Thistle and Lace

   

  Every teenager who loves music has probably thought about becoming a rock star or some sort of musician in their life. I've always wanted to go out and sing, but life took me in a different direction. My sister, however, has gone out and done what I've always wanted to do. She and Thistle and Lace is helping every person relive the past through their renditions of hit songs throughout the years.

About the Band

     Thistle and Lace consists of a husband and wife duo (Jon and Ashley) from Dixon, IL (the hometown of President Ronald Reagan) who formed the acoustic group in 2016. Ashley wows us all with her sweet and soulful voice that effortlessly hits all the high notes that us altos have always dreamed of reaching while Jon smoothly sings to us with his bluesy/grunge/folksy/alternative rock voice as he picks away at his guitar, sending all the women into a swoon and making men wish they were him. A year after they started, Natilee (my sissy!)  was invited to join the band offering her rock/gospel "Melissa Ethridge" like voice, complimenting the other two voices, which created an unstoppable,  harmonious force that pleases the listener's ear. 

      The group offers all the fun hits and are fun to watch with their easy, comedic banter. It's hard not to dance and sing along as they perform. Thistle and Lace, while providing a fun time for all is also very family friendly, too. My kids enjoy listening to their cd when we're driving along in our car. Their favorites are River Deep, Mountain High (Ike and Tina Turner), Have You Ever Seen The Rain (Creedence Clearwater Revival), and Listen to the Music (The Doobie Brothers). Every song is clean and full of energy and are hits that never get old. But why listen to me? I may be a little biased because I have a sister in the band. Here are some great testimonials from others:

Testimonials

      

"From the initial contact to the night of the event, the trio went above and beyond for our needs. We requested 70's music for our 70's theme. I know for a fact some of the songs performed were new in their repertoire just for us. Most importantly, the crowd had a blast!"
-Knoxville Hospital and Clinics Foundation

"We were SO pleased with Thistle and Lace!!! They were absolutely fantastic and did such a great job! Very professional and wonderful music selection...it was perfect for our event! We received many nice compliments from our employees. I would highly recommend them to anyone!"
-UPM Raflatac


“Best National Anthem we’ve ever heard! THISTLE & LACE was fantastic!”
-Invenergy

Chris Gordon reviewed Thistle and Lace — 5 star

July 25 at 5:00 PM ·

First time I heard them was at the Hummel Annual Pig Roast. I was mesmerized by how good they were. Beautiful clean and clear voices, and absolutly wonderful guitar, never missed a beat. I only hope I get a chance to hear them again.

Follow Their Facebook Page

     The group loves to keep us all up-to-date with their Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/thistleandlace/ . The page shows all of their updates, new song,  things that had happened to them that day, as well as asking for song suggestions. You feel like family and like you've been friends as long as you can remember. It's always interesting to see what they will post next. Will it be something silly? Serious? Or will you be able to enjoy watching the mini concert that they performed just for you?

How about this mini concert?

Promotional Video

      There's also some good news! Thistle and Lace will travel to sing for you or any event that you will hold. Here's their promotional video, see what they can offer you! (Thistle and Lace will bring all necessary equipment including lights, instruments, speakers, and of course vocal talent)

      Since the making of this video, Thistle and Lace has only gotten better, perfecting their harmonies and show presence. To view prices and booking dates, visit THIS website.

CD

    There's some more good news! If I haven't convinced you that this band is great, their music speaks for itself.

 
     If you loved that (how could you not), you can purchase their CD HERE.

     If you love music and you love the classics and hits of today, you'll love Thistle and Lace. Don't forget to join their Facebook page for upcoming events, to book a gig, follow news, and to purchase band merchandise to show that you're a fan! Also, please show some love in the comments and share with someone who you think will enjoy this fun eclectic band!

I Love You. Goodnight, My Sweet Baby Boy

   

 


Generally speaking, I don't really write poetry except for when I'm writing children's stories. I feel like I'm putting myself out here by sharing this, although, I suppose that I put myself out there everyday with every blog post that I publish, but poetry is something different. 

      Here is something I wrote, tonight. It came to me when I was praying and asking for inspiration for a blog post. Before I said, "Amen" his incident I had with my youngest came to mind and verses were written. I hope you all enjoy it and feel free to share if it inspires you!

I Love You, Goodnight, My Sweet Baby Boy

It’s time to tuck you in and prayers are said.
You snuggle close and tight, as I kiss you goodnight.
“Don’t go mommy! Please stay a while.”
“I’ve got to go!” I say and give him a smile.
I close the door and head to my room.
Netflix comes on and through it I zoom.
I zoom through the shows and pick one I’ve already seen.
I watch Grey’s once again and ignore the clothes that need cleaned.
Slowly the door creeks open and I let out a groan.
“What are you doing in here?” I check the time on my phone
“I can’t sleep without you. Can I sleep in your bed?”
“Fine, come on up here and lay still,” I patted his head.
He snuggles close and tight into the crook of my arm
He says to me, “I love you, mommy. Wow, you’re really warm.”
The show resumes and a stuffed pterodactyl lands on my chest.
I give it back to him and say, “Don’t you need him to rest?”
“No, mommy, I don’t. He was giving you a hug.”
He put him back where he was, my heart strings were tugged.
Thank you baby! That was really sweet. I’ll hold on to your toy.
I love you. Goodnight, my sweet baby boy.

I hope that you enjoyed this poem. Here is the link if you'd like to share it from a more direct source. I Love You. Goodnight, My Sweet Baby Boy

Making Mom Friends

  I know that this is a topic that gets talked about a lot, so I'm hoping to put another perspective on it so it's not your typical, "How To Make Mom Friends" type post.
 
      A little over a year ago, I was one mom in a small group of moms for a mom's group Bible study. Some of us had kids in the same age range, while others had kids who were younger or older. We met up once a week and then changed it to every other week, and then to whenever we could meet. After all, we're all moms and moms tend to be busy. We usually met without our kids and even though we, ourselves, varied in ages, we still had a common ground, which was our kids.

Middle Child Syndrome

 

The other day I asked my husband and in-laws what I should blog about for my next post. After writing about my oldest a few times from having ADHD to not wanting me anymore, I decided to write about my daughter, the middle child. My husband said, "What if you write about her eye surgery or about what it's like being the only girl in the midst of two brothers?" I decided that for this one, I would write about her being a girl in a boys world or just being the middle child. To do this, I interviewed her.

The Interview

I wanted to start off with easy questions and this is how it went.

M: What’s your favorite food?

K: Ice cream and cupcakes 

M: What’s your favorite color?

K: Pink, red, purple- I can’t help it with those colors

M: What do you want to be when you grow up?

K: A mommy

These were pretty standard questions, ones I knew the answers to. By this time, she has moved to the other side of the table and is playing with her Barbie laptop with a musical keyboard. She seems happy to be answering the questions, but also a little bored. I started asking some more difficult questions and she gave me answers that I sometimes knew but also changed from time to time. 

M: How old will you be when you get married?

K: I don’t know. 19? Is that a good age? M: Will you marry your high school sweetheart? K: I don't know. M: I was 21 when I got married, that's two years older than what you said. K: Ok

M: How many kids do you want?

K: I want 10. Five boys and five girls.

What it's like being the only girl child

OK, so I'm going to be the grandma of at least ten grandchildren. This isn't including the kids that my sons will have someday. My husband and I are going to have to really build up our retirement fund so we can live comfortably in our old age after spoiling all of our grandkids. 

After this, I started asking her questions that were going to be emotional. I had a box of tissues ready for any emotional outbursts of crying. I hoped we wouldn't need them.

M: What’s it like being the only girl in the family?

K: I don’t like that I don’t have a sister. I’d like to have a sister so we can torture my brothers.

M: How do you feel about being the middle child? (I held my breath, expecting to hear about the injustice of it.)
K: I feel good about being a middle child.

I tried to bait her some more. Her responses weren't what I expected. After all, my middle sister was an emotional fountain, I expected something similar.

M: What do you think of your older brother?

K:  think he’s the best brother ever!

M: What do you think of your younger brother?

K: I don’t know, yet. I know that he drives me crazy every. Single. Day.

M: But you guys like to play together, right?

K: I like to dress him up like a girl because he doesn’t drive me crazy, then. He plays nicely. Otherwise, he gives me a headache with everything he does.

I knew that it was true. The other day, it had been quiet. I brought up a load of folded laundry for the kids to help put away and I called to K. Suddenly, I heard loud whispers and scurrying around. I looked inside K's room and found it empty, but I could see the light from the closet coming out from under the door. I opened it up, and there stood K in a pretty Princess Sofia dress and her little brother in one of her dresses that had a black velvet torso with a black, blue, and gray striped skirt. He reminded me of the part in The Little Rascals when Alfalfa and Spanky dressed in leotards at a ballet recital to hide from the bullies. I had to muffle my laughter. 

Bring on the difficult questions 

At this point, K still hadn't reached the emotional state that I thought would happen when talking about being a middle child, so I continued with some questions that I thought would open her up.

M: Do you feel left out sometimes?

K: Yeah, only when I have no one to play with.

M: Why don’t you have anyone to play with?

K: I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t know why. 

M: Does it make you sad?

K: No, because then I can play with you!

So, instead of my daughter feeling emotional and upset about the injustice of being a middle child and the only sister with two brothers, she had me tearing up. I took a moment to gather myself and finished her interview.

M: How old are you?

K: I am 6 yrs old.

M: Are you looking forward to 1^st grade?

K: Uh huh! I think it will be fun. I hope I can go to Mr. B’s class just like my big brother. I am glad to see my friends, except Isabella when she doesn’t listen.

M: What is something you’d like to do today?

K: I want to play outside and maybe hang out with grandma for a while and go to Old McDonalds had a farm (as she plays on her piano toy) what? I thought it was funny!

Conclusion

So there you have it. I tried my best to prove that there is a Middle Child Syndrome that affects all middle children. I wanted to prove that maybe they felt mistreated or more frustrated because they were the middle child, but my middle child told me that she's actually pretty happy and likes her life. So, in conclusion: There is no such thing as middle child syndrome. There is, however, First Child Syndrome, which I have experienced first hand as the oldest child. Don't believe me, ask a first child what it was like growing up as one and I'm sure you'll get a huge list of why it sucked being the first child.

Are you a middle child? Did you have a syndrome? Tell me about it in the comments!

Guest Blog- How to Keep Your Marriage Alive After Kids

    Hello everyone! I got the chance to be able to answer some interview questions about marriage with children. Two other married moms also got to answer her questions and while many answers were different, some were also very similar. Check it out at https://cookiemonstermom.com/2018/08/09/how-to-keep-your-marriage-alive-after-kids/

Leave Ashlee a comment and tell her what you think! Don't forget to subscribe!

The Snuggle Games

A little after I started the Figuringitout101 blog, I wrote a post about how my son didn't want me anymore. To summarize it, my son who used to be a momma's boy began needing me a little less and needed his daddy more. That has been true ever since I wrote that post, but some things have changed since then.

This summer, some little shifts, so subtle, I didn't notice them at first had been made. It's been such a burden and just a pain in the butt to put the kids to bed. After screaming and shouting, counting to five 100 times, the kids finally settled down and went to bed. It wasn't long, however, that I heard my bedroom door creak open. I had just put on a New Girl rerun episode on the tv and my son asked me if he could lay down with me. My first instinct was to say no and to make him go back to bed again, but I noticed an innocence in those eyes and told him he could, but he had to have his eyes closed and had to appear like he was sleeping. It wasn't long before I heard him giggling at the episode.

This was one of the first time in a long time moments that he has wanted to do any sort of snuggling or hanging out with me. Since then, he has told me little things like, "Mom, your pillow looks more comfortable than mine" or "Mom, your blanket looks comfy. Can I have it?" I usually respond with a no, but the questions like that kept coming and I realized that he was wanting to snuggle again, but didn't want to ask me. After all, what's the point of snuggling with mommy if she doesn't beg you to do it first? 

His mission at 8, is to make snuggling seem uncool, but I know now that deep down inside, my little vulnerable guy is still just as sweet. I have to just read into his actions to really know what he wants.

When I thought that this was the time that he only wanted daddy, I'm finding that I'm still wanted, but have to be patient. I can't force it and have to wait for him to come to me, but that makes these little moments even more special. Now it's like a game, and well, games are fun!

Things I Had to Give Up When I became a Family

  So... I'm sitting here, wondering what I should write for my next blog post. I'm eating the German chocolate cake that was leftover from the game night we hosted yesterday, when I think, "I've got it! What if I write a blog about things that I've given up since becoming a parent? You know what, let's go a step further. How about things I've given up since becoming a new family."


   


       I could say that I've given up sleeping eight hours a night or family traditions, but it wouldn't be true. When my husband and I got married and we started our own family, we combined traditions or trade them off each year. There are all sorts of things that I could say, but many of them could be argued... many of them except for when it comes to food. When I grew up in the family that gave me my maiden name, there were plenty food items that I loved and enjoyed and that was because my family loved and enjoyed those too. Now, if I'm going to eat those, its going to be because I went to a restaurant and ordered a single serving of it or it's a holiday feast and there are other people who are celebrating with us that like the same thing. Here's a list of things that I've practically given up:

1. German Chocolate Cake- I love chocolate cake, my husband doesn't. My kids like chocolate cake, too, so I could eat chocolate at least, but what they all don't like is coconut. So, if I want German chocolate cake, I'm going to be buying it for a group of people.... except only my mother-in-law and I ate some, so I have to finish the rest by myself.
2. Things with nuts in them- My husband will eat trail mix, but that is pretty much the extent to what he eats. If I make peanut butter cookies, they aren't going to have nuts in them.
3. Sweet Potatoes or Yams- I can get away with eating these at Thanksgiving and Christmas because my in-laws and parents like them too, but no one in my house likes them.
4. Mashed Potatoes-My husband and kids don't like them. I get to eat them during the holidays or at a restaurant.
5. Hamburger Pie- If you don't know what hamburger pie is, it's this delicious, strange concoction with mashed potatoes, green beans, and hamburger. As I said before, no one likes mashed potatoes, so this one is kind of obvious.
6. Corn Bread- I did, just find out that my in-laws like a cornbread casserole that I made a couple of times, so I have been getting some sort of variation when I make that for family dinners.
7. Frozen Enchilada meal- This probably seems like a really weird thing to put on here, but this was a Stouffer's meal that I really enjoyed. I used to buy it for me and my husband until one day he told me he didn't really like it, so that was the end to that.
8. Green Stuff- Until just recently, this is one thing I had to give up. Green stuff is a jello salad type meal. You mix together a large container of cottage cheese, jello mix, and cool whip. It may sound disgusting, but it's actually amazing! I used to not eat this for a while because I was the only one who liked it, but one day, I discovered how much protein was in cottage cheese and decided to try making it just for me. It can make about three good size meals at like 26 grams of protein a serving. It totally made its comeback.
9. Bacon- For a long time, I was the only one who really liked bacon. One day, I was eating some when my youngest tried it out. He decided he liked it, so I started buying a bag of it from Sam's Club- (Very big) I had gone almost 9 years without eating bacon, so this has been a great thing.
10. Pretty much anything from a restaurant that isn't fast food. This isn't a complete give up, but since having kids, my husband and I don't go out regularly, so I count this as giving up something.

    


       I know that these are things I probably don't have to give up, but its such a waste to make food that only I enjoy. What would your list look like? Would it be similar to mine, or would you be crossing of food items, too?