A Little Painting

So today we decided to try an art project.  Little girl enjoyed it.

A Catch up Post

So, call me crazy, but blogging hasn't been at the top of the priority list recently. I want it to be, I really do, but laundry, cooking dinner, playing with the little girl, and getting our house the way we want it have been getting in the way (not in that particular order).

I would love to catch the blog world up on what has been going on with us, but really there hasn't been much to speak of outside of everyday life.

It is hard to believe that the summer is over.  We went to the lake several times.  We spent a lot of time at the sprinkler park or zoo geysers or in the backyard wading pool.  Anything to stay wet or play in the "wa-wa."  Our girl is a fish (or fishy as K calls it, even though I don't think we have ever put the y on the end when we say fish to her...it is really cute).

I guess that is the big change around here since the last update --we have a talker.  Even if we can't understand what exactly it is that she is saying, she is talking, constantly.  She talks and sings and asks to watch Elmo, which I try and not give in to very often.

Maybe this post will kick me into gear and I will start to update more regularly.  In the meantime, enjoy some glimpses of our summer.

From the Archives: Middle of SOS 2004

This one is kind of boring, but I like seeing my thoughts on SOS when I was in the midst of it--oh and the roof I was on--not super steep--not at all. haha

6/23/2004

Hey everyone!  I'm still alive.  I am once again at the library and just thought I would update on what has been going on in my life.  Basically, I have had the most amazing 4 weeks of my life (I think its 4 weeks).  During staff week I was introduced to ideas that I had never really given much thought to such as people choosing to live in the inner-city as a ministry, and I was reintroduced to ideas like "God truly loves and adores me at great cost to Himself."  When you truly understand this idea, you can't go about life just like you normally would.  I also got to meet and get to know forty of the most awesome godly people on the face of the earth!  They have truly become some of my very best friends.

The first week with campers was a little hard.  One because it was my first week and I didn't really have a good grasp on what was going on.  I had trouble getting my adult leader to listen to me when I obviously don't have much experience roofing (Oh, that's what I have been doing).  Anyway, I learned a lot about myself and leadership and what not to do.  My kids were great though.  They were from San Antonio.  Pictures!

Last week I had a group from Cullman, Alabama and was pumped because they were hard workers.  The hardest part last week is that they just didn't get it.  They were just there to have fun and use power tools and no matter how hard I tried to get it through their heads they just didn't get it!  Then God showed me that I am not god and that only He can show them.  Thursday night I was at the end of my strength and He completely took over.  On Friday we are supposed to encourage each person on our team individually.  I truly feel like it was God's words that were spoken and not mine because I was broken about it on Thursday.  One of the girls came up to me later and what I had said went exactly with her situation, when I had no idea she was going through what she was.  It was awesome.  My prayer for the remainder of my life is that I will continually be without my strength and relying fully on God!  Pictures of that week

This week so far has been my best yet!  I have a team from Fayetville Arkansas  (GO HOGS!!).  Its just great.  My heart overflows with love for them and it is only Wednesday!  It has been really great because I was beginning to wonder how I was going to make it through the summer if each week was just going to be one hard lesson after another. 

I am working on the house of a family with 2 kids and a ton of grandkids that come over.  It has been sort of hard because they aren't very friendly and it has leaked 3 times now, so they are a little mad, but its just a lesson in that I am not doing it so that they will love me and sing my praises, I'm doing it to serve them and love on them regardless of how they feel about me.  We have been working on the mega-steep roof when it isn't raining (which hasn't been much lately), and we are replacing some of their ceiling and I reset the toilet.  That was gross, but I am so proud of myself!  Pictures of this week!  I can't wait to tell everyone all about it in person.  

One thing that I will say is this.  I have no idea how I am going to go about living my life normally after this.  You can take that how you will until I have time to explain it!

I love you people!

Kristin

From the archives: Post wisdom tooth removal--probably still on meds

5/27/2004

What I have learned about my mouth:

 1) I am a big baby when it comes to my mouth!  This wisdom teeth thing is just annoying, and I am just basically a big baby.  It doesn't hurt anymore, but I am so scared of something going wrong that I am just annoying.  2) Your mouth is a very important part of the body.  Your mouth is where you get your nourishment, and when you don't feel like eating because of your mouth you still get hungry, and your mouth is how you talk.  If your mouth is swollen and you mumble, you are hard to understand, and no one will want to talk to you!

That's enough about the mouth!

I leave for SOS in less than two days!!  That is very exciting, but a little scary, cause I am not prepared.  I haven't even begun to pack, and my room is still a mess with boxes everywhere. 

Okay, I want to talk about the wedding now.  The people that got married grew up and graduated with me, so it was a little weird, until the actual wedding.  It was really neat all of my close friends from high school standing behind them as they said their vows.  It was really cool, like we were supporting them all the way.  I know that's how its supposed to be and all, but it was just really special.  Makes me really excited about my day, when it comes.  I of course went through the feelings of will my day ever come, because all of the people there were asking, but you know, its not my time yet, and I'm okay with that.  I wouldn't want to settle for any less than the best anyway.

Well, I'm waiting on my mom to get home from work so that we can go shopping.  I have to get a bathing suit woohooo.  I don't really understand why we can't just swim fully clothed, I mean its much more modest and safer when it comes to the suns rays.  You know, I think I'm going to bring back the 50s bathing suits.  I wonder how that would go over.

Okay, this has been totally random and a little weird, so I'm out!

Kristin

From the Archives: The deer incident

10/27/2004 I have a really fun fall break story: So I went home, and ended up not accomplishing anything that I wanted to.  I knew it would happen, but I usually hope for the best.  The thing is that it is not really my fault that I didn't get any work done.  I spent pretty much the whole weekend going to my sister and brother's basketball games.  That is where my fun story comes in...... We were at Katie's game, three hours from home and were finally coming home at about eight.  I'm driving Mom's Tahoe because she doesn't feel like driving and I don't mind.  We are in the hills in the small windy roads surrounded by trees.   I come to the top of a hill which also happens to be in a curve in the road and I see a big brown thing (a deer) running across the road right toward us.  My sister yells "DEER" I slam on the brakes, but the deer also stalls for a second and the timing is just all wrong....I hit it...really hard.  It flew into the air and landed off of the side of the road.  Moment of silence for the deer please...............okay, moving on.  I pulled up to a driveway not to far up the road because the road doesn't have a shoulder.  This is a driveway to a trailer set back into the woods surrounded by cars and trucks.....did I mention that I watched "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" the weekend before?  Anyway my mom gets out and looks and says that the grill is broken, the bumper is dented, and a headlight is hanging out, but we should probably be able to drive it home.  At that moment the "low coolant" light comes on. We have busted the radiator. Mom wants to walk up to the trailer where we are and ask them to call a wrecker.  I think she is crazy and refuse to go, I mean it was really really dark and there was no one else around, remember I just saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Sooo Mom calls Dad, he tells us he is on his way, remember we are three hours from home.  Mom keeps telling him where she thinks we are which is not where I think we are but I keep my mouth shut because mom is a little excited, anyway it is this huge deal trying to figure out where we are.  Meanwhile the whole time Katie has her video camera and is "making a documentary about the whole thing"  I end up realizing that there is a Jct. sign right ahead and look on the map....I was right.  So Dad calls a wrecker and says he will pick us up there.  We turn on the hazard lights so that the wrecker can find us.  Just a little while later a van pulls into the driveway and a man gets out with this long beard a cigarette and a shirt that says "I'm gonna beat the devil with a big stick".  He asks if we need help.  My polite mother goes into the whole story and tells him that a wrecker is on the way....he lives in the trailer, so he goes home after talking about how dangerous this curve is and how stuff like that happens all the time.  Just a few minutes later this truck pulling a trailer with furniture on it starts to pull into the drive.  As he is slowing down a car comes around the curve and rear-ends him jamming the trailer into the back of the truck.  So those two vehicles also pull into the drive with us.  It turns out that the truck was stopping to help us.  The car was full of about 8 teenagers, so now there was really excited people everywhere, the man that lives in the trailer has come back out to see what is going on and is looking in and at everything with his flashlight and continues to talk about how dangerous a spot that is....the whole time Katie is taping the incident.  Dail, the wrecker man finally comes and that is a whole other funny thing, but I just can't describe it.  Anyway Dad finally got there and we were headed home by 10:30 (I am still trying to figure out how Dad got there so quickly!).  That is the fun story of fall break.  I killed my first deer and had my first car accident all at the same time.

From the archives:

So, this isn't my first blog.  I know you are shocked!  Once upon a time I had a xanga.  It was during my growing college/post college years that I blogged regularly.  Now while I am not going to share the address for that blog--I didn't have boundaries--there are a few entries that I would call classics that I will share here on this blog in the next few weeks.

Why am I sharing these?  Well, because they are fun!

Talk, talk, talking

My girl, she is a talker!  Her favorite word is Boofer--he is probably actually her favorite family member too.  When I walk into her room in the morning, she says "mama" and then points to the window or door and says "boofer."  Sometimes it sounds a little bit like buffa, but she can say it.

She says mama, dada or even daddy, pawpaw, nana (but only for a banana, not her grandmother unless prompted), cheese, thank you, bye-bye, hi, and uh, oh.  She is also a mimic, when I sing, she sings; when I ask her to say something, she usually attempts and does really well, unless of course someone else is there.  When she is saying something that I ask her to her words are endless, but those don't really count.

Other tricks include, the lion sound, the elephant trunk only sometimes accompanied by the noise, cow mooing, the lizard trick (her favorite), finding her belly, showing where her head and mouth are, sometimes finding her toes.  She dances like crazy and understands way more than I realize.

My baby is growing up so fast.  She has got an opinion as big as her personality, which in huge.  I just want to freeze her and make her stop growing.