Iowa Annual Conference

I have returned back from the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church! I left last Thursday and was back Sunday afternoon. It was 4 days of voting, debating, worshipping, and meeting up with friends I only get to see once a year.

Perhaps I should explain a little about why I get to go? Each Methodist pastor in Iowa "gets" (has) to go to annual conference, then each church elects a delegate to go from their church. As you might imagine there are some church's that have more than one pastor and some pastors in positions besides serving a church well to make the total number of clergy and lay equal the districts (there are 8 in Iowa) elect what are called equalization members. I have gone the last two years as an equalization member, and I have to tell you it is a very eye opening experience as to how our church is set up and run!

I didn't take a lot of pictures but I did take a few that I wanted to share with you as well as one awesome video! This video was taken at the opening worship and it is the African's Children's Choir! They are the cutest and most spirited young kids I have ever seen, by far the highlight of all of the worship times we took part in while we were there! The above picture was taken from my seat at conference, and as you can see we were pretty close to the stage this year. The stage is where our Bishop (Bishop Trimble) sits with his people and they run the whole thing. So you can get an idea of how big of an event this is there are around 1200 people from across the state that attend annual conference each year. Well that's a pretty good summary (I think!), but if anyone out there in the blog world has any questions please feel free to leave that in the comments section, or if you attend annual conference let me know that too!

I Heart Faces, I'M BACK!!!

I didn't a lot of great pictures this year at Colton's birthday, because well I was too into the unwrapping and the eating and being a hostess to actually remember to get some good shots. But this one makes me laugh. Partially because Colton is being SO inpatient about getting his toy out of the box, and partially because the person he wanted to open the toy was in a cast up to his elbow and was having a heck of a time opening it. Funny moment! Oh and by the way that's my husband's cousin who is opening the gift for Colton and just happens to be one of Colton's very favorite people! So this is my entry for this week's I heart faces contest, their theme being birthdays! So go and visit all of the other lovely birthday faces this week!

Lewa's Designs

I love reading A Soft Place to Land and today Kimba has the best deal ever! She tells about her new sponsor Lewa's Designs, and of course there is an amazing giveaway! This amazing dandelion vinyl art that is 5' tall! Crazy cool...I love me some vinyl art!

This is a really cool store so please go visit and please visit A Soft Place To Land as well!

Outdoor Makeover!

What a busy holiday weekend we have had here! We were prepared for it to rain the entire weekend, but actually I don't think it rained a drop! We were pleasantly surprised. We started off the weekend by jumping into an outdoor project I had started a few weeks ago. That was getting my flowers around the house looking nice, getting rid of the awful looking mulch that the dog had sat in all year and that had blown all over the yard. I had 4 ton of rock delivered earlier in the week and so Sat. we sat out to make my flowers look pretty! I must remind you that we are living in a fixer upper if you will, and the ugly greenish paint color of my house will eventually change into a tan siding, but since all of the windows need to be replaced we are only doing one side of the house a year. Of course the side that is done has no flowers for me to show you! Any whoo! This first picture is actually the after picture (I can never guess right the order blogger is going to upload pictures!) I am trying to line my flower beds with vintage looking plates and saucers, of course I ran out. The ones pictured I got on an auction for 2 dollars!

This is the before picture..we leveled the dirt a little bit and put the rock and a fabric barrier down. Oh and pulled the multitudes of trees and weeds that were growing.

Here is another after picture...mostly lilies in this picture!

This is a before picture. You might also notice the sad looking basement door? Well as I speak I mean type the husband is outside creating a brand new door to take the place of this ugly looking thing. In the bed we planted a couple more flowers purchased from Wal-Mart the night before and added the rock!

And after! What a difference a little finishing touch makes! You'll notice the new door on the basement as well...looks good!

Friday night I scavanged at my husband's cousin's house and found this old washer, and I just knew there needed to be some flowers planted in it. So I picked up some wave petunias at Wal-Mart (these are the awesomest flowers!)

And isn't it fantastic in front of my house! It will get even better as the flowers spread out over the entire tub!

Well that's our Saturday, but it sure does feel good to get something accomplished and be that it was something beautiful makes it even better! I hope everyone else had a great holiday weekend as well!

Kristin

Birthday Party!

This weekend we traveled to my sister-in-law's for my twin nephew's 1st birthday! I can hardly believe they are already that old! Colton was sooooooooo excited to see the babies who are fast approaching not being babies any more. Of course I took a few pictures of the event!
This first one is of baby C eating his cupcake, how adorable!


Baby H opening his presents or should I say getting mad about all the attention and people!

Baby C opening his presents!

Baby C and Baby H as they begin to dig into their cakes!

And that's the highlights! Can you believe it an entire post without any pictures of my own son! Awesome!

Kristin

My "Prime Directive"

I have just finished reading page after page of biblical commentary in order to prepare for writing a sermon I will be giving next weekend. My mind is filled with all of the wonderful ways the gospel just spoke to me, but the greatest image is of Star Trek! Crazy I know! As a young kid my Dad loved this show, and I can remember Sunday night dinners in front of the TV so we could all watch Star Trek the Next Generation together. Well one of the commentaries spoke of Star Trek and how they had this thing called the prime directive, a common goal that everyone was striving far. I believe the Prime Directive for us Christians can be summed up in just one work, LOVE! Can I get an AMEN?! In the spirit of love and my prime directive I wanted to share with you a few photos taken weeks ago but some up the love I have for my family and the things they love! This first picture, that's my husband's love (besides me and our little family of course) TRACTORS (the red ones)! He loves working on them and fixing them up. This is a picture of a recent project of his and his cousin which they later sold on Ebay (it is sometimes nice to love something that will earn you a little extra money!)
This next picture, my love, my son, with his love exploration. We are in the process of refinishing our kitchen chairs. This chair was just finished being sanded (by my lovely mother!) and the actual chair part had not been put back on. Well what better than to get inside the chair and walk around, what could be more fun! You gotta love kids!

This last picture I took after that love of mine my son got up from a nap. He "snuck" over to the door to our spare bedroom and in true exploring fashion got on his knees (or elbows as he calls them) to peer into the room to see what was in there. What a little munkin!

So now in the spirit of mother's day (and my sermon for next Sunday) let's all pour out some love this weekend!

Happy Friday!

Kristin

Looky Looky!

Well I haven't been blogging much lately...I guess perhaps I am just not in the mood for sharing! But I have been keeping up with all of the blogs that I read! But I have news! Big news! And if you lived in my house you would know it's big news, but alas after trip to the city yesterday I purchased this bad boy below!

You do not even know the excitement that I have to finally get a DISHWASHER! I hate doing the dishes, no that does not even cut it I HATE doing dishes. So this is a dream come true! It is a portable style because we don't have a place to "put" in my kitchen, but it is also convertible...so if down the road I can fit it in somewhere underneath a counter it can become a built in (genius!) Any whoo there really is more going on in my life, I just have to not be so lazy and take pictures, oh and write about it too! Happy Monday (is there such a thing?!?)

Kristin