marbles part 2

Happy Black Friday! I may or may not have gotten up at 2 am to brave a very metropolitan area to score some super awesome deals just in time for Christmas. (I am pre-writing several of the posts this Thanksgiving weekend and as of right now have yet to make up my mind about Black Friday.)

If you are one of the many brave people who is willing to fight through a crowd, endure long lines in the freezing cold and total lack of sleep in the name of a killer sale, I applaud you. If you also happen to be sitting in line right now freezing your tush off at 3 am trying to entertain yourself by checking blogs from your cell phone, I thought I would help pass the time with more photos from our trip to Marbles last week.

These photos were taken in the WorldTrek area.

They had a piece of the Berlin wall there for you to touch and learn all about.

In just about every area of the museum there is some sort of arts and crafts project for you to do. The kids enjoyed gluing pipe cleaners to paper and Mabry had her face painted in one place. The real excitement was in the IdeaWorks design section. There were bins of fabric you could cut up and turn into outfits for girls, boys or even dogs.

I think it is safe to say that Amber and I may have been a little excited about this area too...

The last place we visited in the museum was the Adventures of Mr. Potato Head. Again, there was just so much hands on fun and the kids had a blast.

I was able to get someone to take a picture of all of us in front of the giant Potato Head with the vegetable headdress.

marbles part 1

Last week my friend Amber and I took her sister (Tori), her son Landyn and Mabry up to Marbles Kid's Museum in Raleigh for the day. It was a blast! I brought my camera along and spent much of the time documenting everything, including spending a bunch of time taking photos of myself in a three way mirror (above).

Marbles has all kinds of things to explore, play with and discover. One of the favorites was a three story pirate ship in the Splash area, that came complete with a hammock, costumes and stuffed parrots.

If only we could have gotten all of our little pirates to look at the camera at the same time...

Also in the Splash area were tanks/sinks/tubs of moving water that you could play with and in. The kids were supposed to wear plastic smocks to help protect them from getting all wet. Tori is modeling what they are supposed to look like:

Mabry is modeling what it looked like on her:

Tori was such a ham. She makes a great photo subject (just look at that beautiful red hair and smile!). It helps that there is not one speck of self esteem issues with that girl. Nope, not one.

My favorite part of the museum was the garden area outside. It was just so pretty and peaceful. There were work tables with magnifying glasses and laminated information sheets on different trees and plants and flowers. Landyn loved it because there was a huge dirt pile complete with toy trucks to fill up and haul all the dirt around.

Later this week I will show you more from the museum. If you live in the area and are able, I highly recommend this museum. We plan to go back often!

miracles can happen

One of my most favorite things is when I sit down to read the paper, watch something on TV, surf the Internet and I stumble across a story of an average person who has gone above and beyond to make amazing things happen. The kind of story that leaves me with goosebumps, a huge smile plastered on my face and (usually) tears in my eyes.

Tonight I had one such experience. An 11-year-old girl named Lydia is creating her very own Thanksgiving miracle. A miracle that I was able to participate in. A miracle you can help with too.

I think Lydia does a better job explaining what is happening than I ever could (this is an excerpt from a post found here):

"For the next four weeks, my mom challenged us to show crazy love for God by helping others, even if every one else thought we were out of our minds. Of course all of the kids wanted to do something to help orphans who have Down Syndrome....especially me. So we are washing cars, baking cookies, and babysitting to raise money. Today we were driving into the neighborhood and I looked at all of the beautiful houses and said: "If every single house gave some money for Darya, we could have enough money raised for her to get adopted."

***

When we got home, mom told us to come look at an email we had received from Mrs. Amy. Mrs. Amy is a friend that adopted a little boy from Reece's Rainbow last year. She had checked out our blog and saw we are raising money for Darya and it made her cry. Her email said she met Darya when she was at the orphanage in the Ukraine to get Micah. We never knew that. She said Darya was in a crib, no one ever spoke to her, no one took her out to hold her, and she was left alone by herself all day long. Mrs. Amy said she needs a home very fast.

***

Her email upset me a lot. My heart has been set on Nadine on the Reece's Rainbow site, and I pray for Nadine and Darya all of the time. But now it seems to me like Darya needs a family right away and might need a family more than Nadine. (I wish we could adopt Nadine and Darya). Mrs. Amy sent us a video that she took of Darya when she was there, and Darya looked so sad. I thought, what if that was Hope or Charlie stuck in a crib all day with no one to play with. I can't even stand to think about it.

***

So I asked my mom if I raised $20,000.00 could we go get Darya ourselves and be her family. My mom said yes, if I raised that much money she would know it was from God, but she said she didn't think I could do it because that is a whole lot of money. I told her I was going to try my best and nothing is impossible with God. Then she said if I raise $20,000.00 we could even adopt two kids from Reece's Rainbow, and we would try to make the other one Nadine. Now I probably won't even sleep because I am so excited!"

Internets, that post was written ONE WEEK AGO. Lydia and her family have already raised over $10,000. I am amazed and in awe.

There are two days left. Miracles can happen. I am a believer, are you?

Please help the Darya Project. Click here to find out how.

inner harbor part 2

There are lots more photos that I took from the Inner Harbor. However, I have decided (at least for now) to just put up two more of my favorites.

On Sunday I went to the emergency room. I had spent the whole night before battling a racing heartbeat, fever, chills and body aches. Not to mention trying to swallow even though my throat was swollen. All in all it was a great night.

Dan and I were concerned that it could be the flu, which could be a big deal seeing as we have Mabry.

Do you know how they test for the flu? They squirt water up your nose and then feed a tube through you nose down into your throat and suck the water back up. WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND CAME UP WITH THAT IDEA?! Not comfortable, but worth it for the peace of mind we had when it came back negative. Now we are just waiting on the results of the strep test they gave me. In the meantime it is lots of Tylenol, ibuprofen and antibiotics.

I am feeling a little better, but still not 100%.

sun flare

This week's photo challenge for I ♥ Faces was to capture a sun flare. I took this photo last weekend while on a paddle boat on the Inner Harbor in Baltimore. It was the perfect sunny day for just such a shot. I love the way that the flare reflects over and over again in the water.

To see more sun flare photos, click the link below!