Celebrating The Day

Sunday night we had a little fam time to celebrate sister's birthday. We met for dinner at Full Moon and then back to our house for a little cake, ice cream, and presents. We were just having so much fun that I forgot to take many pictures.. but hopefully you can feel the celebration in these few shots.... Me and dad just hanging out...watching this new show.. "Undercover Boss." Have you seen it?? Love it!

Me and sister.. now, please look what I have done to sister's nails.. isn't that pretty?! I did that with the red eye reduction.. free of charge.. didn't even have to pay extra for that.

Sister and Steven

And here is the birthday girl opening some gifts.. with her soon to be new last name... P for priss

And some more fiestaware for her collection... It was a fun time celebrating with the fam. Hope you had a great birthday!! Love you sis!

Sister, It's Your Birthday!

Today is my favorite sister's birthday!! Woohoo... let's celebrate!!! What a great sister she is and I am thankful to have her in my life! Now sister and I didn't always like each other.. I remember those times when we were growing up and she would be so mean to poor pitiful kristen... I have a few scars to prove it... one on my lip and one on my scalp. Let's just say the last one involved a bat...and I am not kidding. She claims it was "an accident"... anyways, I still LOVE Her!! And I hope you have a grand ole birthday today. You deserve it!!

A Little Showering

We gathered with our small group this weekend to have a shower for our sweet friends who are getting married... any excuse to get together and we jump on it. Some of the fella's... and Kit chowing down on a little homemade BBQ from Jason. This guy is the man on the grill.

Misty and Aaron.... this sweet couple is from Michigan and they are loving this cold weather. They think it feels "nice" and I am shivering.

And the bride and groom, Jason and Lacey. Aren't they just the cutest? After a night with Jason I now know what a jet stream is.

Matt, Drew, and Brad... I missed the green shirt memo.

Opening a few gifts... these 2 cracked us up while opening gifts.

Jason is saying...oooh that is so nice... what is it?

And the girls... Abby and Emily in the back... and me, Misty, Whitney, Rachel, Amanda, Lacey, and Kit. I know I say it all the time, but our small group is such an absolute blessing our life.. if you are not involved in one.... you are missing out.

And the guys. They are so awkward when they take pictures... I tried to get them to form 2 lines... you know a little bend the knee sorority pose or something.. no luck. Here we go.. Jason, Jonathan, David, Matt, Jason, Drew, Aaron, and Brad.

Spring Break is officially over and it's back to the ole grind for us. If only I had gotten me an airbrushed t-shirt this week and I would have fit in great with the 8th graders.

Happy St. Patty's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day from the Howards. May you have "The luck of the Irish." (imagine this in an Irish accent--I have been talking like this all day and matt says... enough already) It's spring break for us and woohoo we needed one. We may just go cruise the strip later or something. Hope you are enjoying your week as much as we are! Our little family in all their green.

And the Harley man says... wasssupp?! Doesn't he look like a gangsta? He's a fierce one, isn't he?!

Photo Shoot

You may remember me mentioning we had a photo shoot a few weekends ago with my dear friend Hope. Here are a few pictures from the shoot.. and when I say a few.. I mean about 5 out of 100. We took a lot of pictures that day and boy was the hubs a good sport. He just kept smiling and smiling. He didn't even start crying and I told him if he was a good sport we could get a slushi later. Here we are on the old caboose that sits in Old Towne. Let me put a disclaimer in here... this shoot was very spur of the minute and we were on our way from wally world, so maybe next time we will dress a little nicer.

And just playing on the tracks. Kids.. don't try this at home.

We had to hurry on this way... we could hear the train blowing its horn.. I almost peed my pants.

This is in the park down by the river.. that could be a song...

And in front of our "Helena Niagara Falls." These falls are so pretty and make such great pictures. Anyways, Hope is trying to launch her business... so let me know if you are interested and I can be the middle man.

Oh another note... the hubs had some wisdom teeth out yesterday and is a little under the weather. I have been what you could call "Slave Kristen" the last 24 hours... good thing I didn't give him a bell or he would have been ringing the heck out of that thing. Yesterday on the way home from the dentist matt was still a little loopy and out of it.. it was cracking me up. He was saying some crazy stuff.. I should have had a video camera. I love this guy!!

All About Missions

This is Marni. She is our compassion child that we sponsor each month. We have been sponsoring Marni for almost a year and what a privilege it has been. Marni turns 9 in just a few days. She lives in Indonesia with her parents. We get letters from Marni and sometimes they talk about the living conditions and their day to day life... it makes me realize how blessed I am to live where I do...to have a roof over my head, to have a warm house, running water, and more than enough food to always eat. But yet how many times do I say, I am starving, I have nothing to wear, I am freezing... but am I really any of these things? We have so much to be thankful for. Thankful to a God that is so gracious to meet our needs, above and beyond what we could have ever imagined. This week is World Reach at our church. It's a week devoted to missions, metro, local, and international. Today, at my parents house, we hosted a missionary couple for a luncheon with our small group.

Meet... James and Jen. They are our local missionary couple. James charged us with getting out of our comfort zone and realizing that we as Christians are no better than the unbeliever next door. There are people all around me daily that desperately need Jesus in their life. What am I waiting for?? We must tell the whole world the Good News. Tomorrow is not promised to us.

The guys did a little grilling out for the lunch. Matt manned the grill as always and did a fabulous job.

Chrissy, Hope, and Rachel... love these gals!!

Jason, Drew, Nathan, and Matt....ready to get their place in line.

And here is our class (minus a few couples) and our missionaries. Can I tell you how much our Life Connection class means to us? These couples are the sound friendships in our life that mean the world to us. It is a blessing to call each one of them a brother and sister in Christ. Hope you had a happy Saturday... what a beautiful day from the Lord!