Tonight at Youth Group

We're starting a new series in youth group called Guy Talk: Girl Talk. It's based off of a book and it's broken down into a 10 weeks series delving into gender specific issues. I taught the girls tonight (first high school and then middle school). It was super nerve-wracking, I've never taught anything before!!! I was definitely super nervous in the high school group, but was much more relaxed for the middle school.

I taught on appearance. I first showed this video, and then I asked a lot of questions about where our standards of beauty in America come from. My girls are so smart, they knew it was the media! I just shared with them about the importance of making sure that they are spending a lot of time developing good character because in the long run it's far more important (Proverbs 31:30) than their looks because some day their looks will go away and all that will be left is their heart. It ended up being really good and we had some great small group discussions afterwards. I wouldn't say that any of our girls really struggle with their appearance and letting it consume them, but I just wanted to the encourage them to really take the time to take care of their hearts.

The other day when we were watching Pride and Prejudice it came to this part that I felt fit the topic so well tonight. There is a ball going on and Elizabeth Bennett, her mother and a few other ladies are admiring Mr. Darcy from a distance. One of them says "what a handsome young man!" Another woman says "I hear he has 10,000 a year!". "Yes, quite handsome indeed!!!" Shortly after Mr. Darcy acts totally arrogant and prideful to the ladies and as he's walking away one of the ladies says "I guess he's not so handsome after all!"

I suppose our character does have something to do with how we come across to people!

Gun Safety

I'm all about gun safety for obvious reasons. I don't like the thought of guns falling into the wrong hands. Now, there are new holsters that you can see here that are super safe and have a special locking system to prevent a gun from falling into the wrong hands. I think a lot of police forces are using them now. Check out the website and have a look for yourself!

Crazy Weather

We've had the weirdest end of March weather ever. It's been snowing, hailing and raining off and on for 3 days. It's SO stinkin' cold! The weather teased us by giving us a couple of nice days and then *BAM* back down to 30's/40's and gloomy. That's okay, at least I know it needs to turn sooner or later.

Maggie the Magellan

Meet Maggie.
She's a GPS and the newest member of our family. She talks to us and tells us where to turn to get places. We have been talking about getting one since Christmas and had some leftover Christmas money and were conveniently at Costco last night and they had a nice one on sale.

So, we bought her and we're in love. Maddox loves talking to her, too. It's cute.

Here's a silly video of my 2 favorite boys:

What We've Been Up To This Week

Spring Break to most adults without kids of school age doesn't mean a thing. But, since Kyle is a youth pastor, we get the fun job of entertaining the kids during Spring Break. So, we put them to work. The youth have 3 designated rooms in our church that was just completed about 6 months ago. They were boring, very, very boring. All the walls were this tannish green color. We wrangled up some opinions and got to work designing what we were going to do in the youth worship center (the biggest of the 3 rooms). Since the room is so large, we decided not to paint every wall in there and just add some pizzazz to them instead. Saturday, Kyle and I went to the church with 3 kids and spent 5 hours taping. Yes, it was thrilling.

Here's what it looked liked after we taped: (this is the front wall where the stage will be)


Monday, we spent another 5 hours at the church (this time with 10 kids) and we painted a few of the colors. Here is the end result of Monday: (That's me with the blue shirt on)

This is one of the side walls:


I went over on Monday night while Kyle had Bible study and I pulled the tape. Tuesday night we went back over and retaped for the second phase.

Wednesday morning, we had 6 kids come over and help us finish the painting, we were there for 4 hours. Here's the completed room:


Doesn't it look cool! So we from boring to fun! The stripe runs all the way around the room. So cool! And now, the blue chairs don't stand out like sore thumbs.

Today, my high school girls are coming over to watch 5 hours of Pride and Prejudice. Yes, they're crazy, but hey, isn't that what Spring Break is all about!?!

I'm Drowning...

in laundry!!!Confession: I haven't done laundry in over a week.

Now, I'm drowning in it. That's my goal for today, laundry, laundry, laundry. Doesn't that sound fun? I know you're jealous of me!

I wanna get paid 25 cents a load of laundry!!

Today, I went to Target (my favorite store) and bought Maddox some of these, only in baby size, not men's like in the picture. His little feet haven't grown as fast I expected, so the other two pair of shoes I've bought for him recently (brown sandals and blue plaid slip on shoes) don't fit and he trips over the toes. So, these little clogs will do just the trick for a month or so until he grows into his other shoes.

Images from art.com

Beautiful Weather

It's 61 outside today! Even though 61 doesn't sound warm, it really does feel warm. I wore capris and flip-flops because I went on jean and tennis shoe strike today. I didn't know it was going to be warm outside, I just wanted to feel like it was warm outside. So, God decided to bless me with a warm day to boot.

I'm happy.

And, soon, yes, very soon, I will be in 70 degree weather for a whole week!

Friday Randomness

That was just to get your attention, isn't he cute!?!

I love Fridays. They are the best day of my week. It's our Sabbath. The day where we don't work and don't do anything we don't want to do. Since Kyle is a pastor, he works on Sunday, so it's not really a day of rest for him. Our "weekend" is Friday & Saturday. Frequently, there are youth events on Saturdays, so that day is our "work around the house" day. Any way, I love Fridays because they are very relaxing. 2 Fridays a month I watch Sarah (2 year old) in the afternoon, but that's not really work because she naps for most of it and really does a fabulous job at keeping Maddox entertained.

I went "deal hunting" today, it was fun. We hit Target and Costco. I went in to Costco for 1 thing and I came out for 4 plus a Mocha. Shame on me. It was all in budget, though, so I can't complain. My mom sent Maddox some money for Easter, so I bought him a little 5 miniature book set for an upcoming trip to keep him entertained on the plane. It was so cute, I couldn't resist.

These are my sisters-in-law and me, aren't we cute? Nicole (on the left) is married to my younger brother Tyler (they just got married in December). That's me in the middle. Shelley (on the right) is married to my older brother Kevin (they've been married for almost 6 years). Any way, they're totally rad and you should get to know them.

I've started blogging again at my other site. It's where I post handy tips and such. It keeps this one from hopefully becoming too terrible boring over here. Any way, check it out sometime.

I've Got the Craft Bug...

...and nothing to craft!

I had gotten this ugly '90's ottoman at a garage sale last May for my living room and I had high hopes of doing a cute, creative recover of it. Instead, it sat in our back room for 10 months not being use. So, last night, I did a super quick recover of it using a pretty, red curtain I had bought at a garage sale for $1 and a staple gun. It's not perfect, but it's done and it will do it's job just perfectly (as in something to put our feet on in the living room that Maddox can't hurt himself on).

Here's a picture of it done (I didn't get a "before picture")


Please excuse the ugly rug. I still haven't found one that I like and this one at least prevents some bumped heads around here.

Any way, I really want to create something. Shelley is my inspiration. She's so creative and crafty and well, I'm not. I can follow directions just fine, but aside from that, I have no natural creative juices. I have a baby hat knitting book, but I don't have all the needles that I need and the closest craft store is like 15 miles away and I never make it up that far. Hopefully soon I can start creating cute little hats.