Our Thanksgiving blessing

This year, God gave us a special reason to be grateful on Thanksgiving Day. We found out that we are expecting a baby!! We are all very excited! Sophie kisses my belly every day now and tells her baby sister or brother, "I love you!" What a sweet time! We drove to Arkansas to spend the holiday with Clint's family. I was very sick (and suspicious) the day before Thanksgiving so on Thanksgiving morning, I took a pregnancy test. We saw two little lines (a positive result) and Lord willing we will have a baby late July or early August 2008!! Clint was able to tell his family in person the good news...what a treat for him! I will have Thanksgiving photos to share soon!

Our Wedding Day

The honour of your presence

is requested at the marriage of

Miss Kristen Elizabeth Martell

to

Mr. Clint Wade Halsted

Saturday, the twenty-fifth of August

In the year of our Lord

Two thousand seven
at eleven o'clock

The Raleigh Rose Garden

301 Pogue Street

Raleigh, North Carolina

The Halsted family blog would be incomplete without this very important entry

recounting the day that we became a family! I recently got our wedding photos back to help share the day with you. Welcome to our wedding day!

We were blessed with a beautiful day and a beautiful setting at the Rose Garden

My dad and Sophie and I waiting to walk down the aisle

Our singles pastor at church, Brian Frost, gave the message.

He opened with this passage of scripture for us:

"I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.

Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods. Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one could recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare." - Psalm 40:1-5

Clint and I both went through terrible heartache before the Lord led us to one another. God rescued us from those low places in our lives and gave us renewed hope and strength to walk forward. And what a blessing that God planned for Clint and I to walk forward together as husband and wife! We have such a faithful and loving God!

The vows

We're married!!

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love,

I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

- 1 Corinthians 13:1-7

The Reception

Clint and I on our way to our garden reception...more photos and details to come!