Our Holiday Weekend Begins

We had a quiet 4th of July weekend spent mostly at home, but with a few ventures along the way. Sat. night we ventured in to town to visit my husband's "night job" boss, also a family friend, and decided a treat was in order for once we got home. So we stopped at the gas station and picked up for Klondike bars, one for each of us! The picture below sums it up pretty good, as this was Carson's first time eating an ice cream bar! He loved it and I'm pretty sure was done before any of the rest of us were!

The pictures are bit out of order, but at any rate on Friday we decided since it was finally HOT we would blow up the new pool Carson got for his first birthday. And even though the water was freezing cold coming out of the garden the boys played for quite awhile....Colton didn't want to come out at all!

Sunday night Carson and I finished up with the mowing while Dad and Colton decided to burn the sticks and limbs that had fallen over the last week or so during a wind storm. We have a place at the top of our hill where we burn stuff like that, and so after we were done Carson and I decided to check out the flames as well. Then we journeyed down through our pasture to see if we could spot any fish in our creek. And you could see them, and our dog actually tried to swim and catch one, which my sons thought was absolutely hilarious! The picture below is of Carson waiting "patiently" for someone to get him out of the wagon, so he can see the action too!

This last picture is of my boys and our doy walking down to the creek! What a wonderful slow paced and family filled weekend we had. Lots of time to be outside, which our boys LOVE!

Happy Tuesday!

Kristin

Summer Days

Alrighty so this summer....major bummer in the weather front. There haven't even been enough hot days yet to blow up the pool, and it's almost July! However, we did get the sandbox out last week or so, and were able to snap a few pictures of the boys. Here is Carson executing some killer skillz while entering the sandbox.
Here is my bright sun shiny big boy, stopping to pose for a picture...

But just a minute before this is how he looked! Crazy cute picture of him yelling at the dog to not take his ball from him (even though he was kicking it in her direction!). Don't you love how kids can be angry one second and perfectly delightful the next...if only I could swing my moods that fast...well don't ask my husband he would probably say they do swing that fast just not in the most positive direction!

And last but not least a picture of what we call affectionately our "Chunkers" or "Carse" depending on our mood! He is growing up so fast, walking, running and trying to eat everything he sees. Our motto with this little man is "As long as we're eating we're happy!"

While we have gotten outside quite a bit this summer to play, and work, there are some exciting changes coming to our household in the next week. As of July 1, 2011, I will be officially the Pastor of two of the local Methodist churches. I will cut back at my legal assisting job to three days a week and spend two days a week (and of course Sundays) as a Pastor. While I am very excited and ready to begin this new journey (there is always a downside!), I have been studying my butt off...you see at the end of July I leave for a week of licensing school, which means I have about 40 hours of homework to complete before then...PLUS....I have to start attending Course of Study (which is master level classes) this fall and all of that homework is due on August 1st! So while I am busy and excited....I just keep thinking, "I just have to make it through July!" Which is kind of wishing away the summer, but hopefully its worth it!

There you have it our little life in the fast lane!

Kristin

My big news

The world (aka my life) seems to have been crazy lately! Since I have last posted which in blog time is forever! Carson has had two horrible ear infections making that a total of 6 in the last year. The dr. says no tubes until the fall at least, so we are trying a chiropractor. We are crossing our fingers that it works some miracles in our little miracle, and so far he has slept through the night ever since his first treatment...so that is a big milestone!

Colton gave us quite a scare last week as he woke up in the middle of the night screaming in pain and proceeding to vomit all over his father. We got him into the dr. who checked his urine, which was fine, checked his white cell count, which came back normal and finally sent us home with some suppositories (yeah! we were both thrilled). Dr. thinks its some kind of virus and he was just full of gas. Well thankfully we seemed to have passed over that milestone and are on the mend and enjoying our last day of 3 year old preschool! Where has the time gone!

But the real news is mine and has nothing to do with being sick or with drs. The weekend of Easter I "got the call" as we like to refer to it. I have been appointed as a local licensed pastor of two small churches in my area. I was pleased to accept my new appointment and so far the churches seemed to be excited to have me. (I don't officially start until July 1). The question looming in the air was where did this leave me with my current job, you know the one I have had for oh 3 whole months! I knew that the church appointment was only 20 hours a week and while we could "afford" for me to only work that much, Nathan really wanted me to stay full-time.

So to make a long story short I will soon be working three days a week at the law firm and one day during the week at the churches. The fourth day during the week will be spent either at home working on stuff, in the office at the church or making visits. So it will be nice to have a little breathing room in my schedule, well and of course I will be working Sunday mornings, doing two church services each week.

The even scarier part for me is the looming homework and schooling that I am facing. The last week in July I will be at licensing school to get my license to be a pastor. This involves over 40 hours of homework before I leave for school. I am currently waiting on my books to arrive to get started, though I only have one class' assignments so far.

Then I will also be starting Course of Study which is sort of like getting my Master's in Divinity but during 4 weekends a year for like forever (ok really 9 years, but that sounds like forever). Did I mention that starts in September and all of my homework is due August 1st, which means I will have to have all of that done before I leave for licensing school as well!

So in essence please say a few prayers that I can manage my way through all of the homework, while working full-time and taking care of two often crazy boys! And say a few prayers for my husband as he attempts to hold down the fort for a week this summer and for a few weeks for the next few years!

And what is a blog post without a picture....Here are me and the boys on Easter morning after hunting eggs.


You might notice Carson only has one shoe on....he hates shoes.... hates socks even more....but alas he did start walking again after his first chiropractic appointment (coincidence?!? we'll never know for sure!)
Later!

The Birthday Boy

It's hard to believe that my little man is already going to be one tomorrow! We started the week in style by throwing my MIL a surprise 50th birthday party, which she thought was for my son. They share their birthday you know! So in honor of both of their milestone birthdays we celebrated with a nice dinner, lots of friends and of course cake and presents. But as I would imagine is with most 1st birthday parties the cake is way more interesting than the presents! Here is a picture of the lovely cake my SIL brought to the party for Carson. And here is the after picture! I am sorry to whoever had to wash those table linens!

This would be the during! Colton looking on with amusement and of course egging him on a bit!

This picture is during the time when they opened presents! You can see the adorable "1" t-shirt that I bought for him, thanks to Luna B Tees! There should be more pictures to come of that shirt as I hope to get the boys' picture taken in their birthday shirts shortly!

All in all a wonderful night full of laughter! Good thing we enjoyed it because Colton was up puking at 4 am the next morning and Carson started at 6:30am! It was a long Sunday, but we have now come through it and we're ready for our next birthday adventure this weekend with my side of the family! We are going to try out the water park in a near by town!

"Under the Overpass"

I recently read the book "Under the Overpass" by Mike Yanoski, which was given to me free of charge by "Blogging For Books", but please be aware all opinions are completely mine! This book details the journey of two men as they leave their lives of privilege and decide to jump into the world of being homeless. They spend 5 months traveling around the country from Denver to D.C. to California. They take with them only a guitar with which to panhandle with, and a $3 sleeping bag purchased from a thrift store before they leave on their journey.

I found this book to be a very good read, and captured my attention from their very beginning. I found Mike's insights often to include questions that were inside my head that I was wondering how he felt about things, and he really was able to open the eyes of the reader. One of the questions he answered in this book was should we give money to the homeless, and while I will not give away his answer I found it to be very thought provoking and is certainly a question I deal with as a Christian. I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to understand th ins and outs of the homeless world, or who have no idea what is about and are just curious. Though the book is over 200 pages it felt like it was only 70, it was a quick read and holds your attention till the very end!

Book Review, "Seeds of Turmoil"

I recently finished the book "Seeds of Turmoil, The biblical roots of the inevitable crisis in the Middle East" by Bryant Wright, which I would highly recommend for reading to anyone. Wright takes you through the book of Genesis telling the stories and relating how these stories have brought about the turmoil in the Middle East. As the book continues he relates to the readers from the perspectives of Muslims, Jews and Christians alike, while acknowledging that his opinions are somewhat biased as he is a Christian.

As a student of the Bible and having just finished a 12 week Bible study on the book of Gensis I found this book to be both enlightening and entertaining. While I am not usually one to read a book about history I found that I enjoyed and learned a lot from this book. I was pleased that Wright included somewhat of a disclaimer when he got to the end of his book and was trying to explain things from a Jewish point of view, letting the reader know that he certainly wasn't Jewish so perhaps he was a bit biased, but assured readers of his love for Jewish peoples and encouraged all Christian readers to love all peoples as well. I found that the book was a quick read, perhaps because of my recent study of this particular part of the Bible and the interest I already had, but I think most people will find that learning about why there is conflict in the Middle East is something very interesting as well as something we all should understand as the times we live in are a testiment to such drama. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves history and anyone who wants to understand more about what is going on over in the Middle East.

I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255

Where has the time gone!

Quick picture update from our house. The holidays can be so busy and as we're trying to keep up, we might not post as much but we're still taking pictures so hopefully we'll get caught up eventually! The first picture is from Halloween...the boys in their matching monster shirts! They're both such hams! And yes I pretty sure that is Colton's shoe flying towards my camera in his excitement!

Sadly this is the first picture ever taken of my baby and myself! Yup he is already 7 months old in this picture!He sure is cute if I do say so myself!
This is Carson at 8 months. Already sitting and playing, and crawling all over the place!
And I took this picture just this week (and its blurry because I took it with my new camera that I am really not sure how to use as of yet!), proof that my little man is already pulling himself up to a standing position. He even attempted to walk around the furniture that night as well. I hear myself saying A LOT, "He's too young for that!" Did I mention he already has 6 teeth! Four on the top and two on the bottom with two more coming in on the bottom.
We're looking forward to some exciting Christmas activities in the near future including a visit from Santa tomorrow!
Kristin