Good times with old friends

Tonight we went to dinner with our family from Kansas and had a great time. Curt and Beth were vacationing in Niagara for the weekend and we met them for dinner. It has been at least 4 years since we have seen them and the time just melted away as we shared stories and got caught up on life. Mark and I have always cherished our family and have made it a priority to stay connected with each other. Mark stayed with Curt and his family during his seminary years in Kansas and then we lived there our first year of marriage. They have always been very special to Mark and I and we are glad that Kaley was able to meet them. It is amazing how fast time can go! We love you guys so much and can't wait to see you again in November (and the kids too:)

Beth, Kaley and Curt


Curt and Kaley


All of us:)

Sewing Project!

On Thursday, my good friend Leeann and her three boys spent the day at our house having a play date with Kaley, while Leeann and I made her a baby carrier. I had gotten one off of Ebay and absolutely love it, so when Leeann wanted one, we decided to make our own! There is something gratifying about making something from scratch and having it be your very own:) We went to the fabric store and got some material, came home, figured out the dimensions and began cutting. This method proved faulty a couple of times, but nothing that couldn't be fixed. We ended up with a great little carrier that is not only very cute, but functional as well. Now we just wait and see if the stitching holds up (hehe). It was a lot of fun to spend some time with Leeann and her boys, and Kaley especially liked all of the cars to play with!

Baracus giving kisses to the camera

The boys in their glory playing in our "creek"

Ryan, Aaron, Baracus and Landon relaxing the day away:)

The finished project!!!

Giving it a try...cross your fingers:)

Leeann and Kaley in the nursery.

Which wolf will you feed?

Last Thursday night at Refuel, Dave shared a story that was quite profound in its simplicity and truth. The message was about living a life so that others would know that we are Christians. There are many common phrases that we are familiar with when talking about our actions. The most familiar piece of scripture in Galatians is: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control."(Galatians 5:22-23). There is also the familiar quote, "Actions speak louder than words." There way be people who I will never meet face to face, or talk to, but they may see how I act and treat others around me. Will my actions naturally depict the love of Christ within me? Will others see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?

The following story talks about those same characteristics in a little different way. It makes me stop and think today about which wolf have I been feeding and which one will I feed?

A Cherokee Legend

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.

"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Baracus and bath time!

We had an absolutely beautiful day out today, and since we've been cooped up in the house for the last 5 MONTHS...when you get a sunny day you HAVE to take advantage of it. Poor Baracus has not seen the outside of this house for a walk in a long time, so after supper we decided to take a walk. You know it has been a long time since we've been on a walk, because the last time we did, Kaley had to be in her carrier facing in because she couldn't yet hold her head up steadily, but this time, she got to ride on my back and she loved it! Her little legs were just kicking away and every now and then she would give this high pitched girly squeal:) I love it!!

Well, when we got back I looked down at Baracus and his under belly was black with dirt, eeew! It was either let him dry off and get sand over everything - or- give him a bath. So, up into the bathtub we trecked and unfortunately we didn't have any dog shampoo, so he got to have Kaley's instead. It was a riot! He doesn't do too bad in the bathtub but Kaley wanted to help so she got to help rub the shampoo on his head and towel him off in the end.

We had a great time walking and enjoyed the fresh air, and now there is one tired little girl falling asleep and a clean baby smelling dog!

Kaley Walking

So, like I said, we've had many firsts lately. This is such an exciting time in the life of Kaley! She learns more and more each day and HAS to figure it out herself:) Her latest accomplishment is walking across the room and she has learned to stand up on her own without anything to lean against...very exciting. We got this on video tonight.

Kaley's First Haircut!

We have been experiencing many firsts in our house lately with our first child turning one, her learning to walk, her moving away from infant food to table food...and now the first haircut. The inevitable day had been on the horizon for quite awhile as you always had to comb her hair away from her forehead just to see her beautiful eyes. As much as we, or maybe I, wanted to hold onto the baby stage a little bit longer, I kept putting it off until this week. We went to this really neat place in the mall that was made for kids. The chairs were vehicles with steering wheels (how cool) and there was Treehouse playing on huge tv's on the wall.

Kaley did really well. She was mesmorized by the wall of hair accessories, so she picked a package out and took her seat in a race car. She only cried once and that was because she couldn't get her hands out from the cape to play with the steering wheel! Are we in trouble or what?! I did have to blow a huge amount of bubbles while trying to take pictures and a video to celebrate this special occasion. How fun! Here are a few pictures of our experience.

Engagement Night…The Story Told

8 years ago tonight, the love of my life proposed and as they say...the rest is history. It was SO romantic and took me completely by surprise. Let me take you back a few years:)

I was going to see my close friend, Lisa, give her testimony to the youth group at her church (where Mark was one of the youth pastors). I was watching two little boys at the time and had to bring them with me. When I walked into the church, Mark told Curt "That is the kind of woman that I want to marry," (but at the time he thought the boys were mine and wasn't ready to have kids)! I was introduced to him that night and thought that he was SO handsome and had a great personality, not to mention that he was great with the youth. I never thought I would see him again, so we went on our way. Then in May we met again at a family bbq with the families that we were staying with in Kansas. We immediately hit it off and of course Mark was the life of the party! To make a long story short, we went out quite a few times that summer and the more that we were together, the more fun we had. There was definitely a strong connection between the two of us. We ended up having "the conversation" about what the future meant for us, and after some deep soul searching on both our parts, and much prayer, we decided to see where this adventure would lead us. Well...after a short time, it was apparent that we were meant to be together. A little while later, we set a date to be married the next December and were going to get engaged in June.

So, fast forward to March (my birthday). The couple of weeks leading up to my birthday, Mark kept saying how short of money he was and felt bad that he couldn't get me something big for my birthday. I insisted that all I wanted was dinner and time together and that would be the perfect gift. As my birthday got closer, Mark was just acting.....off! I couldn't put my finger on anything specific, except that he was stressed about money. He said that I "might" want to get dressed up because he had a surprise for me. So, we went for dinner and then went down to the Plaza, a romantic place where the college sweethearts went. We walked down to Starbucks, got some drinks, and sat down at the park bench. At one point, he told me to watch down the street at the corner and my surprise was going to be coming soon. Sure enough, around the corner came a horse and buggy! This is something I ALWAYS wanted to do. I turned around excited to ask him if that was my surprise, and there he was on his knee with a beautiful ring in a box opened up and he asked me to marry him. The rest is a blur of excitement, tears, kisses, hugs and phone calls. Needless to say, we missed the carriage ride!

8 years later, here we are even more in love and have a fabulous life together. Mark is my best friend and the one person that I always love spending time with (Kaley comes in a close second.) He is my source of strength, inspiration and the one who can always make me laugh. We are incredibly blessed at the life that God has given us and we are truly thankful. Nothing like a birthday to remember the good things in life:)

Here we are on our special night:

Our Baby is 1 Year Old!

It is hard to believe that our daughter has hit the first year mark already. As much as it seems that time has flown by, it seems even more so that she has been a part of our lives for so much longer. Kaley has been such a blessing to our family! She came two weeks "early" and took us by surprise. It only goes to prove that no matter how much you plan and orchestrate, you really have no control over situations like these...and who wants it? Spontaneity is so much more fun (haha). One of the many things that we love about Kaley is her loving, independent and HUGE personality:). She didn't complete our family, but has enriched our lives and expanded our capacity to love this little precious gift. We are so thankful and blessed to have Kaley as our daughter...Happy Birthday sweetheart! May the Lord bless you and keep you, may his face shine upon you and give you peace:) Hugs and kisses from daddy and mommy.

Family meals

This is an excerpt from sacredspace.com that I found really interesting:

Something to think and pray about this week

As we move into Lent we might wonder if fasting has any meaning for us today. It has. It is really asking us to look at our relationship to food and drink. Jesus loved to eat with his friends. Meals were important for him. For families too, meals are a time when children watch and listen to their parents and vice versa. But family meals are in danger of disappearing, what with fast food and the lure of TV, which is sometimes left on even when the family are eating together. Like mobile phones in company, it reduces our presence to one another. For many families a good Lenten resolution would be to have meals together at least once a week, and expose themselves to the need for listening, sitting at peace, knowing how the rest of the family is, and going for slow rather than fast food.

Creating a Space for God

Hello and welcome to our blog. As I was thinking about the purpose of having a blog, many things came to mind of what I wanted and what I didn't want. I wanted it to be a place where we can share the little things that happen in our life with our family and friends, to encourage and uplift others, to offer spiritual, emotional and physical tidbits of wisdom that we have learned along the way, to post pictures and videos, and some ideas on creating a space for God.

I know in my own life that life can be as hectic as you want it to be, and if you don't intentionally create space in your day to sit quietly, reflect on the life that you want, and to spend time with God, it will never happen. Days will turn into weeks, weeks to months, and you then find yourself be a "human-doing" rather than a "human-being." We have all been there and know what the toll the busyness of life can have on our relationships in our lives. I will do the best I can to offer what I have found to be helpful and invite you to do the same. Feel free to share the resources, books, internet sites and your own personal experiences that have been helpful for you as you create the space for God!