Merry Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas Eve to everyone!! Only one more day till Christmas! :)

leadership

So I am sure EVERYONE has seen or heard the news about Tiger Woods and the unfortunate mistakes he has made. Like everyone else I was surprised at first. Of course he just isn't the person that you expect to hear those kind of gossipy headlines about. But the more and more this has built up and the more that has been revealed, has made me become more and more sad. Not for Tiger Woods, but for the world we live in.

In this situation I can see so very clearly the pedestal that we put our so called "leaders" upon. It is interesting because at what point do sports stars and celebrity's become "leaders". They never ran for the position and got voted in. They never intentionally stepped up to the role and promised to guide us. Based on their own talents, hard work and determination they simply became the icons we know them as today. And they became these icons because of you and me and everyone in the world who turned on the TV to watch them play or act. Who bought the clothes and items that they were advertising for sponsorship. Those who believed that they were truly the greatest at what they did.

And in the same craze and unbelievably quick admiration and obsession that we create those "leaders" in, we also tear down and reject those "leaders" when they mess up. Now I am not saying that I agree with what Tiger did. And I also believe that when sports stars and celebrity's take on this role that we give them, they should strive to be good role models for the weak minded that obsess over them.

But what I am trying to get across is the very reason that we even found out about his mess ups and the very reason why we even care. It is because of this pedestal that we have put him upon and in turn expected him to be perfect. I have heard all the recounts of when Jesus was on earth and how he did not have a very good reputation among the unbelievers. They didn't "worship" him as we do celebrity's today. They didn't put him on a pedestal and expect him to be perfect. What a shame. For once the world would have chosen a leader who they could worship, put on a pedestal and to their amazement would remain perfect forever.

Unfortunately, we will never choose any one person to be a leader and see a life that is perfect and worthy to be copied. And unfortunately for Tiger, we will never see society fully forgive him and place back in the position he once was. That has been tarnished forever. I pray for him and his family. I pray that he sees the wrong he has done, repents and more than anything is forgiven by those who love him. That more than any of his fame, glory and golfing abilities is what is important.

an orphan no more

Today marks the one year anniversary of the day that my parents first met Karleigh Mei in China. It's hard to believe she's been my sister for a year now. I can't imagine my life without her!! Here's a poem I wrote a year ago today after I found out that they had her:

An Orphan No More
You are an orphan no more
Sweet child full of grace
with desperate pleas your
mother cried that you would find a place

A place where you could grow
a place where you could sing
a place where you could dance the dance
that life continuously brings

With each step she took she faltered
with each loving glance she winced
no more to be her child
no more from that moment since

On that humble step she laid you
with such care I've never seen
a baby girl you were hers
clothes, food and a basket to keep clean

When she turned away were there
tears she wept or simply a mothers prayer?
Did she linger hidden or did she run
in sorrow and in fear?

Our hearts are open; our arms held wide
for you are now our own
God has placed you in our life
God has given you a home.

For it's only by his grace and love
that we ever find our way
Life's journey never seems to end
with each new passing day.

While your mother could only dream of the life God had planned for you
You sweet baby have made it home
all your dreams have now come true.

thanksgiving families

This is a collection of photos that I took of my family during thanksgiving at the beach. :)

My Family....I took this with a tripod :)


Uncle Brian, Aunt Amy, Riley, Ross and Zoe


Uncle Darrin, Aunt Jennie, Daniel, David, Andrew and Emily


Uncle Don, Aunt Tanya, Rebekah, Matthew, Sarah, Michael, Hannah, Deborah, John, Joseph and Jeremiah (that's a mouth full!)


Mimi and Paw-Paw


Uncle Michael, Aunt Jennifer and Lexy


Uncle Walker, Aunt Sarah, Noah, Dawson, Grayson and Ella


And the whole gang!

at the beach

We spent Thanksgiving at the beach with my (Katie's) side of the family this year! We had so much fun getting to see everyone and hang out down at the beach. After the beach we went to Blake's parents house to spend the rest of break. It was a very good Thanksgiving break! Here's a couple of photos!



Our feet on Thanksgiving :)


And no, we did not have a child....KM decided to join us! :)

football game

This weekend we traveled over to College Station to watch Baylor play A&M with the Penfield clan. Sadly Baylor was very very badly defeated. We had a lot of fun though and I thought I'd share some photos from the game. They are on our new digital point and
shoot camera that we got as a wedding gift. So I am still trying to figure out all the settings that come on this camera.

On the car ride there...




Chelsea, Travis and Tonya...


me and my mother-in-law...


me in Kyle field....you can't tell here because the sun was coming out, but it was very cold and had been raining so I was kind of shivering at this point. :) I also have a dumb look on my face


Kyle Field


At one point in the game....and probably the most entertaining point....Tonya and I realized that the blanket we had been wrapped up in had all this weird zippers and snaps and basically became a sort of "snuggie". I snapped and zipped her up in it and this is what the result was. Here she is pretending it's a Japanese Kimono. :)


Blake and I....as you can see were supporting Baylor and A&M with our mixed shirts and hats. :)


Travis and Chelsea


We ended up getting tickets in the "Baylor" section so it worked out that we could safely cheer for Baylor without getting booed at. Unfortunately, Baylor never even scored a touchdown so there wasn't much to cheer for. :) hahaha

our new haircuts

We both got our haircut today!

4 months

We have been married for 4 months today!! Crazy how time flies isn't it?! It's been very busy in the Penfield house lately with my photography and Blake's studying for finals. And it doesn't look like November will let us slow down much either.

I traveled to SA two weekends ago to do some photography and of course visit family. Then this last weekend I traveled up to DFW to take more photos. My photography business has really started to pick up, which is super exciting! I just love taking photos so very much and wish I could do it every day! Plus it's always nice to make a little extra money. :)

Blake stayed here both weekends in order to continue preparing for his finals that are coming up, starting this Saturday. I know he is ready for them to all be over and finished. I am so proud of him though and all he's already persevered through! I know he is going to do well.

I will be traveling to SA again this weekend for a big birthday party for Ms. Karleigh Mei! I have been told that little else has been on that 3 almost 4 year olds brain here as of late. :) I can't imagine why?! haha

Anyways...that's about all for now. Maybe next post I will post some pics of the birthday party! :)

penfield pumpkins

We carved some pumpkins to put outside our door for the fall season!! I thought I'd share some pics. :)

Hard at work carving


my finished pumpkin


my finished pumpkin!


very concentrated :)


Our glowing pumpkins! The Joker's face and a peacock


Blake's finished pumpkin

lazy saturday

Well we made it through the first 5 days. Basically. :) Last night we did cheat because my Mimi came into town and we went to dinner with her and definitely splurged and ate whatever we wanted. But today we got back on track and we have 4 days left. We are more than half way through! Hooray!

While I have done a lot of whining and complaining through this whole thing, I definitely can see the benefit in doing this diet. It has really made us pay far more attention to what we are putting in our bodies. I find myself constantly reading the ingredient list on everything now to see what exactly is in it. I mean I am not going to be crazy about it. I will eat my fair share of unhealthy things from time to time. But the majority of the time I am committed to eating far healthier.

Other than the diet, not too much new stuff is happening with the Penfield's. It's been nice and cool up around these parts and we've been enjoying it a LOT! Today I went to Target and got myself a new cardigan sweater. I have to admit I am slightly obsessed with cardigan sweaters.

Anyways.....that's about all for this lazy Saturday.

day 2

We survived another day of diet.....barely. :) hahaha When will this ever get easier?! It won't.

Tonight we went downtown to watch the rodeo parade, which was a lot of fun. Unfortunately for us "dieters," we did not know that those in the parade would be chunking candy at those watching the parade. And while most of the time, paraders just junk gross, cheapy candy these people were chunking full size candy bars.....like Snickers for instance. It was like we were trying to tempt ourselves by asking some crazy people on horses or riding in trailers to chunk food at us that we couldn't have. It was quite humorous actually.

At least we'll be healthier than all the crazy little kids in front of us that had Walmart bags full by the end. :)

Anyways....lunch today was better. I made an omelet with the allowed egg whites and bell peppers, jalapenos, onions and salsa. I then had some yougurt with raspberries and for a snake later I had an apple with peanut butter. That peanut butter is the BEST part of the day. :)

For dinner I basically had the same thing has lunch. hehe Just because we only had about 30 minutes to eat before we had to leave for the parade. So I whipped up another omelet for Blake and I and I also re-heated some of my left over veggie chili. And finally we topped it off with a strawberry, banana, kiwi and orange juice smoothie. Yummy!

So that's it for day 2. Continue praying for us. Hahaha :)

Go Penfields!

first day of diet

It's our first day of dieting and let me just say this is gonna be rough. :) hahaha Blake and I were laughing at ourselves because at lunch today we were both like this is awful, why'd we decide to do this, this is dumb!! But we survived the first day and I think we have a bit of a better plan on what to eat tomorrow.

This first phase is just hard because it's an all fruit and veggie diet. It does allow for some brown rice, a little milk, yougurt, oatmeal and egg whites. So we have a plan on how to maximize on all of those items while still incorporating a LOT of fruits and veggies. :)

Tonight I made a Vegetarian Chili. It was actually really good except for my mistake of putting a little too much cayenne pepper in it so it absolutely burned our mouths to death! But hey...it was better than salad!

Anyways...I will keep you all updated on how it's going. I am pretty determined to beat this thing!!

Go Penfields!

my dislike of journaling

I know, I know we are super bad at posting regularly. This whole "keeping you updated on the Penfield's" thing is not working out so well. :) The beginning of my 4th grade year I was home-schooled by my wonderful Mom. During that time she tried to make me keep a journal. And the reason why I say tried was because though I did write entries like she wanted they didn't say much. Most of them said something along the lines of:

"My mom is making me write in this thing. Not much happened today. I'm home doing school and very bored." The end

So as you can see it wasn't much of a journal and it didn't tell you too much about my life as a 4th grader. Again my junior year of high school my teacher made us write a journal once a week at the beginning of class. Her's was a little more structured because we were required to write about a certain subject and how it pertained to or affected our life. But still had this loathing for having to journal. And I basically wrote just enough to get by with a good grade. :)

So I guess basically what I am trying to say is that I am not good at journaling and in turn not good at blogging, but I am trying. My biggest problem is that I always feel like nothing significant enough happens to tell "the world" about it on our blog. Not that our life isn't great and wonderful, I just always wonder if people really care to hear about our daily schedule. :)

As you can see even now I am trying avoid getting to the part where I actually have write about what's happening in our life, because not much is new from my last post. But I will attempt anyways.


Blake I have decided we will be starting a new sort of "diet". I put the word diet in quotes because it's more of a life change in our eating habits. Just basically deciding to eat more healthy and possibly lose some weight in the process. :) We are going to do the Fat S*mash Diet. Basically it's a diet that starts you out with a 9 day detox where you can only eat fruits and veggies. Then for 2 weeks you still detox, but add in chicken and small portions of beef as well as very small amounts of grains. And finally in the last phase, as they call it, they allow you to have more of all of the above as well as incorporating have a sweet or a "less" healthy entree every now and then. This phase is to set the habit of eating healthy for life.

I will keep you updated on how all that goes. That's about it for now, but we start our "diet" on Monday so I will report more later. :)

till you're better

I've been thinking a lot about a single line in a song that we sang at church this past Sunday. It's from the fairly well known hymn called "Come ye Sinners". While the entire song is a very powerful and moving song, one line in particular really stood out to me this last Sunday as we sang the words:


Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall;
If you tarry till you’re better,
You will never come at all.

What really hit me was that last line about if you tarry until you're better than you will never come at all. So often in life we think we need to wait until we've gained more skill in something, made more money for something, become more comfortable in our surroundings or in the case of this song just simply become a better person or better at living life before we can ever accept the blessings that the Lord has in wait for us.

My heart aches when I think of the many people in the world who simply refuse the Lord because they believe that they must become "better" in order to be worthy of being accepted by Him. How wrong they truly are! Jesus did not die for people who are perfect and worthy of salvation. He died for sinners.

That means all mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, doctors, lawyers, photographers, artists, prostitutes, criminals, police officers, tax collectors, fishermen, the poor, the rich, the strong, the weak, the blind, the lame, the disfigured, the models, the mentally handicapped, the genius, the student, the teacher, the child, the adult, the CEO, and the homeless, the white, the black, men, women....

The list could go on and on. He died for us all. So please do not tarry any longer, thinking you must wait until you're better or you will never come at all.

Happy Birthday Blake!

It's my wonderful hubby's birthday today!



I love you sooo much Blake and can't tell you how much I absolutely love being your wife. You are an amazing man and I truly look up to you. You show a kindness and love to me that I could never have dreamed of. I am so very blessed to be loved by you. I love you, babe!



Love,

your Katie

our busy life

I am sorry that it's been so long since I last posted. We have just been so busy getting settled into our schedules of work and school that I haven't even thought of our blog.

Blake started school on Aug. 24 and now has a pretty good idea of what to expect from daily classes, etc. He seems to be really enjoying it though it does keep him very busy. We have been traveling a lot lately seeing family all over Texas. This last weekend we traveled over to San Angelo to visit my grandparents and great-grandmother for my great-grandmother's 90th birthday. It was so fun to see everyone and celebrate with her on her special day.

This next weekend we are staying in Waco, which we are very excited about because we love just staying in town and doing nothing! :) Saturday is Blake's birthday so we will definitely be doing some celebrating. We had originally planned on going to SA for his birthday, but everyone's schedules did not match up so we are going the following weekend instead.

Well not to much else is new with the Penfield's. Just enjoying our first home and life together. Today we have been married for 80 days! Crazy how time flies! Anyways...hopefully I will get better about posting more often.

we've got crickets

So on a little lighter note, but still just as serious :)......we've got crickets. And when I say that I mean we HAVE GOT crickets. haha

We are having a ridiculous cricket infestation in our apartment. Every night they sing us to sleep in their "beautiful" shrill type of song. And it doesn't matter where you are sitting you will generally find a cricket on your shoulder after about 5 minutes. So basically if you don't like crickets, don't come to our house. :)

Every morning we wake up we find a couple floating in our toilet. However, yesterday we found quite a few more...


The pest control person is coming on Tuesday so I am praying that will help!

life decisions

I was thinking a lot today about the decisions we make in life. For our own lives me make hundreds of decisions every week. What we will wear, what we eat, the things we will watch on TV and the places we will go. However, the decisions I have been thinking a lot about are the decisions that we have to make for other people who are either unable or unwilling to make the decisions for themselves.

For instance for a child, making the decision of what they will wear and eat for the day because they are unable to choose wisely for themselves. Another decision would be for elderly, deciding to put them in a nursing home because they can no longer take care of themselves. One of the most heart breaking would be deciding to take someone off of life support because it is the only thing keeping them alive.

When I think about making tough decisions, it makes me feel tingly and anxious, but when I think about making tough decisions for other people it makes me feel nauseous. Having the responsibility of deciding something that could affect or change a life for another person it terrifying. I mean sure I can handle making small decisions for people like where to go eat and what they should wear, but it's the life impacting one's that scare me.

What got me thinking about all this was a text conversation I had with a friend of mine today. We were talking about having to make the decision for a child whether their birth father should remain in their lives or not. She was asking my opinion about the decisions my mother made for myself and how it affected my life. I've always recognized and respected that the decisions my mother made for me when I was first born were incredibly hard. And because of that I have always had an immense amount of respect for my mother and her ability to make those decisions.

I mean, yeah, I might give her a hard time now about how hard it is for her to decide if she's going to buy an outfit or not when we go shopping :), BUT the big, life-changing decisions she made for me when I was born have no room for ridicule or joking.....they have my ultimate respect and gratitude.

I told my friend that I have no advice for how to make those decisions and I can't imagine how hard it must be. However, I did tell her that I know the Lord has a plan and that he is in control of all. And that no matter the decisions you make, as long as you trust in him and seek to follow his will, the decisions won't matter whether they are "right" or "wrong", because the Lord will be in control of all.

So the next time you choose a pair of shoes or grab a bite to eat, praise God for his guidance in all decisions we make in life for both ourselves and those we love.

our new home

Here are some photos of our new home. Sorry it took me so long to get them up. I just had to find the right opportunity when it was clean and looked presentable! :)

Here is a couple of our bedroom:





Here is our bathroom:




This is Blake's office/guest bedroom:




Guest bathroom:




Livingroom:





The book case in our entryway, breakfast area and kitchen:

our jobs

Well as you can see my wonderful husband has discovered our blog and has begun posting. I am excited to see what kinds of things he adds to this blog. He's a brilliant writer and has incredible wisdom that the Lord has blessed him with.

For my post I am finally sharing about my new job and I thought I'd share about Blake's as well. First Blake has gotten himself a job at Blockbuster at least until school starts. After that we will just have to see how school turns out for him and what kind of time he will have on his hands. He's enjoying it and is able to get mainly day shifts so we still get to spend our evenings together....which is a huge blessing!

I have now worked at my job for 2 and a half weeks. If you didn't know I am working at a wholesale monument company in a sort of secretarial position, but helping out also with some of the art and layouts on the monuments. I am really really enjoying the job and really enjoying all the people that I work with. It is such a blessing to have this job. The Lord has truly provided for us thus far. I trust him fully with our future.

That's all for now, but I hope to post pics of our new home soon! :)

On Forgiveness

People are hesitant to forgive because deep down they understand that true forgiveness would be an invitation to the offender back up to the same moral level as the offended. When we ask for forgiveness what we are asking for is grace. We are asking for the one we have offended to forget the offense altogether and carry on as if it had never happened. This is an audacious concept and why true forgiveness is such a difficult thing to give.

After a person realizes that they have done wrong they are moved to a lower moral level than they previously occupied. They know it and the offended knows it. It is natural, perhaps even just, for the offended to relish their newfound position on a higher moral level as a consolation prize for having been offended. This, however, is where grace comes in. Grace understands that this perceived moral discrepancy, while extremely evident, is an illusion. In reality each of us have committed offenses against one another and have lowered our moral standing consequently. Grace remembers Paul’s words, “In humility consider others better than yourselves.” Allowing someone who has offended us to remain on this illusory lower moral level is impossible if we are considering that person better than ourselves. Therefore, the Christian has no choice but to forgive. Not only to emulate Christ’s forgiveness of ourselves, but to combat pride in thinking of ourselves above others.
- BLAKE

On the Wireless Mouse

Unless you’re working on a desktop with a monitor that is excessively far away from the port for the mouse, there is absolutely no reason anyone needs a wireless mouse. They suck up batteries, they are inherently less reliable, and they are easier to lose. Yet, here I find myself typing this on a laptop with a wireless mouse. The same wireless mouse I’ve had for four years. I know I have put far more money into the batteries for the mouse than I would ever dream of paying for the actual mouse. The replacement procedure for the mouse is a difficult and frustrating one, often resulting in a loss of connection between the USB input and the mouse that forces me to try to figure out the completely random pattern of button presses and unplugging necessary to reignite communication between the two infernal devices. On top of all of that, I’m out of batteries now and find myself forced to work with the two square-inch touchpad on the laptop with a broken left click and low sensitivity.
But, I have no intention of buying a wired mouse, though they only cost about $10. For whatever reason ,when the batteries aren’t dead and the communication between the mouse and USB is working, when the sliding panel is not stuck and the mouse is on the right surface, I beam with pride over my wireless mouse. Occasionally I even place the mouse on the armrest of my chair where no corded mouse could go and work from there for a while. Not because there is any necessity in doing this; just because I can.
- BLAKE

Our Wedding!

Here are some photos from our wedding that I edited!