H.I.T.T.

Yesterday was HITT, Houston International Taekwondo Tournament. Jon Micheal competed in sparring, patterns, and breaking (plastic boards). Here's some pictures from the tournament...you know me, I'm to busy to actually get them all in order so just read the captions and you'll get it!!! Some of the pictures are very dark, it was very strange lighting and I tried using and not using the flash but they still are weird, sorry!

Second round of sparring.

Gold Medal in sparring! Can you tell the other kids are kinda disappointed?!?! So sad!

The winner....first round of sparring.

Silver medal in patterns.

Getting ready to perform his pattern, second round, competing for first place.

Jalyn doing his thing to keep busy. We usually find an out of the way corner and plop down the backpack and toys and try to stay busy. Its a very long day for him (me too), we got there at 8:30am and left at 2:30pm.

This was this afternoon (Sunday), the boys swim while I work in the yard and mow. Its the first real swim day they've had this year.

Samson was worried about Jon Michael. When he dives and swims from one end to the other, Samson runs along the side of the pool and whines until he comes up...sometimes he even nips at him when he grabs the side of the pool.

Ok, that was our busy weekend! Hope everyone else's was good, even if it was busy like ours.

My Manly Men!

Here's just a few pictures I had filed away of my "manly men"...enjoy!

Jonathan benchpressing Jalyn...(can you tell he dressed himself?)

Of course you can't do one and not the other!


Jon Michael trying to benchpress Jalyn. Jalyn's so trusting....I'm sure that'll get him in trouble later as they get older!

Now trying to lift Daddy.

Poor Samson...he's not as trusting but he has no choice!

The boys love learning to work on things and build. He was so proud that Daddy let him do all the work installing his new kickstand. He found the right socket all by himself and everything.

See that man right there? The handsome one... That's a good daddy...

Busy Weekend

It was a crazy busy time for us this past weekend. I left Friday morning and headed to Carthage to pick up Court and the kids. Then we headed to Durant for Tab's baby shower on Saturday morning. Then we headed right back to Carthage after the shower and then I headed home to Houston after dropping them off!!! Then we got home and had a busy Easter Sunday but it was all great. Here's a few pictures from the weekend.

Jonathan says its so sad that I'm the tallest one in the picture!!




Easter egg hunt at our Baptism and Party Sunday night.


This is Karen, such a wonderful example of God moving...what a blessing she is to me.

We had a great Easter. There was some HARD rain but by the afternoon it was sunny and great. That morning we had so many at church we had to add chairs in the back. God is bringing visitors to our new building, its an exciting time. We had 5 people baptized that night, just another example of Him moving in people's lives.

We hope your weekend was great and you got to celebrate Easter in a wonderful way!!!

We're In Our New Church Building!!!

Two Sundays ago we finally got into our new church building! Its been a long process b/c it was on a piece of land that had nothing and had to have all the huge city water lines and everything brought to it. Of course lots of issues with permits and inspections and stuff as usual. The delays though allowed us to be able to afford to pave the parking lot b/c the price of oil went down during the process! This was something that wasn't in the budget before but it is SO NICE to be able to have it paved b/c the rock and dirt that was there b/f was awful when it rained. We had 195 people there for the first service, it was amazing. Because we have this location we are now able to have more bible studies take place, this week we are starting mens and womens bible studies, and the response for the women has blown us away! Over 30 women have signed up! I even had a lady ask if all that signed up were actually from our church! God is moving, its great! Here's a few pictures of the "Homecoming Day"...

Pastor Mike, reading scripture and praying b/f the ribbon cutting

Church leadership team and Pastor's family getting ready to cut the ribbon

This is our baby room, its where I serve in the nursery

The boys looking at the mural in the elemen. room

The foyer, guest desk and nursery check in station

The sanctuary, you can't tell but there are two sections this size of seating, with an aisle in the middle of the two

Mr. Buddy having a ribbon cutting into the childrens hallway of classes

In the corner of the property is a little garden

So if you're in our area we'd love for you to join us! We're a small but growing church body that loves the Lord and each other.

Spring Break Pictures

We had a long and busy spring break but a very good one also. We visited all the grandparents on my side of the family and traveled through 7 states! I didn't get a picture of it but in Missouri as I was driving down the road (it was night and dark) I saw a little flashing light on the shoulder ahead of us....as I got closer I realized it was a buggy!!! I'm assuming Amish, there were lots of signs to watch out for buggies on the road...so cool, I felt so bad for them though b/c they don't have headlights and the highway we were on didn't have streetlights so if a car wasn't driving by it was pitch dark!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

We made it home with my great grandmothers antique sewing machine and an uncles and my grandpa's carpentry tools and cases that were handmade...very cool....can't wait to be able to get to work restoring the sewing machine.

My turn! I've been tagged!

Ok, so Carissa tagged me....here's the forth picture in the forth folder on my computer...not very exciting, huh?

My friend from church and I saw this cross at a craft show this past December. I always take pictures of crafts ideas that I'm "stealing"!!!!

Not sure how many I'm supposed to tag so I'm gonna tag:

Ana Williams

Kaylene Carpio

Same thing, post the forth picture in the forth folder in your computer.

(Stay tuned, soon I'll post pictures from our spring break across 7 states and of our new church building, we had our first service this last Sunday.)

Testing Time Again...

No, not belt testing, allergy testing!!!! I've been putting it off but I really needed to get it done, Jalyn's eczema acts up more now like when he was a baby so I wanted to see what was going on.

This time was MUCH better than the other times we've had it done. Neither of them used numbing cream and until the blood work part there were no tears. Now the blood work part was pretty rough but at least it was the shortest part of the whole day.

I PROMISE we feed the boy!!!

This is first time w/o the numbing cream, he was AWESOME!

This is Jon Michael's itchy dance.
They each had their moment they thought they just wouldn't be able to handle it anymore!

Poor Jalyn, laying on his arms so he wouldn't be tempted to scratch.

We won't have any definite results for a week, after the blood work comes back. Jalyn still tested positive for milk, and a LOTS of what I call "hay fever" allergens...he basically looks like my test results, high on trees, grass, pollen, dust mites, weeds, etc.... Although Jon Michael is the one who they always see his eyes and say, "Look at this text book case of allergic signs", tested positive to nothing on his back as far as "hay fever" allergens. He had a few little reactions to some foods but not milk, but the blood work will tell us if that's true or not and what others reacted this time. Its always an interesting day when its time to test but its so much better knowing whats going on with their bodies!!! Let you know what happens with the blood work in a week or so.