Steve and Jenny Valentine

4/23/13 - Uncle Jon {my eldest brother} flew into town for the week to attend Exponential church planting conference. Isaac adored Jon and each time Jon sat down, Isaac would plead with him and give him a look that Jon couldn't resist and pick him up.  We thought it also helped Jon in his weight loss efforts because Isaac would want to eat his food too ;) 4/24/13 - Wednesday play dates...we love these two kiddos {Desmond and Sophie} and thankful for sweet neighbors and friends! NOTE: Thursday, April 25th, had a lot of activity...so a few bonus pictures from that day! 4/25/13 - my sweet friend {and one of our pastor's wife} Amanda is co-leading a new ladies Bible study alongside me at our church.  We are excited for what the Lord has in store for the remainder of this study.  Here we are with our kiddos {her sweet baby girl, Audrey, is five months old} 4/25/13 {pic 2} - I headed to lunch directly after the ladies Bible study to meet up with Steve and fel...

4/16/13 - What...doesn't everyone keep a potty seat in their car?! 4/17/13 - Karis and her buddy, Desmond during our weekly playgroup time.  4/18/13 - David and Carol Jahnke with Karis and Jenny at the Converge staff BBQ.  Steve and David work together for the International Ministries dept at Converge Worldwide.  David and Carol served as missionaries for years overseas and now serve stateside with Converge.  I have had the joy of working with David when I worked for Converge and have enjoyed getting to know Carol over the years.  They are an amazing couple and the Lord has and is using them in tremendous ways.  Definitely a couple to know if you ask me!  They spend part of their time down here working at the Orlando office and the other part of the year working from Minnesota. They just recently headed back up to the snowy northland...although I'm not sure why they want to go back there right now ;) 4/19/13 - I'm a coffee snob, I can ...

4/9/13 - New haircut and date night all in one day, WOW, rare and greatly appreciated!  We ate at this yummy place, Padrino's Cuban Bistro...definitely recommend and will go back soon I hope! 4/10/13 - just half the weekly playgroup crew...fun in the pool, water table and sprinklers. I'm sure there will be plenty more play date's like this one in the coming months!  It was hot out, yikes and it's only April! 4/11/13 - look what we found nested in our yard...I think the egg count is up to four.  Some little duck must have thought our yard was fitting to lay her eggs, Little did we know, a duck lays her eggs over the course of several days before she's done and then several weeks pass before hatching. It's been fun to watch Karis get real excited as we watch and wait for them to hatch! 4/12/13 - My friend, Krinki, sells Stella and Dot jewelry and came to my house to do a trunk show.  It was fun to have some girls over for a little glam evening!  ...

4/2/13 - Karis is obsessed with taking care of anything that resembles a baby these days {and typically it's in a set of two} so here she is taking care of platypus and baby Gina, her two babies of choice that day.  It's cute and all until she starts telling people she has a baby in her belly {of which she's done several times now!} 4/3/13 - bed head hair after nap...still just cute as ever! 4/4/13 - Isaac's new word is shoe and so every time he sees a shoe he picks it up and says "shoe" and proceeds to attempt putting it on...he also does this with socks, calls them shoes and tries to put them on. 4/5/13 - beating the rainy day blues with a little trip to Chick-fil-a to enjoy lunch with friends and play in the play area 4/6/13 - Isaac loves chasing his sister and they giggle so loud when they run around the house chasing each other, it's too cute watching them interact and enjoy each other. 4/7/13 - trimming our trees in the front ...

Be STILL and know that I am God... One of my favorite things to do is sit outside in the early morning {YES, even though I'm not a morning person} and just admire the beauty created around me by the one true God.  There's something calming and relaxing about taking in such splendor. It's even better with a hot cup of coffee in my hand! So it's no wonder that after a very frustrating morning, upon taking my kiddos outside {after major fits, melt down and voice raising} that they instantly calmed and starting giggling as they looked out over the pond and ducks behind our house.  And I had one of those "a ha" moments {one of those moments where I think to myself, why didn't I do this sooner? Maybe this could have avoided all the frustrations that occurred 10 minutes prior!}  It made me think of a few things: 1. God is amazing, he created us to worship him and find complete solace and satisfaction in Him alone. {Thankful for God's work in creation and...

3/26/13 - After dinner we thought it would be fun to get the pjs on the kiddos and run to the store for a treat {plus I had to get a picture of his super hero pjs!} that quick {supposed to be fun} trip turned into a lot of whining and screaming from the two littles in the backseat of the car :/ 3/27/13 - Always enjoy our weekly play date's with the neighbors...these sweet girls are all around the same age and thought it would be fun to see how many could fit in the toy box! 3/28/13 - Isaac has been trying to drop toys into the toilet for a few weeks now anytime the bathroom door opens...usually I catch him, but not this particular time oops! 3/29/13 - OK don't judge me ;) The only picture I took this day was of the car parked next to me at the gas station when I went to pick up movies for Friday Movie Night.  I thought his creative car antenna {aka a fishing pole} was quite amusing and had to sneak a picture.  I instantly texted this pic to my brothers as I ...