Blake Rocks the Vote

I was so excited to be able to take Blake with me to vote this year! We got to talk about what a great opportunity we have to choose who leads our country.

She loved the fact that we got to go to the elementary school by our house to vote, we took a peak at where the big kids eat lunch and have classes.

I hope she looks back when she's older and remembers Mommy and Daddy voting and that she looks forward every year to when SHE gets to vote too.

Greater Things

Our church is doing a campaign right now entitiled Greater Things and it's really calling me to find ways in my life to do just that, find Greater Things.

For now, what I need to do is say good bye to facebook.

Is it going to be hard? YES
Do I really want to give it up? NO
Is it going to free up time to help me grow in my relationship with Christ, with my family, and with friends? YES YES YES.

Some people can control their "facebooking" but I've found recently I'm just not one that can. I spend entirely too much time...really doing nothing....and end up feeling bad about myself when I start comparing my life to others. When in reality I'm so happy with the life God has graciously blessed me with and am usually a confident person. I even found myself judging and labeling others all based on snippets I see that people chose to post about themselves and their lives.

I want to be free from comparison, I want to live a life of authenticity, I definately DO NOT want to stand in any kind of judgement of others and for now, that means no facebook.

I'm not saying I'll never ever go to facebook again. If I know of super cute pictures of my sweet neices that I won't get to see unless I log on, you can bet I'm not going to miss it. But I will not have a regular habit of logging on.

The good news is when I see you in person we'll have something to talk about, because I won't have already known everything going on in your life :) I truely look forward to that.

God is good and I'm excited to see ways He may chose to bless my life through this.

The Main Event

October 31, 2010


My sweet little pumpkin, I can't even descirbe how in love I am this sweet, happy little girl.


She's LOVED playing with the candy, sorry to the kids that got a little somthing slimy on their candy.


Lane came over to trick or treat with Blake, I really look forward to the day they are cooperative enough to get a good picture of them together.


Blake's favorite part this year was handing out candy to all the kids. She really felt like big stuff.

The pumpkin and the princess...

We have fantastic neighbors, they always get Blake something special for when we come trick or treating...included in this year's bucket were these fancy/yummy lips.

All Things Halloween

True confession, I've never really liked Halloween. But having kids kind of pushes you into all things holiday, even holidays like Halloween. And after this year I've decided I really do like the cutesy dress up and carving pumpkins...I just REALLY don't like kids dressing up like monsters and vampires and SUPER scary costumes and totally freaking my 2 year old out. Nick was embarassed this year when I would stop kids from coming up to our bench we had set up in the drive way if their costume was too scary. I'm sorry, I would just rather be a little rude than my daughter be subjected to you looking like a zombie.


I've never liked anything scary, Nick makes me close my eyes during lots of scary movie commercials because for some reason scary things just "stick" in my mind and I end up thinking about them again and again.

All that to said, we really did have a great time this year.
We hosted our second annual Pizza Pumpkins and Pals event at our house.


We set up a tarp in the driveway and got to work!

Heather entertaining Kate for me.

Us working hard on our pumpkins

Blake with a sharp object

Bri with a sharp knife, maybe I should plan a little better with the carving tools next year.

Griffin and Chad scooping out the pumpkin guts.

Nick and Blake showing off their pumpkin

The kids with their pumpkins, Baus was still working on Lex's Swiper, so she had to have a stand in pumpkin.

Baus, Lexi, Nick and Blake

She's got tricks..

Pulling up (and trying to stand)...it's the new cool thing to do at our house.

isn't her onsie adorable, my talented/creative/all things crafty friend Emily made it for her.

And this picture is just because I think she's awesome.

My blessings...

Here they are, my whole world in one collage....

Zoo FUN

Last weekend we had one of those glorious Saturday's when we're able to spend the whole day together as a family. I can't explain how much I love those days. With me working weekends and Nick having to put in more hours and traveling with work a WHOLE day together is really all I desire.

We spent our morning having pancakes at Joes, our usual breakfast place, then headed out to the Fort Worth zoo.

Here are pictures of Blake on her first trip to the zoo next to Kate on her first trip! They really look nothing alike to me!!

Here are Daddy and Blake, June 2008, then October 2010.

Blake wasn't afraid of the snake one bit
Or the alligator, or if you are Blake the "crockigator"

LOVE this picture...

Kate was such a good sport...she loves a good stroller ride, and really liked looking at the animals.

Here are a few of our favorites at the zoo.