The Parker Family: January 2011

My new thing - Organizing!!!!!

So one of my biggest New Year's Resolutions is to become so much more organized in our home. I've been enjoying reading blogs by other women about organization. My little sister would be so proud of me for doing this. I'm pretty sure she will probably be pretty envious when she reads this and wishes she could've helped. (She's a bit OCD for those of you who don't know. As a child, just for fun she would sometimes take all the things from around her room and put them in the middle of her floor just so she could clean up and put them right back where they came from! Needless to say that's why Dawn and I had to share a room while she got the guest room, the biggest room! Whenever we had company, Mom didn't have to worry about cleaning up the room. She loves things to be very neat and tidy! Shane has had countless hours having fun with this as you can imagine. Every time we would visit, he would go in her room when she was at work and move her picture frames and things ever so slightly. When she got home, she would walk in her room and IMMEDIATELY know exactly what had been moved.)
Anyways, enough about that! Katiebeth, this blog entry is for you! Just don't look too closely or I'm sure you'll find 100 other little things I could've done better. Feel free to give me your feedback though. I'm going to continue to try and improve as I go!

So I'm going to do my best to post my Before and After photos here to keep track of it all! I'm hoping I'll get addicted to it! :)

My first project was our kitchen pantry.

BEFORE / AFTER

Tomorrow I tackle our master bedroom closet! Wish me luck! If you don't hear back from me, it means I never made it out!

(Just had a thought - maybe I should post a Before and After photo of my family and see if we all look a little more sane after I'm through organzing our entire home! :)

Precious Visit with the Kizziahs

Last weekend we got to visit some of our most precious friends in North Carolina - The Kizziah Family!

(I messed up creating this entry so you'll have to scroll all the way to the bottom of this post to read what I wrote - sorry!)

Evie crashed for part of the time on the drive there. I couldn't resist this photo :)

Evie and Claire enjoyed the playground.

Katie and Claire - such sweet ladies!

Wiley and John David - who made fast friends!

The family whose home we stayed at had these aprons. They have a daughter named Lydia, and the wife's name is Shannon but she is called Shan. Too funny!

The boys enjoyed playing dress up!

The Kizziahs are some of our dearest friends. Shane and I met David Kizziah the summer of 2001. We served M-Fuge staff with him in Philadelphia and he and Shane were put together as prayer partners for the summer and got really close. We had the priveledge of reuniting with him and meeting Katie a few years later when they were engaged. David was living in Kentucky and going to Southern Seminary the same time Shane was. Their oldest son John David was born 9 months after Wiley, and their daughter Claire was born 6 months after Evie. We have been unable to get our families together since November of 2008 when Wiley was just over 2 years. The Kizziahs recently moved to North Carolina where David is pastoring a church. Shane was so honored to be asked by David to come and preach the Instillation Service for David's ministry to the church. What a blessing on so many levels! For me, the greatest blessing was just finally getting to see them all again and to meet little Claire for the first time! They also got to meet Evie for the first time.

Though our trip was way too short, we were so blessed for the time we got to spend with them. We ended up getting to stay with them in the same house (an amazing place belonging to one of their church members - it was a gorgeous finished basement that looked like a log cabin on the inside. We all slept in full size bunk beds. It was like a very ritzy camping experience which only added to the fun of the weekend!)

Here are some of the photos of our time together. We are praying for another chance to see them again soon. Thanks Kizziahs for allowing us to come and visit you, and to be with you on such a special occasion. We are so looking forward to seeing what God is going to do in and through you as you serve Him and His Bride!

You can learn more about this wonderful family and their ministry at their blog

http://www.kizziahs.blogspot.com/

Please keep them in your prayers as they seek to serve our Lord!

Christmas 2010

This year Christmas was a bit different for us. The whole family had been sick with a stomach bug, so we didn't end up going home to see family for Christmas. In our 11 years of marriage, this was our first Christmas without seeing family. We missed seeing everyone and spending time with our loved ones, but it was nice and relaxing just staying home and spending time together.

Because we had planned on going home for Christmas, we actually ended up celebrating Christmas twice (one on Dec 18th bc we were allowing our kids to open their gifts from us before leaving for SC and also on Christmas day). So the photos are a mixture of those two celebrations!

I loved the two of them sitting side by side eating their treats out of their stockings. I had to capture this precious moment!

On our Dec 18th celebration, we surprised the kids with Munchkins from Dunkin Donuts (We had them hidden in their new tent and they had to find them first when they came downstairs.)
Obviously, Evie enjoyed them! :)

Some long awaited girl toys - at last!

Wiley and I made Evie her own super hero cape. You can't really see the back, but it's a photo of a large cupcake with little swirls around it and it says "Lil' Cupcake". Wiley picked out the logo and said her super power was the ability to shoot cupcakes (like Spiderman shoots webs).

Wiley loves Robin from Batman and Robin so I made him this outfit. I was really pleased with how it turned out and so easy. So glad he liked it! Shane immediately helped out by playing the part of the Christmas Riddler (his impromptu, made up villian). Now sure why I don't have photos of it, but he threw together a crazy outfit and everything in the time Wiley was getting his outfit on and then the two of them had it out. Don't worry, Robin saved the day!