Seasons come, seasons go

We have officially entered a new season! Kayna started preschool last week and LOVES it!! She especially likes picking out her clothes (even down to which underwear she's going to wear!). We've also had the privilege of keeping 3 boys ages 4 and under on the off days of preschool. This has been such a joy and Kayna has already begun to blossom as she's been able to socialize with other children 5 days a week...not even including the church nursery on Sundays. Its so fun to see her vocabulary grow each day. She's just about to get into the phase where she'll be saying those hilarious truths you always hear about children saying. Here are a few pictures from her first few days at preschool.
Enjoy!

First day of school breakfast! Whole wheat bagel and eggs. Hopefully it held her over until lunch time!

Second day of school. Just woke up and having some snuggle time with daddy in her new Elmo pajamas.
2nd day of school. She posed like this on her her own after insisting on wearing her "ba-pack!"

I don't know how to rotate pictures on here but I couldn't resist adding this one. She's obviously SO EXCITED to go to school.

Freezer Woes

I'm sorry to those of you who have wasted precious moments checking this blog...I hope to become a better blogger and share more interesting moments with you from the Houston household. This summer has been filled with travels so far. Kayna and I (Jenn) drove 9 hours alone to Ocracoke, Isl. in June to spend the week with Chris's side of the family, then 6 days later we journeyed to Seattle with my brother. For those of you who do not know, my family has relocated to Seattle, Wa. What an amazing place! It was such a privileged to be able to travel out there for 2 weeks to see where they will be living. They have a house on Pine Lake and it feels entirely like a vacation home.
The purpose of this entry is to let you know about an unfortunate happening last week. Chris was on a business trip for several days and every moment for Kayna and myself was filled with various activities including cleaning out my parents' refrigerators and freezers, in preparation for the move. Of course, part of the payment for helping was taking anything I wanted so, I certainly relieved them of the burden by taking home approx. 40 pounds of frozen meat. As I previously mentioned, Chris was away on business and this particular night was the only night that I intentionally had nothing planned. My desire for the evening was to enjoy relaxing in the bath with my latest issue of instyle magazine followed by a home-pedicure.
When I arrived home this particular evening I let Kayna out of the car and proceeded to unload the car of our days' junk. From inside the house I began to hear little feet splashing in puddles. We had not received rain in quite some time so my mind began racing to figure out what Kayna was splashing in...inside the garage. Of course, my first thoughts were the worst: antifreeze that leaked from the car, the recycling bin leaking some unthinkable goo, or gas from the lawn mower's gas can...?
As I quickly assessed the situation I realized that my daughter was splashing in the drainage from the defrosted deep-freezer that had inadvertently been left ajar for 24+ hours!! All that meat!!! 40 pounds!!! Defrosted!!! I had two options. 1-throw it all away and never tell anyone (besides, Chris never even knew I brought it all home and mom and dad didn't need to know what happened to it after it left their house). Or 2-cook it all immediately and freeze the cooked meat. Since I lean towards the mentality of 'waste not want not' I decided to sacrifice the 1 relaxing evening I had all to myself and bite the bullet and cook the 40 pounds of meat. After 5+ hours of crock-potting, roasting, par-boiling, grilling and cooling I had successfully cooked the following: 2 whole chickens, 3 venison roasts, 2 venison loins, 10 venison fillets, 6 venison fillet chops, 2 pork tenderloins and 2 pounds of ground venison. Regretfully, the salmon fillets, a small portion of ground lamb and an entire chicken didn't make the cut and they were thrown away. But, overall, I'd say the night/wee hours of the morning was a success and all the cooked items (including the resulting 12 cups of chicken stock) were sealed, stored, and silently awaiting their rightful time of culinary enjoyment.
SO, if you ever need a last-minute meal, don't hesitate to call, as our freezer is now securely closed with 30ish pounds of meat inside, fully cooked and ready to eat. Although, I may be slow to answer the phone due to my much deserved bath and indulgent read of instyle magazine.

Always a reason to dance!

If you ever wonder what we do during the day and into the night...here's a sneak peek. We dance!! I took the first clip of video right after Kayna was doing a really cute "shoulder dance" where she kept shrugging her shoulders. As you can see, she became a little camera shy :) She's now into "jump-dancing"...its a pretty good workout!

Thanks aunt Mez for the Penn State shirt, I love it! -Kayna

7 Trees and Counting...

Well, the beavers have been hard at work and we have been suffering the consequences. They have downed 5 trees and damaged 2! Our landscape has offically been alterd from these large rodents. After 6 people from the Town of Matthews came out to assess the DAMage they returned a week later with a backhoe to dig out the dam. Since then, we have witnessed more "eager-beaver" work as they have begun to repair their home. We're hoping that we don't have to take even more drastic measures.....although I would call a backhoe pretty drastic!

The tree stump at the bottom right corner in the picture below is the first downed tree by the beavers. This tree broke our fence and fell way into our yard.

Kayna on the lookout! It was 9am so she was still in her PJ's

who needs baby einstein anyways?

Kayna is not too much into sitting still these days so she has not really gotten into TV watching. This has proven to be a double-edged sword. It would be great if she had a favorite program that we could pop into a DVD player for long trips in the car, and also for those dreaded no-nap days. But I will say that I am thankful for the little bundle of energy that loves to explore EVERYTHING - especially the outdoors - regardless of the time of day.
For one, she's helping me overcome my fear of insects. We were outside 2 weeks ago when she came upon a caterpillar. Without reserve she picked it up. Surprisingly, she handled the creature with such care. A few minutes later, as we walked up the driveway, we came upon another caterpillar. Instead of being black and smooth, this one was white and fuzzy. I reminded Kayna to be gentle with the caterpillar before she went in for the grab. Kayna gently patted the creature two times and then, before I knew it, she had smashed it into the concrete....with her bare hand!! How do you communicate to a 16 month old that she just killed a caterpillar? Who knows? But I don't think she's scarred for life after I told her that the caterpillar went "bye bye" and that it was "no more". Another positive thing that has come out of not watching TV is that she's become an avid reader. Here is a clip that Chris captured this week of Kayna reading a newsletter from the church. Let me know if you have the translation :)

don't 'leave it to beaver'!

Let me begin by apologizing for the cheesy title. There were several titles I (Jenn) considered using but didn't want to offend anyone. Another preface I must add is that I have a great appreciation for nature and the great outdoors. I grew up watching 'Wild America' with Marty Stouffer, I've gone fishing in Alaska (and caught my own rainbow trout!), I've visited Yellowstone and practiced my elk call....it worked and produced a scary scene of stampeeding elk toward our car - no joke - and I had a pet wood-duck named, well, 'Woody'. My parents instilled in me a heart for God's creation and the natural world around us. So, without further explaining my affinity for the great outdoor's I will begin the reason for this entry today.


About a year ago Chris was in the backyard and noticed a half-axed tree that was just off of our property. After further inspection by Chris's dad we discovered that the tree was not a victim of a teen's foul-play but rather the work of a beaver! "In Matthews, NC?" we thought. It just so happens that the slimy pond in our neighboorhood is fed by 12 Mile Creek which runs along the backside of our yard, roughly 5 feet from our fence. This marks our backyard as prime property for Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. Fast forward until a month ago. After several days of rain we began to notice that water was collecting in a large pond-like form uncomfortably close to our fence. We discovered that we had a real-life beaver dam in our back yard!! After the excitement of having something from nature so close wore off, we determined that this wasn't a welcomed situation. 1) breeding of mosquitos 2) kayna's safety 3) well, this will be filled in when you read the rest of the story.


Keeping with the theme of nature, I was looking out the sunroom last Tuesday and I saw a deer walking along the creek. I watched the deer as she peacefully ate leaves from some bushes then I went to refill my coffee cup and get Kayna up for the morning. By the time I went to check on the deer I noticed that the landscape had been altered. A tree had FALLEN DOWN over our fence in a matter of 20 minutes! I could see raw wood chips at the base of a naked tree trunk and knew instantly that this was the work of the beavers. Thus, this fulfills #3 from above, fallen trees!


I won't go into much more detail but I will say that I saw some police officers in our neighborhood last week and stopped to ask them what we should do about a beaver dam in our backyard. The officer told us that we needed to call wildlife and then with a serious tone warned that "beaver's are protected animals and you cannot tamper with them or their dams". My response, "Well, I sure am glad I asked you!" Crap! I thought. Now we have to wait for the beaver to repair where we released some water the other day. Sure enough, beaver's are efficient animals and the dam looks good.


Here we are now waiting for a call back from Wildlife Control to come remove Mr. and Mrs. Beaver while we brace and hope that we don't wake up to more fallen trees in our yard or on our house.


I've posted some pictures because its hard to believe without seeing. The one of Kayna and me was taken when we still thought it was a novelty to have nature so close to home.


One friend suggested that we watch Narnia again for an appreciation of beavers....good thought.

change is good

I (Jenn) recently redecorated our master bedroom and bathroom for Chris's birthday. The funny part of the story is that I first asked Chris "What would you like for your birthday? Something that would benefit the both of us, or just you?". At the time, I thought the question was a perfectly good question allowing for Chris to actually choose what he wanted. I failed to realize that he didn't really have a choice in the matter as he is a very discerning person and he could see the wheels turning in my head in one direction....the direction of the correct answer, "A" -something for the both of us, of course! After my dad painted the bedroom and our bathroom, I excitedly put the new linens on our bed, hung the curtains, cleaned the bathroom, and vacummed so the "unveiling" would be a surprise to Chris when he came home from work. We stood there admiring the transformation (too bad I didn't take a before-shot....just picture bland cream walls with a patchwork quit/duvet - nothing too exciting). There's something inspiring about change. Something new that invades your every-day life that encourages you to do things differently, sometimes better than before. For example, I am now inspired to make my bed (confession: I didn't always before!), keep our room tidy, and think of new ideas to bring the change into the rest of the house. One change that I am especially excited to welcome is Fall. Again, this change is inspiring to me. It inspires me to get outside and thank God for creation, try new fall-ish recipes, pull out my fall wardrobe (ok, in reality I have only a few sweaters that i'm referring to as "wardrobe"), and buy a pumpkin! There is a lot of change going on right now in our lives and it is good, it is exciting and it is right. Although the change I have been talking about so far has been exciting and inspiring, there is another type of change that can be shocking and hard to accept. It is unexpected change. Change that is out of our control. In the midst of change, whether welcomed and inspiring or shocking and unexpected, I want to stand on the One thing in life that never changes....never has....and never will....God and His promises. Whew! It's such a relief in times like these to trust in the God that created all things and who is more powerful than the politicians and other rulers on earth (Colossians 1:15-20). I hope you are inspired today to walk through the changes that come your way, while resting in Him who created all things. Its an exciting journey we're on....to say the least.