This fall Paige's cousin got married in St. Louis.

We were able to take an extra afternoon to travel around the city with the family.

Here are a few favorite shots!

Right before this school year we snuck out to Colorado for one last summer hoorah. There was hiking, fishing, jeeping, napping, and a whole lot of relaxing. Out of the hundreds of photos and video, I thought these were most fitting to share. Enjoy.

This year we had some fun coming up with our wrapping paper.

We broke out Paige's paper cutter and plugged it into my computer to cut out everybody's name!

It took a whole evening to get it all done and I had to break out the tweezers to get the letters just right, but it worked!

I have to admit this wasn't an original idea. I first saw it on Lifehacker and realized that the idea was brilliant.

Hope you all were somewhat creative this holiday season. These were the most uniquely wrapped gifts under the tree this year.

This year we took it easy with decorating....

Ha! right!

We had our Charlie Brown specials on and Hot Drink Maker pumping out hot chocolate like crazy.

The star you see was actually made for my mother by her father a loooooong time ago. I restrung it with new lights last year and was finally able to put it up on the house. We placed it so it faces the pond so all of the neighbors and people driving by have a little surprise!

Thanksgiving this year was splendid! We were able to enjoy time with most of our family on and around Thanksgiving day. The blessing that is our family is something that we are truly grateful for each and every day. It was especially nice to spend the holiday with them.

We had a turkey eating marathon for sure! Thanksgiving Eve with my extended family, Thanksgiving lunch with that crew again, dinner with Barry's extended family, Friday at my parents, Saturday at Barry's parents with more extended family. The family, food and fellowship was wonderful. Needless to say, we haven't been craving much turkey lately.

I hope no matter how you spent your Turkey Day (or Days) that you found as much to be thankful for as we did!

'Tis the time of year for yummy treats! I decided to get out my cookie press and make some fun, little sugar cookies. The press makes it easy to bake sugar cookies without the mess and time commitment of icing. Although, not much beats an iced sugar cookie! This option was much more appealing on this particular day.

The process was as simple as mixing the batter, loading the press and pressing out the cookies. Then I added a few sprinkles and into the oven they went!

There you go. Cookie Press Cookies!

We decided to put a coat of stain on the deck before it got too cold out. We ended up using a natural toner from Lowes so the wood grain would show through nicely. Overall, we love it!

*We learned to not buy expensive brushes for oil based anything, it's almost impossible to clean out of the brush. Maybe I don't follow directions very well either...

Well, one year older, one year wiser. Lets hope I can learn how to smoke some ribs!

I realize I've written about this trip in more than one location. I just wanted to have it well documented!

I've learned never to write about your trip while you are on it. Or else the bad people of the world know you're away from home.

Paranoid, I know, but I love having a bit of mystery in the world about what we're up to until we publicize it ourselves.

The Shultz family graciously invited me to Orlando for the CLS National Conference.

I flew in on Thursday into Orlando, took a cab to the hotel, unwound, then wound right back up to have dinner with a couple of very important people.

The opening ceremony was that night. Don Davis from World Impact here in Wichita was down there as the guest speaker. (I was able to have dinner with him too!) He spoke about owning up to the name 'Christian'. And the immense amount of passion that drove his presentation was literally life changing. I am changed. [ Read more ]