New Year & New Camera!

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted since last September!! I'm so sorry. I've been a slacker and time has flown!!

Fall just flew by and we had a great Christmas. The New Year has begun and flown by so far! I can't believe it's almost Spring Break and the kids will only have 2 1/2 more months of school. What happened? Rainey will be in 4th grade before we know it and Jacob will be in high school!!
Oh my goodness!

Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves. :) Let me share with you some of what has happened since I last posted.

Rainey was a bee for Halloween

Brian and Rainey celebrating their November birthdays

Rainey and I went to SpiritFest and saw Third Day, Tenth Avenue North, Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith. It was so much fun!

My three favorite people


On Christmas Eve, we baked a cake for Jesus!

The day after Christmas


Margaret, John and Jessie came after Christmas and we played Blokus about a million times, it was fun!


Rainey and I took a day trip to Fredericksburg in January and had a great time! It was a beautiful day.

For our 4th Anniversay (Feb. 14th) Brian bought me my dream camera!! I couldn't believe it. I was not expecting that at all, but I love it! So...the pictures will be much better from now on. I'm still learning how to use it, but I hope to have it down by summer. Here are some pictures from the new camera:

Jacob playing Basketball (his team just won on Monday night and the championship game is tomorrow night!)

Rainey and Poppy


Hanging out in the front yard the other day enjoying the weather!


Abby in the grass


I will try NOT to let so much time go by. I'm very sorry!! I will also have better pictures. :)

School, football, and family

I really need to start taking more pictures. I have noticed how my picture taking has declined dramatically. Below is a picture of Rainey on her first day of school. Below that is a picture from Jacob's first football game last night where he made a touchdown!!! It was so awesome!! My battery had gone out on my camera right after I took this first picture so I wasn't able to take any other pictures, I'm sorry!

It has been a great week for Jacob, he had a homerun this past weekend, a touchdown last night and he turns 14 on Friday! Pretty good week I'd say.


I've also included pictures of my cousin and her baby boy, Tyler. They came and visited last week with my aunt. We had not met Tyler yet and he's almost two...it was fun to spend time with them.

We have just been keeping busy with work, school, gymnastics, football, baseball, bible studies, small groups and church!

Road Trip 2011

First of all I want to apologize for not posting more pictures from Brian and Jacob's trip. Brian took all the pictures from his phone and it's a bit time consuming to transfer each one over one by one. He did take some good ones though, maybe I'll let him post those on his blog. :)

We just got back from a fun road trip to Nebraska! We left last Thursday morning, early, and drove straight to Kansas City to see Brian's Aunt Joan on the way. She made us a wonderful dinner, and Brian's 3 cousins (Dave, Tom and Kurt) came over along with 5 of the grandkids. Jacob loved hanging out with his cousins and Rainey was a bit overwhelmed with all the boys. I FORGOT to take any pictures, not sure what I was thinking, but I did get up at 4am that morning, so that's my excuse. Sorry I have no pictures from that night, but it was fun to see everyone and catch up.

On Friday, we got up and drove to Nebraska. Here are the kids (and our driver) in the car that morning.

And then we, of course, had to stop first to get a Runza! Rainey and Jacob had their first Runza's.
When we got there on Friday, Margaret had all of the stuff ready for Rainey to make her own stepping stone (which was very sweet). Here Rainey is creating her stone.




On Saturday, Margaret took us to the Farmer's Market in Lincoln. Here they are by the train right outside the market.


Rainey recently was given a bird book and she brought it with her to show Margaret. They enjoyed watching all the birds out Margaret's kitchen window. This is what I saw many times while we were there.


Then Margaret showed Rainey how to make a "Hollyhock Doll". She made quite a few.

Jacob got to drive the Corvette a few times while we were there too, here he is behind the wheel. He's a pro.

On Sunday after church we went out to Vern & Rita's house and the kids dug for potatoes and rode on (& drove) the tractor. It was a lot of fun. (That was my first time to dig for potatoes and ride on a tractor too! - what can I say.....I'm a city girl)






Here are the supervisors


Here is Brian pulling the tractor out and Jacob waiting for his turn to drive



And on the way back in, Jacob took over.



Rainey had her first ride on a tractor too.


We had a great time with Grandpa Miles and Rita. (Thanks for letting us come visit!)




When we got back to Margaret and John's we had a ladder ball tournament and the women won the first round. (Of course) :)


Then Jacob made a fire and we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.




Then we went down to the creek (or "crick" if you will)



And then walked through the fields of beans. Margaret was showing Rainey how they grow.



We had a GREAT time in Nebraska. It was a fun family trip, but we left Jacob there to spend more time with Margaret and John and then go onto his other grandparents house to spend time with them. We missed him on our trip back.

Rainey LOVES to stay in a hotel and she hadn't stayed in one since last summer, so as a special treat Brian booked us a room in Dallas on our way back home, so we stopped and stayed there to break up the trip. Rainey was so excited, she loves everything about a hotel. Here she is in the lobby.


I'm looking forward to our next family road trip to Nebraska!

Thirty One

I don't know if any of you have heard of Thirty One, but I am currently leading a Bible Study and one of the girls showed up with this cute bag that she carried her Bible in and I asked her where she got it. She said "Thirty One" and then she proceeded to tell me what it was because I'm certain from the look on my face she could tell I had never heard of it.

Well, I was intrigued. I went to their site and fell in love. I just decided to become a consultant! I think it will be a fun way to get together with friends and also make some extra money to help pay off our debt!

Check out my site and their fall catalog. Let me know if you ever want to order anything.

It's a great Christian company and it is based on Proverbs 31. It enables women to make extra money (many women make enough to supplement their previous income) so they can stay home with their kids.

Click here to go to my website and from there you can check out the catalog. They have cute things for you, for friends and family, kids, mothers-to-be, etc.

More Pictures

Well, I've received a few (very few) more pictures from their trip. They went from Philadelphia, up to NYC and then to Buffalo, NY and they visited Niagra Falls. They are now back in Philadelphia for a couple of days and will head to West Palm Beach, FL. I sure do miss them!!

Sunday night in NYC, they went to Hillsong NYC (Like Brian and I did in June). This is a picture of part of the line outside to get in. It's crazy and awesome.

I think you know what this picture is.

Well, that's it for now. Hopefully I'll receive more! :)

10 Day Trip

Brian and Jacob left yesterday on a 10-day trip. I will miss them terribly, but I'm so glad they get this time together. Jacob is still at the age where he wants to do a trip like this with his dad, but barely. :) So this is a great time and we are blessed that they are able to do this.

Brian has to travel for work, but we were able to send Jacob with him because Brian has some free Southwest tickets, so it worked out great. Brian will have to do some work, but they will have plenty of time to see the cities they are visiting, go to some events and more importantly they will have a lot of uninterrupted, focused, time together. Something that is difficult to find when you are in the midst of busy lives.

So far, these are the only pictures they have sent me... :) I'll post more as I get them...

The last few months...

Well, it's been a little while since I've posted any new pictures. Sorry about that! I've been busy, but I guess that's no excuse! Let me get you up to date. First of all, in May Rainey had her gymnastics performance night to end the semester. She is really enjoying gymnastics.

Here she is with her trophy after the performance

At the beginning of June, right after school was out, Jacob went on a trip with his best friend, Micah, to Florida and had a great time. Rainey went with her dad that first weekend and Brian had a work trip scheduled. So we planned a little vacation and just had to buy my plane ticket, which was nice. I went along to Philadelphia with Brian and then we took the train over to New York City and spent a few days. It was a lot of fun and a lot cooler than it was here in Texas!! Here are a few pics from that trip:

Making cheesesteaks in Philly at Pat's.

Brian after eating one. :)


You can't visit Philadelphia without seeing the Liberty Bell!

I just thought the mural above was really cool.

Chinatown in Philly.

And yes, those are frogs that you can purchase. Gross!! When we walked into this place and walked right by them, a few of them jumped and Brian and I both jumped back a few feet at the same time. On to NYC: This is Little Italy and this was my favorite part. We had a GREAT lunch and it was so fun to sit out on the patio and watch all the people.

Central Park is so pretty!

This is the double decker bus we went on for a tour of the city.

The trip was a lot of fun!

When we got back Rainey did VBS at our church, here she is with Caroline, our pastor's youngest daughter.

Jacob went from Florida straight to Memphis on a mission trip for a week, and then he came back and spent Father's Day with us. We went to Stubb's for the Gospel Brunch, which is our Father's Day tradition now. We all look forward to it every year!
Jacob left Monday with his mom to go to Angel Fire with his friends and all their mother's. He is having fun and getting to travel a lot this summer! Rainey left on Wednesday to go with her dad, they are going to the coast until next Tuesday. She is very excited. And Brian and I have a few days just to ourselves, so we are going to