Cute Conversations

A precious conversation with my son:

Me: Wow, Connor, you guys already have a lot of candy! I'm not sure you need to go Trick-or-Treating tomorrow night.

Connor: Well, Mom, we have to, because that's how God controls the world!

Translation: God has expressly ordained trick-or-treating and it would not be Ocotber 31st if there wasn't candy involved. We may have to work on some theology here, but on the other hand, most children would probably agree. :)

Soccer Season: It's a Wrap!

Connor has really enjoyed playing soccer this fall. As I've mentioned in a previous post, he played on a kindergarten team called the Lions through UpWard sports. Brandon graciously volunteered to coach the team, and they had a great season! They do not keep score at the kindergarten level, so we can't give you an exact record, but let's just say it was a learning year for this team. Here's Connor roaring to demonstrate what a true Lion he is:



Connor played with a great group of kids and had a great time learning a little about the game. Given his size, we figure he probably won't follow Daddy's footsteps as a football player, so we're happy that he has found another sport that he likes.

Connor won the "Most Improved" award at the closing banquet. He started the season spending a lot of time standing out on the field chewing on his jersey and getting really frustrated with himself for mistakes. He ended it being a fast runner and even getting a few good kicks in there. It was so much fun to watch him learn and grow as a player!! Thanks to the friends and family who came to watch a game...he enjoyed playing for an audience of cheering fans. :)


I also want to publicly express my gratitude to Brandon for coaching the team. Sometimes I encourage him to sign up for things that he isn't necessarily excited about (I PROMISE I said "he'll coach only if you're short"...guess we know how that turns out!)...especially when it's coaching a team for a sport that he's never played...but he always dives right in and does a wonderful job.


The kids LOVED their coach (one girl even came up and said "I love you, coach!" while hugging his leg at the last game), and Brandon's patience and dedication to helping make their experience a good one paid off. Most importantly, our son thought it was awesome to have his Daddy out on the field with him. Thanks, my dear!

Good season, team!

Some Good News...

Many of you may not know that despite receiving my Master's Degree in Nursing from KU 5 years ago, I had never taken the last step in getting certified as a Nurse Practitioner. This was primarily because when I graduated, I was 8 months pregnant with Connor and knew that working outside the home as a NP wouldn't be my top priority for quite some time...

So, I began my work at William Jewell with my Master's Degree, and then two years later, along came Kylee...

This summer, I realized that I had a desire to get my Family Nurse Practitioner certification. My husband and eternal supporter encouraged me to go for it. So, I submitted my application, we paid the testing fee and I scheduled my test for October 11th. I began studying in August.

I have to admit that I actually enjoyed studying. In this time of my life where my world centers around meeting the needs of my little ones, it was refreshing to educate myself in a field that I am passionate about. I learned many new things and expanded my horizons in the field of nursing through my studying.

Then came October 11th. The great thing about this test was that, if I didn't pass, I could continue my current work and no one would really know the difference. My fear of failure prevented me from telling many folks that I was sitting for the exam. The pressure I put on myself came from knowing that we had made an investment of time and money, and I really didn't want to disappoint my husband, my family, or honestly, myself.

I took the 175 question exam at a testing center in Lee's Summit. I felt well-prepared and felt that the exam was fair,but of course, it's never quite what you expect. I had been told that I would need to wait two weeks to receive my results in the mail. Ugh.

I walked out after completing the test to retreive my belongings out of the locker I had been assigned. The testing center proctor (kind of a strange bird) greeted me as I exited the testing room and said "Well, you really blew through that!" I am a fast test-taker, but that really isn't what I wanted to hear. Then she picked up a piece of paper off of the printer and said "Well, congratulations, you scored above and beyond what you needed to." I had no idea what she was talking about...or if she even knew what she was doing (recall that she was kind of a strange bird). She handed me the paper.

I looked down at it to see "Congratulations, you have passed the Family Nurse Practitioner Exam". Unreal.

So, I did it! What does this mean? That if I wanted to, I could work as a FNP in a clinic setting. If you've ever taken your sick child to the Pediatrician's office and seen a Nurse Practitioner, or seen one yourself at your Drs. office, that is what I am now certified to do. What do I want to do with it? Right now, I'd like to use my gifts to serve. I'm on the lookout for ministries that might be interested in using me as a volunteer in this capacity. We'll see what God has in store.

Oh, yes, and as some of you know, these accomplishments bring more alphabet soup into my life. My new credentials: Lindsey Carlson MSN, APRN, BC.

The kids still call me Mommy, though. :)

The Wisdom of a Five Year Old

Last night, we were trying to convince Kylee that it was time to take a bath. Connor got in on the act, informing her that it was bathtime, to which she replied in her Kylee-esque way: "I don't want to take a bath!"

Connor walked away, shoulders hunched over, and said to me "Maybe it would work better if you handled this....I'm not big yet." I laughed. He continued on--"I can handle little babies, but I can't get bigger kids to do anything....like 3 year olds. They're hard!"

If only our little man knew how right he is.

Disney World, Here We Come!

We feel so blessed to have been able to spend a week in sunny Florida enjoying all the magic Disney had to offer a couple weeks ago....here's a brief rundown of our time away....

We arrived in Florida on Saturday afternoon. We got checked in to our hotel (Disney's Pop Century Resort) and headed out for Downtown Disney where we were bombarded with shops, shops, and more shops...we enjoyed a dinner at Planet Hollywood and then looked around at all the retail establishments. Downtown Disney is home of the LARGEST Disney store EVER (we literally had to use our cell phones to find each other a couple times), and also home of the Lego store, which was Connor's favorite.

We arrived back in our hotel room, tired, but happy, only to find that our luggage had not yet been delivered to our room (this was part of our package deal...our luggage was to "magically appear" in our room 3-4 hours after our arrival...I know, I know, anyone with half a brain could smell trouble brewing with a promise like that!). Thankfully, we had packed an extra set of clothing for everyone, so all was not lost, and the kids got to enjoy some time in the pool with Daddy while Mommy worked on tracking down our bags (thankfully, we were able to round up almost all of them with a couple hours' work). It wouldn't be a family vacation without some sort of hiccup like that, right?

Our first day at the parks was spent at Epcot. We learned that this isn't the greatest park for little kids (funny how they don't really care about cultural diversity). We enjoyed ourselves, though, with the highlight of our day being our Princess Storybook Lunch...Kylee got to meet Belle, Jasmine, Ariel, Aurora, and CINDERELLA (who only occasionally stops in, so we felt pretty lucky). This sounds like a dream come true, but Kylee was pretty overwhelmed by the princesses, so all the pictures we took were of her glued to me (as you can see here with Cinderella):

Epcot is also home to "The Seas" where they have some great Finding Nemo themed attractions that the kids liked. Connor snapped this photo of us:

We also became familiarized with the Florida rains...it poured for about two hours in the middle of our day. It didn't stop us from exploring, though, and we concluded our day by watching the Illuminations fireworks show (which again, terrified both of our children, but was quite amazing to Brandon and I). Here is a picture of Connor in front of "Mission: Space" with the infamous Epcot Space Mountain ball behind him. I love this shot...

Our second day was spent at the Animal Kingdom, which was cool. We started the day out with a character breakfast where we got to meet Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto. Again, the kids were completely terrified, so the pictures are interesting. Doesn't it look like we're having the absolute time of our lives?!?!?! ;)

Our favorite part of the Animal Kingdom was the Kilimanjaro Safari that we went on, where we got to see lots of exotic animals and enjoy a ride in a cool-looking jeep. :) We took in several animal shows and the kids had fun "digging" in an dinosaur boneyard. Here's Connor doing his best dinosaur impression for the camera:

The next day was spent at MGM studios where we got to meet Lightning McQueen (again, completely terrifying for our son, thus the family picture).

This was a fun day filled with lots of character sightings (our kids really did enjoy seeing the characters from afar) and lunch at Pizza Planet, the restaurant from Toy Story. We also got to see a live re-enactment of a movie stunt sequence filming, which was awesome. Connor loved watching all the cars, jet-skis, and motorcycles race about and was also impressed by watching a stuntwoman being set on fire (the older male in our family also would call this show a highlight of our trip, too). :) We got to see a parade that featured some Star Wars characters, and then ended the day with Fantasmic, which was awesome!

This picture doesn't really fit anywhere, but I thought it was hilarious. Here's Kylee trying on a hat:

Our two final days were spent at the Magic Kingdom, which was the best part of the trip for all of us. The kids especially loved the Winnie the Pooh ride and Peter Pan's Flying Adventure. Connor and I got to ride on Dumbo together, and Kylee and I got to attend Storytime with Belle. We rode the teacups as a family and then Connor and Daddy rode together in a racecar and CONNOR got to drive. They issued him a "driver's license", which he thought was the coolest thing ever!! We ended our day with yet another character meal with Winnie the Pooh and friends (because our children enjoyed them so much!):

They say that Disney is the happiest place on earth....we laughed often about how almost every family we saw during our time in the parks had either a child screaming (sometimes two!), sleeping, or parents that looked completely exhausted (we took our turns with all of these things, too). It was sensory overload for our little ones (and their parents, admittedly), but overall, an experience we wouldn't trade. Here are our brave little road warriors hanging out in their stroller...

It wasn't fun to think about coming home, but at the same time, it was really nice not to have to share double-beds anymore!! We've gotten settled back in and have had fun listening to the kids talk about what they enjoyed during our vacation (ironically, they will tell you that they loved meeting the characters...go figure!). :)