Encouraged by brothers and sisters at COMinneapolis

As I was browsing the CO website as I randomly do I clicked this video and wanted to share it with you all. I am so encouraged to see what the Lord is doing with CO in Minnesota and it's really neat to see and know about so many similar stories within COMemphis and specifically with COASU!
Hope this encourages your heart as it did mine!


Click Here!

Fall photos...

So today, Brett and I had the privilege to take a few maternity photos for some good friends who are expecting their first little baby this december. Here are a few of my fave's!

And before they got to the park we were able to sneak a few in of us!

Questions about suffering....

So as many of you know the Lord has been brining me through some of the deepest suffering of my young life in loosing my mom. It has been 9 months now, when most days it seems as though it were yesterday. There are many details that go into her and I story that I will not go into right now, but like most mother and daughter relationships she was my best friend. She knew me unlike any other and some days are excruciating not having her here; although the Lord is healing my heart little by little. This past week I received an e-mail from my sister in law sending me to a link of a blog that she follows. This blogger and his wife have been though the unthinkable of loosing an infant child to a terrible disease. He shares in his blog a link to a sermon entitled Questions about Suffering by Tim Keller.

The first few months when I was so angry at God for taking her I scoured the internet and books, hoping and praying for something to make sense of my hurt. I came up empty time and time again. I began to learn that the Lord was wanting me to turn to Him to make sense of my life and deep pain. It has been a slow process (one that will never be complete), but the words that Pastor Keller speak in this sermon has probably been one of the most helpful things that I have heard about suffering thus far.

I heard a pastor say once that we are all in one of three places, getting ready to head into a trial, in the middle of a trial, or coming through the valley on the other side of a trial. So as this would be applicable to all, I highly encourage you to take 30 minutes of your time and listen to the word this man has to say.  I pray the Lord will use it in your life as he has in mine.

Questions about Suffering

It's been a while....

Hey all!! So, I'm a slacker and I always have good intentions to blog weekly but they never seem to happen...maybe it's just that I don' really have much to say, or in comparison to other blogs I read I just don't lead that fascinating of a life! But here I am again!!

Week 6 of cosmetology school and it has been so fun! We are already practicing on "real" customers verses Kim who has been such a great customer for the first month, but I'm happy to move on to a real head!

Here is Ms. Kim in all her beauty, with painted on lipstick and a little extra eye makeup! I like to have fun with it ya know!!

SO I wonder if this ever happens to anyone else...

Last night I got home from school planning on a fun date night with my hubby. As we are eating the delicious dinner that had been waiting on us all day, (crock pot meals are my fave) Bretter tells me that we were gonna be having a few football guys over for dinner tonight. So I knew that he was planning this and that's why when I made my weekly grocery run, I got all the needed ingredients for ONE tater tot casserole. However, the latest was that it was up to 10 football player now, which means One wasn't gonna cut it. These guys aren't kickers here, we are talking about line backers...those boys can eat! Which meant date night included running back to the store and preparing all the fixins for tonight's dinner! Which consisted of :

TWO tater tot casseroles, 

Large batch of mashed potatoes (I know, your thinking exactly what I said, two potato dishes for one meal...but that's what he asked for, so I just went along with it) & Gravy

Green Beans and Carrots

Bread

and cookie cake for dessert (i got a little lazy with the dessert)

Now they are all here, eating happily in the other room and I am sitting in the bed room writing and praying that the Lord will use Brett, this time at our home, and this meal to draw them to Himself. 

OP 2012... Completed!

Another one gone, and only memories left behind! Above is a video of some of our students sharing what the Lord has been doing and is doing in their lives this summer though Project! Please check it out and I pray that your heart will be encouraged!!

Ella's coming soon...

So the past week Brett has been out of town. He went back down to Orlando to finish everything on the Orlando Project and we decided for financial reasons that I would just stay home. Well I learned a good lesson...everything is way more fun with him around. By day two I was bored out of my mind. Now I am an introvert and I like time to myself...but everybody has their limits and i would prefer a small group of good friends over being alone most times.

So that is exactly what I did. I drove up tp Cape where my two best friends are. They are that small group that I pretty much never get tired of. And one of them is about to give birth to their first child! So I was really praying that little Ella would decide to come on out while I was there. However, she is not on Aunt Kitty's clock, and that's alright. I got to take a bunch of fun pictures with her on the inside still with momma and dada!

Back Home...

So we are back home from our many travels now. From Orlando we went to Asheville to St. Louis to Jonesboro to Memphis and now back to Jonesboro. It's wonderful being able to sleep in our own bed every night! There is just something about your own bed...the familiarity I guess.

 But if you know me, I cant sit still for too long before I get a little antsy and want to start a new project.  So the project of the week....Painting our garage stairs!! And boy did they need it!

Since they were already a dirty brown I decided to go with a brown paint and chose Chocolate pudding in Valspar Primer and Color in one for the top part of the step. But I knew I wanted a little more than that, so I painted the face of the step a cream that we had left over from our kitchen.  I think it gave it a really nice two tone look!

I will say this if  you are thinking of painting your stairs you probably wont' need a whole gallon. At least I didn't. It took me a little under 1/4 of the can to do two coats on each step.  I was really pleased with the end result, but have a lot of extra paint left over! There is this pattern that I saw on Jones Design Company Blog that I have been wanting to do somewhere and I thought this could be the perfect place to try it out in a small area before committing to do it on a whole wall. 

It is pretty time consuming and I decided to do only one step for now because I can't decide if I like it or not. What do you think? I would love your comments!

I have also been working on a few beanies for my etsy store. These are a couple of my favorites :

The Ella

The Avery

( Named after two of my sweet friends little ones :)) 

Check out the others here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/katbarton?ref=pr_shop_more

Asheville...

So Brett and I just got home from beautiful Asheville, NC where my older brother Nick lives. It was such a fun vacation for us doing exactly what we love: playing in the great outdoors! We can't wait to go back for another visit next summer!!

Above is a picture of us at sliding rock in the blue ridge mountains...it was this amazing natural water slide! So much FUN!!!!

The beautiful Blue Ridge in the background

Looking glass falls...freezing cold!!!

Denny & Michelle

Hello Blogger world!

It's been a while, writing to you from Asheville, North Carolina. So we just finished up our time on the Orlando Project and are now spending a little time visiting my brother. But the day before we left I had to get in a little maternity photo shoot with some of our good friends Denny and Michelle. Just wanted to share some of the photos from that time!

Thanks Deny, Michelle and little Luke for letting me capture some memories!