Finding the Joy

Hello my dear neglected blog!! I have wanted to come back here many times, but with so much time gone it was hard to know just where to begin again. I recently began taking a photography course online called "Finding the Joy". I wanted to document my photo assignments here, and will hopefully continue to update. The first week's assignment was "people". Here are two of my favorites so far...





~Kristin

Happy New Year

This started out as a Merry Christmas post, but since I never posted it instead I wish you all a very happy 2008. Life is very full and busy right now, but I wanted to take a minute to wish all of you a very Happy New Year. You all bless my life so much. You are women with such beautiful hearts for our Lord and I am so thankful for each and every one of you. I started this blog as a result of stumbling upon the LPM blog and seeing what amazing women visited that site. I thought if I could connect with even one of them it would be such a blessing in my life. If you have found your way here it has been in answer to my prayer for God to bring about the people that He wanted me to know better. Your genuine words have blessed me so and I am so glad for the opportunity to get to know you better. My quiet time yesterday found me in Isaiah chapter 58. One of the questions had me think about which verse or verses I wanted as God's promise for me and my family. I will share them here as they are also my prayer for you, my sweet friends. May God richly bless you and draw you nearer to Him in 2008!

"Then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Then you will find your joy in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land..." Isaiah 58:8,11,14

With much love ~ Kristin

Christmas photos

I've been busy this week with end of school parties, field trips and on top of that a sick little boy. He's feeling better now, so I had a quick minute to post some of our pictures we took for our Christmas cards this year. I usually just take one of the kids myself, but a friend who is starting a photography business offered to take them this year,so it will be the first year to have the whole family in the picture. I like how they turned out. Although about an hour before Lexi fell at church and had a huge goose egg above her left eye. You can only tell if you look really close. Fortunately, it hadn't turned black and blue yet. I freaked out when I saw her (out of concern for our pictures) and hurt her feelings. The first thing she said when she saw her daddy was "mommy's mad at me." Way to go mom! Here are some of my favorites ...




~Kristin

Happy Birthday Alexa

Lexi turned 7 years old yesterday, November 30th. We spent the afternoon at the roller rink today with 18 little girls celebrating her birthday. Wild times!
I can't believe how fast the time has gone. I remember the day she was born like it was yesterday. She cried before she was even fully "out", and was not happy about her birth experience from what I could tell. Even though she was fiesty, she was beautiful. We had not decided on a name for her until she was born. We had been leaning toward calling her Kylie, but when I saw her Alexa seemed like a better fit. I had prayed long and hard for God to give me the right name for her. Alexa means "helper of mankind" and God has truly given her a very sensative heart for others. Her heart is often burdened with the needs of others and she is so in love with Jesus. Just a side note, Caden called her Kylie for a whole week though because I had been talking about that name. He was only 18 months old and it just broke my heart at the time that I had changed things on him. It's funny now!

I love you Alexa, with all my heart! I pray that God will use your compassionate heart and your strong will for his glory! I pray that you will always love Jesus as much as you do now and more. I pray that you will always know that you are precious in His sight and are so loved by your mommy and daddy. You are my precious gift from God and I cherish you. I pray that you will not be anxious about anything as you continue to learn to present your requests before Him who is always faithful. I pray that God will fill your mind with whatever is true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, and gracious. The best and not the worst; the beautiful and not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. (Phil 4) Daddy and I are so proud of you! You are a sweet sister and a great friend. Everyone is drawn to you because you shine for Him! Happy 7th Birthday!
Love ~ Mommy

The Big Surprise

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. This is for my biggest fan and friend, Bev.

I love surprises! But mostly I love surprising other people!! You know that Lexus commercial that usually airs around Christmas time where the husband or wife looks outside only to see a brand new car wrapped in a big red bow...I've always thought that would be one of the ultimate things to surprise my husband with. Not necessarily the Lexus, but he is a car guy and so I think that a new car would blow him away. His dream car is a Porche. However, after reviewing the budget (very carefully) for his birthday this year it became apparent that a new Porche was not going to be affordable. (I hope you are laughing with me.) So I decided on the next best thing...a new bike. It's still transportation, right?! He has really gotten into mountain biking lately and was in desparate need of a new bike. He saw a test bike for sale that was a really great deal, but being the sweet husband that he is decided he shouldn't spend that much money on himself when there are other things we need. I tried to convince him that he really should get the bike as it was a really great bike for the price and then jokingly said "I'll just buy it for you for your birthday." As soon as the words left my mouth I knew what I had to do. I put my plan into action and called his riding partner to make sure this was indeed the right bike as I know nothing. I called the bike shop and told them what I was trying to do. My husband was going in later in the day to pick up his old bike that had been serviced, so once the guys in the shop were in on it they asked him if he wanted to ride the test bike when they saw him eyeing it. It was perfect because they were able to fit the bike perfectly for him by having him do that. When he came home and told me that he rode it I just said "I really think you should get it." He said he'd think about it. His riding buddy picked it up for me the next day and agreed to keep it at his house. I then talked my husband into taking me back to the shop to show me the bike...only by now it was gone. Kinda mean I know, but I really wanted him to be surprised. When I asked how he felt about the bike being gone he said "well if that was the bike God wanted me to have I guess it would have still been there." After the bike was gone he went into research mode spending hours on the computer researching bikes. I was starting to get nervous thinking he might just go out and buy one, so I decided to give it to him early. It worked out great because his buddy had just gotten a new bike and now my husband would have something nice to ride, too. We had planned to go out to dinner with our friends (also his riding buddy) to celebrate MY birthday. So, when we got to their house our friend says he has something he wants to show my husband in his computer room. When he opens the door there sits my husbands new bike. My husband was shocked. He said it took him a minute to realize that it wasn't Rick's new bike in there, but the bike he had wanted. Rick even had a strobe light set up in there for the effect. Rick's wife Robyn was ready with her camera to capture the moment. It was so fun to surprise him with this. He didn't suspect a thing and was blown away at how I had arranged it all behind his back. He kept saying "tell me again how you did this." So it wasn't a Porche, but it was oh so much fun! It was the biggest thing I've ever bought for him in our 12 years of marriage! Here are the photos:
"Surprise!"

The man and his new bike

"How did you do this?"

My partners in crime


It was such a fun night!
~Kristin

The Poodle and The Poultry

Our dog brought me an unexpected gift Friday morning. While I was bathing my girls in our bathroom I look up to see Sadie starring at us through the window. Through the blinds I can tell she has something in her mouth, but I can't quite make out what it is. I stand to get a better view and I see feathers, white feathers. And then to my horror as I'm slowly realizing that she has some kind of bird in her mouth, my eyes focus on this poor unfortunate creature's head that is still moving around. I gasp as I realize this bird is still alive in Sadie's mouth and watch as it slowly opens and closes it's beak. Now in case you didn't get from the title of this post that Sadie is a poodle (a small one at that) and not some kind of lab or retriever I will point that out now. I had let her out in the backyard and apparently our gate was open so she somehow got out front. Our neighbors have an aviary outside full of birds, so all I could think was that our dog had just murdered the birds next door and she was bringing this one home as her prize. I couldn't even go outside. By now my girls are peering at Sadie through the slider yelling "drop that bird, or you can't come inside!" I had just seen my other neighbor home a little while earlier so I decide to call him for help. After all he's a man, and one that hunts, so I think he'll be able to handle this half-dead bird much better than me! Fortunately, he was still home and he agreed to come. By the time he got to us the bird was hanging limply in Sadie's mouth...it was dead, and I was glad because I wasn't sure what we were going to do with it if it wasn't. His first question was, "should you try to give it beak to mouth to resuscitate it?" Funny, very funny. When he pulled it from her grasp he said "this is a baby chicken!" What?! We live in the middle of town, in a neighborhood, where did she find a chicken running around? That is still the mystery. I have never seen or heard in any chickens near us. But at least she didn't murder the neighbors birds like I first thought. Oh the horror of it all. A little while later Halle comes to me and says that Emily is eating some chocolate that Sadie had gotten into (yes, the dog has been raiding the Halloween candy. Another mystery as the candy sits high on a shelf in our pantry) and I tell Emily not to eat it if Sadie had it because after all she just had a dead chicken in her mouth! "It's O.K. Mommy. I just ate one bite, so I didn't eat too many birds." Glad to here that Em!



Here is the poor dead chicken as it lay in our green can. May she rest in peace.


~Kristin

Halloween Pictures

Here are the promised Halloween pictures...

Caden (8) as "muscle commando". I think this costume was trying to be some sort of deep cover operative type dude. Sorry it's not a great picture. It was so camo that it didn't even stand out against our white door. I think Caden liked the fact that it had built in muscles and a full face mask to make for a more interesting evening as people wouldn't know who he was. The mask didn't last 10 minutes.

Lexi (6) - The bride. I actually tried to talk her out of this costume, but she was set on it. She actually ended up looking really cute and hopefully now she's gotten it out of her system until MANY years down the road. Yes, those are real flowers. A bride has to have a beautiful bouquet of REAL flowers, you know. Or so according to Lexi she does.

Halle and Emily my pretty pretty princesses. After all, what else would a three-year-old little girl be? It was this or Dora the Explorer!

Emily and Halle actually wore two costumes this day. Here they are Halloween morning dressed as ballerinas (Lexi's old leotards) to help Papa pass out candy at church to the pre-school children.

We enjoyed a night at our churches annual Harvest Fest complete with games, a clown show and then "trunk-or-treat" to close out the night. This is where the kids come by the trunks of each of our cars and say "God is good" and we respond with "All the time." They enjoy passing out the candy just as much as getting it. They all got way to much, by the way, and I can't stop eating it!

Blessings to you all!

~Kristin