Our Tex-iversary

Ok so fun, I google imaged Texas Love (in retrospect probably a bad idea) but this was the second image that came up. I decided it was appropriate!

We have officially lived in Texas for an entire year as of today! We drove into the state on June 26, 2007 and I have to say, we've never looked back! I think we've done a great job of adjusting, being Northerners and all. I've successfully hung on to my North Shore accent, Dad would be proud. Hey, if 20 years in farm country couldn't shake the Chicagoan out of me, there's little chance that Texas can! I will admit to the occasional ya'll slipping into my vocab, it's just easier. Plus, our students really give me a hard time for my hard midwestern "you guys" and the ladies here take major offense when you call them guys. It's 'yes ma'am or no ma'am' or you may as well hold your tongue!

It's all good though. I've learned a lot in the past year. For instance, how to eat Mexican food, how to eat seafood, and how to eat BBQ - though it's still not my fave. I will admit to the occasional Pappadeaux's craving and shock of all, I actually felt like El Torro yesterday. Man, they have yummy guac dip. I've mastered the art of the one way feeder road. Ok, well, not quite, but I'm almost there. I've fallen in love with the water! Not so much being in it, but enjoying living close to the coast, smelling it in the air. I can't say enough about the weather either, it's been awesome to photograph outside ALL YEAR ROUND! What a blessing!

Anyhoo, we are officially Texans. We love it. We are here to stay. Hope that doesn't disappoint anyone too badly. :)

So Loving My Camera!

Hubby snapped this beautiful shot of me and Sare yesterday. wow.

Looking forward to the weekend, five shoots in the next five days, yay! I've been a bit creatively constipated lately, so it should be a really wonderful five days!! Be watching ATP for some new photos here shortly!!

FFN strikes again...

Sadly I have no fun photos to share. But we had a great family fun night here at the Thoreson's. First of all, we were going to go swimming, but the weather didn't cooperate. In fact, if you want a laugh, look at the weather for Baytown the next 10 days, it's thunderstorm after thunderstorm. No complaints for me though, the storming keeps the temperature down!
So we picked up the kids from Summer Fun, which they are loving, and took them to the library for some new inspiration. I found several photography books, so that's pretty cool. The kids each picked out a movie and two books. Then we loaded them back in the car and went out towards the bay. We parked in a marina parking lot (in the drizzle), popped the hatch and laid all the seats down, pulled out a pre-packed picnic and had dinner in the car. It was a blast. Definitely some good memories there, too bad I forgot our camera. I really need to invest in a new small point and shoot, our Kodak is just done for so I wind up missing all those snapshot moments I used to be really good about. My beloved Nikon is just too big for family fun night, and the Canon isn't much better.
Oh, I lied. I do have a couple photos to share. We are caring for someone's kitty's while they are out of town. He's extremely picky about his yard, and Rob walked in to find this mess late this afternoon. So we spent the last hour and a half doing community service. :) Still, a good family event. We got the pool totally clean (which is major because there was a lot of branches, pine needles, cones and general debris in there) and all the branches,etc into two major piles on each end of the pool, off the grass and up on the patio. Rob and some of our students are going to go over and finish cleaning up tomorrow afternoon. What a mess! Thankfully, none of these branches hit the house, or did any real damage to the pool or diving board. whew.

TUESDAY IS RELIENT K DAY!!!

Ok, so I literally was babbling to Rob this morning about how it's been WAY too long since my boys Relient K have released a new album and I'm ready for some new inspiration. Then a little while later I was reading a two peas mb about music which lead me to itunes to do a little research which made me remember the comment I made to Rob which brought me to this!!! Is this not the coolest thing to happen all summer?? First that it's new, yipee!! Second, that there's a BIRD on the album, how cool is that! And third that' there is really TWENTY-SIX songs on this bad boy. Oh, I'm excited alright. Now it's just do I order it from the christian bookstore or buy it on itunes. I don't know, that album looks pretty stinking sweet, I may just have to have it.

So now I'm counting days to Tuesday.


Cause I'm mature like that.

(five days people, look alive.)

Prelude to a Post

[photo taken Saturday pm - on an emergency Walgreens run]

Saturday was a long day. As you know I did some serious garage sale-ing in the morning and then we went to a wonderful wedding. After that we swung by the grocery store for some baking supplies, we had a bake sale for the missions trip on Sunday morning and I was asked to bring a baked good to sell. So I got my stuff, dead tired. got home, go the kids to bed and went to bake my famous Butter Cake, which is really Nae from Illinois' famous butter cake. And I had forgotten cream cheese, so I had to run back out. I was seriously annoyed with myself, only because I was so wiped out (we now know I was probably getting sick). So the first gas station didn't have it and I had to run all the way down Garth to Walgreens and I was just grumbling "why did I forget this? what purpose is this for?" blah blah blah. And then I looked up and saw this bow in the sky and I decided it was really worth it. God reminded me of His faithfulness and His overall purpose. I wound up seeing one of Sarah's LGA teachers at Walgreens, and a student whom we had lost contact with. All things work together for His good.

So worship on Sunday was amazing. Rob lead, which is always cool. God has really been moving during our services lately, and using Rob in a major way and it's so awesome to watch it all happen, kwim? (who knew my husband could dance, right?) Anyhoo, I love it when Rob leads because I know how much he enjoys it and the congregation gets way into it. But I struggle personally because I'm usually nervous for him and it's distracting in worship. Anyway, this week was really special because I could focus in - maybe because we've been here a year already - wow! But I was way into it and then we sang "Mighty to Save" which is one of my all-time fave worship songs. The first time we heard this song was at Rob's license recognition service up in Illinois at District Council. It was a strange time in our life, we were in the middle of the interview process with Trinity, still serving in Hartford, and just going through some tough personal stuff. I think we were both struggling with being at District Council because we literally came home from those meetings and left for Texas for our interview. Kind of a foot in each world sort of thing. But it seemed like during that particular service God just slowed time and asked us each to focus on Him instead of all our 'stuff'. The worship team was amazing, so enthused and engaging. Then they sang 'Mighty to Save' and we were reminded once again that our God could provide all our needs. That He was bigger than our situation, or any people or personalities in our situation, that He truely did still have control and we could trust Him with our very lives. I thought about all that we had been through, marrying young and dropping out of bible college, selling our home and going back to school, surviving Ozark, finally graduating (9 years after he started!) and then the first year and half of ministry and I realized that God was more than enough for our lives. It was a pretty big moment in my life, obviously if I still remember it so clearly a year later. So now when I hear that song, it reminds me of God's faithfulness in my own life. How he truly is Mighty to Save - that no situation is bigger than Him and His infinite love.


Back to Sunday morning - we sang this song and I reflected on God's faithfulness again, He gently reminded me to live in the light of where He's brought me from. I can't take for granted what He's brought me out of, how He saved me, changed me, and made me whole again. More than that, I can't be content in just that, I need to share my story with others. I've been trying extremely hard to be more outgoing with people this year, to draw them out and into conversations, especially strangers at the grocery store or in the dr's office, where ever I am. I've been growing a lot in this area, even my hubby has noticed. But God is asking me for the next step. I felt like He specifically dropped the phrase "tell your story" in my mind on Sunday morning and I thought about a venue to do that in. Duh. My blog. I have never shared my full story on my blog. Sure, if you've been reading from the beginning, you may think you have a pretty good grasp of my story, but I know there are things I haven't shared even here. And if you are a new reader, I'm pretty sure you don't want to go back to August of 2005 and start reading now! :) Anyhoo, I mentally made the commitment to blog my story and then we started singing the bridge part - " Shine your light and let the whole world see
We're singing for the glory of the risen King...Jesus" and it was such a confirmation of what had just taken place in my heart. I was excited.
So I write all that to tell you to watch for it. My story is coming. And I'm going to link it into my profile, so anyone who accesses ATP could potentially read my story as well. I'm pretty excited.

(i'm pretty sick this morning though, I was up all night with the flu and it's still kicking my can this morning, so it may not be today. Just typing out this much took it out of me. Your prayers would be appreciated)

The New Song In My Head

Our student Kevin has stuck this melody in my head. Thought I needed to share. I think it will make a really cool video at some point. I'm not a ginormous coldplay fan, but this song is pretty spectacular. enjoy!

New Inspiration and New Pages

I found this amazing ugly chair while garage sale-ing on Saturday morning. Danielle and I woke up smelly-crack early and tromped through all of Baytown (truely, Mt Belviue to Country Club) in search of deals. We definitely found some and it was pretty fun. I found this chair at our last stop and paid the grand total of $10 for it! I can't wait to drag it out in a field with a willing subject. It will be beautiful against a Texas sky, I'm sure! Wish I had some senior portraits booked, but it will happen, I'm sure. Meanwhile, my kids love it like crazy, in fact they are watching tv in it right now.

Also, scrapbooking friday night was a pretty big hit. We had six ladies and stayed until 11am. My poor kids were wiped out, but it was a fun evening. I did two pages and started another two. Here they are.
This page I really like. It's about our hallway back in '97. If you look closely, there's a really neat swirly design on there - it's from Danielle's Cricut machine. It's a pretty cool device, used to cut out diecuts of almost any size and shape.
This page is a total lift of a Kellie Crowe page. It was just so bright and happy and it was perfect for my Iowa page. I added the birds, they just felt like that was a good home.
This page is pretty fun too, very random, but hey, that's ok. I love these flowers from Prima.
And this page is ok, using some fun new Heidi products. But I love how my office chandalier looks in this photo! :)

Momentum

is building.

Tonight was relatively awesome. The kids got way into it. Our team leaders did great and everyone had a fabulous time. I can't wait to see where this goes!
This is the hallway to leading to our youth room, it's actually long and narrow with two big picture windows looking over the gym. The stripe goes the length of the hallway, and there's a bench for lounging.

This is Tim and he's near certifiable - very into it tonight. I drew the juice box on their flag, since I was the Orange team's point counter this evening.
Here's Rob doing the welcome.
Omega was excited to be on the green team with Kevin.
So were these two girls, Nicole and Shonte.
I was super impressed with this flag, the Red team won the flag competition.
Chris went all Braveheart on us, but it was pretty awesome.
Tim is standing in our new visitor room, which we just finished yesterday. It's a cool place to greet our new students and have them fill out info cards, chill and have a soda/snack.
Then we came home to this. And realized shortly that we caught them in the act!
They were just hiding around the backside of the house. They came back for more.
At one point I took out the trash, then found it like this later.
This might be my favorite part though! Way to show team spirit guys!
I love how if you look closely, this says 'red'. extra points for creativity. straws? wow.

And yep, that's our car that they vandalized. Our children are going to love it in the morning!

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Or should I say team spirit?

Tonight we launch Momentum, a huge summer long thrill ride that we are putting our students through. PR and I are pretty jazzed about the whole thing.

This morning, getting dressed, I pulled out a blue shirt, but then realized that it wouldn't do, showing favor over one team than the others. So I added and accessory to represent each team, cute right? Blue shirt, red shoes, green necklace, orange rhinestone clip. Definately a salute to color-blind folks everywhere.

(ok, so normal people wouldn't go out in public like this - but when has anyone ever accused me of being normal? normal is so over-rated anyway.)

My darling son participated in my insanity (because he's cool like that) and took this photo, pretty snazzy for a seven year old, eh?

cheers.



PS - stay tuned for fun pics from tonight's adventures. It's going to be a wild summer.

a Couple Pages from the Other Day

So I slacked off again on Monday afternoon and scrapbooked a little more. I feel like I'm starting to catch up - yay!

I love this first page, it's too bright and crazy. a bit self-portraying perhaps.I really like this one too though, it's kind of peaceful. the pink bird reminds me of the sea gulls. I love sea gulls, even though I know they are kind of the rats of the ocean. bleh. Oh well, they are pretty to watch.

Happy Father's Day!

Me singing "I Want To Be Just Like You" to Eli


These are my boys. aww.

So happy to see these people.

I am so thankful for all these jabronies to be back in to my life. It was so wierd not seeing them and bumping around in an empty house.

Today we had a meeting at church in the am, we came home for lunch and then sent everyone for quiet time. I slept for two hours! I guess my 12 hour drive thursday and working yesterday just wore me out. An interruption from my previous vigorous schedule of eating and slacking I guess.

This afternoon I have a baptism to shoot. I'm pretty excited about it. God has been so good to ATP lately and I am super-grateful every day that He's given me this gift. I probably say that a ton, but I really want to continue to give Him the glory for each and every good thing in my life.

I realized I haven't checked in on 'Giving God 29' in a while. So far, I'd pretty much say this has been the best year of my life. I know it's a little early, but it's true. I've never lived with as much focus as I have this year. Now, I'll be the first to say that some things have fallen by the wayside. I'm sitting in my living room, which is totally disheveled, and I'm not even freaking out. I'm trying to focus more on my relationships and how my kids and friends and the people in church will remember me rather than having my house completely picked up and all my little tasks checked off on my to-do list. In fact, this week I spent a day and a half just kicking back and scrapbooking and watching a movie and chatting on the phone. I didn't even look at my to-do list until noon on Tuesday! The thing about a to-do list? It will always be there. (at least in my world) And I will always be adding to it. But if I wait until everything is checked off to relax and spend a little time in self-care, it will never happen and I will literally run through this life worn and uptight for the world to see my example of what a 'true christian' looks like.

Not cool people. Not cool at all.

so this week I learned about the art of chill. Not too much chilling, not laziness or slacking off, just enough to take the edge off and remember the person I was in high school - not this driven, burn both ends of the candle, packed-schedule beast I've become.

And God has been moving in my life. Jodi spoke on Wednesday night about being the salt of the earth and it really confirmed so many things I have heard in my own time with the Lord lately. Also, the Psalms have been solidifying my view of God's character, and it's so awesome to focus on who He is and what exactly His promises are to me. My life makes so much more sense in the the light of His Word.

I also spent some time listening to Joel Osteen and Beth Moore this week. Joel really talked about the power of investing in others, pausing in your life to help the people around you. You can't walk on this great journey of life with God and just leave the people in your wake and I thought that was really good. He was saying to bless others (teach, help, disciple) for the blessing you yourself will receive, but I think it's more about the "Go into all the world" aspect, it's a commandment. The blessing comes from the obedience, it's a natural God response. I never want to be in this life for the blessing, rather to be the blessing. It's like Christmas, it's way more fun to give than to receive. He did say, though, probably to people like me, that you need to allow people the joy of blessing you. Hey, I guess I can receive that because I know how much fun it is to give!

Speaking of give, tomorrow is Father's Day and I'm pretty psyched to spend the day with Rob, making him feel like a king. He's singing a special solo to Eli tomorrow morning in church and that should be pretty sweet. I'm warning you though, I'm probably going to cry! We are going to grill steaks and enjoy his favorite dessert, Strawberry Shortcake, for dessert. We are also going to have a giant family water balloon fight in the backyard - we may have to make that a Texas Father's Day tradition. :)

Well, I think I've lazed away enough of the day. I've got about 4 piles of laundry in the next room and this disheveled house can only stay this way for so long before I start to get a little crazy. Hey, some things will never change completely! :) Happy Saturday everyone!

Have You Wondered?

Why my life has been so quiet this week?

I owe a big thank you to my mother-in-law, Ginny and her husband Charlie, for taking the kids for the week. Rob was at camp, and I was supposed to go to, but just got really overwhelmed with all the chaos in our life lately. So I stayed home for a few days by myself and it was wonderful. Seriously people, I didn't even get out of my jammies on Tuesday until noon! That is unheard of in my life. There was one whole day that I didn't put on make-up! (I apologize to anyone who accidentally saw me that day!) I feel so much more rested mentally, and ready to tackle all the challenges of the summer - and believe me, there are quite a few lying ahead of us!

Today I drove back up to Atlanta, TX to pick up the kids. I enjoyed 5 hours in the car alone, listening to podcasts, a little Relient K (wow, I love those boys, it's ridiculous!) and spending TONs of time on the phone. It was so good catching up with people. I met Ginny and the kids at a fun Texas Grill and what a greeting I had! We had a long trip back to Baytown, and parts of it were a bit rough. 12 hours in the car is a lot for anyone though.

But I'm so happy to have my little ones home again. Yes, there was screaming and fit-throwing and general worn-out-ed-ness, but I'm thrilled to see my children's chubby little fingers and run my hands through their silky blonde hair and listen to their excited stories of adventures in the sprinkler and Walmart and everything in between. I had a severe hug deficiency this week with my whole family being a-wall and so now they are making up for it, big time. I think Sarah told me 42 times that she 'really, really' missed me. And Eli whispered in my ear that I was 'the best mom ever in the whole wide world' as I tucked him in tonight. There are some things about being a mom that are just amazing.

I know I say it a lot, but that doesn't make it any less true. I am a blessed, blessed woman.

PS - this picture is from about a month ago maybe. My kids are way too photogenic, I know.

feeling scrapbook-y

Got some serious scrapping time in earlier this week. Starting to feel more like myself again. excuse the terrible photos, it's not like I'm a professional or anything. ;)
This page I actually did several weeks ago. The paper is from Hobby Lobby, but I dressed it up a bit with some puffy paint. The title shows up better in real life. I love the new felt butterflies from Heidi, they are absolutely yummy!
This is a masking technique I lifted from two peas. I cut out four squares and temporarily adhered them, then spraypainted the whole kabosh in the garage. I really liked the end result.
And this page just evolved as I went along. That's polka dot felt around the edge. It was pretty fun. I've done a lot of sewing lately for some reason.
This is a life of a Kelli Crowe page in the garden this month.
And this page just cracks me up. I'm missing my E.

Love the sentiment behind this page, but it came out a little too polished for my taste.
Yep, this is more like it, loud and proud, right?

Also painted the master bedroom. It's very refreshing now.

realife

is amazing.

I am so excited about the way everything went down yesterday.


First of all, I feel like I've been living/eating/breathing realife prep the past week or so. But all the prep was totally worth it. We had 31 young adults show up for lunch yesterday! Out of our congregation of approx. 200, that's amazing! (We also had 7 childcare workers and 14 little ones!) Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves and grasp the vision of realife (connecting with each other, our church, and God). Then conversation flowed and I heard lots of laughter. We had one first-time visiting couple that stayed for lunch - that rocked my world! Kevin shot some video and when we get that edited I'll share it here.

I'm just so excited about all the things God is doing in our church right now. Realife could be potentially life changing for all those involved. We are also doing a HUGE promo for youth over the summer, called Momentum, and we are super psyched about that! God is so good!!

Missing Picture

For some crazy reason I forgot to post this picture yesterday and it's probably my favorite from the entire week. Rob caught Sare and I chilling poolside. It's pretty neat because you can see how she's still my baby once in a while! I love the intimacy in this photo.

Extra Vacation Days

We have been so blessed these past few days to spend some time with my cousin Sara and her beautiful family. Today we played in Kemah, but earlier in the week we spent a day at San Luis Pass and that was pretty amazing.

Here's me and Sare kicking back and enjoying the breeze. I say 'breeze' jokingly because the beaches were closed today due to high winds!

Here's daddy and Sarah having a deep conversation dockside.
The beautiful Oswald family, I love them!
Karl enjoying the sun and sand. He tolerated the water too. :)
Rob enjoyed the sand too. :)
Rob definitely embraced the beachy/windblown/sunkissed look. I love my reflection in his sunglasses.
He was playing with the kids a lot, very relaxed that day.
These two cousins just adore each other, just like me and Sara did all growing up.
Sara and her youngest, Erik.
Karl kicking back in the pool.
Rob and my Sare attacking the boys. You've gotta love a funnoodle!
Eli had great fun on the boogie board.
The three of them floated around for a long time.
Me relaxing with my camera.
Rob and I on a sunset walk with Sara, Sarah, and Erik.
The light was beautiful. Doesn't hurt that we are a couple of hotties either. (j/k)
Now, there's a beautiful girl. Sometimes I look at her and see glimpses of the young lady she's becoming. amazing.
This is the resort they were staying at. It was a perfect day.

I almost forgot. We finally got to ride the Bullet. We've only been waiting a year! It's so sad though, we didn't get any pictures and for me, for some reason, if I didn't take a photo, it's almost like it didn't happen. What's with that?? But it was amazing. Crazy ride, very intense. I can't wait to do it again! Maybe on a date night. ;)