Happy 10 Years Chris

10 years ago I married my best friend. Today he is that and so much more to me.

Through the joys, through the trials.
Through the conflicts, through the resolutions.
Through the changes and stability.
You are the one I want to walk it all with.

Life with you is half as hard but twice as good.

Here's a look back...

Celebrating 10 at Disney World

Chris and I just returned from a 6 day trip to Walt Disney World. This time we didn't take the kids. Our 10 year anniversary is in July and we've been talking all year about how to celebrate. Typically for an anniversary we go away for a night and do nothing. Absolutely nothing. We both love it and find it a welcome change to the typical pace of our lives. But this year we agreed, being the big 10, it would be fun to do something, more then nothing. Having just moved we were a little strapped for cash. So my Hawaii tropical dreams were pushed aside. We did have 2 free Southwest tickets to anywhere in the US! Free flights help on a low budget :) We tossed around different states but kept coming back to how much fun we had at Disney World when we took the kids a couple years ago. One night Chris' parents watched the kids for us and we went to Magic Kingdom with Chris' brother & wife for a double date. It was a blast and we swore if we ever had the chance to return just the two of us we would! Disney was running a special for the times we were looking to go making it a low cost trip.

In the midst of all this planning we found out I was pregnant. Originally we had settled on going in the fall but God had other plans for us in the fall. So the beginning of May it was. The trip came at a perfect place in this pregnancy. I had just gotten over the morning sickness and was still not showing.

Now for some pictures... I should say that before I post these pictures that I chose not to bring my expensive camera for this trip. For the most part I think that was the right call. Occasionally I had wished otherwise but it was super hot & humid and I was grateful not to have a heavy camera around my neck. So most of these pictures are from Chris' iphone or my parents click and go camera!



One of our favorite rides was the Toy Story ride in Hollywood Studio's. Chris and I are just a little competitive so a lot was riding on who won this ride.


I knew I would lose. After 10 years I've learned :)


When we checked in they gave us some Happy Anniversary pins. The theme for Disney this year is "Celebrate". The question they pose everywhere is "What will you celebrate?" I talked Chris into wearing the pin on his black bag he was carrying with our waters and food. I wore mine on my purse. We're not to cool for pins. I also thought we'd get free stuff if we wore them. I was right. We scored a number of free fast passes from workers who saw the pins :)


One of my goals for this trip was to take a vacation away from life. Particularly for Chris. With church planting his mind is always going about church stuff, ministry ideas, philosophies ect. Disney is the perfect place to retreat away. After a day or two the parks really suck you into their worlds. The biggest stress of the day becomes what to fast pass first. Should we fast pass Soarin' then walk to Test Track or fast pass Test Track then walk to Soarin? Even those stresses we conquered. Chris went to get a fast pass to Test Track while I stood in line for Soarin. After we rode Soarin we were able to fast pass something else. So we grabbed a Soarin' fp and went and used our Test Track fp. We've got the Disney system down :) I think it brought my husband great joy to have a strategy and see it perfectly executed!

While we were in line at Soarin' Chris says... that looks like Glen up there (Glen and Chris were on the Pastoral team together in Gilbert.) A day earlier we ran into a pastor friend and his wife from Maryland while in line for a ride. It was crazy. I told Chris that he was just seeing things now that we've already seen someone we know. After riding Soarin' I went to the bathroom, I place I frequented a lot unfortunately being pregnant, and lo and behold there was Rebekah, Glen's wife!! What a small world :)


One of the coolest things at Epoct was their garden! Innovative, cutting edge ideas, all thrown into gardening!




Also going on at Epcot was a festival of flowers. They had different disney characters created with bushes & flowers all throughout the park. It was impressive.


All in all we had such a great time together celebrating our marriage! I love this man more than anything! I'm so grateful for all the people/family who took our kids making this memorable trip possible. I'd also like to thank our kids who never once said "You're going to Disney World without us?!?!" I think that speaks to their excitement over who they were staying with :)






The last day Chris talked me into trying out for the American Idol experience. I think that's better left to a post in and of itself.


Thank you Love for all your hard work in putting this trip together for us! You were the one who made sure this happened! Eager to let me know that our marriage and God's grace to us for giving us 10 beautiful years together, is something worth celebrating!

Valentine's Day Ideas

This week we have a Valentine's Day party with a homeschool group we are apart of and I will be hosting our neighborhood's playgroup. I've been searching for some crafts/cards/baking ideas to do with the kids. There are so many creative, fun ideas out there. I'm not sure what all we'll have time to do this week, as I'm having a bridal shower here friday night for a dear friend, but I did want to share some of what I found.

I love these cello topper bags from The Celebration Shoppe Blog! I'm hoping to use these as Valentines! Seems easy enough :)


Melt Your Valentine's Heart Necklace:
I really need to do something like this one day... I've been saving up all our broken crayons and they're just sitting there :)

Martha Stewart, as always, has some great ideas! I'm thinking of doing the Flower/Lollipop creation with Taylor.



Secret-agent-josephine has a really cute free valentine download for kids to pass out. I'm thinking of gluing them onto cardstock and having Trevor sign his name on the back!




My friend Megan has all sorts of links and idea's that she's been posting in her "I Heart" series. Love the heart garland she made with her kids last week and her most recent one "I Heart Baking" has got me craving all sorts of goodies!




And my favorite that we do every year is Rice Krispy Treats (colored pink) and cut out into heart shapes. Doesn't get much easier then that :)

Hope everyone enjoys their valentine week!

Family Pictures

I've spent quite a bit of time taking family pictures this season for people and last week it was our family's turn. Our friend Luz came and stayed thanksgiving week with us. We've been hosting her stuff for her while she's traveled back and forth to Seattle. She graciously agreed to spend one of her AZ afternoons snapping some family pictures for us and I've spent the past week editing them.

Often the night before I have a family session scheduled I'll sit and think about everything that could go wrong. It's a curse I have. Thankfully I have yet to have a nightmare of a time with any of the kids I've worked with. The afternoon at the park I felt like I was living out my nightmares out with my own children! Little Rylee had no desire to sit still and smile. Quite the opposite. Thankfully on the way to the park, I said to Chris, "I just want to have fun with them and if we get some pictures too, then great." He had to remind me of that a couple of times as the afternoon went on :) And even though some of the kids were less cooperative then others we still got pictures that I will treasure for this lifetime!

So brace yourself here comes 100 pictures. Maybe all these pictures will make up for my lack of blogging :)

Let's start with reality first


grateful for the effectiveness of ice cream bribes...


Fun in the rose garden:






After some more attempts at posing with pouting it was time to break out the guitar & bubbles.


Oh how I love this one... she just adores her daddy!


This is our family. Taylor dancing and singing, Trevor staying close by and keeping busy and Rylee off doing her own thing in the dirt :)




Forget the uncooperative kids :)



Chris and I are coming up on 10 years this summer!

A few more favorites...







Another attempt at a family photo. This was a change. Rylee looking and the others, who knows what they are doing :)


Thankfully with the help of photoshop we did get one nice family shot!


Thank you Luz for blessing us with your friendship and blessing us with your gift of capturing people through your lens! Our friend Sarah came and took some video while we were there. I look forward to seeing and sharing that soon!

Trick or Treat

This year we spent some time trick or treating with our neighbors! It was lots of fun seeing all the kids dressed up and their wide eyes when candy was poured into their bag :) Although we can't and don't support halloween and what it stands for, we do enjoy decorating pumpkins and taking the opportunity to build relationships with our neighbors. I mean really how often can you go door to door with your kids, meet your neighbors (I even got some phone numbers & e-mails) and have that not be weird!


Look at all my candy!!


Costumes in Action :)


these little ones were precious... two different grandma's bought the same bee costume for their granddaughters, who happen to be next door neighbors :)


"H" wanted to be in front directing everyone for our group picture



mom got her to move :)

9 Years

I can't let 9 years of marriage go by without acknowledging what a blessed women I am. It has been amazing to watch the Love of my life grow as a loving, faithful, caring husband. A father who leads his children gently and makes them laugh like no one else. And finally as a church planter, who although is being stretched in ways like never before, has his eyes on His father who is leading Him through each and every step of the way. Even though you are incredibly busy you have never sacrificed pouring into our marriage and making time for us to grow together as a couple! What beautiful fruit we reap because of this.

I love you babe. You are my best friend. There is no one I'd rather be walking through this adventure with.

*picture was taken a few days before our engagement at a New Years Eve Party back in 99' : )

Soakin' In My Mother's Day

This year for Mother's Day I got what every tired, weary from moving, mom wants.


Ah.... paradise :)

A few days before moving in I was surprised to find my Master Bedroom tub/shower combo gone and a separate shower & Jacuzzi tub in it's place. I don't know but I think that should win him a husband of the year award or something!

He also had these beautiful niches built in around the tub. A total of four. I love it!


Here's a blurry before:


and one during construction:


It was quite the transformation.

Thank you Love! If you ever can't find me... you'll know where I am :)

Happy Return & Happy Easter

I love Easter. I love meditating on the power that comes in knowing and believing that Christ did indeed rise from the dead. Not only did He go to the cross to die as a perfect man for mine & your sins but he also conquered death for his children as well! Hallelujah what a Savior!

We have been reading the kids the Jesus Story Book Bible. Here's a section from the story on the resurrection that brings tears to my eyes. Mary has just found Jesus alive and was running to tell the others.

"And it seemed to her that morning, as she ran, almost as if the whole world had been made anew, almost as if the whole world was singing for joy- the tress, tiny sounds in the grass, the birds... her heart. Was God really making everything sad come untrue? Was he making even death come untrue? She couldn't wait to tell Jesus' friends."

Chris, Taylor & I just returned from a week in Maryland. Chris & I had our Pastor's & wives conference with Sovereign Grace. Taylor stayed with our old P.C. host family for the week and after the conference we all did a little D.C. sightseeing. It was an amazing week having our souls refreshed and meeting with others. The highlight was definitely spending the last day with our second family, the Dustins! We miss you guys already. If time permits I have much to write on in the upcoming weeks and plenty of pictures to edit and post as well! And since I just found out that I'm not moving for two more weeks I should have some time :)

*the above picture is of hannah's adorable bunny...with easter nearing I couldn't resist :)

Happy Birthday Pirate Trevor

Today we threw Trevor a 4th birthday party. This was his first "friend" party and also the last birthday party in this house, as well as living in Gilbert.

Over the past year Chris has been playing this game with the kids where he comes out as "Blackbeard" the friendly pirate and takes them on treasure hunts. Sometimes he makes them work for their treasure by having them help mommy clean up the house. I love blackbeard. So do the kids. And it is for this reason Trevor wanted a pirate party. We invited 8 friends plus two older boys in the church that trevor looks up to and all of them came! He was blessed! The kids showed up and went out back and played and got pirate tattoos & eye patches. Then once everyone arrived I had spray painted mini treasure chests black for each kid to decorate and gave them pirate coloring sheets to color.

Afterwards I sat them down and told them black beards legend. Which I'm told I didn't do very well, sorry honey I'm just not as gifted in this area as you are :) Then lo and behold blackbeard came!! I love my husband for many reasons and this is just one of them... when I came home with a pirate outfit, gold earring and all, he threw it all on and was such a good sport about it too :)


It was so cute to see their faces. He put them through pirate school. Starting with giving them all pirate names. Then he played blackbeard says.


Taught them how to walk the plank and throw gold coins into the ocean. I don't know why that's a good skill to have... but hey the kids loved it :)


Then they went on a treasure hunt through the house which ended with Blackbeard's treasure. I think all the candy was stuffed into bags in a matter of seconds!

Then it was time for presents & cake. Ruth, my talented friend, helped me make this awesome pirate ship cake. And by help me I mean she made it while I did what she told me to do :)


Say "ARRRR"