Tuesday, January 19, 2010

You Can Still Wear Cute Shoes!

Check out my book!

I am looking forward to going through this new book (You Can Still Wear Cute Shoes and other Great Advice from an Unlikely Preacher's Wife) with our staff wives. It is written by Lisa McKay of "A Preacher's Wife" blog fame.

I am always quick to share what a blessing it is to be called together with my husband to serve as pastors, but there are some unique things about being pastors that one just can't understand unless you've been called to walk that road. That's why it's always good when the staff wives get together; we can be a safe place for one another and we can celebrate and commiserate together. I know this book will spur some great conversations among us!

If you are interested in giving this book to a pastor's wife that you know, you can go the LifeWay Website or Amazon.com to purchase it. You can also enter a pastor's wife you know to win a giveaway by visiting HERE.

Oh, and now that we staff wives have been given permission to wear cute shoes, we are open to shopping with you fashionistas out there who have undoubtedly seen the state of our foot apparel. :-)

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Winter Formal

THS Winter Formal
January 2010

Just thought I'd share a few photos from a fun night with a great group of kids.

First, Eric is ready and waiting, and therefore, subject to his Dad making him pose for a picture.
Sweet kids - Eric and Kerstyn
Putting on a wrist corsage is a rather easy thing to do.
Pinning on a boutonniere is not so easy. So, I pinned it on Eric's shirt..........
and then we just had Kerstyn pretend that she was pinning it on Eric's shirt. :)
That situation cracked them up!
Already having a fun (or should we say a "funny") time.
Great friends.
The whole gang!
After dinner out on the town, the group decided that they didn't want to arrive at the winter formal right on time, so it was our house for a little Apples to Apples - along with cookies and milk. Dessert is always necessary, right?

Good kids + some fancy clothes + dinner out + games + a fun formal = a great time.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Looking Back

Can I just tell you how thankful I am for photographs? Really. I just downloaded a boatload of photos from my camera, and believe it or not, I had forgotten some of the events already! So, I thought I'd add a few pictures as a way of catching up here at the ol' blog. (Facebook has changed my blogging habits as I'm sure you've noticed. I just don't have time for EVERYTHING!)

Anyway, I'll start with some of those strange, random photos that showed up on my camera. I can usually figure out who took the picture based on what it is. Let's see how you do at guessing who was behind the lens.
Picture 1
Yes, I think Pete must have taken this shot. To be honest, there were about 90 photos of stop-motion photography. When I scan through the iPhotos quickly, I can see the action take place! It was pretty cool, but photo by photo, it's not so interesting and it sure takes up a lot of room in iPhoto!

Picture 2 - Can you guess who took this one?
Yes, I'm sure the girliness of this picture helped you figure out that it was taken by Kari. She had created this masterpiece after doing the dishes one evening. She's a little artist, anyway, so I guess it was just natural for her to find something to create out of the dishtowels. It was fun to find this on the camera. I love the suckers for the mouth, the bubble gum for the nose, and tootsie rolls for the eyes. :)

There were many other photos, too, but I'll spare you the randomness of them all. I then found photos of the Cousin Christmas Sleepover. The Tuesday before Christmas, we had all the cousins spend the night (well, one had to leave early because of her job; that's what happens when the kids start getting older), and we had a great time. Between myself and my two sisters, we have ten kiddos, and I happen to have the oldest two kids and the youngest two kids. My sisters were busy during those four years between Eric and Peter! :) They had six kids in four years! I guess that must seem ridiculous until you learn that my youngest sister had triplets. We are all so blessed! Anyway, I digress. Here's some photos of those crazy cousins.

*Pic Removed per K's request.


The white elephant gift exchange was quite fun. The kids had to bring something that they already had around their house that they weren't using. Kari shows off her sunglasses.
*Pic Removed per K's request.

I'm not sure which gift the kids are laughing about here.

My nephew received a lovely dishtowel that had a painted girl on it with a crocheted dress sewn on. This happened to be something we had (I can't imagine why I didn't use it!), and it was from Brazil. You know how crazy those Brazilians are! The funny thing is, when you lift up the crocheted dress, they had painted panties on the girl! Quite interesting (and funny if you are a teenage boy)!

*Pic Removed per K's request.

And then, my niece received a grass skirt and maracas; you can never have too many maracas, you know!


*Pic Removed per K's request.

The cousins had fun playing Apples to Apples.


Sssshhhhh.....don't tell anyone that two high school boys had fun coloring some fuzzy posters from the white elephant exchange.


The living room becomes one big bed with wall to wall cousins. My older two are getting more finicky though; they decided to sleep in their own beds. :)


Yes, it's hard to wake up the kids after they've been up having fun most of the night!

Yes, cousin sleepover provides fun times and great memories. I feel so blessed that our kids get to grow up together. I realize that not everyone has that luxury, and I don't take it for granted. I'll never regret the effort and HUGE amount of food it takes to have everyone over.