Youngsters Get Married

This past spring both Matt and my's youngest siblings got married.  They both had beautiful weddings that were centered around the Gospel.  They both married Christ-loving-following people.  Matt and I are excited to see how God uses these couples for His kingdom!  Here are the lovely couples. 

Chase & Aubrey Carson

Duane & Amanda Kaeb

Hoerr Girls Get-together....+Chase

About a month ago my mom and sister Alex decided it would be fun to plan a weekend where all of us girls could get together.  They decided on Chicago, so last weekend I made my way there to meet up with them.  I drove to Quincy and from there took the train with my mom and sister Aubrey.

We had a great time together.  It had been years since all of us had been together on a weekend to ourselves.  Huge thanks to husbands Matt and Mark for watching the kids!  As you will see from the pictures most of our time was spent eating.  We definitely did some shopping but always between our eating.  :D

We are off.....

Aubrey and I spent our time playing games on her ipad and caught up on a lot of chatting.

As you will see later in this post my mom really likes her naps.  =)

Pre-breakfast break.  Mom enjoyed her sausage sandwich and Aubs and I some doughnuts dipped in coffee.  YUM!

Chase was invited to spend time with us due to the fact he just married Aubrey.  Aubrey has been in Quincy finishing school, and Chase is in Chicago working.  They are looking forward to Aubrey moving there at the end of this week.  Thanks Chase for putting up with us!  I'm sure it was a new view into our family....

Breakfast

This is what happens when you mix sisters, milk duds and laughter!

My mom's cousin Deanna lives in Chicago, so we got blessed with her presence for an evening.

Off to Maggiano's for dinner.

Alex and I decided to hit the gym for a bit.  We thought it helped justify all our going out to eat.....

More breakfast.  They look like they have had their coffee.......

......it looks like mom and I need ours still.

My mom took us to an incredible furniture store in which I forget the name of.  

Tired shoppers.....time to eat again!

P.F. Changs please!

Testing out some patio furniture at World Market.  

Like I said before.  My mom likes her naps.  Haha.  Do we know her?

Ready. Set. Shop!

Thankfully pregnancy has helped curve my desire to shop.  It was more of a browsing trip for me.  I did get a few maternity things though.

Mark, these pictures of your lovely wife are for you.  I know what she is thinking right now, "Thank you Cheesecake Factory for this HUGE burger!"

Now to enjoy.

Aubrey and her salad.  Thank goodness that my family like to split meals.

Chase and the barbecue beef.

Alex, my splitting buddy.

Me, wishing I had more sweet potato fries.

Got to love this couple.  =)

I came up with the idea that each of us girls should bring a gift bag with a few of our favorite things.  We had a little gift exchange.  It was fun to see some things that are each others favorites!  

Let the opening begin!  We had some good laughs here.  Thanks Chase for being our photographer.

Perfect weekend to get together.  Mother's Day!  Happy mothers day mom.  We love you.  Thanks for making our weekend special.  You have made an impact on all of our lives!

This is what I found when I walked in the door back at home.  What a sweet husband.  Dinner of egg-in-a-whole and applesauce.  Babe, you are my favorite!

Foster Care Update

Dear Family and Friends,

Some of you know this by now, but we wanted to write to each of you to sincerely thank you for the numerous prayers and encouragement that you have offered Kait and I throughout our situation with Kailey, Paige, and Joe.  Last spring, the Lord moved both Kait and I’s heart to get involved in the orphan/needy children ministry in any way we could, and through prayerfully searching out multiple options, we decided together that foster care was right for us at the time.  In August, God brought Kailey, Paige, and Joe into our lives and the past 8 months have been filled with joy, pain, sorrow, happiness, and a thousand different emotions. 

As most of you know, Kait and I were presented with the potential opportunity to adopt these children early on in this process and, now 8 months later, we can together say that we feel that the best thing moving forward for us and the children is find them a new home, hopefully which will be a permanent, Christ-Loving home.  We understand that we can only control certain aspects throughout this process, and therefore, humbly bow ourselves at the altar of the cross, confessing our sins to the Lord and trusting that He has a plan much greater, grander, and better than anything we can imagine. 

This has been the toughest decision of our young, immature lives, but we just want to sincerely thank each of you for your prayers and ask that each of you would continue to pray for the following:

·  That God would find Kailey, Paige, and Joe a loving home that would teach them the Gospel and their desperate need for it

·  That God would provide them a home and parents who can unconditionally love them no matter what

·  That Kailey, Paige, and Joe wouldn’t be scarred deeper by ANOTHER transition in their lives and that God would give them grace to not look back upon their time with us with hurt feelings, but that they would grow to know that they were loved by us very much

·  That the power of the cross would heal Kait and I in various ways that we currently feel/will feel scarred through this situation. 

We love each of you and can’t even begin to explain how much you have each meant to us through our care for these kids. 

Matt & Kait

Riviera Maya, Mx

A few weeks ago Matt and I got to spend an entire week together in Riviera Maya.  It was such a neat opportunity for us to get away together and have each others undivided attention.  The past few months we have been working through a huge decision concerning our foster children and the future of them in our home.  They are going to be going up for adoption, and we struggled with getting on the same page of whether we would adopt them or not.  We spent each day of the past few months having heavy discussions regarding our situation with the kids that we really needed some time to get away and remember what it was like to enjoy each other.  I have to say......we did enjoy each other.  =)

Our room.  We were on the top floor, so we had a nice view from our balcony. 

First night out and about.

View of one of the pools.

Thankful for my patient husband!

Taking a walk on the beach and getting fried by the sun as we went.

A view of our resort from a distance.

Enjoying some Italian.  I have to say that the break from all the dishes for a week was a treat!

One day we went to Playa del Carmen to see the beautiful beaches there and do a little shopping.

More pool area.

We definitely didn't go hungry. :)

This is how I feel about Matt taking a picture of me........

He is always a good sport back though!

My favorite part of our trip was just being together and being silly.  It had been such an intense, hard time leading up to our trip that we had kind of forgotten the importance of having fun together.  

Of course, we had to get a picture on the beach!

I'm thankful for the memories that we made together.  They are always fun to remember and look back on!