Happy Valentine's Day...

from our family to yours! We hope you all have something special planned for today, or if not, that you at least plan to spend it together. Our family falls under the second category, but honestly it'll be refreshing after the business of this week so far. So, to commemorate this day of love, here are a few pictures from this week to represent things I love and that I'm thankful for:

We finally found the perfect preschool for Moira, The Mustard Seed. She had her first day of school on Monday and has been a much happier kiddo since. And, I had to add this picture of their school bus... is that not the cutest darn thing you've ever seen in your whole life? ;o)

I'm thankful that not only did we find a preschool, but I'm sincerely happy with the program and her teacher. This is Moira with her teacher Ms. Patty who is very warm and friendly, and used to be a kindergarten teacher to boot - how about that for getting her prepared for Kindergarten in the Fall!
I *heart* making valentine's treats for the kid's classes. Moira picked out heart-shaped Jolly Rancher lollipops for her class, so I came up with the wrapper and she helped me put them together - and wrote her name on all 20 of them!

How could you possibly not adore this face with the huge blue eyes looking up at you every day? I'm so thankful for a happy, healthy family and children. We're so blessed.

And, here he is... my soul-mate. He's an eternal goofball, fun father, supportive and loving husband, and all-around great guy and I'm so glad God saw it fit to make him just for me! (OH, and check out the never-before-seen-on-this-earth picture of Collin actually wearing a suit!! I never I thought I'd see the day...)

~~~

All in all, I'm a blessed woman with so much to be thankful for. Sometimes it's hard to remember that when things don't go the way you planned them out, but then I "count my blessings" and realize how much worse things could really be. I'm truly thankful for a healthy spouse and children, a nice place to live and food to eat, money enough to see us through quite a while while job hunting, a hard-working, loving and intelligent husband, the support and love of family and friends, living in the place we longed to be, and most importantly knowing an all-powerful God intimately and being given a promise for our future. Take some time today to count your blessings and thank God for his provision.

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

~ 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

A trip to Howe

Happy Monday! We spent a very fun weekend in Howe, Texas visiting Collin's brother Stephen, sister-in-law Paige and their little girl Hope. Howe is a little town (pop. 2200) just north of McKinney and just south of Sherman, for those of you curious. Stephen is the Minister of Music at First Baptist Church of Howe, and we really enjoyed getting to go with them to the service on Sunday morning. We're obviously proud of Stephen, but I was really blessed with a sincerely worshipful service - the music was beautiful and a nice blend of hymns and contemporary praise songs, and the preaching was biblical and well presented. They really have a nice church home... I wish they could transplant it here to San Antonio so we could go too (not to mention see Stephen & Paige more)!

Anyway, we arrived Friday afternoon and went out to lunch at Finn's, a local restaurant that is proud of their fresh fish and seafood. Then, we got a private tour of the church where Stephen serves, including his office, the huge children's area and the impressive Youth building (can you believe they had pool tables and a whole recreation area for them... pretty cool!). We spent the evening catching up and playing Outburst, guys against girls, and we totally stomped the boys (by a whole 2 points). Saturday we enjoyed some time hanging out with Stephen and Paige in the morning, and then went to a cute older downtown part of McKinney to do some shopping and browsing antiques. After that we headed to the park to feed the ducks (they weren't hungry) and were treated to Olive Garden for dinner to celebrate Stephen's birthday, Sandy & Bruce's Anniversary and our upcoming Anniversary - thanks Dad!

Sunday was church, lunch and a bit of visiting before the drive home. It only takes about 5 1/2 hours to get there, which seems like nothing after we used to travel three 10 hour days to get home while in the military! Unfortunately, I did manage to forget my entire tolietree bag at their house, so I made a quick trip to Walmart for another toothbrush, deoderant, etc to see me through until it gets here in the mail. All in all in was a great trip, and we can't wait to do it again! How nice it is to live close to family now and be able to spend so much time with everyone - we're just loving it!

Well, this week should be a busy one, but I'll post as I'm able. Moira's starting preschool today, and I can't wait to pick her up this afternoon and hear all about it. Collin's got an interview and a military career fair to attend this week, so please be in prayer over those. I'm getting ready to make about 20 Valentine treats for Moira's class for Wednesday, so maybe I'll post some pics when they're done. Have a great day!

Flight of the Hamsters

Okay, so I'm forewarning you that not only is this a huge waste of time, but it's also horribly addictive. But, if you have some time to waste and you'd prefer that time be wasted on something completely meaningless, yet suprisingly delightful, check this out:

http://www.digyourowngrave.com/flight-of-the-hamsters/

(Collin actually managed a high-score of 694 the other day... me? I stink at it, but it doesn't keep me from enjoying my feeble attempts at hamster flying glory!)

I found the link from one of my other favorite blogs: http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/. It has got to be my all-time favorite craft-related blog. Her name is Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and she’s a knitter and author. Her blog is hilarious, by the way – especially for the knitter, but even for the non-knitterly type. I’ve been hooked on her writing ever since I read her book "The Yarn Harlot: the secret life of a knitter." She has a fantastic way with words and I love seeing her works in progress and the stories behind them. If you feel so inclined, check her out – I really do think you’ll enjoy it. It’s smart and witty, and sometimes roll-on-the-ground funny. And, apparently she enjoys completely meaningless, yet surprisingly delightful wastes of time too!

Dinosaur Fun

There's not much to report today, just a few fun pictures. We went to a dinosaur birthday party on Saturday for Sam, who is Shad and April's oldest kiddo, he turned 3. Collin's known April since early high school, and now that we're back in San Antonio, we hope to get together with them a bit more! We all had fun, and hope to play together again soon.

Ian playing in the sand, and searching for buried dinorsaur eggs with a friend!

Moira was more interested in making friends with "Las."

Collin joined into the dinosaur festivities too.

Ian helped Sam inspect his new birthday presents - I see a possible dinosaur themed party in our future! :)

We're heading off to Howe to visit Stephen, Paige and baby Hope this weekend, so I should have some more fun pictures and things to post early next week... so stay tuned!

A beautiful shower

The baby shower for my sister last night was absolutely wonderful - what an incredible group of Christian women she has as friends and support! It was very special for me to be able to come, now that we're living here, and I'm even more excited to be here to meet this new little May baby when he/she arrives. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from our evening:

Kim and Jennifer

Jennifer opening the name frame I made for their soon-to-arrive baby, Kate!

This is the baby blanket I knit for May baby #4

It was a special treat for Avery to get to come to the baby shower with all the big girls. She looked like a doll, and was a perfect little lady the whole time!

And finally, this is the group of "prayer coffee" girls and family there to celebrate with Kim and Jennifer, two very special women. Many blessings to them both and their growing families!

Pretty darn cute...

...if I do say so myself. My sister's prayer coffee group is throwing a joint baby shower for my sister, Kim, and her friend Jennifer on Saturday. Kim and Jennifer, being the sweet girls that they are, decided they'd like to make some kind of a "thank you" shower favor for all of their friends that are attending. When Kim called me for ideas yesterday, I, of course, completely took over the project as I had the "perfect thing" to make for them. Anyway, this is what I came up with:

Inside each box (all 3o of them) are four little chocolate nuggets made by Nestle, which I wrapped in a stamped mailing label. I wish I could take credit for the "nugget box" idea, but alas I borrowed it from one of the many SU websites I visit - but I did come up with the design myself! :) Anyway, I think they're darling and I hope that Kim and Jennifer like them and enjoy giving them to all their girlfriends. More pictures to come of the shower and the special gifts I've been working on for the girls after the shower is over on Saturday - so stay tuned!

Let's catch up

Ugh... so I don't even want to mention how woefully negligent I've been in my lack of posting lately. Here's to getting back into the habit! :)

So, we're about 95% unpacked - woo hoo! The living area, kitchen, bathrooms, kid's rooms and our room is unpacked. I just have the last few boxes of my craft things and my half of the office to put together, plus a garage that desperately needs some organization. Aside from that, it's mostly finding the perfect spot to hang our family pictures and such, and committing to leaving the dresser in that spot, etc. that's left. And to think, we may end up doing this again in the near future, once we have a house of our own to settle into! Here are just a couple of pics of the kid's rooms.

Moira's room is pretty well finished now - I think if I tried to put much more in there it'd just end up being too much. But it's very cute, and befitting a little girl that fancies herself a princess. It's loaded with pink and flowers and butterflies and such. I think she's happy with it for now, but we've all decided that once we buy a house, she'd like to do a fairy theme with purples and greens and maybe even a "pixie hollow" tree painted on the wall (if she can puppy-dog-eye Daddy enough to get him to do it!)


Ian's still needs some decorative things done to his room... we've finally decided on a Mickey theme for his room, which he's very excited about, but we still have some work to do on it. We'll be putting up on shelves the adorable hand-painted ceramic Mickey & friends that my best friend Dara was sweet enough to give us a couple years ago, and we're on the look-out for other Mickey themed items to coordinate with his room. We've already found a cute crib/toddler bed sheet, and we'll be looking for a navy comforter and red pillow to match it once we switch him into the toddler bed in the next month or two. I found some wall stickers online of Mickey & friends (like the flowers in Moira's room) that I'd like to get, and I'm looking for a Mickey throw pillow for his bed. If any of you see anything Mickey-ish, and have the inclination, please let me know where... it's harder to find Mickey themed decor than one would think!


The kids are doing great, although we've identified a major need for Moira to be enrolled in a new preschool... soon... as she's taken it as a personal mission to try to push our buttons (just for a lack of better things to do), and she cries hopelessly when it's time to leave her class at church or her cousins have to go home. Poor little thing... she's so darn social, and to be out of preschool since before Thanksgiving has just been torture for her. Touring/researching potential schools for Moira is mission #1 for Mom this week. Fortunately we have a couple of birthday parties for the kids to attend in the next few weeks, so that'll be loads of fun for them! Ian has been taking all the moving and unpacking and change like a trooper - he's very much like his Daddy in that way. I look forward to finding him some play friends soon too, and starting the dreaded potty training routine in the very near future.


I'm looking forward to getting my Stampin' Up stuff going again - with a new catalog and weeks of being away from all my yummy goodies, I shouldn't have to difficult a time of getting the creative juices flowing again. While I'm excited about doing parties and maybe starting a club, I'm very much wanting to make some new friends here first and not have anyone feel like they're "just a customer." I'd give it all up before I'd want any of my friends to feel that way! So, it'll be a delicate balance for a while. In the mean time, I have some projects I'm very much looking forward to - a name frame for a baby shower that I'm going to this weekend, and some cards for a swap due at the end of the month, and finishing a project of hanging picture frames I started for my 89 year-old Grandmother of all her great-grandchildren (all 26 of them)! If I had to guess, I'd say you'll all be seeing some "finished product" pictures here in a week or two!


The job search is still going, and we're all remaining optimistic and trusting that God has the perfect thing for him. There are still some opportunities that need to be followed up on, which Collin will be doing this week, but I think it'll be nose to the grind stone now that we're here, Christmas is over and we're mostly unpacked. Please pray. I'll try to keep you posted as there are new developments.


I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of the end of our day yesterday. We all went to see the new Veggie Tale movie at the theater with my parents, grandmother, my sister Kim and her three (1/2) cutie-pie kiddos. Then we went back to my parent's house for a yummy dinner and let the kids all play while we visited. We brought my family back to our house to see it "mostly done" as the kids were itching to show the cousins their new rooms. We had a fun day.

My cute-as-can-be pregnant sister checking out all the pics on our new fridge, whilst little Ian takes over his Grammy's attention with something of the utmost importance, I'm sure.

Ian proudly shows off his room and toys to his cousins Carson and Valie, while Moira and Avery have a tea party in her room. It's so fun to have cousins around to play with!