How Marriage Oughta Be...

Iowa Couple Married for 72 Years Dies Holding Hands

This story was so inspirational and touching!! I cried while reading it and then had to go read it to Corey while crying again. It just does not get more special than that!! That is how everyone should value marriage.  One of my favorite verses in the bible is Genesis 2:24: "...a man will leave his father and his mother and he must stick to his wife and they must become one flesh." There is really no gray area there if you ask me. I said my vows before God and I will honor them forever. Corey and I, unfortunately, both come from divorced families. However, we do not believe in it. I remember telling him a few days before our wedding... "You know how much I honor marriage and my beliefs on divorce. Are you sure you want to do this because you're stuck with me forever!!" haha! 


Obviously, marriage is not always a fairytale. I strongly believe you should have many days that are "fairytale" like though. ;) I'm a hopeless romantic. Corey and I are best friends.. I wouldn't want it any other way. People make fun of us for being together so much, but we like it that way! We have friends that we make time for, but there is no one else I would rather spend time with than him and when I am away from him, I miss em like crazy!! That is why this article got to me so much!! I only pray that we can have an everlasting love and marriage like they did. I strongly believe the key to that is not only putting God first in your lives, but He has to be first in your marriage! Going to church together is better than any date we have been on... I always feel closest to him when we're sitting there holding hands listening to the Word. I feel so blessed that God gave me a soul-mate that loves and believes in Him like I do. We became so much closer when we joined our church family. Then we started doing nightly devotionals together, which brought us even closer. Now that we read our bible together, study together, and pray together it's like a bond no man can break. It is absolutely amazing what God does for a marriage... and you really don't know until you experience it. People told us that all the time, but until we experienced ourselves we couldn't truly understand. It's like God gives your marriage a bullet-proof jacket. 


So, I hope everyone enjoys this article as much as we did!! Here is another great bible verse (especially for you women ;) ... 

He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD. -Proverbs 18:22

 

One of my very favorite pictures from our wedding day.. praying together..

I feel like this picture expresses how happy we were!!

I guess I'm done reminiscing for today.. ;) Hope everyone has a blessed day!!

Kristen

Christian's Latest...

This is going to be a short post and it may repeat things from my previous posts, but it is important to me that I keep track of every little move Christian makes. :) So... this is the latest:

• His first 2 teeth came in at the same time (front bottom). *October 11, 2011
• He is full-fledged crawling, everywhere!! No more army crawling!
• He is pulling up on things low to the ground.
• He wants to walk so bad! When we put him down we have to make him sit because he automatically wants to stand!!
• He tried a little bitty bite of birthday cake on my mom's birthday. He loved it!
• We still haven't introduced any "real" food... only baby food for now.
• He loves eating his cereal with fruit before bath/bedtime! 
• He tries to mock everything we do now... fake coughing, squealing/screaming, and crinkling his little nose and sniffing.
• He does "bye bye" when he wants to... but not every time yet! 
• He plays paddy-cake by clapping hands with whoever is doing it with him.
• He loves loves loves his Nana.. He crawls up to her and puts his little hands up for her to hold him and reaches for her when she is around.
• He is going through a phase where he wakes up 2-3 times during the night. I don't know if it's a growth spurt or his allergies bothering him, but it sure is making momma sleepy!!!
• He went on his first pony ride at the fall festival... Daddy recorded it so we will have it forever!  

 That is all I can think of for now... Hope everyone is having a blessed day!!
 

Living for God

I really should have named this post, "Living EVERY day for God."  Let's just be honest... It's hard to do sometimes. It is so easy to get sucked into every day life and the negativity of others. It's a daily battle sometimes and it takes a lot of prayer, but is it not worth it?! To stand up for what you believe in and try to live every second of your life for God. We all have choices to make every day, but who are we making those choices for? It should not be for ourselves. As Christians, we do not live for ourselves but for our Lord Jesus who saved us and gave us a new life and has given us His spirit to help us live for Him each day. Does God really care about how we look, how we dress, what we have, what we drive? No. He cares about how we are serving Him here on earth. I by no means believe that means we should just let ourselves go and not care how we present ourselves, but that should not be a main focus. Instead, we should be thinking of how we can better ourselves spiritually. I have made it a goal to not only ready my bible, but to understand what I just read. If I don't, I write it down, look it up, or ask someone else. In order to live a pure life, fight my natural urges, and to obey what God is calling me to do, I have to read His Word. Sometimes it takes going to Scripture again and again. I highlight and re-read passages that assure me of God's presence and support. God holds our life in His hands and He will never, ever let us fall.


This post may be a little all over the place, but it was mainly for me to write down my feelings. I have been struggling lately carrying the burdens of others. I want so badly to shake them sometimes until they see what is really important, but it is not my job to judge (or to shake them.. ha!). It is my job to continually be there and pray for them. I just feel like our generation is focused on all the wrong things sometimes.. When we look at someone's outward appearance, we often fail to see what God sees. "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." -1 Samuel 16:7

We don't get to pick and choose what days or in what situations we want to do the right thing and live for Him. I want to make every day count, to live every day for Jesus.  I want a life that is dedicated to serving Him completely. That is truly living.

I hope everyone has a blessed night and enjoys the rain/storms!

Goodnight, Kristen

Crawling Monster

Well Christian has mastered crawling today. He's been crawling for about month now but he was only using it to crawl to something he wanted in the same room. Now he is all over the house! We were in the living room playing tonight and I ran to the office to turn the computer on.. Turned around, and there he was! Coming in to find me! It was startling at first since he had never done that before! Well, the trend continued through the night.. He followed me everywhere! I love it!! He also had a photo shoot today for Virgila-Dale's Holiday flyer. His little outfits looked so darn cute on him!! He did look like a little model.. So handsome! Cant wait to see the pictures! Christian is 8 months old now, weighs almost 20 lbs and he's almost 30" long!! My little boy is growing so fast! It's hard to believe he will be 1 in just a few months... Time goes by way too fast. Well, I'm off to bed.. Getting up early to go to War Eagle in the morning!!

 His 8 month picture!

Goodnight everyone!!

Kristen

My Best Birthday Yet...

Last weekend was my 26th birthday. It was by far the best birthday I've ever had!! I woke up to presents wrapped by my sweet husband... He got really crafty on one of them and it was the sweetest thing to see how much time he spent on just wrapping them for me. I got a birdhouse AND A CAMCORDER!!! I was beyond excited.. speechless! I had NO idea that is what I was getting. He hadn't even mentioned my birthday present so I thought we were just going to spend the day together and he was taking me out for dinner, maybe a little shopping. Holy cow, best surprise ever! (Well, besides finding out I was pregnant! hehe) I have already got a ton of use out it following Christian around. I am so sad that I haven't had it his entire life but I only missed 8 months and I have more than enough pictures to get me through those months! ;) I know I will look back one day and be sooo happy that I recorded all the sweet little things he does each day. 

 These are the presents he wrapped for me... Such a sweetheart!!

We spent the day together as a family.. we went to Neumeiers Fall Festival and Christian went on his 1st pony ride!! It was the cutest thing ever and hands down, one of the best moments I've shared with him! PLUS, got it recorded! ;) We walked around and took some pictures of Christian and I got a great idea for a new wreath that I'm going to make! Then, we went to the mall and shopped a little, mostly for Christian. I had to get him his outfits for his holiday photo shoot. He got chosen to be a model *insert very proud momma moment here..* :) Anyway, I wanted the perfect outfits and we did find one there! We ended up having to go to Fayetteville to get the other one. I really wish we had a Gymboree here, but then I would be broke all the time! I spent entirely too much money one two outfits, but he will be wearing them for more pictures during the holidays so I'm okay with it! 

 

 

 

 My favorite picture from the day!

 He was eating the hay so daddy came to the rescue!

 1st Pony Ride!!!

My dad called us on our way home and told us he got us tickets to the Razorback game! We were so excited! :) We hurried home, got ready, and headed to Fayetteville. When we got there and found our seats, we were thrilled!! Best seats I've ever had anyway. 35 yard line, row 2! We felt like we were on the field!! It was such a great game!! We kicked Auburn's butts and the entire game was full of excitement! Corey and I have such a fun time together.. it was so nice to have such an amazing date, just him and I. We yelled so loud that we didn't have much of a voice the next day! AND I got a funnel cake... it was my birthday cake. :) After the game, we went to Grubb's to listen to my step-brothers band play. They are sooo good!! We danced and had a great time. Pretty sure we were the only two people in the bar that were drinking water and dancing in the front row! haha!! I love that I have such a big-hearted, Christian man to share my life with.. It's simply amazing! We were so pooped when we finally got home.. such a fun-filled day!! Love my family. <3 

 Before leaving for the game! 

 UH-mazing seats... Thanks dad!!

Love of my life!!!

 WPS!!!

 Grubb's... acting silly!!

So, anyway... most perfect birthday ever!! Hope everyone has a blessed night!!

Kristen

KBC Softball...

Well, we had our first softball game tonight. We won our first game and then lost the second. When I say we... I mean, I was cheering from the bleachers! haha Christian wanted to go watch daddy and we all had a blast out there cheering them on! If you haven't experienced a ballgame with Jeana Parks, then you need to! She is a hoot... I just love that woman to death! I have to say, we had the best cheering section by far! That may be because we had about 30 fans out there at one time, but that's pretty amazing if I say so myself! We had so much fun!! I think Christian's first softball game was a success! :) 

 What a wonderful night!!! Hope everyone has a good night sleep! Goodnight!