Thursday, March 12, 2009

Catch Up...

So much has happened since my last post. Life has been crazy (as always) and so this post is going to be a brief catch up of all the major things going on in our lives right now.

1) Since October recently signed an upstreaming deal with Capitol Records. Capitol has been working S.O.'s music in the mainstream market. In light of all of this, S.O. debuted this week on the Active Rock charts at #36!!! That's right, S.O. officially has a top forty rock song!! It is really cool to see Since October right next to bands like U2 and ACDC! More updates to come! I have included a link to the active rock charts below.


2) Luke was offered a sponsorship with Dean Guitars. This means that if he decides to sign with them, Dean will be giving him 3 complementary guitars and incredible discounts on any guitars after that. In exchange, Luke will play Dean guitars at his shows, and will also do some promotional events for Dean. On 3/28 Dean will be coming out to Luke's show in Tampa with Flyleaf to record interviews and the live performance for a promotional piece that will be put on Dean's website.

On Tuesday, Luke and I were invited up to the Dean Guitar headquarters in Tampa to tour their factory. It was one of the coolest days of our lives!! While we were touring the factory we were able to see these extremely large machines making guitars! They would take a piece of wood, and within a few minutes the machine would cut out this perfectly precise guitar shape. The warehouse portion of Dean is incredible impressive as well. The warehouse was about the size of a Sam's club and it was packed full of guitars... floor to ceiling!!

I wish we had been able to take pictures to show everyone just how cool this place was, but Dean has patented machinery and methods that can't be exposed!!

Luke picked up his first Dean guitar on Wednesday, and it is "Stunning" to say the least. When the Dean employee opened the box to show us the guitar for the first time, I literally gasped!!
3) I (April) have been EXTREMELY busy writing the curriculum for Kindergarten and 1st Grade for the "Warrior"Series. This is a series that we are doing at Bayside right now in Main Service, as well as in the Children's Ministry. It is a 6 weeks series on the Armor of God and it is going wonderfully!! Even though it takes a lot of time and planning I really enjoy writing curriculum. The most rewarding part, by far, is that the kids are really getting it!! I see them wearing their Belts of Truth proudly around church and it just makes my heart soar!! I am loving the kids and my Team Members so much! I am so blessed to get to work with these people!
4) Pioneer Park Days has come and gone and I must say that is a HUGE relief for both Luke and I! Luke was such a fabulous husband during that crazy time!! He was so patient with me as I made hairbows for the past 2 months and he was a HUGE help last week in setting up our booth and making my Bow display.

Although Pioneer Park was not exactly what we expected it to be, we still had a great time hanging out with Mom, Ash, Em, and Cadence and we made a lot of wonderful memories.

For example, I don't think any of us will quickly forget this guy...
His booth was behind ours and he had a HUGE "Crack" problem :)

Or Em's "cankles"!! Poor Meme... Florida heat, pregnancy, and 5 days outside and on her feet did not agree with her.

Here are some shots of our booth and displays.



Rage also enjoyed his time at PPD... although he only got to come one day for a few hours, because we were afraid he would "scream" and scare away costumers.


5) One of the best things about Pioneer Park was a visit from Ashleigh and Cadence. Cadence is getting so big and she is such a fun little girl to have around. Not to mention, she is a perfect model for my hairbows!!
Friday night, after Em's shower, Kagan and Cadence decided to dress up!! Cadence makes a PERFECT Jasmine...


And Kagan was a pretty stinkin cute Barbie :)
6) And to finish it up... We also had Emily's Baby Shower last weekend.

Although Liz lives sooooo far away, she was still able to attend the shower via Skype. I love technology!!

So that is what we, The Grahams, have been up to lately. I hope that life will calm down a little and that I will be able to blog more frequently in the near future... but I am not counting on it :)

post signature

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Valentines with Tyson

On Friday, Tyson and I had an busy and fun filled day!
We made a Valentine for his Mom and Dad...



We had a special lunch, complete with a heart shaped PBJ and Cheese...

We made Strawberry Cupcakes...
We ate Strawberry Cupcake batter :) ...


And we ate Strawberry Cupcakes for snack, with our friend Jonathon...

We also went to Little Bookworms for story hour with Mother Goose, but there are no pictures of that. An outing with 2 little boys does not equal photos :)

post signature

Little Dog, Big Food

October 2008

February 2009


If you will remember, back in October I posted about how we had purchased Rage a 20lb bag of food... slight overkill for a 7lb dog!! But this month we topped ourselves. While I was at PetSmart last week I noticed that a 40lb bag of food was $34.99 and a 20lb bag of the same food was $29.99. I pointed this out to the Science Diet rep and informed him that I thought this was RIDICULOUS!! I told him I was all about saving money, but that 40lbs of food would go bad before my dog could eat it all. He told me that the food would keep for up to a year, as along as I kept it in my house (not in the garage). He then handed me a $4.00 off coupon for any bag of food and told me to get the 40lb bag. So, I puchased 40lbs of food for a 7lb dog, for $30.99!!!!

It will take Rage at least 10 months to eat the food, but it is well worth the savings :)

post signature


Thursday, February 12, 2009

Bows, Bows, and More Bows!!!

Over the past 2-1/2 weeks I have made a RIDICULOUS amount of hairbows!! Emily and I are going to have a booth of baby items at Pioneer Park, so I am in the process of making some 500 hairbows, 50 (or more) headbands, and hairbows holders. Thus far I have made 154 of the medium to large bows shown above, and 165 of the small bows show in the collage below.
I have started attaching bows to some of the outfits that I have purchsed for my own future daughter :) Just so I am fully prepared with complete outfits when she arrives!

How precious is this candy corn outfit, complete with a candy corn bow!!
Tell me this bow is not ADORABLE!?!?!?

post signature


Thursday, February 5, 2009

These Boots Were Made For ROCKIN'

I (April) have been a fan of pointy toe boots for many years now, and this past week I brought Luke over to the dark side. We purchased these super cool boots for Luke and got an Awesome deal on them!! Last Friday night Luke got to try them out at a show in Wauchula. This was Since October's "hometown" show before they started their tour with Saliva.
I am definitely digging Luke's new look... boots, skinny jeans, and a fedora :)

Baby Brady made a brief appearance at his first SO show. Look how BIG he is getting!!! It is hard to believe that he will be 4 months old next week!



post signature

Thursday, January 29, 2009

5 years later...

And it still FITS!!!! It actually fits a little better than it did on January 17, 2004!!

*Please, please, please don't take this as a prideful post. I know the only 4 people who read my blog are my mom and sisters and I knew they would appreciate this picture :)


**Also, 3 posts in 1 day!! What's up with that?!?! Don't expect this to EVER happen again :)

post signature

Summer of 2009!!



That's right friends... on a trip to Tampa today we checked on the progress of the new IKEA and we found out that it will be completed early Summer of 2009!! Luke and I are stoked!! We are going to have to put a new line item into our monthly budget called "IKEA purchases"!!

post signature