Aaaah....sun!

Lovely sunshine and warm temperatures...mix it with this

...and you've got a winner of a day!

Played around a little with my lights and converting to black & white tonight.  Here's a couple of my faves.

And to sum up - this Thai Chicken Pizza that I made was yummy. :)

In the Box

In addition to the March 1st Birthday Greeting Tour, I spent part of Thursday at the symphony.  Ruth (a dear lady from our church) and I got to experience the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra from the box seats. 

The performance was of Aaron Copeland's Appalachian Spring and Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream.  The view was spectacular.  It's so interesting to watch the members of the orchestra and see the intensity with which they perform.  Here's our view from the box before the performance.  (No photos allowed during)

Appalachian Spring is among my favorite pieces of music and it was such a wonderful experience to hear it performed live.  Especially since I was in such great company.  Thanks Ruth!  Oh, and there happened to be some people we knew there as well, but they had to make due with 5th row seats.  We gave them a royal wave from our box! :)

2012 March 1st Birthday Tour

We know A LOT of people that celebrated birthdays today.  You may have days where you know of 2 or 3 people celebrating, but today we knew 6 people with a birthday on March 1st.  So what do you do?  You travel around the county giving birthday greetings to as many of them as you can.  1st off I'd like to say that one of them was my cousin's husband, but he lives in Illinois, so he was out of luck.  Happy Birthday Jimmy!

So here we go!  1st up was breakfast with my girl Allison!  She turned 5 today and we got our day kicked off with some donuts at Dunkin' Donuts!  Happy Birthday sweet girl!

Then I spent the rest of the morning at the symphony with a special lady from church.  It wasn't her birthday. :)  More on that on another day.

Then it was off to see my niece Molly.  She turned the big 2 today!  Happy Birthday Cutie Pie...Aunt Heidi loves you!

After I picked Rachel up from school we headed down to Plainfield to take some flowers and a birthday song to Gale, a wonderful lady from our church.  Happy Birthday Gale!

Then back to Brownsburg to take a birthday balloon to Mike, my fellow bandmate at church.  Mike is a very talented guitarist and incredible singer.  I would say Mike sounds just like Josh Groban, but I think its the other way around.  Josh sounds just like Mike Collins.  Happy Birthday Mike (and to his twin brother Mark)

This evening it was over to Stacy's for bible study, but not before a mexican dinner and some birthday crowns for everyone!  Stacy's a wonderful friend, and I'm so glad to know her!  Happy Birthday Friend!

.....and last but not least it just happens to be Justin Beiber's 18th birthday.  And even though my day was jammed packed I managed some time to sing him a birthday tune....and he approved! :)

And if March 1st is your special day....HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Just Because....

it only comes around every 4 years I need a post for Feb. 29th.  We celebrated our Leap Day with sunshine and freakishly warm weather.

Rachel and I also enjoyed some time at our library with some beverages from The Literate Bean.  (The little coffee shop they opened in the library)

Tomorrow we are on Birthday Patrol.  My goal is to have my photo taken with everyone that I know of that has a birthday tomorrow....and there are several.  You'll have to come back tomorrow evening to see if that worked out. :)  Also I get to enjoy the symphony with a lovely lady from our church. 

Happy Leap Day to You!

Our new family addition

No, I'm not pregnant....and NO!, we didn't get a dog!  :)  We recently added another child to our sponsorship through Compassion.  I'd like to introduce Wannaporn Lerdsem. 

She lives in Thailand and was born on the same day as Rachel - May 25, 2005.  We have sponsored Mwajuma from Tanzania for four years now.  It has been a wonderful experience for our whole family.  Dusty and I had discussed sponsoring an additional child for a while.   I thought we would probably choose a boy from India since Dusty's job has him working with programmers in India.  However after searching Compassion's site I found Wannaporn.  She just stuck with me especially since she was born the same day as our little girl.  So last week we sat down together as a family and decided to proceed.  We can't wait to get more information about her and to begin to get to know her.  We pray for her daily.

If you've ever thought of sponsoring a child....just do it! :)  We sponsor through Compassion International.  It's a highly rated organization and I can't recommend them enough.  If you have any questions about sponsoring a child or would like to know more about our experiences please contact me.

On a totally unrelated side note, I made Kung Pao chicken with coconut jasmine rice tonight.  Not really important, but I wanted to take a photo of something today.

Have a great week!

I'm with the band!

Spent this weekend at the Transformed women's conference in Indy.  Our church's praise band was asked to lead worship for the event.  So after a LOT of practice time and a little effort to update some of our wardrobes and equipment it was Go Time on Friday night.

I happen to think that we sound better when color coordinated. I have no scientific proof of this, but it just makes good sense. And in true rock 'n roll style the color was black. The band rocked the house!! Take 900+ women singing and clapping, throw in some quality sound system work, creative lighting, and a pink guitar and you have a party! Well in reality it probably had more to do with the prayers and practice in the past few months. But there's something to be said for ending a rockin' version of Victory in Jesus on some great guitar riffs and 900 cheering people.

On a side note, here's a photo of me in my "I wanna be a rock star" shirt with my hair hanging down in front of my eyes.  (Just to bother my mom.....she hates it when it does that!)

Even our official photographer, Heather, was busting out her best rock star look! :)

But it looks good!

This past Saturday was the annual Awana Grand Prix. We maintained the Hackney tradition of "middle of the pack" performing cars that look good. :)  We found a jeweled "R" and Rachel picked out the colors.  Threw on some glitter and we were ready to run.

The "fabulous" car finished consistently 2nd or 3rd in its heats.  We weren't able to crack into the top 3 overall however.  We also missed the top 3 cut on design.  That top prize went to a car that resembled the dog van from Dumb and Dumber!  You just can't top that!

Rachel raced, I took photos and judged design, and Dusty was put to work at the finish line.

Also over the weekend was the Brownsburg Daddy & Daughter dance.  Rachel was so excited to get to spend the evening with her daddy.  Aaron was away on a youth trip so I took advantage of the time and went to the movies by myself.