Posts filed under 'Website'
And now, I’m going to make public my NYR-11. I don’t think I’ve ever made resolutions public before, but it will be interesting to see if I can keep up with all of these or if I’ll need to set my sights higher in June.
This is a list of things I would like to get done; a sort of long-term “to-do” list.
1. Backyard Garden – take better care of it and be more involved with the planting and care = weeding, watering, etc. (This has been Kevin’s job, but I’d like to do more of it since I’m home more.)
2. Front Yard Maintenance – also take care of it better and involve the kids in the weeding and sweeping and throwing away of yard refuse. (They are able to do these jobs and would like to do so more.)
3. Build a Deck on the Back Patio – looking to Kevin for assistance on this one. And, considering our recent purchase of wood for burning in our fireplace, we need some more room up there.
4. Build an Outdoor Shed in the Back Yard.
5. Buy and Put in Kids’ Playscape/Playground. This will be their combined birthday present this year.
And now for my own personal goals:
1. [after my foot heals, which should be 2 more weeks!] Work out 3x/week. This could be at the gym, running in the neighborhood or at the park, doing a workout DVD, or a combination of all. I might need to re-set this goal if I’m continually hitting 3x – might need to be 4x.
2. Freeze More Meals – especially breakfasts. I’ve done well in freezing dinners and getting those on the table, but for breakfast my kids are stuck in a frozen waffle rut. They are okay with that, but I really don’t like frozen waffles, so I’ll tend to skip breakfast and just drink coffee, which leads to a grumpy Jenna. This makes me neither productive nor affectionate, and I lose points with everyone that way. I’ve been loving the book Fix Freeze Feast (you can buy it on Amazon) for making dinner recipes and then freezing them, and I’ve tried a couple of their breakfast recipes but the kids aren’t crazy about them. So, if you have any ideas, send them my way.
3. Meet once a week for mentoring/prayer. I’ve been trying to meet with Kelsey and Addison (our newest adopted Aggie) once a week but something has gotten in the way. But now I’m realizing accountability doesn’t just have to be with them, it can mean coffee with other friends too – although I’d like to be more stable with K&A.
4. Do something fun once a day with the kids. We’ve been doing Tuesday as movie night this month – we’ve gotten so many free Redbox or Blockbuster kiosk rental codes! With foot surgery and being sick and my dad in the hospital, this is one area where I feel like I’ve failed and/or need major help. Hence the goal. Here’s some ideas of mine: Library time, Reading a Story time, Park playtime, Outside playtime, Cooking with Mom time, Science Experiment time, Computer playtime, Dress-up time, Wii-playing time, Art project time, Acting out a story-time…. Also would like for the kids to pick their activities.
5. Take Kevin on 2 trips this year – one in-state, one out of state. Nuff said.
Organizational Goals: I had to make a separate category for this one, because I might just get all excited about organizing my house. I love to organize, and I found this blog called iheartorganizing. ”Inspirational” is not the word I’d use to describe her – I’ll say she’s my creative muse. Wow. the things she does are so pretty. I do heart them, and I’ve been trying to do my own organizing projects around the house. But one thing she says is to start small and choose one project per month. So, here’s my 12 (13?) goals for organization this year, and I hope to have pictures of finished projects up soon, because some of them are DONE!
1. Laundry room
X 2. Wrapping paper & gift bags
3. Kitchen Pantry
4. Colby’s Room
5. Kennedy’s Room
6. Carlee’s Room
7. Master closet
8. Office/Kids’ Art Supplies
9. Entertainment Center
10. Back Patio
11. Night stands
X 12. Kitchen drawers
X 13. Master Bookshelf
So, I haven’t paced myself that well, because I do like to cross things off my list. BUT I will say that it is so good to get organized and I can’t wait til you see what I’ve done with not much time and even less money. Hopefully that will encompass many of the posts on my blog in the near future.
Did you make any NYR?
January 27th, 2011
Kevin has always designed our kids’ birth announcements and our Christmas cards each year. But this year Shutterfly is running a great promotion (which ends December 10th, if you’re interested). I think Kevin gets this year off for good behavior.
We ordered a photo book from Shutterfly this summer. The quality of the book and the pictures is fantastic and I love showing it off. Ask me to look the next time you come over, but don’t you dare take it with you!
I’m having a hard time deciding which Christmas card designs I like best (and an even harder time implementing the pics here…) so I’ll give you some of my favorite links – (and notice that these are all on page 1…!)
O Mod Tannenbaum
Merry Montage Christmas
Merry Stripes
Joy Love Story
December 2nd, 2010
I thought I had clicked Publish on this one but here you go, almost a month later…
Kevin and I were privileged to get to go to Catalyst yet again. (We went to this same conference last year and I blogged about it. Look it up.) One thing I learned is that I don’t know what I learned… God hasn’t yet revealed to me what exactly He wants me to do with the information He has given me. I will say I’m afraid to even speak of some things He has put on mine and Kevin’s hearts, for fear that the Enemy will come to steal joy away from me.
This year’s speaker line-up was fantastic -
- Matt Chandler was there (again) and we got to hear him twice (again). Probably my favorite. God has done incredible things through Matt and his testimony shows how close his relationship with God is. If you like fire and brimstone preaching, get it.
- Rob Bell. He is very prominent in the world of Christians, but I didn’t even know his name til Catalyst. His ministry is full of impact and God’s grace.
- “Andy Frickin’ Stanley” (as some guy put it last year) – on the Exec Staff of Catalyst.. has great vision for the leaders of church ministry
- Louie Giglio was the last person we heard, and what a way to go out. I see why he is so great with college students – his examples are familiar and powerful.
Also highlighting the ministries this year:
- Kiva – a lending organization designed to help businessmen and women in third-world countries build businesses in their own country. Most loans are paid off by 6 months’ time; the average loan is $100.
- Toms – great shoes! You buy one pair, and with the same amount of money they give one pair to someone in another country who needs them. I am asking Kevin for a pair for Christmas. (hint, hint.)
- 143million.org – There are 143 million orphans in the world. Don’t just throw money at them, adopt one or all!
The day before Catalyst, we got to experience the Labs. I heard many speakers talk about the injustices of the world and how they were helping to right the wrongs with their different organizations. I bought a book called Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican… or Democrat. It’s written by a lady in New York City who is working very hard with her colleagues to ensure that citizens have just as much access to healthy food stores as the fast food we see everywhere. Can’t wait to read it.
I also heard a group of bloggers who talked about writing as a craft. I picked up a few tips, especially from one, Jon Acuff. He spoke about the need to please everyone who might read his blog. His wise wife told him, “You know, following a bad anonymous comment is like tracking down the guy who flipped you off on the freeway and asking what he meant by it. Don’t go there.” Very true. Jon writes a hilarious blog called http://stuffchristianslike.net. I like his humor and his style and I highly recommend that you subscribe to his blog feed. Plug!
November 7th, 2009
Well, not really. We went to California back in July, and I’m just now getting the pictures up. I have 253 of them, but only 165 uploaded and captioned so far. Unless you have absolutely nothing to do, it will probably take a few rounds of viewing before you actually get through them all. So hopefully I’ll have the last 88 up there before you get through them all. Enjoy!
September 29th, 2008
UPDATE: I’ve unprotected the post so the world can see it.
Jenna and I had the big ultrasound appointment today, and now we have the results. Thanks to all that participated in our vote, it was a lot of fun for us! We actually had the polls going on in two different places. The first was here and the second was on a local Mamas forum that Jenna regularly reads and posts on.
Anyway, the ladies on the forums really threw the vote in one direction… towards the girl result. The total between the two was 65% for girl, and 35% for boy. See figure 1, the beautiful pie chart: ooooh, ahhhh!
So who was right? Drumroll please! Wait, not just yet… let’s do the “funny” item I referred to in my previous post. We had some funny commentary come along with the votes, and I wanted to share a few of them.
“I say a boy because you are carrying like me – and that’s what I think ours is. No other reason.”
- Erin J
(Erin and Gregg found out two days ago that they are having a girl… hmmm…)
“Girl – Kevin and Colby are enough man for one house.”
- Kyle G.
“The new child in Jenna’s womb is a boy.”
- Thomas S.
“I have mathematically determined the sex of your child!! This was done through multiple tests of the theory of probability. The majority of the time the result was GIRL!!!”
- Clay S.
(Clay then proceeded to go into a long mathematical explanation. I’ll spare you.)
You guys are pretty funny. Lets reveal who got it right in the KevinAndJenna blog vote. These people voted correctly:
- Suzy J.
- Ashley S.
- Tiffany R.
- Shala S.
- Grandmom (Kevin’s mom)
- Chris H.
- Kyle G.
- Clay S.
- Granddad (Kevin’s dad)
- Rachel S.
- Doug S.
Can you tell I am dragging this out? Well for all you smarties that looked back at the quotes above and compared them to this list, I’m sure you figured out we’re having a Girl! Everything with her looks great and she was a very wiggly girl. She’s estimated to weigh about 11 ounces right now and the due date is now November 17th (as opposed to the 19th). We told Colby and Kennedy this evening, here’s the video:
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
And finally here are some pictures. As I said in the previous post, we were pretty disappointed that we didn’t get to do the video of the ultrasound this time. The technician did print out a lot of pictures, but most of them weren’t that interesting. Click on them to enlarge:
^ Profile Shot ^
^ Screen measuring the hearbeat ^
^ And finally, the “proof” that we are having a girl. ^
Thanks again to everyone for playing, we had fun with this.
June 25th, 2008
Well today is the day of the big reveal. Thanks to everyone who has participated in our vote so far, it is turning out to be an interesting contest. I’m going to say that the voting polls will be closed at 2pm today, so if you haven’t voted already, click here to find out how to get your vote in now are officially closed!
Just to entice you a little bit, here a few things that we are planning for those that participate in the vote (no matter if you guess correctly or not):
- Access to a secret post sometime this evening revealing the sex of the new baby
- Video of the sonogram showing the baby and the “proof” of the findings
UPDATE: They’ve stopped doing the VCR recordings of the sonograms… so sorry, no sonogram video. But there will be pictures.
- Video of us telling Colby and Kennedy that they will have a new baby brother or sister
- UPDATE: Full poll results with graphs (insert “oooooh, ahhhhh”)
- UPDATE: Something else kinda funny, but can’t reveal at this point
- Anything else cool that I can think of between now and tonight…
Remember, those who vote will get all of these things (at least) a full 24 hours before the rest of the world. And its free… What a deal!
Ok folks, that’s all!
UPDATE: Polls officially closed. The votes are being tallied and the winning answer has been discovered. All voters will receive an email tonight with details of how to view the secret post. Thanks for playing!
June 25th, 2008
I have been meaning to post this for awhile, so thanks to NaBloPoMo, I have something random to post about!
Our church’s late service is broadcast on KBTX channel 3 on tape delay. This makes for some complications in my brain, in case I have to miss a Sunday. So, I like to listen to Brother Tim’s podcasts, so I at least can hear the sermon. Go to http://podcast.fbcbryan.org and a very handsome man 
has written instructions for you to follow – you don’t have to have an iPod to listen.
November 17th, 2007
Well, I tried to get the old gallery fired back up again but the “little computer that could” just wouldn’t. So, I’ve setup a new installation of the latest and greatest installation of Gallery and uploaded some pics of Kennedy. As soon as I get the chance I will start moving all the other pictures over so that I can post some new ones of Colby as well. Enjoy!
April 12th, 2007
Which “Saved By The Bell” Character Are You?I totally stole this link… But I thought it was fun for all those that grew up in the early 90s!!
April 1st, 2007
So I’ve redone the site in Wordpress. It is a piece of software that is geared more towards blogging. Since that is about all we do on the site besides the photo gallery, it just seemed to make sense. I really plan to post more than I have in the past year (which shouldn’t be too hard since I only posted once!). I’ve pulled the important posts from the old site over to this one, but I’m still working on it some.
One of the new features of this site is comments… so please feel free to leave a comment for us if you find something interesting or just want to say Hi!
July 3rd, 2006
Ok so I thought it was fitting that it has actually been an entire year since my last post. Man how lazy am I? Well, here’s a quick rundown of what has been happening.
Colby is obviously a year now… almost 14 months to be exact. He’s almost walking by himself. He walks all around holding on to the couch and end tables and stuff and he can walk about a step or two from Jenna to me.
Jenna and I just took a quick little vacation to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a wedding. Jenna’s former student teacher and long term sub while she was on maternity leave, Kristi, got married to Todd. We went there only knowing Kristi and came back knowing a bunch of new people. For those of you who are here looking for the pictures, I haven’t uploaded them yet!!! I accidentally left my laptop at my parents’ house in Dallas, so there will be a small delay for me to get them posted. Email us and let us know you stopped by!
I am in the process of redoing the site in Wordpress, so look for changes pretty soon. As soon as I do this it will be easier for me to blog more often.
June 29th, 2006
The photo gallery is back up and running again. My linux machine that runs the gallery rebooted but didn’t boot back into linux. Anywho… all better now.
May 13th, 2005
