A child of God educating other children.

Amanda and I had talked about Tim and I taking their family photos for them, and today we got the opportunity! I offered us trying to take them first before going somewhere to pay to have them done. So hopefully they are happy enough with what we were able to take to be able to use them. I got their permission to put a some on my blog, so these are a few, I tried to narrow it down. :)


Davis was so cute watching him interact with Bria. He wouldn't pose for us, he just liked laying next to her spending time with her. How adorable!
Bria has just recently started to interact with people and is so much fun! During lunch she was laying on the couch talking away so I figured that would be the best time to get her to smile, and she just laughs and laughs for her Momma!
Davis sporting his new sunglasses. And he loves the water, so this was perfect for his little personality!

Posted in: photography on Monday, May 28, 2007 at at 9:08 PM 1 comments    

Today was great! Tim had the day off and we spent the whole day together! Tim cooked breakfast as I prepared the chicken for lunch, then we went out running errands for the car and getting a present for Adrienne's baby shower. Oh! Breakfast... I introduced Tim to Pilsbury biscuits today, the ones where you peel back the tab until the canister pops. Well, this was Tim's first time cooking these biscuits, and I didn't bother explaining the popping part so I could watch his expression. I really wish I had a video camera, 'cause Tim is hard to startle/scare, but Pilsbury did a great job! The expression on his face was about that as the doughboy up above, and Tim jumped back a little bit asking, "What was that!?" I had a good laugh and enjoyed thinking about it for about 10 minutes after. Great breakfast and entertainment! :)

Tim and I went and saw Shrek the 3rd today. There were a lot of kids in the theater, and I was afraid of them being too loud, but I think I was probably just as loud with laughter. It had it's funny parts, but I think with most sequels/series of movies, it's hard to beat the 1st one.

And finally, I ask that each of you pray for Brooklyn, she is 2 years old and has a tumor called Ganglioneuroblastoma on her kidney. It has both malignant and benign parts. The doctors are going to start with chemo and eventually do surgery to remove the tumor. Brooklyn is the niece of my Sister-in-law Brooke's best friend. Please keep Brooklyn, her family, and the doctors in your prayers.

Posted in: Pilsbury, prayer, Shrek the Third on Thursday, May 24, 2007 at at 8:19 PM 3 comments    

This is the first season that I've ever watched American Idol, and I didn't miss a night of it. Until tonight. The FINALE!!! Ahh I'm so frustrated. True, better this night than last week with Melinda performing, but come on! Our DVR didn't even record a tiny bit of the show. It just decided not to record anything. And we even checked earlier today to see if it was set up, and it was. So I just searched on technorati to find out who won, and it was Jordin. I'm happy for her. She is 17 and has many years ahead of her, and has a great voice and is fun to watch. I would have been happy for Blake too, he added a whole different style to the show.
Alright, well now that I can't watch the finale which should have been recording while we were at youth group, I'm gonna go to bed and either watch Sleeping Beauty or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I've been on a Disney/Pixar kick lately. So far I've watched The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Finding Nemo. It's been my nightly routine for the last week or so. I usually only get through about 30 minutes before falling asleep. Tonight I might actually make it through a whole movie.

Posted in: american idol, disney, jordin sparks, pixar on Wednesday, May 23, 2007 at at 7:21 PM 1 comments    

The associate pastor and his wife put on a pot luck dinner at their house for the new young couples in the church to get to know each other. This is so good for Tim and I just moving here, and come to find out, most of the people that were there have only been at our church for less than a year. One couple I talked to said that they haven't even found a young married couple in the church to hang out with yet. Tim and I got the information for 2 couples to start hanging out with...hopefully our Tuesday nights will become even bigger. And then I got to talk to a couple others that we have met and talked to some, but not real quality time. I really enjoyed talking with the Pastor's wife tonight. She had a lot of good advice and insight for me being a newly wed. I also got to talk to another lady who recently had a child, so I got to hold her son as we talked. Hopefully I'll get to start hanging out with her more too.

I'm really glad we had this night to get to know others, and it seems like everyone else was needing this as well to get connected with other people. When I subbed in 1st grade for 2 days a few weeks ago there were 3 boys in the classroom that go to my church, and one of them was there tonight with his family. His mom came and introduced herself to me, and I was able to catch the boy's eye to smile and say hi...his face just lit up! :)

There were also a couple of young single girls that were there tonight too. They were so sweet and eager to talk to me. It'd be fun to do a girl's night and hang out with them.

I am really looking forward to putting time and energy into building more relationships with people here. God is awesome.

Posted in: friends, ministry on Friday, May 18, 2007 at at 8:32 PM 0 comments    

Melinda Doolittle, Blake Lewis, Jordin Sparks

I had tears in my eyes when I saw the results on American Idol last night. Melinda went home. It looked like she got the biggest welcome home from last week though, but it wasn't enough to keep her in the finals. I was hoping she would go all the way and win, but oh well. I'm pretty sure someone is already knocking at her door to sign her. I'm not sure how next week will pan out. I'm about equal with Blake and Jordin. I'll be happy with either one of them winning. Before watching the show last night I knew I'd be bummed for whoever got booted off last night, but Melinda was a bit of a shocker for me. All three of them did a fantastic job performing on Tuesday. After that show it was really a toss up for who would move on.

Posted in: american idol, blake lewis, jordin sparks, melinda doolittle on Thursday, May 17, 2007 at at 9:25 AM 1 comments    

We had a good time with Tim's family. Grace and Mark and Tim's parents took turns staying up in our tower to sleep. We played a few games and ate lots of good food. I'm thinking next time we have company for that long we wont be eating as nicely. It took a lot of work and time that could have been better spent. Oh well, you live, you learn. David and Adrienne also came up on Saturday to hang out with all of us. We were able to take out our neighbor's paddle boats and go swimming and kayaking in our lake. The water was a little cold, but it was a nice day, so it felt good. Then Sunday we all went down to David and Adrienne's for dinner and Dan, Maggie and Ruby were there also. We were really worn out from the weekend, so we stayed at Dan and Maggie's for the night. It was fun to get to see David and Adrienne's new house. It's such a great place.

Now Tim and I are enjoying an evening to ourselves. We just ate dinner and are about to go play frisbee then go to the gym to work out and then back to watch American Idol after it's finished recording.

Posted in: family, in-laws, marriage on Tuesday, May 15, 2007 at at 4:05 PM 2 comments    

I have really felt God drawing me more and more to the youth here. And it's crazy, 'cause I know it's not my own power creating this in me. The kids are great, and I've been wanting to get to know them better, and God is creating those opportunities. Tonight at Jr. High Youth Group I got to talk to a couple girls who I really haven't had a good conversation with before. One was her second time to come, and she was very sweet and stuck close by me even though she came with a friend. Then the other is a regular attender, and I've been in her group when we split up, but we haven't had a time when we've just talked. We played Ultimate Frisbee tonight and she was awesome at it, so after the bible study I told her how good she is and she just started talking to me about all sorts of stuff that she likes for about 15 minutes or so. I thought that was pretty cool with how eager she was to just sit and chat.

My eyes are becoming more and more open to the fact that a lot of these students that come have hard lives. Everything isn't all put together, things are difficult for them. It breaks my heart to find things out, but at the same time, I'm glad to know because then God can use me in ways I didn't know.

It is really starting to feel like home around here. Oh! And we've been having our weekly get togethers with Amanda and Connor M. and Amanda and Mark E. So that has just been wonderful. It's nice to have people our age to hang out with every week. Pray for Amanda M. She has an interview tomorrow for a landlord position. It would be so wonderful for her to get this job. She just found out today that they want to interview her, so I get to watch Davis, Tricia and Bria tomorrow from 1:30-3:30 or so. Tim's parents and little brother and sister will be here at that time, but these kids are so easy to take care of. I'm looking forward to it! :)

Posted in: friends, ministry on Wednesday, May 09, 2007 at at 10:22 PM 1 comments    

I had a wonderful day today spending time with my parents and Katelin. It was nice to get to sleep in also. I need to go to bed soon 'cause Brandi and I are leaving at 5:30 tomorrow morning. Today I just went all over the town with my parents. We went into the "Red Dirt Soap Company" and smelt all of their soaps and bought a couple. We were dissapointed though 'cause they didn't actually use the OK Red Dirt in their soap. But they did choose a good name for their company 'cause it got us in there. We also went to a park, drove around looking at different areas of town, and got some good food. I still haven't had my orange cream slush from Sonic, but I did have a hamburger and cheese tots and sweet tea. It was just so nice to go to Sonic again. Hopefully on the way home I'll be able to get my orange cream slush. Mmmm that sounds so good. We also went to the mall and shopped some. Katelin and I got a devotional to do together. We both have our own books for it. I'm excited to go through it with her when she comes up this summer. We got something that I will get to learn along side her instead of leading it. We also played in the mall's arcade. We played the motorcycle racing game where your control is the motorcycle and you have to tip side to side to turn. That was fun. Then we spent the rest of the time racing each other on "The Fast and the Furious" That was a ton of fun too!

I'm excited to get to see Tim again tomorrow. I really miss him. I had a great time with my family today. It was great to be together and had an awesome time and just laugh with each other. The only thing that could have made that better would have been to have Tim with us. I can't wait until tomorrow when I see him and I can wrap my arms around him.

Pray for my parents as they're traveling back home tonight. They should be getting home a little before 1am. And Dad will be at work tomorrow and Katelin at school. Pray that they will have the energy to go through tomorrow. Also, pray for Brandi and I. We are driving back to Minnesota tomorrow. It'll take us about 12 hours and we're leaving at 5:30am.

Posted in: family, marriage on Thursday, May 03, 2007 at at 7:23 PM 2 comments