Ordinary to Extraordinary: Rose photo shoot

"Extraordinary is when you take something ordinary and give it a little extra"-Ramona and Beezus

The conversation went something like this: "Hey look there's a rose on the table. I love roses. Let's go outside and take dramatic pictures with a rose!" My friend (her brother and I have been friends since we were babies) came a stayed with us last week during our church's missions conference. She is so sweet and my 3 sisters and I had so much fun with her. One of days during her visit we were walking a round the house looking for something to do and found a pink rose on the table. I have always loved roses and this rose was radiant with beauty. My younger sister is very good at taking pictures and asked if we wanted to go take pictures with the rose out in the yard. She graped a camera and so did my friend and I was nominated model. We had a blast taking these dramatic, creative pictures. We took something as ordinary as a flower and made a whole photo shoot out of it! :) Here are a few of my favorite pictures.

my younger sister is such an amazing photographer (as older sister, I totally have all bragging rights ;)! )

"Quit making me laugh! These are suppose to be dramatic!"

In His great & awesome love,

***Katie***

CALEB

I LOVE music. Christian music is so uplifting. I listen to music all the time. I can wear out an mp3 battery faster then most anyone else I know. If you were to ask me what my favorite song is, my response would probably be something like, "Do you have a few hours?" My love for Christian Artist and bands are probably just as long of a list. I am a music fanatic! ;)

When I think about favorite bands one that immediately comes to mind is CALEB. This is the band of Caleb Chapman (Yes, Steven Curtis Chapman's son). Also in this band are Will Franklin Chapman and Scott Mills . I first heard the band after reading Marybeth Chapman's book Choosing to See (I totally recommend this book! It's wonderful.) In the book she had mentioned that her son Caleb was into music. I thought it was interesting but didn't give it much of a thought. Well just days after reading the book my family and I hear on the Christian radio station that the band was coming to our area. It was a free concert and we were all interested in hearing the band. So my mom, my sisters, my sissy (friend/twin 3 days apart/etc.) set out for the concert. After an adventure of going to the wrong sanctuary, getting lost, asking for directions (It was a BIG church!), and all that fun stuff, we finally got to the right place. The band was amazing!!! They were very inspiring and talented. It was neat getting to meet the band in the lobby afterward get autographs, talk to them, and get a picture. Our family bought 2 of their cds. I love their music. My favorite songs are Kingdom of Me and Learning How to Love. I really want to get their newest cd To the End of the World. It looks awesome. You can check out Caleb at their website http://calebmusic.com/ .

What is your favorite band? I'd love to hear from you!

In His great & awesome love,

***Katie***

10 relaxing comforts

Ten of my top relaxing comforts

1. Hot chocolate (I'm drinking it even as I make this post)

2. listening to music

3. playing piano and singing

4.snuggling under my covers with a good book (I just read Unsinkable on my kindle)

5. A warm shower.

6. watching chick flicks with my best friends

7. Playing games with my family (well, Dutch Blitz it's very relaxing... but it's fun!)

8. Starbucks Carmel frappuccino

9. Chick-fil-a need I say more... ;)

And my favorite...

10. talking to my heavenly Father and spending time with Him in prayer and Bible reading.

What are your relaxing comforts? I'd love the hear about them!

In His great & awesome love,

***Katie***

Perfect Homeschool Family

We all know someone who we think is "the perfect homeschool family." They always wear skirts. Start out every morning reading the Bible. Always answer their parents with "yes mam" or "no sir". They are never disrespectful to elders. Never let a fowl word escape their mouth. Eat healthy all the time. And do everything perfect. But although they look like the "perfect homeschool family" the truth is that NO ONE is perfect!!! We deceive ourselves to think that we need to be like them. But you can never achieve perfect status because we are humans. We all have sinful hearts. But here's the good news. Even though we can't be perfect. We can decide to bring glory to God in whatever we do! If we are living our lives for God, He will work in them! :)
I want to share with you the funniest video!! It's about the Perfect Homeschool family. It is an awesome joke!!! :) Hope you enjoy it as much as I do. (remember to go turn off my music!!!)



This is nothing more then a joke!!! They are not seriously saying they are perfect!!!!

Summer in a blink

I definitely win the pathetic blogger award!!! :) It's been like 2 months since I've posted. Sorry girlies! I'll be trying to do better. I think it will get easier after the summer.

During the summer I'm working with a summer missions organization were I'm going out to YMCAs, Day cares, VBS, and just about any place where children are, reaching kids with the gospel! :) It's been amazing. In my personal counseling I've seen 12 souls bound for heaven just this month. God has been doing awesome things!!! I'm so blessed to be a part of it. But it's not me, it's totally God working.

Also this summer I've had the opportunity to take part in 2 plays. The first is about Ester and I'm just singing in that one. The 2nd is called Found at the Well. It's the stories of Rebekah (Issac's wife), Rachel (Jacob's wife), Ziporah (Moses' wife), and the Samaritan woman meeting Jesus. I'm playing the part of Leah (Rachel's sister). It's been a lot of fun playing the part since I've never played such a bitter part before.

This week has been our church's VBS. My mom and I have been doing the 3rd graders. It's been awesome! They are crazy but I love them anyways! :) In our class we've seen one boy come to Christ and 2 reassurances of faith. I have an the amazing opportunity to council all of them! :) I also got the chance to lead a first grader to Christ last night!!! God is working in amazing ways!!!

Here are a few pics of my summer so far! :)

Fun day with sisters and soul sister! :)

Teaching the children a song about turning around once you have Jesus in your life. (This week stuff had gotten confused so we had 8 people doing 1 club. Normally it's just 4 people.)

2 of my favorite girls in the whole world and me at training for our summer missions work! :)

Love this pic of another one of my favorite girls and me! :)

My big sister and me at training ready for church! :)

Triple R, me, soul sissy, and younger sister at a concert!


My favorite picture and the whole reason I do missions work during the summer.


Hope all you guys are having an awesome summer!!! :) I will hopefully be blogging more! ;)

In His great & awesome love,

***Katie***

30 Day picture challeng: day 5 (yeah, i'll go back to day 4 later)

Day 5: a picture of one of your favorite memories

Doing fun and wacky stuff with my sisters! :)
In His great & awesome love,
***Katie***

Thanksgiving: The season of thankfulness

Thanksgiving is here again!!! :) A time of turkey, mashed potatoes, and some nice apple pie. Often I get so busy with food and other little details and I end up forgetting why we are really even celebrating. It is a day to look at God's many wonderful blessings and just to show Him our thankfulness. A few thanksgivings ago my mom gave me a tid bit to chew on (some thing to think about) if tomorrow you only had what you were thankful for today, what would you have?

This thanksgiving we are actually having the dinner at our house! We have never done that before (we've always celebrated at another family members house so this is totally new!). I hope to get pictures to post! :)

Hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving!!! :) Thanking God for all He has done. :)

In His great & awesome love,
***Katie***

A little catch up! :)

The weather has been so pretty here! Here are some pictures of stuff that we have found out side.

Here's a flower from our flower bed. Younger sister took this picture. She's been looking for flowers in the flower bed to take pictures of.

Here's a birds nest that mom found under the trampoline.

The other day I was in the kitchen and looked out the window and guess what I saw! I was very surprised and delighted to see a little bird hoping around on our back porch. So of course I called every one and we looked through the window at it. :)

A cake that my younger sister made. She had a birthday at the beginning of this month and for her birthday she wanted to take cake decorating class. Her cake turned out really pretty!

The cake my mom made. She took the class with Rachel.

So that's a little catch up on what we've been doing. Of course we've done a lot more than I could possibly put in one blog post this is just a little glimpse :)!

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

In His great & awesome love,

***Katie***

Birthdays

Ok, so we got some birthdays today and tomorrow, so I thought I should cover them! :)

Happy Birthday to my dear friend Miriam!

I love you girl! You mean so much to me!

Happy Birthday to my little sister (her birthday is tomorrow)!

I love you! I enjoy having fun with you!

Happy Birthday girlz! :)

In His great & awesome love,

***Katie***

Making Memories

Making Memories! :)

All us girls hands :)! I love my sisters :)!

It's fun :)!

In His great & awesome love,

***Katie***

Friend at ALL times

Proverbs 17:17

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

A very dear friend of mine and a very dear relative are both about to go through something very hard.

Being a friend means that I will be there for both of them at ALL times.

Even through the hardest of hard!

It will be hard, but God will give both them and me the strength to carry on!

Isn't God soooooo amazing. If you want more info on how to pray for my relative please e-mail me and I'll let you know.

Please keep my friend in your prayers also. I don't know if she would like me telling about it, so please just keep her in your prayers!

In His great & awesome love,

***Katie***

Happy Birthday big sissy!

Happy Birthday to big sissy!

Today is her birthday!

Hope you have a good birtday sissy!

Love,

Katie

Old Fashion Soda Foutain

While we were on or trip we went to an old fashion soda fountain. It was really neat. I felt like I was in Wits End from Adventures in Odyssey :)!

While we were there every one got ice cream Sundays

Except for me I got a freak float. Sherbet floating in Sprite! It was good.

It was so much fun spending time with my family while we were on our trip.

Another thing that we started while on our trip is family devotions (or Bible reading) every evening. We're reading through Proverbs. We go around the room and take turn reading verses. It's really neat.

Hope you all have a God blessed day!

In His great & awesome love,

***Katie***

Family time!

I love family time!!! We do a lot of things for family time. I totally recommend family time, it's some of my favorite time. Here are some things we do for family time: board games, movies, dinner, ice cream, trips, walks, and bicycling. We do some other things but these are some of my favorites.

God has given me a wonderful family! We all have fun together.

Hope you all have a great God blessed Wednesday!

In His great & awesome love,
***Katie***