This is what happens when...

...your wallet falls victim to the contents of your daughter's sippy cup. Luckily, it was just water.

...you take a nap with wet-from-the-pool hair.


I'm thankful my girl is sleeping soundly.

I'm a Winner!

This beauty is mine, all mine!

This Large Wedge Tote in lovely Goldenrod was handcrafted by Jill Harrell, aka, Scabby Robot. I've admired her Etsy shop since I fell in love with Etsy and I've visited it often, wistfully browsing through her inventory. I jumped on the chance to win one of her creations on another blog, Zip & Ruth, and entered this little ditty:

Goldenrod, Cedar, Mocha or Bone,
Each of you, all of you,
I'd love to bring you home!
Scabby Robot, I've admired you,
Long from afar,
Oh to have one of you
Finally at home on my arm!

Jill and Zip & Ruth's author and creator, Illana, chose ME to win an item of my choice from Jill's shop. I couldn't believe it. Our Illinois crew was visiting when I checked my email and found the good news in my inbox. I think I startled them with my reaction. You'd think I'd won the lottery. I was so excited.

As I am one of those "I never win anything" people, I was really happy and honored that they chose me to win. But, as my luck would have it, we hit a snag.

The package never arrived. In a flurry of emails between myself and Jill and multiple visits to the post office, it seems the package was gone, lost. My beautiful bag never made it.

Jill, being the awesome businesswoman and all around person that she is, replaced the bag and it arrived this week. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Visit her website, her Etsy store and stop by and see her on Facebook. She's a cool gal who possesses much creativity and delivers beautiful, meticulous handiwork.

Visit Zip & Ruth, too, for great giveaways and general handcrafted fun.

I am thankful to generous, benevolent people like Jill! Thanks so much!

Ketchup...Catsup...Catch Up

You'd think since I haven't posted in over a week that there's been a lot going on. We have been busy but nothing is of major significance. I guess I have just been lazy or lacking in photos or any grand news to share. But, of course I hate to leave you, my loyal readers, hanging, so here we go.

Life just sometimes takes over and the every day is just that...the every day. Not bad, not great, it just is. It has been terribly hot and humid down here in the panhandle and the rain does nothing to alleviate the suffocating heat. It is one thing to be trapped inside due to rain or snowstorms but yet another to be cooped up because of heat. I know Addie has to be bored and at times, I am too. But, as soon as we step outside her cheeks turn red and she gets super hot, super fast. The girl who loves to be outside is ready to be held not long after we've ventured out of the door. So, what to do? Sesame Street and pretzel sticks have been lifesavers, not to mention that we have VBS all week this week, every night, at church. Addie has loved going and being around all of the kids and has received much attention from all. Our regular nightly schedule has been thrown out the window in favor of Egyptian costumes, heavy eye makeup and lots of running around and high fives for teenagers.

Speaking of VBS, we've been "visiting" Egypt this week. Check out the set the team built:



Take a guess at what it is all made of. They did a great job creating it and putting it all together and so far it has been a fun week.

Let's see, what else have we been up to?

Last Friday Sabian and I actually had a date. Our day date consisted of a movie, dinner and a quick errand run. We want to be better about this date thing and we realize the importance of having time together, we always have, but it is a little challenging when we don't have sitters readily available. We do have willing people but those that we have also lead busy lives. Not having family around is hard when it comes to this kind of thing because as much as you may have a couple of options as far as babysitters are concerned, we all know that when it comes to your kids and having family close by it is just so much easier and comfortable to be able to hand your kiddos over to them. But, this time we had a willing college student whom Addie loves come over and keep her company for a few hours, for which we were grateful. It was good to have some time just us.



So, life has been full of miscellany lately. I do have a couple of specific things to post about coming up but I need to take the corresponding photos. In the meantime I will leave you with this:


Would you trust YOUR insurance with a guy named Harry Grizzle?

I am thankful for some time with Sabian - and then I was thankful to get home to our girl!

Au Revoir Isn't Fun

Today we said goodbye to Rachel and put her on a plane back to Illinois. Rachel was part of our youth group at our church in Illinois and is now in college, going to school to be a sign language interpreter. She was great company and Addie loved having her here as her constant playmate. Rachel and I agreed that it was probably a good thing that Addie was taking a nap when the two of us left for the airport. Here's why - the other day when our doorbell rang and a few people, including kids, were at the door to tell us about a local VBS. They were here all of two minutes and when they left Addie cried as though they were her best friends. So, it was probably better that Addie didn't have the chance to do the same when Rachel left.

I'm part of the camp that hates goodbyes. In my mind I think that If I could get away without ever saying goodbye then I would, but in reality I'd feel terrible if I never said goodbye.

It doesn't matter what kind of goodbye it is - death, moving away, leaving for a trip, leaving from a trip - goodbye is just hard. I think I've figured out that I don't like it because it signifies change, and change and I have a stormy relationship.

I get it - change happens. It is an inevitable in our lives (why don't "they" include change when they say death and taxes for the certainties in life?) and it can even be healthy. God uses change to teach us, to show us new things and to reveal Himself. All of that doesn't escape me and while I understand that change is necessary I don't think I have to like it. Sometimes I do like it but even with good changes, no matter how big or small, it can be hard for me, too.

Ooof, where did this post take such a serious turn?!

We love you Rachel! Thanks for coming and hanging out with us.

I am thankful for Rachel and for her taking time out of her summer to visit us and to help and be an encouragement in general to us.

Girls Only

Since our friend Rachel arrived from Illinois on Tuesday it has been a girls only club around our house. That will end this afternoon when Sabian returns from camp. For now, here is what we have been up to:






Some beach time, some errand running, some Addie playing, lots of chilling out, some card playing, ice cream cake eating and hopefully soon some other stuff, too. It has been very relaxing and Rachel has been super accommodating, conforming to the schedule of a 16 month old. Hopefully we don't bore her too much! It is just good to have her here.

I am thankful that the campers have had a good week and that they will arrive home soon. We've missed them!

The Single Life

(The Chaneys, circa 2008, in Lafayette Square right before we moved.)

Every year, around this time, I become single.

Sabian left for youth camp with a bus load of campers on Monday morning and they'll return sometime Friday afternoon. Due to some unexpected events (which I am still debating posting about) I got to see him again later Monday afternoon. I, along with Addie, was able to see him tonight, too. We canceled youth service so that whoever wanted to head to camp just for tonight's service would be free to do so. Addie was super happy to see her Daddy again and may again wonder where he is tomorrow morning. But, the good thing is that we have just a day and a half to go before he is home.

In the meantime, I have help! Our friend Rachel arrived yesterday from Illinois to hang out with Addie and I this week. It is wonderful to have her here and she is such a help with Addie. Considering Addie cries every time someone leaves after being at the house, she's always happy when someone new is around. Makes me feel great, eh?

What a week it has been thus far. Like I said, I'm still debating on whether or not I'll tell the full story but what I can say now is that I am exhausted. I think it is a good exhausted. So, why then, you ask, am I still up at 12:30? I felt I needed to post and I did miss posting. Even if no one ever reads this it was time to get something on here.

So, now that there is something on here, I'm going to bed. I am thankful for Rachel! She's been great and we've had a good time together so far. I'm looking forward to the next few days we have together.

Bug Bites Bite

Poor Addie, she's a bug magnet. When she gets bit, she gets bit. Her bites swell up and look terrible for at least a week. The upside is that they don't seem to bother her too much - for the most part she leaves them alone. The downside is that she seems to always get a bite no matter where we go or what we do.

Bug spray is a staple in our house. If we miss a spot we're sure to find a bite the next morning right in that exact spot. The key to keeping the bites from getting out of hand, we have found, is calamine lotion. We've bought stock in the company and douse her bites with it as soon as we see a bump surface.

Sunday morning we woke up to find a bite on Addie's right ear. We assumed it came from the night before, watching fireworks, and we kept an eye on it. By the end of the day my poor girl's ear had grown to Dumbo-sized proportions. Okay, so I'm exaggerating, but her ear did grow and we felt bad for her. She kept her hands off of it but we could only imagine that there had to be some discomfort that came along with it. We kept it covered in calamine lotion as best as we could and after some prayer she woke up the next morning with it looking much better.

(Before the healing process.)

However, the story continues. Sunday night as I was putting her to bed I noticed an ant crawling in Addie's crib. I flicked it off, didn't see any more, and off she went to sleep. Until midnight. At midnight she woke up crying and tugging at her ear. Then she started rubbing her eye, and we saw it...a bite on her eyelid. We figured that the bite on her ear had actually come from an ant and then we knew for sure that she had been bitten by the ant on her eyelid, which was now swollen.

(Hanging upside down in the swing at the park.)

Can't this kid catch a break? I felt so bad for her because it was obvious that she was uncomfortable. Needless to say, we kept her out of her room that night. The next day we rearranged her room and the bug man paid us a visit. As best as we could tell there was no influx of ants but we didn't know for sure where they were coming from or why they were in her bed. We didn't want to take any chances.

I'm happy to say she is doing much better and no longer looks like she's the newest member of The Fight Club.

I'm thankful that Addie is such a good sport and won't remember how we neglected to fumigate her room at the first sight of a bug.

July 4th, Take Two

Just a little more July 4th-ness.

After the festivities on Saturday night there were still more fireworks to be had. Sunday night our church service was canceled, which always feels like a holiday (!) so we headed for the beach to take in some more 'works.

It was pretty much perfect weather-wise. Low humidity, beautiful skies and not too hot. Lots and lots of people were out and about and many were setting off their own fireworks over the Gulf. In fact, when the real fireworks started it was more like we had our own show all around us. Addie enjoyed watching it all and making new friends along the way. I think if she had had her way she would have take a dip in the water but we succeeded in keeping her (mostly) dry.


Hope you all had a good holiday! I am thankful for being able to enjoy the fireworks with Sabian and Addie on such a great night in an awesome environment.

Happy Fourth of July!

I'll admit it - I've been bummed this weekend. Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful to be with Sabian and Addie, but the weekend hasn't quite turned out to be what I thought it was going to be. So, I've indulged some melancholy feelings here and there. Well, more here than there, but that's beside the point.

Instead of writing about all of that, I'll post some photos from our fireworks fun last night. Wewa does know how to do holidays right so we headed to the park to watch their fireworks production and met up with some friends on the way out. When we went last year Addie was not quite four months old but she didn't flinch even as we stood directly under the display. This year she could appreciate them more and she liked them although toward the end she did have her fingers in her ears. And, despite my efforts to make sure the bugs stayed away one found an Off-free spot on her ear, which is now red and swollen. I guess it is time to invest in a beekeepers outfit for my girl.

Happy 4th! Hope you're enjoying the weekend.

Forward Conference 2010

The house is finally clean and the laundry is finally done (but not all put away). I swept up enough sand to create Beach Chaney in the back yard and enough hair to donate to Locks of Love. I know, gross, right? Take into account that I did not get to go through my pre-trip cleaning routine so this week's round of cleaning was after having guests and after having been gone for four days. That pre-trip routine preserves some of my sanity even though that may seem contradictory when preparing to go away on a trip. My philosophy is that if I clean and do laundry before I leave, I come home to a clean house and only have to take care of the mess and dirty clothes from the trip.

So this week we (I) cleaned and then Addie and I did nothing for two days. I felt it was deserved considering all we had done, the parting of ways with any type of schedule for over a week and because it has been raining and dreary here all week. The latter justified, even more, our staying in. Even after two days of laying low Addie and I were going a little stir crazy by today. We were ready to go out.

But, I digress. The real focus of this post is to recap our trip to Atlanta last weekend. We said goodbye to our Illinois friends Thursday morning and headed out on the church bus with a group of 20 (including the three of us) to Atlanta for Forward Conference.

Hosted by Jentezen Franklin, Forward is something our kids from our church have been involved with since before we moved to Wewa. Sabian was able to go the first year we moved here but I was back in Illinois for a friend's wedding and didn't go. Last year we'd just had Addie and our pastor and his wife took the group, so this year it was our turn to go. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. First, I was pretty sure Addie would be fine but you never really know with kids, right? Especially after a few fun days already with friends, and then a trip right on top of it that I knew would be nonstop, I was a little wary. While we did have our moments, she did really, really well the whole weekend. It also helped having so many other arms to hold her when she (or we) got tired. I think by the second day she realized she'd have to grab naps whenever she could and managed to snooze through louder than loud worship services and here and there on the bus and various other places. It helped, too, that she was such a great sport when it came to wearing her ear plugs. She was awesome.

Aside from that, I was really impressed with the lineup of speakers at the conference and enjoyed hearing from some new voices. Some around here may not believe it but I'd never really listened to Jentezen Franklin and a couple of the other speakers were unknown to me. They were all good. What a simple word to describe it but that's just it - they were good. Really good. I can't say enough about how much I enjoyed hearing Judah Smith. If I can find a link to his service I will post it - it really is worth hearing. I appreciated his style, what he said and how he brought it all together. Reggie Dabbs is always good and Steven Furtick and Christine Caine were awesome, too.
Sunday morning we rounded out the trip by attending the service at Jentezen Franklin's church, Free Chapel. I'll be honest - I was a little skeptical. I tend to be this way somewhat when it comes to televised pastors and "mega churches." I wasn't sure what to expect but again, I was pleasantly surprised. Pastor Franklin preached a sincere, applicable sermon and the church itself wasn't as "mega" as I supposed in my head. It was good to be there and I'm glad we had the opportunity to attend that morning.

While we were in Atlanta we were able to visit the Georgia Aquarium. Sabian and I had been there before when we spent a week in Atlanta with our youth group in Illinois on a missions trip. We were excited to take Addie so she could see all of the "fishies."






Exhausted and in dire need of some alone time by the end of the weekend I am glad we were able to go to Atlanta. It was good to spend that time with our kids and just to be part of the conference.

I'm thankful we had a good, safe trip!