A Look Back at 2014

It is hard to believe that another year has come and gone. They say the older you get the fast time goes and I would most definitely attest to that. I think this was the fastest year yet.

January

Our Youth teamed up with the UMW ladies and put together emergency response bags for the Hesston Childcare Center

The first annual OneEvent, was at the beginning of the month. This was an awesome event for the youth of our conference, and one of my own was on stage speaking to a thousand of his peers.

You can't help but love some quality Quinn time!

Autumn and I got together to exchange Christmas gifts and hang out. We always have a blast together.

February

Valentine's Day Concert: Lady Antebellum

I think we were getting ready for a date, since we didn't spend Valentine's together! He is a goof ball.

My little brother graduated from the Sheriff academy, I can't use a picture of him so here is a picture of Adam and I waiting to watch him walk across the stage!

In February we also celebrated my mother's birthday and Grandma Marjorie's birthday.

March

Some more sister time, we were at IHOP. Not sure sugar was a good idea for us, but it was delicious!

Adam and I spent some time out at Camp Horizon, visiting the place where we met back in 2008.

This was a date night to Olive Garden, He wouldn't take a normal picture.

I love playing make believe with Miss Elizabeth! 

We celebrated my grandparents' 50th Wedding Anniversary!

March also brought Adam asking my parents for my hand in marriage and my 25th birthday. 

April

We took a church work group to Camp Horizon to do some work. We had a blast!

The Youth Council Members lead a Sunrise Service

Kailie and I matched on Easter Sunday

Easter beauties!

Great Grandma Skelton's birthday!

May

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Our end of the year Youth Party came with a surprise!

Adam put a ring on my finger in front of all of the youth, he coordinated it so well.

Sister time at Spangles

We're dorks!

June

Jessica and I survived our first 3rd & 4th grade VBS

Annual Conference was in here somewhere! And I tried on Wedding Dresses and picked one out online. And I think we failed at Father's Day. We also had the DIP family reunion at Horizon. June was really busy.

We took engagement pictures at Camp Horizon

Middle School Camp at Horizon 

You never know what you are going to find at Walmart!

July

Mission Day Camp at Hesston UMC

My 7th Performing Arts Camp and Adam's 4th

High School Camp with Autumn

I got a new hat!

August

Mann Family Reunion at Camp Horizon

Adam's Grandma Beth's Birthday Party

I gave a sermon at Hesston UMC, and my family came to support me, so I got some pics with Zack, my Grandma, and Nicole 

Parkinson's 5K in Manhattan with Nicole and Sarah Jane, we dressed up as the PowerPuff Girls

Ninja Turtle Movie Date

Adam and I got a new puppy, Ranger.

He was so little

Quinn turned Three!!!

September

Ranger and I went to visit my family. He loves going to both sets of his grandparents.

We celebrated Adam's 24th birthday by going to Tanganyka Wildlife Park.

Adam busted his foot playing soccer with the youth. He was in a boot for a few weeks.

October

We had two wedding showers, one in Hesston and one in Arkansas City. We are so blessed!

We took a family photo with our growing boy.

We also celebrated Dad's 50th birthday and Trunk 'n Treat, and all things Halloween.

November

Bachelorette Party!!! We got pedicures, lunch at Fazolis, played cosmic mini golf, hung out in the hotel room, dinner at Old Chicago's, and then a lingerie party in the hotel room. It was perfect.

The Wedding of my Dreams!

We honeymooned in the Kansas City area.

While we were gone I made my third Lock's of Love donation, this time in the honor of my best friend's mother LaDonna!

Thanksgiving with the Mann family

December

Church Christmas Program

Ugly Sweater Christmas Party with the Youth

Our First Family Christmas

We spent Christmas Eve with Adam's family, Nicole also spent Christmas with us!

Christmas Day at Grandma Sharon's

Christmas with my family

One of my favorite gifts from my mother.

Ranger and Thunder met for the first time

Christmas with Grandma Jo

We are ready for an awesome 2015.

Ranger sure is growing like a weed, its hard to believe how small he was and how big he will become.

Here he is ready for a new year!

He keeps us on our toes and makes sure we are active! I just love being a puppy mom! :) 

Thanks for being a part of our 2014.

Happy New Year from the Utt's

I Couldn't Love You More

Sometimes being a mentor is incredibly hard.

My mom always says that most kids bring home lost animals but I brought home lost souls.

I know I was bound and determined to be where I am today. My entire life has set me up to be in the line of work and lifestyle that I live.

It is really easy to mentor young people when you just pick them up for ice cream and talk about school work and their dreams.

But there are times when it doesn't matter how many times you talk or show them the light sometimes they still choose darkness. You can pray all day every day and they still choose to lie, cheat, steal, sneak around, and make dangerous decisions.

When I mentor, I mentor with my heart. I always try to give them my true self, to be as transparent as possible, because there are too many fake people in this world. And when you mentor someone over a long period of time you begin to feel what they feel, you hurt when they hurt, you feel joy when they feel joy. And when they mess up royally you feel like it was a slap in the face. Like there should have been something I could have done to prevent it. Often when this happens you can see the other side they can't, you can see the light, you can dream for them, you can see their future, and all they can see is right now and are in survival mode.

I know this also comes when you're a parent. I don't have children of my own yet. But there are many young people who I feel are mine. I pray for them, dream for them, hope for them, and support them in every way I know how.

Doing what I do and being who I am, I have found myself many times with a broken heart for someone that I want nothing more than to help, but they are refusing to see the light and are choosing to live in the darkness they have known for years, because familiarity is easier to handle than the chance the light might not work out.

And so I find myself in a state like I am today. With tears in my eyes and sadness in my heart, but knowing that I couldn't love them more, at this point I have to let them go. I have to give them to the only one who can truly love them through the darkness. I have to let go and trust that God will protect them and hold on to them even if they are lost for awhile, he has plans for them, and hopefully one day soon they will see the light and will see how beautiful life can be when they walk away from the pain.

So this one is for all those souls in my life that I love dearly. I will continue to love you and pray for you, but today I am letting go of whatever control I wish I had and letting God love you in His perfect unconditional way.

I Couldn't Love You More -- Matt Hammitt

The Reason for the Season

Well we just had our church Christmas Program on Sunday afternoon. It turned out to be a lot fun and the kids did a great job.

When I was looking for a show to do, I needed something easy, free, and multiple age friendly. This can be hard to find, since I don't want to pay anything. But Google proved to be helpful and I found
The Reason for the Season. You can click on the link and see the script. It really was cute and funny.

I then decided that I only wanted to work with the Middle School Students when it came to the script, but you can't have a program without all of the cute little kids, so we created a little angel choir, and Marge took care of directing that, which is good because I don't do the singing part.

On a side note, I found this video when I was googling the show again. These are not my kids but this is the same show. Their costumes are even similar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3qKBOxDIxU


We had an interesting time figuring out how to practice for this show. The little kids practiced right after school for two weeks and then they were ready to go. But all of my middle school kids had practice after school so we had to be creative. Then of course they failed to tell me the night most of them were going to be gone to an away basketball game (I have all home events on my calendar so I worked around those). Then there was the fact that I got married right before Thanksgiving and was gone for a week when we historically practiced that week. So we practiced about 5 or 6 times and they were never all there so come Sunday I was definitely wondering why I even tried to do this, this year. But they pulled it off and it was cute.

Big thanks to:
Marge for leading the music.
Jessica for making all of the costumes.
Lennea for accompanying the music.
Zack and Jakeb for running the technology during the show.
Pastor Keith for keeping me sane and for the opening and closing so I could hide.


The Christmas Tree: Is important at Christmas time because it is an Evergreen. The evergreen represents Everlasting life, which we get from Christ who was born at Christmas.

The Star: Is important because it led the Wise Men to Jesus, and it still reminds people today of the way to Christ.

The Angel: The angel was the voice of the good news. And our Angel learned that she should be that voice with or without her halo.

The Card: The Christmas Card is important to share the Christmas cheer and greet everyone in the name of Christ.

The Candy Cane: The Candy Cane represents the staffs the Shepherds carried, the stripes represent the blood Jesus shed when he was whipped, and it is shaped like the letter J for Jesus.

The Present: The Present represents the greatest gift ever given: Jesus.

The Bell: The bell's job is to ring in the good news.

The Stocking: The stocking is empty because it shows that even the emptiest of hearts can be filled with God's love.

The Candle: The candle's job is to bring light to the Reason for the Season.

Our kid choir was quite cute and definitely made the show!

We had two special pianists and they did a great job!

Then we ended the night with a Christmas Banquet

Thanks church family for a great night!

How's Married Life?

How's married life?

That is the question of the season. Which makes sense since I got married two weeks ago. The wedding was beautiful! It was everything I could ever imagine and more. It is the one set of pictures I look back and don't think, "man, my arms were fat." I truly have never felt more beautiful and loved than on that special day. My dress, hair, the decorations, from walking in with my father to you may kiss the bride, it was amazing. And even with the minor little things that always go wrong when you throw a special event at the end of the day we drove away married.

We have left the, are you excited, questions, and moved on to How's married life?

It was always hard for my sarcastic brain not to answer duh, I'm excited, I'm getting married. But that would be rude.

How's married life?

Not that much different. My husband works nights, and overtime, I never see him. My name has changed, we have one checking account, no one thinks it is weird if I leave early to go make dinner for my husband, and we get two nights a week together.

I still head for work as he is heading to bed. I wake him up in time for dinner, and we get to eat together, Tuesdays are pretty dedicated to date night, and Wednesdays are for church. Those are his two nights off. We play with Ranger, watch some TV, he plays video games and then he goes to work. Our schedules are exactly as they were before we got married. I still pray from the moment he puts his uniform on until he returns safely. We still struggle trying to spend time together, we still hold each other through our fears, insecurities, pains and frustrations. We are still a team.

We just happen to be a team now with the same last night. I know now, that if something were to happen to him at work they would contact me, I wouldn't have to wait to hear from someone else. I take great pride in being a Mrs. and still find myself staring at the rings on my left hand, and the one on his.

Our schedules are so different though, it makes it hard for married life to be different than engaged life. You see I cooked dinner for us ever since he moved to Hesston. I would get off work and let myself into his apartment and wake him up then we would do dinner and hang out until he had to go to work. We would cherish every moment we had together and then say goodnight, that hasn't changed.

Don't get me wrong, I love married life. I wouldn't change it for a minute, I just don't know how to answer that question the way people want me to. It has taken more getting used to my new short hair and using the word husband than anything else. I'm sure that will all change when he gets a different job and we have a matching schedule.

So married life is great. I love my husband, and I can't wait to do the Christmas season together, and it is amazing to do this life with someone always on my team. I love not having to make all of the decisions by myself, I love having someone to cook for, and a reason to leave work. So these first two and half weeks haven't been all that different but this is just the beginning of a life long adventure!

Picture curtesy of On the Wall Photography

BookMooch

Have you ever wondered what to do with your books once you have finished reading them? Unless you re-read books a lot there really isn't a point in holding on to your life time supply of reading. I know that I don't have room in my house for a large library. And then there is my office. I have six bookshelves in my office and they are basically packed. There are books I inherited from the previous owner of the office, books from my own collection, college and grad school, there are books I have been given, and some I have purchased and either used or decided it wasn't what I wanted. I have hundreds of books, just sitting here not being used. At home they got so much in the way that I packed them into boxes because I didn't know what else to do with them. I belong to a couple of different book clubs and I have started reading books on my phone so that I don't have to deal with the book itself when I'm done, but even then I can't just loan it out, because it is on my phone, paid for and stuck there.

My friend ByBreenah told me about this website called BookMooch. I'm addicted now. I just want to get rid of them all. You sign up, and put the books you no longer want on there, then other people can get on and look for the books they want. Then they mooch them from you. You mail them to them and you get points on the website. You then in turn can mooch what you are wanting to read from other people, and it only costs you the shipping costs to mail your books out.

Yesterday I mailed 10 books for $16.33, I'm used to spending that much just buying one book, so I say it is worth it, and thankfully Adam goes a long with it! I currently have 19 more books on my desk packaged and ready to go, I'm so excited they are going away. I just want them to be put to use. I don't need to be hoarding them, because I might some day actually get around to reading it....


So if you want me to get rid of your books for you just let me know. Also, I can look for a book for you if you want.

If you would like to check out my inventory here it is.

Praying

Do you ever struggle with specific prayer and the fact that what you are wanting might not be part of God's plan?

Waiting can be incredibly hard, I mean no one likes to wait. It is so easy to doubt everything, when you are stuck in a time of waiting. These thoughts come to my mind as I sit in my office trying not to be nervous because Adam has a test for a job today. He loves Law Enforcement but it would be so much better for us if he was not driving back and forth to Wichita every day, and honestly I don't like him working in Wichita, it feels like a different world, and the selfishness inside of me wants him closer to me and not in the craziness of Wichita. We have tried for so many positions in the past few months that it is honestly getting discouraging, and it is hard for me to see him so unhappy.

I remember back when I was job searching I got to the point that I just said God if this is it let me know, otherwise close the door before I get my hopes up. And Hesston just fell into place.

But it is hard to faithfully pray a prayer like that when my heart isn't the one that is going to be broken when the door is closed. It is easier to pray specifically for me. I have had many of my own specific prayers answered, but it is hard to do that for someone who is already discouraged and at times frustrated with God. I find myself just saying please, please, please, God just let this one work, and then having to pick up the broken pieces when it doesn't.

And today, a month away from our wedding day, the idea of picking up broken pieces, again, for the same reason just doesn't seem possible. Then again, I'm not really sure changing jobs is the answer to the prayer, but I do know it will be so much easier to have him closer, even if it is just for gas and car wear and tear.

When I pray, Lord let your will be done, I really mean it. I'm often scared of what that means, but I want the Lord's will to be living out in everything that I do. That just is hard when it feels like his will is hurting the man I love.

I guess I never really thought about how loving someone so completely affects absolutely everything else I do in my life. It is easy to see how it is going to affect things physically and emotionally, but I never thought spiritually loving someone else would be so hard.

So I guess my real prayer today is that Adam can feel God's presence with him while he is testing, that he has confidence in his own abilities, that he does the absolute best he can. I pray that the facilitators of the test are fair and just, and they make the best decision for their need. I pray that God protects Adam's heart from doubt and fear, and that he readies mine for whatever kind of support will be needed when the test is over. I pray that God's will be done, and that we can accept that it is for the best.