This Is Kristin

I love a good chocolate chip cookie, but it seems that every time I make them, they come out flat and kinda crispy. I like the kind that are soft, and chewy. So I am in search of a delicious chocolate chip cookie recipe and am going to keep trying until I find one! (I am sure my family will love this) I will post it on here when I find it!

Do you have a great chocolate chip cookie recipe, that you wouldn’t mind sharing?

Spiderman has been a popular super hero in our family! Blue has been spiderman off and on for Halloween, and we’ve gone through a couple different costumes because he used to wear it all the time, even under his clothes! Aiden has also worn the costume and this year is going to be spiderman again for Halloween!

~Blue and Aiden 2005~

Spider Baby!

~Blue 2008~

~Aiden 2010!~

I have been wanting to see this film since I saw the preview for it. I finally watched it last night, and I loved it. It was so interesting to see the diversity of our world and how each baby is raised so differently. It was so well done, a really beautiful film.

(watch this video clip all the way to the end, the last scene is so funny!)

A couple of weeks ago we got a baby girl puppy and named her Penny. Our plan was to wait until Christmas to get a puppy, but then we started talking about what kind of puppy we’d want, and came upon a picture of a german shepherd mix puppies rescued from a barn. We were missing Luther so much, and both Brody and I have always had a dog in the family, so it was strange to not have a dog at home with us. I’ve wanted a puppy for about a year now, so it didn’t take me long to fall in love with one of the little pups!

She has grown quickly, and is so cute. She’s full of energy and gets in lots of trouble, but I love having her around. I think it’s so good for the boys to have this little “baby” to take care of, walk, feed, brush, and she adores the attention, and they lover her very much too.

So much of the time she looks like a stuffed animal to me, and she feels as soft as one too. She is a german shepherd/ english bulldog mix, so that will be interesting to see what she looks like as she grows, right now she’s adorable, and fitting into our family comfortably.

Awhile ago, my friend Amy asked me to read and review a book by Julie Lessman. I was excited to get the book in the mail, and start reading the novel!

“A Hope Undaunted” is catagorized as an inspirational romance novel, and it is set in the 1920’s.

The author spends a lot of time describing the characters, what they look like, as well as their relationship to one another. By the end of the story, you really feel as though you know the family, and especially the main character- Katie.

I generally read mystery novels, so reading a romance novel for me was something new. At first I felt that the story was taking a long time for me to get into, I am sure because I am used to mystery novels where things start happening right away, but once I got into the story, I sped through to the end, to see how it would turn out.

I think the best part of the book, was the actual writing. The author does such a good job at describing the people, the setting and even the movements and feelings of the characters, that you can truly picture each scene.

This is a feel good, happy, and inspirational novel!

Our sweet 11 year old dog Luther died yesterday. He had been sick for about a month. The vet had told us he had days to live, and he ended up living a month past that prediction. He waited until we were gone for the weekend, and then he died. We think he was trying to hang on for us. He could barely walk, but he would try to move room to room with us, he didn’t want to eat, but would try if we held it in front of his mouth. He was just the best dog, all the way up to the end.

Brody got him when he was a cute fat little puppy, before we were dating. Luther went on our first date to the park, and has since been a part of our family for the past 10 years. He was the sweetest, most loyal dog we have ever had. It is very strange for him to not be here anymore, and home now feels different without him here.

We will miss him, and we are glad to have had him as part of our family for as long as we did.

Aiden started kindergarten this week, and it has slowly been settling in on me. It came up so fast! I have been trying to make sure he was not scared, and instead excited about it, that I have been so excited for him too! Until this morning, when he got on the bus, instead of me walking him into his class, then I suddenly felt very sad that he is growing up. I am happy that he is being brave and wanting to ride the bus, but at the same time, I know that once they start kindergarten, it seems like they start growing up very fast.

All the same, I am very happy that he has the same kindergarten teacher that Blue had, and she is so caring and teaches the kids so much. Even though I will miss having him home with me, I know it will be a great year for everyone!

This baby picture of Blue, was when he was 1 year old. It is one of my favorite pictures of him. I had decided to take a picture of him for our christmas card. I hung up a mosquito net for the backdrop, got him dressed in a cute outfit, and set him on the bed for the picture. He didn’t sit still. He did somersaults, jumped up and down, laughed and on and on. I took about 200 pictures, and had no clue that during that time that I was just snapping away as he rolled and jumped away, that I had captured a split second of adorable. This picutre looks so posed, but there was not a moment that he was cooperating!

Now that he’s 8, he’s still hard to get a still picture of! While trying to take a family picture, he’s usually the one with the funny face going on, or looking the other way! But, when we do capture the normal smile, you can easily see his character in his eyes. He’s a handsome boy, with so much in his future. I am sure that he could do just about anything. He is so full of energy, and life, and joy. He’s optomistic about everything, and is always looking for fun.

I miss the baby, but am excited to watch him grow. I can’t believe that he’s 8 already, it’s gone too fast. I’m praying for a great year for him, and glad that he had such an awesome 8th birthday!

~When Brody and I decided to get married 10 years ago, we had dreamed that we’d travel the world together. We went to Kauai on our honeymoon, traveled across the United States together when we moved our family from CA to TN, went to Jamaica on a cruise, and for our 10th wedding anniversary, we took a road trip to New York City.  Along the way we saw some friends in North Carolina, stopped and saw the sights in Washington DC, and spent 2 days in New York City.  It was amazing to spend that much time with Brody, and to see places that I’d heard about, but never seen. I have a hard time picking out a favorite thing we saw or did during this trip, it was just all around awesome.

We had fun reminicing about the past 10 years we’ve spent “growing up” together, and both agreed that there is no one else we’d rather have spent those years with, or the years to come.

~This summer has flown by this year, yesterday I was out buying school supplies, I couldn’t believe it. We have been able to do a lot of fun things this summer, and I am sure that my boys have grown a ton.

• Blue learned to swim and has been jumping off tall places into the pool, and is about to turn 8!
• Aiden learned to ride a two wheeler, has a wiggly tooth, and is about to enter kindergarten!
• Cooper has gotten taller, and has learned to swim in a pool (with arm floaties) but without a parent holding him- which is huge for him, because he would usually scream his head off if I let go of him in the pool!

I love the summer, the time that we have with the kids, and the time that we have as a family.  This year has been the first year that Brody hasn’t had to travel all summer long, and it has been wonderful to have him home with us.  The time is flying, and it makes me realize how I don’t want to take this time for granted, or to miss a moment of it.

Awhile back Brody and I read Donald Miller’s book, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.”  He talks about the concept of what a good story is, and that we have the choice to make good stories out of our lives, and mostly that requires being intentional in how we live each moment.   Between the choices we make, to how we respond to the hard times in life, to the big things that we decide to do.   The book really inspired us to try harder at making our lives into better “stories.”  So, we’ve spent the summer trying new things, and going new places, and this summer for us has been a really good “story” so far.