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Oh How I love thee… Let me count the ways, 8th Anniversary

by CyleAugusta Leave a Comment

 

“Oh how I love thee… Let me count the ways” – the title of a children’s book came to mind when thinking about my recent anniversary.  One week and two days ago commemorates the day; July 17, 2004. Eight years ago.

We celebrated even though it had been a rough week, and I had been robbed of sleep due to a rare, pregnancy symptom. My Dr. was exploring the condition with blood work and the happy news is that I have the symptoms under control with meds and I am sleeping again, which is the very reason I’m just now writing this post!

We celebrated with dinner at J. Macs, followed by a kid-free night spent with some of our best friends over dinner and board games. The following morning we woke up early to go get my blood drawn – YAY (sarcasm noted)!  As promised, my husband took me on a trip to Home Depot to buy supplies for one of my anniversary gifts: an eight foot farm table to hold our growing family and friends! I can’t wait to see the masterpiece he constructs.

Confession: We came home from our anniversary dinner at 8:15, picking up the kids from my sisters, who was in shock that we were home so early. Oh well, so is life at 22 weeks of pregnancy.

So, why do I love my husband, right now at this very moment?

He is thoughtful: He texts me daily saying “How are you?”, “Wow is your day going?”, and “How are you feeling?”

He strives to be the best dad: recently he has been devouring a book called “Wild Things: the art of nurturing boys”. He is constantly telling me what the book is teaching him and it makes my heart go wild with joy.

He is very willing to complete home repair jobs and will build me just about anything that I request.

He is gifted in so many ways and it is an adventure living life with him.

He patiently listens when I am struggling with an issue, pointing me to Jesus, and reminding me of truth.

To my best friend, the father of my children and my teammate, may there be eighty more years to this union! I love you!

P.S. I just have to post this picture where you look like Brad Pitt walking up out of the barn with the handsome boys… thanks to the amazing Sarah Deshaw for capturing this moment.

Filed Under: Cyle, family Fun, marriage, motherhood, Photography

We’re THOSE Parents

by CyleAugusta Leave a Comment

Am I competitive in nature? I often ask myself that question, & always turn up some confusion. In the moment I can be competitive, but I can also be completely anti- competition and run in the opposite direction when I so much as smell it.

I never really thought I would be that parent – the one who would aggressively get their child to compete in everything and house a room full of trophies, namely because I wasn’t that kid – I didn’t really start developing specific skills until my 20’s and really early thirties, by then the emerging artist awards are all gone. Anyway, I’ve  always known I was a bit of a late bloomer in the arts and music world: my abilities come directly from maturity & soul growth, which in my case comes with age.

As if it weren’t foreign enough to have a child in public school, since I didn’t attend public school, but rather was home schooled, these public school contests are completely foreign as well – Governors honors what? PTA what? There was a paper that came home mid September about contests for reflections about DIVERSITY. The categories were art, music and photography.

I briefly talked to my 6 yr old about it thinking he would draw a picture of the children of the world around the globe holding hands… you know, the cheesy Whitney Houston tune comes to mind. We had a five minute conversation about it and he went to play, about an hour later he came back to me saying “You want to hear my song about being friends?” I listened, and it was short but good. His dad overheard him and happened to be sitting at our home studio when he motioned for Kenimer to come over, turned the mic on, and tracked it. It was simple and raw, he even changed keys once-nonetheless the passion and feeling are there. It is precious. We turned it in and forgot about it.

Several months later we find out he won for his school, county and at the state level! In two weeks we will go to Atlanta for a ceremony at the High Museum of Art and will find out if he won 1st, 2nd or 3rd. I know your thinking there probably wasn’t much competition for his age – there was none at the school or county level but there were many applicants from Atlanta in the state level. His song was grouped with the others written and played in rotation at the Ritz last Friday as all the the art and photography was on display. I was a proud mom since most of the songs were written by highschoolers and the occasional middle schooler – and then my boy.

When I told him he had won, he said “Well that’s because I’m a songwriter!“, matter-of-factly. Hopefully he wont take as long to discover his skills. He seems quite confident in his songwriting abilities. His dad and I? We are proud.

We just might be THOSE parents. But I think in this case we’re OK with it.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Cyle, family Fun, motherhood, Songwriting

Pocket Photographer: My Fair Story

by CyleAugusta 1 Comment

How many of you have said, “If only I had a photographer I could stick in my back pocket“?

So many times I’ve wished a pro photographer would follow our family around to catch all the memorable family adventures – the ones that often end up blurry and out of focus for those of us that are less than “pro”.

I’m not exactly calling myself a total amateur – I do shoot in manual and use multiple lenses. Nonetheless, it takes certain flashes and specialty lenses to capture quality action images like sports and the fair. Not to mention the fact that mommy dearest is rarely in these so-called adventurous pics –  I’m busy snapping them!

Speaking of the fair, we went last Tuesday night. I didn’t bring a camera other than the iPhone. Last year, I brought the SLR and it took hours to sort through the blur and out of focus messes, finding a mere few images worth editing into shape.

Not this year! I took a few images on the instagram and most of them were a complete beyond recognition.

With the handy wrist bands we were able to ride endlessly. Since the swings are one of our favs, we frequent them. On one of the swing escapades I saw a flash! I looked down to see our photographer friends taking pics.  Two days later an e-mail landed in my inbox title Fair photos.



I may not have a personal photographer but at least I could pretend for a minute, and the best part? Mommy made it in the picture! Thanks Chris Moncus Photography for being spontaneous!

Filed Under: Cyle, family Fun, motherhood, Photography

Today. Is. The. Day.

by CyleAugusta Leave a Comment

I, often the bearer of many words have few words to share today. I will try to talk like a man and keep it simple.

Our new Single “Your Mighty Hand” is available on iTunes today! This would not be possible if it were not for the many supporters who backed the project through kickstarter. Thank you! Check it out on itunes.

“Your Mighty Hand”
by Saint Lewis
(c.)2011
written by David Dalton & Shannon Lewis






 

The other night we went for a drive to check the mastering quality of the song and found that the kids know all the words:

 

Filed Under: Cyle, family Fun, Hope Farm Music, Hope Farm Music Ministry Trips, Songwriting, Uncategorized

My kid is not shy

by CyleAugusta 4 Comments

That’s right, my kid is not shy. He never has been.

He likes to be on stage and he likes to sing loudly.

Thanks to the trusty iPhone, a.k.a. the best mothers day gift ever, I was able to get some good videos at his preschool graduation.  I have a confession to make, out of all the songs I videoed, I’ve found myself watching this one over and over and over again.

I find it so funny, then I get embarrassed, then I laugh again and can’t believe that’s my kid.

He is acting crazy… totally crazy. Just when you think he’s done with the hamming it up routine, he takes it up a notch, and then another.

Oh My, what to think? I don’t know.

 


 

See the kid that is way overdressed and walking extremely proudly? That’s my boy. You would have thought it was the Grammys the way he walked down that aisle.

The last song was a dance extravaganza to Walking on Sunshine – here is my first-born boy acting totally silly.

We tried playing basketball this year, and he loved being on the court, if it was  only for the reason that everyone was looking at him.

He would run down the court, turn around and wave to everyone who was there to see him, then do a little jig before joining the game again.

Someone said to me, “your son plays basketball like he’s on a stage”.

Absolutely true.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Cyle, family Fun, motherhood

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