Sweet Shot Tuesday! (Our First :D)

Today is my first day participating in Sweet Shot Tuesday - hosted over at Life with My 3 Boybarians, and I'm super excited.

I am not a very good photographer, but my hubby, Austin, (about whom I regularly brag blog on My Husband Rocks! Fridays) is a phenomenal photographer, so on these posts the photos are most likely taken by him. Occasionally I will get a dumb-luck good shot here or there, so I may post those from time to time :)

This week's photo, Austin took while we were in Peru.  I think it's absolutely gorgeous, and it's one I never would have "seen" - so I'm really glad he's got the eye!


to see the full-size image, click here

Big thanks to Darcy for hosting Sweet Shots :) What a fun way to see lots of great photos and share some of our faves!

Have a great Tuesday!

Writer's Workshop! #1 Princess Jasmine

Ms. Mama Kat's Writer Workshop assignment for today:

4.) Write about a memory related to a holiday.

I spent hours that year watching my favorite movie of all time (all time was only nine years, but they were good years, and I had seen a lot of movies). I sang along with every song and I memorized every word of dialogue. All of my make-believe time was spent in Agrabah and every stuffed cat was named Raja.

When the time came to decide upon our Halloween costumes, it was a no-brainer! My mom and dad and sisters and I bundled into our mini-van and drove to the fabric store. We found the perfect flowing fabric for the sleeves and pant legs, and some wonderful stretchy jersey material for the bodice, cuffs and waistband. I helped cut the pattern pieces, and watched with rapt attnetion while Mom pinned and sewed them together, until I had to go to bed. Then came a stop at the toy store for the perfect Arabian accessories. A lovely scepter and jeweled headband completed the most beautiful costume I had ever imagined.

Halloween dawned bright and cold - freezing cold! If I remember correctly, it had even snowed that week. I put on long underwear beneath, but staunchly refused to cover my royal raiment with a coat - heaven forbid! I don't remember how the candy count compared with previous years, or if I couldn't feel my knees. I didn't care . . . I was a princess!

~ my husband rocks! ~ GIVEAWAY!!!! *ETA*(thrice)

Welcome to another Friday everybody!!! Today I will be revealing all of our fabulous MHR/Austin & Katy's Anniversary Giveaway prizes!!!! I'm so excited!




Of course, I can't miss an opportunity to brag on my hubby, so the reveal is scheduled for the end of the post :)



As most of you know, we celebrated our one-year anniversary in Branson this past weekend. We had a ball, as you can see from my previous post.

It will never cease to amaze me how Austin can strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere. He is probably one of the most personable, friendly people I know. Everwhere from the buffet line, to waiting in theaters for shows to start, to parking lots, to leaning over to the table next to us in restaurants, he's getting life stories, and sharing ours. And not only does he get people talking, he makes everybody laugh! Most importantly, he is never shy about discussing his faith. His infectious joy and courage of conviction are two of the things that I love the most about Hoss. He's pretty awesome!

*ETA* I wrote this post before Hoss got up this morning, but he was so sweet after he got up that I had to add:

We got into a disagreement last night - a pretty loud disagreement, and it was all my fault. I honestly kind of expected him to be crabby at me when he got up this morning (not because he has a track record of that, but because I totally deserved it), but he was just as sweet as can be, hugged me good morning and kissed me and we chatted just like normal. I am so thankful that he doesn't hold those things against me and make me "suffer through" the consequences of my tantrums. :) He's wonderful!

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And now, it's time for the reveal of the prizes for our very first ever ~My Husband Rocks!~ Fridays/Austin & Katy's Anniversary Giveaway!!!!!

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who participates in MHR Fridays! We started writing MHR posts on June 13th of this year, and as of last week we had a total of 91 women who participate on a regular basis! That just blows my mind!!! Praise the Lord that 91 of us are choosing to encourage and build up our husbands in public rather than complain about them and tear them down! I think that is wonderful! What a great reason to celebrate with a giveaway!

For the giveaway this go 'round, all of the following prizes will be awarded to 1 (one) winner!



My delightful bloggy friend Amy (her photography site, her blog) seen above with her three adorable sons, has generously offered to create an 8x10 photo collage using 3-6 photos of the winner's choosing.



The book Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. This is a fabulous marriage book that looks at the core needs of husbands and wives.



A "Bee Joyful" Teapot/Cup set (pic to come).

And (drumroll, please . . . ) From*me Tees has generously offered two (2) t-shirts in size to be specified by our winner!

The first shirt is the new long-sleeved 'My Husband Rocks' shirt in dark chocolate!!! I am totally getting one of these! The winner will have the option for either the fitted version:



or the classic version:



The second is the new men's short sleeve 'My Wife Rocks' tee in cream:

How can you win all these fabulous prizes? You ask, well I'll tell you:

1) Comment on this post with a valid e-mail address (i.e. katylinvw[at]yahoo[dot]com) - no e-mail, no entry - sorry, but i've got to be able to get a hold of you if you're the winner!

~ to do any of the following "bonus" entries, you must first complete #1 ~

2) Those who participate in MHR Friday this week will receive 5 (five) bonus entries.

3) Blog about the giveaway and receive 3 (three) additional chances.

4) E-mail 3 of your friends and Bcc: me and receive 3 (three) additional entries.

*ETA*2
5) NEW IDEA FROM A COMMENT!!!: For an additional 15 (fifteen) entries, e-mail a pic of you and or your hubby in a From*me Tee's my husband rocks or my wife rocks t-shirt!

There you have it folks! Good luck to you all!

*ETA*3

Entries will close at 12:00 midnight on Thursday 10/2/08, and I will be announcing the winner on Friday 10/3/08!

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If you'd like to find out more about why I started MHR Fridays, either click here or follow the button in the left hand sidebar (if you would like to add the button to your sidebar, use this code ).

<a href="http://honestandlasting.blogspot.com/2008/06/my-husband-rocks-friday.html"><img src="http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn135/katylinvw/mosaicmhrf.jpg"/></a>

If you'd like to join in the fun, leave a comment on this post with the permalink to your ~my husband rocks! Friday~ post! Remember, this is not just for us girls, guys we'd love it if you would turn it into ~my wife rocks! Friday~ and link up! :)

If you're not a blogger, but still want the world to know about your amazing husband (or wife, or husband to be, or wife to be, etc.) leave a shout-out in the form of a comment! If you're unable to comment, e-mail me at katylinvw [at] yahoo [dot] com and I'll add your shout out to this post!

As always, on Fridays From*me Tees will refund your shipping on any order of two or more items if you mention the great adventure and ~my husband rocks! Fridays~ in the "how did you hear about us?" section of your order form, so run on over there and check them out, too! Thank you From*me Tees!

Thanks for reading everyone! Good look to all! :)

Marriage Builder Monday!

Sarah over at Burgeon is hosting a new meme called Marriage Builder Mondays. She says:

"I’m a big believer in accountability and have found that it becomes very easy to be accountable when you share your mission with others. So here we are…I would like to share with you each Monday one small thing I will be doing for my husband each week."



As you all well know, I'm a firm believer that a healthy, happy marriage = work. Good work. Mostly fun work. But work nonetheless. And the extent to which we fail to do the work, so we fail altogether.



To that end, I will be joining Sarah in this weekly challenge, because I can use all the help and accountability I can get. It is so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day details of life and work and everything else and forget to make our husbands our number 2 priority (second only to our relationship with God).



I have been so blessed with my amazingly wonderful, patient, loving husband who just happens to be a hottie, who absolutely rocks my socks off!

And on top of all that, he is taking time off of the job he loves, to drive me twelve hours both ways to visit my family in Colorado! He's just that cool!

So, this week, since he works so hard, and since we will be sitting in a car for hours upon hours, I will give him a relaxing and thorough massage every eveining. I know that this means a lot to him, and it's something that I do not take the time to do nearly often enough.

Thanks for the encouragement and inspiration Sarah! This is such a great idea!

Pop-up Adventures

Happy Monday everybody! Hope y'all had a great weekend! Our weekend was spent on our first official camping trip in our brand new (to us) pop-up camper!

We had a grand old time :)

We purchased the camper last weekend from friends of a friend (who happen to work for the same company as I do), and they gave us a great deal on it.

For a pop-up it is very roomy and comfortable.

We had hoped to pull it out and camp last Saturday evening (the night we took it home), but we did not really have time to get it out to a campground, so we popped it up where it sat in our driveway, and proceeded to spend the entire night out there - even though it poured harder than I can remember it raining in several weeks! It was definitely a true test of storm-worthiness, and the little pop-up passed with flying colors!

In the morning, to complete our mini "camping" trip, we carted out breakfast and ate at our cute little dinette :)

The title to this vehicle is also the very first title that has both of our married names on it :) which is pretty cool!

Thanks for reading!

My very FIRST giveaway!!!

As I mentioned here, I am becoming increasingly aware of how the way I live and the products I use impact the environment. Therefore, I am learning more and more about how to decrease my negative impact and companies that strive to help me (and everyone else) do so!


LetsGoGreen.biz is one of those companies! I first heard about LetsGoGreen.biz through a blog giveaway! The rules of the giveaway prompted those who entered to visit the LetsGoGreen.biz website, then come back and comment about his or her favorite product. I was very impressed with the scope and selection of their products. Being kind of a green "newbie" there were many products that I had never even contemplated. At the time of my first visit I had been reading about plastic grocery bags and how one plastic grocery bag can take 1000 years to decompose! Yuck! That same afternoon while I was emptying the kitchen trash I thought to myself, "Self, if a plastic grocery bag takes 1000 years to decompose, how long does it take these plastic trash bags?" Then, low and behold, Eco-safe Degradeable Garbage Bags! Where have you been all my life! If you haven't taken the time to browse their website, please do. Not only do they have a product to green-ify nearly every aspect of your life, most of the products don't cost any more than their non-Eco-friendly counterparts and many cost less!



The following video is a newscast in which CEO, Kyle Jodice talks about some of the products you will find on their website, and explains why he started the business in the first place:




Well, that's about it for me, have a great Thursday everybody!

Wait, just a minute . . . .

I feel like I'm forgetting something . . .

What was it . . .

Oh, that's right! I promised y'all a giveaway, didn't I? - Silly me, it's even in the title!



After the giveaway that introduced me to LetsGoGreen.biz, Kyle contacted me to see if I would be interested in hosting a similar giveaway on my blog! I was flattered, and accepted right away! A few days later, I came home to work, and this was on my porch:



Inside, I found this:




And I immediately went to work attacking this:

I am thoroughly impressed with this detergent! Laundry detergent is one of those things that I don't spend a lot of time thinking about. Mostly because if I can avoid laundry or anything related to laundry, I am a much happier camper; however, this detergent warrants a closer inspection. The first thing I noticed about this was the packaging, it seems like a very small bottle to do the self-proclaimed 64 loads, but as I was reading the directions I learned that it takes only one ounce per load for a standard machine and about half that for a HE front-loader. So, for my purposes, I poured enough detergent into the cap to cover the bottom, and tossed it in. At this rate, one bottle will do WAY more than 64 loads!



The next feature that drew my attention was the scent. Now, I know you're thinking, "Katy, you crazy girl, the website clearly says that this detergent is fragrence free." And you would be right! But I'm telling you it has a very distinct scent, and I honestly wasn't sure that I liked it at first. Initially, it kind of made me think of Pine-Sol! But our clothes came out smelling sooo wonderful! The very clean scent of the woods after the rain! And I love it!



And most importantly it works! I mean, it really, really works well! Austin's work shirts are white - I'm not exactly sure what the thought process behind this was, but that's the uniform, so we go with it. But he's a hard working man and he gets dirty, and his work shirts reflect that, as you would expect. Using this detergent, they came out snowy white, and I didn't even use bleach (which I usually do)!



So, you think you'd like to try some detergent for FREE! Just to sweeten the deal, LetsGoGreen.biz is going to send our lucky winner one bottle of the Concentrated Laundry Detergent and one bottle of the Concentrated Fabric Softener! (That's a $24+shipping value!)


To be entered in the drawing, click on over to LetsGoGreen.biz, pick out your favorite product, come back here and comment on this post what your favorite(s) is(are) and why!



For extra entries, do any of the following:
~ Leave a second comment with a "going green" tip or little known fact about being environmentally conscious
~ Subscribe to my feed
~ Add me to your blogroll
~ Follow me on Twitter (those of you who are already following automatically get an extra entry)
~ Blog about this giveaway



That's up to 6 entries per person!!! If you do any of the "extra credit" be sure to leave separate comments letting me know!



Comments left between now and 12:00 midnight CST on Wednesday, July 23rd will count for entries in this giveaway, I will randomly select a winner (random.org) and I announce the winner exactly one week from today on Thursday, July 24th! (This giveaway is open to US residents only.)



Thanks for reading!

It is well

This is my very first "Then Sings My Soul" post! For this week, I'm going to use one of my very favorite old hymns. It Is Well by Horatio G. Spafford and Philip Bliss.


When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.


It is well with my soul, it is well, it is well with my soul.


Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blest assurance control, that Christ has regarded my helpless estate, and hath shed his own blood for my soul


My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!


And, Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll; the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend, even so, it is well with my soul.


When I was very young I would listen to the Adventures in Odyssey adaptation of the story behind this hymn over and over again. To this day it still astounds me that a man who lost so much could write such a powerful testament to the Lord's love and faithfulness. This is probably a reflection of my lack of faith, but it is such a powerful lesson for me.


I am deeply comforted to "let this blessed assurance control" when my life seems to be spinning completely off the tracks, and I know that I have no control of my own over a situation, God is not surprised by the circumstances that shock me and he is and always will be steadfast and faithful to protect and provide.


Thanks for reading!

Thankful Thursday!

Today is my very first Thankful Thursday post, and I'm pretty excited about it!


I have so much to be thankful for!


I am thankful for my wonderful husband who loves me and who is committed to me!


I am thankful for my amazing family - my fantastic parents and in-laws who love me like their own! Our wonderful siblings (all of you! Tom, Ashley, Kindra and Kelli!) I love you all so very much!


I am thankful for our friends! I love you all, and it has been so fun having you here this week Doobie, and I'm looking forward to the 4th!


I am thankful for new blogging friends, even though you are only real in my computer (lol!) I still love you :)!


I am thankful for our beautiful home and the fact that our town was spared damage in all of the crazy storms and flooding that Iowa has seen lately.


Most of all I am thankful for Jesus, and His love for me and His absolute patience with me - even when I am completely unlovely. :)


What are you thankful for this week?

Thanks for reading!


P.S. ~ I know you were all dying to hear me rag yesterday and it just didn't happen! No fear though, I am working up a doozy for next week, lol!

~ "my husband rocks" Friday ~

In a time when nothing is more certain than change, the commitment of two people to one another has become difficult and rare. Yet, by its scarcity, the beauty and value of this exchange have only been enhanced.

~Robert Sexton~

Marriage is truly a beautiful thing. Easy? Definitely not. Fun? Not always, but often. Worth it? Every minute! However, in today's culture marriage has gotten a bad rap. Married couples in movies and on television are often depicted as miserable and mutually disrespectful. In break rooms across the world one can find co-workers engaging in ritual "spouse bashing." And more and more people have simply stopped believing that marriage is of any value at all.

Being a newlywed myself, I've honestly been a little discouraged by the negative connotation marriage is receiving. Until I found a company that's doing something about it!

That company is From*me Tees! You can get to their website by clicking on that link, or the button in my sidebar. Below is a snippet from the "About Us" section of their website.

"From*me Tees was started by a married couple who knows what it is to work through hard stuff and yet stay together and stay committed through it all. One of the great and wonderful mysteries of life is that loving each other in action--what we do and say--produces romance. Everything in our culture today teaches the opposite, that romance turns into love, but nothing could be further from the truth. Love is a choice and we decide how we're going to treat each other in the good and in the not-so-good times. What a hope-giving reality that a strong relationship can be built, simply by changing how we interact with our spouse.

Marriage was created to be a blessing and a little kindness and respect goes a long way. Accept the fact that your spouse isn't perfect and then start taking notice of all the good things they bring to the table! Pretty soon you can train your mind to be grateful for who they are as opposed to feeling disappointed about who they are not. When you allow yourself to believe that your spouse rocks, you will free yourself from the downward spiral of self-pity, disappointment, and even dispair. The key is to change yourself! And you'll be surprised at the positive affect it has on the one you choose to love...and you!" source

I was so excited and inspired when I found their website (thank you An Island Life) and read their mission statement! This is exactly what I've been looking for and trying to create in my marriage! Marriage should be fun and happy and wonderful, and we should look at it in a positive light! (That being said, I am fully aware and willing to put in the work and commitment it takes to create a lasting marriage, but that doesn't have to be a drudge or a chore, either!) And I decided that I am going to join them in putting marriage in a positive light! I want my husband to feel loved and respected by me, and I want to encourage others in this as well!

Thus ~ "my husband rocks" Fridays ~ is born!

Every Friday, I will be posting a story, or photo, or quote about how and why my husband rocks! And I invite you to do the same!

"No husband is perfect and it doesn’t really matter. What matters is how I set myself up to think about him. If I focus on his failures, his annoyances, or ways in which I’ve felt hurt by him, then I will interact with him as a hurt and frustrated and disappointed wife. That makes for miserable living for me and my husband and those around us. But if I focus on his strengths, his potential, and the ways in which I feel blessed by him, then I will interact with him as a forgiving, blessed, and contented wife. And there’s no greater need a man has than to feel respected by his wife. If he feels like all he does is hurt, disappoint, and frustrate, then the same atmosphere and the same actions will be perpetuated. But if he feels that his wife can be happy and responsive regardless of his shortcomings, he feels respected and empowered. Then a positive atmosphere is perpetuated and actions, once destructive, can improve in an environment that is rich for
cultivation and growth into deepened respect and intimacy." (from the From*me Tees Mission Reflection)

If you'd like to join me in ~"my husband rocks" Fridays~ every Friday, write a post proclaiming to the world why your husband (or wife, or husband-to-be, or wife-to-be) ROCKS!, then come back here and comment with the permalink to your post!

And as an added bonus . . . . if you make a From*me Tees purchase (of at least two items) on Fridays as part of this "carnival," From*me Tees has generously offered to refund your shipping charges if you mention my blog and the "my husband rocks Fridays carnival" during checkout at the "how did you hear about us" reply link!

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