them. Ones that I return to on a regular basis (of people I don’t know) – BigMama, BooMama, Breed ‘Em & Weep, Ali Edwards, Elsie Flannigan, and Steece’s Pieces, to name, well, six.  

A couple of weeks ago, Sophie & Melanie, AKA Boo & Big, spoke at conference called SheSpeaks on the topic of blogging. These two girls are true experts on the subject, having tapped into the hearts of many women across the nation through their blogs. They have parlayed their personal blogs into something more, and now write for Lifeway at the AllAccess blog and were recently a part of the recent Deeper Still conference, featuring Beth Moore, Kay Arthur, and some other wonderful Christian artists, authors, and speakers.

At SheSpeaks, they hosted a session called “Blogging: What Works and What Doesn’t.” The purpose of this session was to help women determine what it means for them to blog, and give some guidelines to keeping a blog that is enjoyable for both the author and the readers. After reading the article I looked back at some of the blogs I love and realized that for me, they had pretty much hit the nail on the head with their suggestions.

I know at least one of you has already had a little bit of heart racing and arm hair bristling at the mere idea that there are any “rules” to blogging. Let me just say, these are not RULES, they are GUIDELINES, and there is a big difference. Do you have to adhere to guidelines? No. However, after reading these guidelines a few weeks ago and considering whether they were or were not valid, I agreed with them and even made some changes to my own blog.

My favorite parts –

On the subject of blog aesthetics - “Readers prefer light backgrounds with black type. They like frequent breaks in paragraphs. They like fonts that don’t require magnifying glasses. And they typically don’t like music that plays automatically, nor do they care for things that blink.” ~ So if you have been missing my music, this statement was my motivation for removing it. Yes, I love the songs on my playlists, but it could be pretty annoying when you are just clicking to see if I’ve added a post or your boss walks in when you’re supposed to be working not blog-stalking. If you have a real interest, you can email or leave me a comment here and I’ll send an email with a link straight to my playlist. Or you can set up your own… It’s free and fun!

On the subject of a blogger’s identity - “The best way in the world to develop that voice is to write regularly. Your voice will get stronger and better the more you use it, and you’re shortchanging yourself and your readers if you’re content to imitate someone else’s.” This is so incredibly important. Authenticity is key… Originally, I wrote because I had something I wanted to say. But now sometimes, I censor myself because I don’t want someone to feel alienated by what I write. Sometimes, I put pressure on myself to just write something, even when I don’t have much to say. Let me tell you, that pretty much sucks the fun right out of this blog, which was my whole motivation for starting in the first place.

Now this was long, and no one may have even finished reading it, but that’s okay. It served as a reminder for me… No guilt for a week long break, no second-guessing if my posts are junk because of a lack of comments, no censoring our life events because of what someone else might think. And no more pop-up music players either…

Dog Days of Summer Tourney Pics

A Pre-game Prayer
Heath, Brock, & Myles between games
Perry and some of the boys
A little beef jerky to get his energy level up for the next game