Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

November 09, 2011 ~ A Date to Remember


My precious Matthew Corrigan is enjoying his first day of preschool as I type this! I can hardly believe it. I didn't think I would have a hard time letting go of him, but I did am. Of course, I didn't act like I was having a hard time in front of him. I don't even think I was having a hard time when I walked out of his classroom. It is when I sat down in my car, shut the door and thought "what am I going to do now?" I could go to the grocery store, but I love going to the grocery store with Matthew. I could go to Lowe's and purchase the threshold thingy's we need for our doorways, but Matthew loves Lowe's (he really does) and I don't want to go without him. Our home is so quiet. I did end up going to the grocery store and after realizing I forgot my grocery list I just wandered around Aldi until I was thoroughly bored. I know it will get easier, as a matter a fact I am babysitting on Friday when he goes again so I won't even have time to think about it, but for now I have a huge lump in my throat and all I want is my Matthew. I realized this morning while we were on our way to preschool this is the beginning of a new time in our lives. For the next 13 years, I will  drive him to school. I will gladly take that responsibility, but not without a little heart ache.



*UPDATE (a few hours later): I picked Matthew up and we treated ourselves to a healthy Burger King lunch. Then we went back to the grocery store, only to realize I once again left the list in the car. However, I walked down every toy aisle they had, and let Matthew touch every toy he asked to touch, all because I missed him so much and was so happy to have him back.




Dear Jesus, 
please protect your precious Matthew and watch over his mom too that she doesn't go crazy from missing him.
 Amen

Yesterday I celebrated my 27th birthday. I have to admit, it was probably one of the best birthdays I have ever had. The day started at 6am with a phone call from my dad saying "Happy Birthday! I am on my way to drop of your card!" Luckily, I was already half awake. It was such a nice morning my dad and I were able to go on a walk around our neighborhood before much traffic was on the roads and anyone in my house was awake. Matthew and I then got ready for Bible Study Fellowship (BSF). We both had a wonderful day at BSF! I was teaching the childrens story and if I do say so myself I did a pretty awesome job (some weeks are hit or miss for me, and all the credit goes to God for my success!). My mom then took me on a little shopping trip for some much needed clothing items. I love new clothes, especially ones that make you look and feel good! Patrick and I took care of some things around the house. For dinner we headed off to the Frost's, where we enjoyed our time with not only the Frost's but Sara and Simon Anderson. They are really wonderful people. Patrick and I have had the privilege of getting to know them over the last year. We all had a great night of games and lots of laughter.  Thank you for all the birthday love!

We have done a little more on the house front, but for now I am going to enjoy the fact that little Matthew is asleep in his bed in our awesome home. I am so blessed!
Have a great week!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

~ Fall 2011 ~

I never posted about a strange occurance that happened soon after we moved into our house last April. It happened when we were getting all that rain and wind. I was really worried our basement was going to flood which was going to ruin all the dreams I had of finishing the basement and living in our house forever! Luckily, no water in the basement means the possibilities are endless! However, the storms didn't stop a huge branch from falling off one of the trees in our front yard. Luckily no damage was done other than the neighborhood being forced to find an alternate route to work and the neighbors across the street without a mailbox...ooops!
The whole story is actually pretty amusing! It had been storming all evening. At 6 am my dad calls Patrick, I told him not to answer ( I thought he was accidently calling, who calls at 6 am?!). Not 30 seconds later my phone is ringing, and it is my dad. All of a sudden I realize not answering a phone call at 6 am is probably the dumbest thing I could of done--what if there was an emergency?! I answer the phone and my dad says "Good Morning!"

Side note: I love when my dad calls in the morning. He is 100% a morning person and always  
sounds like it truly is a good morning even when I am half asleep. I think I need more positive tones
in the morning to get me going.

Back to the story, I respond with a groggy "good morning." He then tells me "go look out your window." I am really confused now. All sorts of thoughts are running through my head--did he buy me a new car? is there a car crashed into my new livingroom (I would of heard that, right?), if it is a new car should I be dressed a little better?! I walk into the living room and look out the window and see a huge branch completely torn off the side of our tree, laying across the road, which was causing quite a comossion with morning traffic.
I freak out! Am I going to have to pay hundreds of dollars to get this tree out of the way? Who do I call? How quickly can we get this branch relocated? Do we own a chain saw?
My dad is very helpful he tells me he will call the city works office, and get it figured out. I go and wake Patrick up. Before Patrick is all dressed and ready we hear a chain saw. I go and look out the front window and one of our awesome neighbors has already started sawing it apart and another neighbor is helping him! Patrick hurried outside to help. As they were finishing up the city works trucks pull up. Patrick and the neighbors had cut enough of the branch, and  moved it to our yard, that cars were able to drive through again. All the city works employees had to do was remove the now much smaller branches. However, there is a little bit of sad news. They informed us the rest of tree had to come down, but they were going to do it this winter AND plant a new one for us! I am a bit sad because the tree is huge and a good source of shade in the summer. However, after this fall I have done more than enough raking because of the massive tree! I wish I would of snapped some photos of the tree across the street but I didn't.
Here are some photos I recently took.
We just noticed the orange spray painted X. We are thinking it is coming down soonish?!



This was the first raking of the year. Since then there have been hundreds if not thousands of leaves added to our yard. 
P.S. we do not rake to keep our yard looking nice and manicured. We rake to entertain our son!
As I was taking photos of the tree, and my adorable son, I decided to take a few snapshots of other random things around our house.
                                         
   
    

And then I realized...I do not think I have ever posted a photo of the front of our house! It is not a great photo as I am standing at an awkward angle, towards the sun. Oh well, maybe next spring I will take a better photo.

Thank you Jesus for our awesome home! I love it so much!
I will leave you with a few more photos of Matthew.


Have a blessed day everyone!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Belize ~ Pray Give Go

This is an awesome clip, one of the members of our team, made for International Servants, the week we were in Belize! I want to go back so badly!


International Servants: Belize from Andrew Q Holzschuh on Vimeo.



Wednesday, September 28, 2011

A little road trip and little green soldiers!

Hey Ya'all!
We have been road trippen it! All the way to Ely, Minnesota, to visit my dear grandparents.
Matthew, Benjamin (my brother) and myself all went last year and had a great time visiting and sight seeing. I knew I wanted to go again, and bring Patrick along for the fun.
It is a 12 hour drive, which may sound horrible, but honestly I love road trips. I am really lucky to have a son that doesn't mind them either. I always talk up the place so much, the car ride doesn't even bother him, besides I can handle a few "why is it so far away?" We left at 5am on Wednesday and arrived around 4:30 in the afternoon.
My grandparents have a beautiful house on a lake. Last year, we couldn't of asked for better weather. This year it was hit or miss, but we still had fun.
We went hiking, shopping, sight seeing and mostly a really relaxing time. My grandparents always make awesome food for us and then fill us so full you can't help but pass out after the meal.
We did go and visit the north shore of Lake Superior, which was about 3 hours away. We had so much fun there! We went down an Alpine Slide (3 times), ski lifts, and on a Gondola ride. We then traveled to a pretty tourist-y town and ate some awesome pizza, did a little shopping and fed the ducks. All in all it was a great family vacation with my "lil" brother.
Here are a few photos documenting the trip.
I almost forget we visited the North American Bear Museum. We went last year, but Matthew really wanted to go back. It wasn't as fun this year. Last year they were roaming around in a huge area. You could see them actually playing and relaxing. However, they are redoing that big area for the bears so each bear is in its own very small enclosure.
          This year....                                                                     Last year....
Ben not too impressed.

 Matthew already tired of photos and not really interested in the bears either.
 Hiking.




 Ski lift to the Alpine Slide.
 getting ready...
 Gondola's

 Beautiful


 Grandparents
 Matthew, beyond naptime!

 back on the Gondola.



 Time for pizza at Sven & Ole's.








Feeding the ducks.



 My little boy is growing up. 
I think I may see this face a lot over the next few years.

 Being silly!
 Cheesin' it!
 After the 12 hour drive home we were greeted with a bit of a surprise!

 Green army men EVERYWHERE!











 
They were are still everywhere! Matthew loved it! He keeps on asking how they got there. 
He asks"did  they walk there by themselves?"

Anywho, back to the normal grind here at the Kirby household.
Thanks for stopping in and catching up!