Family Alive

Brian, Kristine, Analise, and Josiah Toone

Last snow pics and video

17th February 2010

Wow – we had some more snow Sunday night. I had meant to post these earlier – but it’s fun to look back at those pics now…

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Valentine’s Smiles

13th February 2010

From my littlest Valentines…

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More snow fun!

13th February 2010

You definitely know it’s a special rare Alabama snowstorm when the snow is still around the next day! Check out these pictures and video from the fun yesterday and today.


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Snow day?

12th February 2010

It’s looking like it might actually snow tomorrow! Winter storm warning with 2-4″ predicted. The heaviest snow is going to be just north of Mobile, AL on the gulf coast with up to 8″ of snow!

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Learning to Scrabble

6th February 2010

Brian and I have found a fun Scrabble game to play ony iPhone, called Words with Friends (and it’s free!). One fun advantage is that you can essentially place “try” various combinations of letters, click ‘submit’, and you might find yourself lucky enough to have created an actual word that you’ve never heard of. For example, “readorns”, “baud” and “beefy”. Can you believe “beefy” is actually a word?!?

Brian tweeted this photo of Josiah, saying he was teaching him to play Words with Friends. Just what we need… a 3-year old learning real-but-not-normal words. Before I know it, he’ll be beating me at Scrabble!

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Wanting a Mary Heart

27th January 2010

Thanks to procrastinating, today I’ve got a whole list of things that I really don’t want to do.  My house needs some serious cleaning, and we’ve got our Life Group coming over tonight.  Before I dove into the tasks, I sat down with my tea and the Word, and a prayer that God would guide my every moment, task and thought today. (Have to admit that the Word sometimes doesn’t come first, and if it doesn’t, I’m lucky to get back to it during the day.  But today, of course, I welcomed something better to do!)

I’m reading through Luke right now, and the end of Luke 10 (today’s chapter), happened to be a very timely message.  I love God’s perfect timing with His Word!

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!””Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

I’m definitely a Martha.  I desperately want a Mary heart.  I read an excerpt from a book called “Having a Mary Spirit” by Joanna Weaver (sort of a sequel to “Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World“).

Jesus didn’t want Martha to be so caught up on kitchen service for Him that she missed out on the joy of living room intimacy with Him… His disciples were a good example of this.  As they received Jesus’ teaching, they learned the balance between a soul at rest and a body in motion, between working hard for Christ and sitting at His feet.

Ahhh… I’m pretty much speechless as to how well this applies to me.  Off to my tasks, with my heart’s prayer that I would choose what is better and keep Him at the forefront of my service.

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Twittering

20th January 2010

Brian’s now on Twitter, @BrianToone, as am I, @beautifulwife. (Sidenote: my username was actually kind of a joke… it was how he directed comments at me on Facebook, and he dared me to see if it was available on Twitter.  It was, so the name stuck!)

He’s tweeted about some Topocreator.com maps he’s created on his website for the season’s first big pro cycling race, the Tour Down Under.  He was excitedly telling me this evening that he’s even got a follower on Twitter from Australia.  I chuckled and told him it was probably a spammer, just wanting to get followers from being on his follower list.  He puffed up and said, “I’ve only got 19 followers, and they’re all important to me.  Don’t you talk bad about any of them!”

I promise, if you follow Brian on Twitter, he will appreciate you!

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Bathroom tissue

12th January 2010

Well – this is what happened when Josiah went to the bathroom by himself while I was making a taco for lunch. He unrolled the toilet paper all the way into the living room because he couldn’t tear it (well, at least that’s what he said!)tt

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Tea party!

10th January 2010

Which snack is for Josiah? Which is for Analise?
Which snack is for Josiah? Which is for Analise? http://tinyurl.com/yb75qrp

Tea party on the trampoline inside the dora tent
Tea party on the trampoline inside the dora tent. http://tinyurl.com/ye6lhzp

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Surprise snow – 1/8/10

8th January 2010

Today it actually snowed! Analise had school anyway but with a 2 hour delay. That set up a fun adventure for us as we had already decided to bike to school this morning. The air temp was 15F when we left and 17F by the time Josiah and I made it home after dropping off Analise, but we were having so much fun we barely noticed the cold.

Analise doing a warm-up lap in our driveway
Analise doing a warm-up lap in our driveway

Josiah doing a warm-up lap in our driveway
Josiah doing a warm-up lap in our driveway

Snowy street this AM
Snowy street this AM

Biking together on the way to drop off Analise off at school
Biking together on the way to drop off Analise off at school

Josiah in heavy snow
Josiah in heavy snow

Josiah almost all the way back home - a little cold by this point
Josiah almost all the way back home – a little cold by this point

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