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

Fall Fun

Sorry once again for the long time in between posts. I always have such good intentions with my blog, but once again I get so involved in reading other blogs that I have failed in keeping up with my own. Just so you know, I am about 7 years behind in my scrapbooking...hopefully I can do better here!
I thought it would be fun to post some pictures of what we did on Halloween and the few days leading up to the big night. Here are my kids at the pumpkin patch. We have gone here every year since Caden was about 2 years old, so it has become a favorite tradition for our family. They have a fun hayride there, a hay maze and even a big corn maze that we attempted last year. Needless, to say it was not the best experience... so upon mention of the corn maze my daughter said "I am so not going back in there, we'll never be able to get out!" (Just to fill you in ~ we went into the maze much later than we wanted to due to afternoon naps and such, so even though it was light at the time, it got dark very quickly. We had flashlights and the kids were having a good time, but it was starting to get chilly. We had fun finding the stations (10 out of 12) but after about an hour in the maze everyone was cold and hungry for dinner so we decided to exit the maze before finding the last two stations. That is where things went wrong. Neither my husband or I have a good sense of direction, so we got totally twisted around and could not find our way out. All of our kids were in tears and we were laughing trying to lighten the mood. They were sure we were stuck for good. After about 30 minutes of wandering around we finally emerged from the maze. We all cheered at the sight of pumpkins like we had been trapped in the corn for weeks. It was a good feeling to finally get out, and once we did no one wanted to go back in!) We did not do the maze this year. But we did have fun!
*I really wanted to upload pictures of Halloween for all of you, but it is not working. I will come back later to try to post them. I guess this is all for now!
In Him ~ Kristin