Nicholas Peyton Waggoner

Nicholas Peyton Waggoner arrived yesterday at 9:29 AM. He weighed in at 7 lbs. 7 oz. and was 20" long. I'm pretty sure he's grown an inch since then. He has a healthy set of lungs and has all the makings of being an impressive tenor.

We're going to call him Cole (from niChOLas). I'm a proud Dad!

CLICK HERE to see pictures of the big guy (not me, Cole)

GVB changes

Huge press release from Gaither Vocal Band!

Mike, Mark, David, and Wes. Who woulda thunk it?

Update

It's been a busy month.

Our family had an incredible Christmas and New Year. We celebrated Christmas Eve by having Pastor Dave, Julia, and the fam over. Between the Wii tournament, Rook tournament (which Dave and I won handily), and awesome food we had a wonderful time. It was around 3 AM Christmas morning when the party disbanded. All of the kids, except Katie, were asleep. Christmas morning was our time. There is no gift that compares to watching Trey and Kassady open their Christmas presents. We had already celebrated an early Christmas in November with my parents, but somehow other gifts magically showed up. The kids loved it! By the way, my gift of the year came from my esteemed in-laws Dave and Char. They shipped me 6 cans of Skyline Chili. The gift that keeps on giving.

Christmas dinner was served over at Josh and Amelia Jensen's house. WOW!!! What a spread! I ate way too much, but shed some of it during our intense game of Catchphrase. We had an absolute blast! I love spending time with good friends.

By the way, if you didn't receive our Christmas letter, it's because I didn't have your email address. We went digital this year, saving nearly $200 in postage. Here's the link to the newsletter.

In all honesty, I just bummed around during the days between Christmas and New Years. I got a little done, but not much. About the only thing I did was practice with Liberty. Our new baritone, Jordan Cragun, moved in and we spent the week before Christmas and the week before New Year's Day rehearsing our classics and learning new songs. Other than that I spent most of my time reading and playing games. Gotta love that kind of life.

On New Year's Eve we went to two parties. Yeah, that's just how we roll. I just had to keep Lori out of the bubbly. We spent 3 hours over at Bob and Margaret's house and then a couple of hours at the church party. Lots of fun. I am getting pretty old, though. By the time the New Year rolled around I was just ready to go to bed. Pathetic.

Liberty sang our first concerts with Jordan on January 4. He flat out tore it up. For those of you that have followed our ministry for a while, you're going to want to hear this guy. He's doing a great job, in spite of all the abuse that he's enduring as the baby of the group. Jordan is a wonderful addition to the quartet.

I really didn't make any major new year's resolutions for 2009. I have stopped drinking soda. I guess that's kind of major. I had a cup on Christmas Eve and one cup on New Year's Eve, but that's been it. Besides the occasional craving, I'm getting by on water and the every-once-in-a-while glass of iced tea. I'm also trying to cut back on my french fry consumption. I've had three (yes, that's right: 3) french fries in the last four weeks. Now, I'm sure my inhaling of the three onion rings at Red Robin last Thursday didn't help any, but I have to have an occasional reprieve for crying out loud!

I'm also trying to read one book a week. The requirements are that it must be a biography or something to do with theology, management, or leadership. I've already finished some great reads. I finished John Lennon: The Life over Christmas. I couldn't put it down. It was a fascinating look at the life of a guy who for better or worse helped influence music culture. I'm trying to finish up Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan and Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High a classic recommended by Josh Jensen. This is for anyone who tends to avoid any type of confrontation, even if the necessary conversation could potentially enhance productivity or teamwork. I'm already benefiting from these pages. Other recent reads include Family Man: The Biography of Dr. James Dobson, The Shack, and Mere Christianity. I've been missing my cable like crazy, especially during bowl season, but there's no doubt that I wouldn't be reading as much if I had it. So, it's all good. I just don't know what will happen during March Madness...

Speaking of the bowls, go Florida and Tebow (I'm doing the Gator chomp right now in celebration). Man, I'm glad they won the championship. Tim Tebow is a class guy and one of the few marquee players to come back to school for his senior year.

The Big Ten, as is becoming the custom in football and basketball, failed to show up. It's tough being a fan. Especially an IU fan through this basketball season. I do think Crean is the man for the job, though. Just give him time.

Trey started Upwards basketball last week. I'm proud of that boy. He loves sports! And, he's willing to work to get better. We've been working on his triple threat stance and controlling the ball. He's already a good shooter, but definitely needs to work on his dribbling. I just sit on the sidelines and grin like the Cheshire Cat. He's the man.

It's hard to believe, but we're less than a month from the new Waggoner boy making his grand entrance. The due date is Feb. 12. Since he'll be a C-section baby I think the date is fairly certain unless, of course, he decides to come earlier. Lori was just saying last night that this has been the easiest pregnancy yet. I just hope she didn't jinx the last month. We still have yet to pick out a name. I figure I'll have the final say, since Lori will be out of it when they ask. At least, that's what happened last time. So, I'm getting creative.

Liberty just got back from California. It was a somewhat-balmy 65 degrees on Friday, a little cooler on Saturday and Sunday. It hit me this past weekend how blessed I am to have friends scattered across the entire country. One thing that I'm trying to do more is intentionally invest in those friendships, deepening the relationships. So many of my good friends showed up to our concerts this weekend. We had a great time! God's been so good to me.

I did get some awful news on Saturday night about the Bigger family tragedy. While I didn't know Brent more than the casual friendship we developed while he was traveling for Hobe Sound and I was traveling for GBS, the news devastated me. Our prayers have been with Brent and his extended family.

Well, it's back to work.

Frankfort (city motto: we need to hire a press agency)

Yeah, I know it's a been a while. And, this is what I choose for my first post in 2009. Sad.

But, it's always good to see my hometown Frankfort, IN in the news.

Christmas Cheer

I found this over at Burke's Brainwork and just had to share. Enjoy Dennis Murphy's (drummer for Kingdom Heirs) rendition of Grandma Got Run Over By a Raindeer.

1000

By the way, I just noticed that I went over 1000 posts for keithinside. Thanks for reading.

Ramsey in the Valley

"If you will live like no one else, later you can LIVE like no one else."

Attention, Treasure Valley dwellers: Dave Ramsey is now on 580AM KIDO from 6-8 PM. You'll love the show. I am now a rabid listener (yeah, I got bit by a squirrel).

MAF Concert

Well, our concert went fairly well yesterday morning, lack of sleep notwithstanding. While it's never easy to sing in the morning, I am here to tell you that singing tenor at 8:00 AM should be outlawed. Fortunately, Philip took the high part on most of the songs so by the end of the morning he looked like a purple raisin and sounded like Oscar the Grouch. Poor guy. After a four day trip I normally take 3 days off before I even think of singing. So, my voice was in rare form, let me tell you. We sing a cover of GVB's Yes I Know and we've rearranged it a little to fit our style. Well, I have the solo part on the last verse and I started to go up like Penrod does at the end of the phrase and in the milliseconds of my initial ascent it hit me that I might not hit the note. So, I decided to improvise and make up a new part. Well, there's only so much you can do in a limited amount of time, not to mention jumping ship on a melody line that's going up. The end result was what would happen if you threw in a line from Jingle Bell Rock while singing Joy to the World. It didn't come close. My interesting new melody line wasn't even in the key. Embarrassing to say the least. I'm not a perfectionist, per se, but I do get irritated when something is that far off. It took me about 5 songs to get over that one. Due to the holidays, Dave and Julia's trip, Philip's work schedule, and Liberty's travel we were only able to practice twice. That the concert went well, was nothing short of a miracle.

The rest of the guys did an awesome job. Julia tore it up, as usual. And we even talked Dave into singing a song with his wife. Overall, a great concert. Thanks to all you Grace folks that showed up. It's a privilege to be part of such an incredible church!

I crave sleep

Anytime I know I have to be up early, insomnia sets in. What's up with that?!! If we have an early leave time for a weekend or something like that I lay in bed wide awake, all sorts of creative ideas and a to-do list running through my head. Last night was no different. This morning my "other" group (from Grace with Philip, Matt, and Julia)are singing at a Mission Aviation Fellowship chapel. I have to be there at 7:30. To make sure my voice is awake, I planned on waking up at 5:30 AM. I didn't get to sleep until after 12:30. Talk about frustrating! But the more I would think about getting up early, the more wide awake I would be. So, I finally got up and got some work done and collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

This concert ought to be real exciting. Who knows what I'm going to end up saying or doing.

By the way, there have been nearly 71,000,000 Google searches recently for the phrase "can't sleep". Something I learned.

I'm thankful for...

I know I've been deluging you with videos lately, but with this being Thanksgiving and all, this one tops the list of things I'm thankful for. Thanks to Matt for letting me know that Il Divo performed this.

We're continuing our Idaho Thanksgiving tradition of having dinner with Marc, Talisha, and the kids. It's nice to have adopted family. Then, Dad, Mom, and Lynn are flying in Thanksgiving evening and will spend the weekend with us. Also, Lori and I are going to the final Boise State game of the season against Fresno State. I'm hoping we can close out the regular season undefeated. So, this corner of the world will probably be silent for the next few days.

I hope you guys have a wonderful day with friends and family.

Shout to Darlene

Perry at Hillsong Church from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.

Over the last couple of years, I've been reading the blog of Perry Noble, a pastor in Anderson, SC. This dude is on fire for God and I've enjoyed his words of wisdom. I try to catch some of his services online when I get a chance. He's one cool guy, even if he is a Clemson fan. Anyway, he recently had the chance to speak at Hillsong in Australia. His chance sighting of Darlene Zschech cracked me up.