balloon fiesta 2010

We loved the balloon fiesta so much last year that we decided to go again this year! It was a completely different experience this year because we decided not to go to the balloon glow (which meant an hour of extra sleep, but also much MUCH longer lines) and because it was already 67 degrees at 5:00, making it much less stressful for the girls (but, I'll be honest, a little sad for me).
We had a little hiccup where it looked like we weren't going to be able to get on a bus at the park-and- ride (due to way more people than they expected) but at the last minute a heroic bus driver decided to break the rules  and drive us to the park and we had a wonderful time!

My favorite, of course, was getting to play with my new camera! It is A.MAZ.ING. I just kept smiling and giggling and wandering off to find more balloons to photograph. Seriously, go to the balloon fiesta (or I am sure there are other festivals...I have only ever been to this one) it is such a fun thing to do! And now, enjoy copious amounts of balloon pictures. :)

and, like last year- the girls were exhausted from the early wake time. :) 

a grateful heart.

Did you know I am a selfish brat? It's true. Do you want proof? A couple weeks ago a speaker at perspectives encouraged all of us to make list of things God has blessed us with and ways to share them with others, so I sat down to write my list and ended up with a couple generic blessings and a four page rant on all the things I am discontent with in life. Nice, huh? In a nutshell- I was just feeling purposeless, dreading my everyday tasks and not enjoying being around my girls all the time. So instead of thinking of ways to bless others (since I had such an awesome attitude) I decided to pray: Make me grateful for the life I have and give me joy in our everyday life.

I have slowly been noticing a difference, even while doing mundane things like laundry (my nemisis) and picking up puzzle pieces for the 9000th time in a day. Then, when Kead got sick and had to stay home from KDO all last week, I was shocked  because instead of being bitter at her for taking away my precious "me" time I was so grateful and LOVED getting to spend the extra time alone with her. Thanks, God for answering prayer!

So, even though I will have to constantly be praying for a grateful heart, and even though I know I will (probably too soon) need to be asking for forgiveness at being discontent, I am so thankful right now for our life, and for this season with our precious girls.

so it starts...

Keadryn hasn't been too particular about what she wears, but lately she is really asserting her independence and wants to pick out every aspect of her outfit. Sometimes that results in something like christmas socks with shorts and ballet shoes...but she did good when she picked out this outfit all by herself the other day. I only had to help put on the boots!

I told her "Kead, you look so trendy" and she said "No, I look like a farmer." Yes, Kead- ALL farmers wear skinny jeans and biker boots. :) She's a little fashionista and she doesn't even know it.

fun of a college town

Its no secret that I love fall. It's my favorite season! Here in West Texas though, there is a lack of trees and there for I often miss the grandeur of fall colors. One thing we do have, however, is college football! I love the buzz and excitement on Lubbock before a big game. People everywhere tailgating, eating yummy food, trying to find a place to watch the game (or for those who are cool enough- going to the game) everyone showing their TTU support with red and black clothes, jewelry, temporary tattoos, etc. This year's big game in Lubbock was again UT and I know we didn't win, but it was still exciting getting to spend time with friends, get decked out in our raider-red shirts and welcome this wonderful fall tradition!

An extra bonus was that Dave and Erin stayed with us for the weekend (they actually had tickets) and it was a good night for at least one of us, since Erin went to UT. (She didn't wear her orange shirt to the game though because she didn't want Dave to get into a fight! haha!)

(and just to clarify for all you Aggies, Drew is not a traitor and isn't wearing a Texas Tech shirt...just his red gorilla shirt)

And of course when Dave is in town we have to go to Spankys, his favorite burger place. The reason we go is the fried cheese. We really only go to Spankys when Dave is in town because I could eat a whole basket of this stuff...and who really needs a whole basket of fried cheese? SO good though!

did you see?

The new little link on my sidebar? I revamped my photo-blog and am now "open" for business!  I am going to be trying to do photography part-time when we get to the M.E. and would love to start getting some experience under my belt starting now!

Should be fun. I so love photography.  Go check out the website and peruse a bit. I am currently obsessed with graphic design, so the digital design page is my favorite. It is so fun getting to mesh two passions into one! Go look now. The End. 

introducing...

Our newest baby GIRL! We are one excited family after seeing on an ultrasound yesterday that:

1) Our baby is healthy, growing and due to enter the world February 8th, 2011.
2) SHE IS A GIRL!

Several people have asked us if we are disappointed...which I think is a funny thing to ask.

Here is our answer: God is Sovereign. God knows what will be the best for our family. God knew this little girls name before the foundation of the earth! We are so grateful that we can rest in that He knows what our family needs! God is so good to give our little girls each other. God is so good to give this mama another girl to love, teach and nourish.  AND God is good to give this daddy another way to show this world how a man should treat and love women. :) We (yes, even Drew!) are so thrilled for our little girl.

Oh and speaking of names...her name will be:

Miss Evelyn Kate

who we will affectionately call Evie. :)

Welcome to our family, Evie. We are excited about you, we are praying for you and we can't wait to meet you!

"camping"

 We had a camping trip this weekend...in our back yard Saturday night. Kead saw it on Little Einsteins and has been begging ever since. So we waited for the weather to cool down a bit, and for the sun to start going down before 9:30. It was still 90 degrees on Saturday and the sun is going down at 8:45, but still...we "camped".

Keadryn's excitement over the whole ordeal was contagious. She knew exactly what she wanted to do and made sure we had 1)tents and 2) marshmallows, and that's all mattered.

We set up the tent on Saturday afternoon and let the girls play in them. They dragged their nap mats and some toys out there and played in the hot tents all afternoon. Once it got to dinner time we ordered pizza (another bonus of backyard camping!) and ate in the tents. Kead and Sayla giggled throughout dinner and thought it was the coolest thing.

Finally the sun went down enough to start the fire. The girls scavenged the back yard for sticks and we made a mini fire that was just hot enough for smores. Check out Kead's face when Drew said it was time to start the fire:

 I know its blurry- but the picture is priceless. She could.not.contain the excitement! Kead has never tried smores, but knew they had to be something amazing....I mean, she loves all the ingredients:

We roasted the marshmallows and ate a couple then went straight for the awesome-sticky goodness of smores. Both the girls loved them, but who wouldn't?

As far as actually camping...we ended up laying in the tent for a bit and then the girls got restless and Kead was not loving being sticky. We brought the tent inside, did a bath and tried again.  After 30 minutes and lots of playing and getting in and out Kead declared it was time to go sleep in our beds. LOVE a camping trip that ends in a shower and a good night rest in my bed.

Do this with your kids. It was so much fun for all of us and they couldn't care less that we weren't really camping and never left the house. If only Drew's and my desire to go camping was satisfied so easily. :)

crafting

Keadryn has a real passion for "crafting". I'm not sure where she picked up the word crafting, but it encompasses everything from coloring to sewing. In fact, all household activities are broken into four major groups: Cleaning, Cooking, Crafting, and Playing.  Anyway, the other day I was sewing something and Kead was sitting next to me "helping" and we had this conversation:

Kead: Mom, we're crafting, right?
Me: Yep.
Kead: and I'm a real good helper, right?
Me: Yep.
Kead: and crafting is just for girls, right?
Me: Well, no. Boys can craft if they want to.
Kead: (big laugh) But no boys want to help us, right?
Me: I guess not.

So she is my biggest helper and sometimes is it a bit tricky figuring out which jobs she can help with, but lately she LOVES cutting things out, so as long as Keadryn has a pair of scissors, a couple scraps of paper, and lots of encouragement that she is doing a great job helping, then she is happy. Sayla would like to help to, but at least for now she's not really ready for the scissor job. She does more of the "making a huge mess while we craft" job and does it very well. I did hear Keadryn say the other day to Sayla "Sorry, I can't play puppies right now, I am helping mom craft." :) I love my girls.

the mcgoughs

For those of you who don't know this yet, here is a little announcement: We are getting ready to move back overseas. Hopefully around this time next year we will be back in a hot hot desert in the Middle East and I will be wondering why we aren't someplace cold, like outer Mongolia.(Which is a question I even ask myself here in Texas- so you can imagine when it is 130 outside in May that I am truly baffled by our geographical choice...)

We are excited, scared, ecstatic and pretty anxious all at once. It is so different moving away from friends and family when there are two (soon to be three) other lives to take into consideration. Who will my little social butterfly, Kead, have as friends? How will my not-so-big-on-talking little Sayla react to having another language thrown into the mix? WHAT will we do without Kids Day Out?! Will we be successful in business? Will our Arabic come back to us after a couple years of scarce usage? Will we have good Arab friends that encourage us in our language learning and share their lives and culture with us in our new town? LOTS of questions...

But one thing that makes the move a little less anxious and a LOT more exciting is that our dear friends, Chase and Brittany are coming with us! We are so thankful for them. They are wonderful with the girls and love them so much. Britt and I are great friends and Chase and Drew are great friends too. (If you are married you know how rare it is to find "couple" friends.)  We love being together and even in hard times they are so gracious to us and show humility, forgiveness and a deep love for Christ in all things. We are so blessed to have them as friends even for this season of our lives so we are amazed that we get to have them in a whole new season of our lives as well!  Chase and Britt leave kind of soon to start learning Arabic and we will miss them terribly for the next half year but are so excited to have a little built in "family" right when we get there!

ALL OF THAT to say that the other day we went to Texas Tech with the McGoughs to take some pictures of these two so that they could have some pics to give their families before they went. Here are a couple of my faves.

Kead saw this picture and said "Chase has a funny face!" HA! Love these guys SO much!

belly shots

There is just something magical about a pregnant mama...especially with the first baby.  The pregnancy glow, the wonder in their eyes, the way the stare in awe at the little life they are carrying. It's just beautiful. Even more beautiful when the pregnant mama is your little sister that you have known since she was that little baby. It just fills me with joy to get to witness this new stage of her life and give her some pictures to remember it. So here's Kedron, all gorgeous with her belly:

Isn't she beautiful?! Only about a month left to go for her, and then we will know if we have a new niece or nephew! YAY!

sayla's second

We had a wonderful weekend celebrating Sayla. Here are some pics from the picnic party...with  more to come soon on the kojo blog.  Happy birthday sweet Gracie! We love you SO MUCH

wondering...

 WHEN did she get so big?! Can she really be just a couple days away from turning TWO?

I promise, it was fun.

We have had a crazy couple of weeks! First, I went to go help with Piper Jane and Drew stayed home with the girls. Then I brought Burke back to Lubbock and we had a fun and crazy week with three kids. I'll be honest- I am a little freaked out by the madness that is coming soon!

Anyway, I didn't take hardly any pictures but this one is by far my favorite. The kids look so happy and thrilled to be together!

Ok....so maybe not! They all look like I was torturing them, but I promise they are only sad that I interrupted play for a cousin picture. We had a great time!

she's here!

My NIECE is here! She arrived early yesterday morning and I drove up at 7:00 am to meet her. It was the longest car ride ever, but I am back in Denver now (yes, that means this is the third trip to Denver this summer...) and here for the week to help with Burke and the baby. Drew has the girls for the week and is sick, so please pray for him.

But onto the goodness...introducing Miss Piper Jane!

my favorite scene

I know this picture is part of the collage below, but I had to share it in a bigger size cause I love it.

This is my grandpa's yard, complete with one of this llamas, his garden and, of course his breathtaking view of the mountains. The girls loved everything about it, which is no surprise. They kept trying to lure Mr. Kontiki to the fence with grass, but he was not interested. Llamas can be so sassy!