Christmas List

I know it's well over a month from Christmas but my mom is pressuring me for a Christmas List.

You know you have grown up when it think a really long time to come up with a list

Without further ado....

• Martha Stewart's Cooking School


• Canon Powershot (I have a really nice SLR but wouldn't mind a good point and shoot)


• These lazy spoons from Rachael Ray


• A Pizza Stone
  
• The Biggest Loser for Wii
  
  
  

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Family Room Makeover

A few months ago my parents came to our house for a "work weekend." I had many tasks that I needed a handy man for. One of this was thing project. This is what the living room looked before.


Here is after. We made a "faux" fireplace. We installed a mantel and hung our TV on the wall. It made for more walking room. And now I get to decorate a mantel!

I still need to get some candles and a fireplace screen to make my "fire place" look more real (hence half of the mantel!)

These are some of my fall decorations. Thank you Hobby Lobby! As soon as these went up I realdy started planning for Christmas and a row of 5 stockings!

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Happy Halloween!

This year again we had our Halloween outreach for the church where we passed out candy with our church info and did popcorn and cotton candy.

And of course I dressed the dogs up!

Cooper was a banana because our friend Aaron was going to be a monkey.

I knew I needed the right costume for Annie and she is definitely no princess. So she was dressed as a prisoner!

They were a hit again and Joe said that one father said his kids talked for an hour about the Banana dog so he had to come check it out for himself! I think the dogs enjoyed all the attention and the dropped popcorn.

Here are some the students hard at work serving.

Did you have a fun Halloween?

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Canoeing

Joe and I went canoeing in Edinburgh with some of my coworkers and their spouses. Joe and I have never been canoeing together and have only a couple of trips separately. There were some strong warnings that he is not to capsize the boat!



There were only a few times where we were going circles, or running into stuff but all in all it was a great adventure! It was nice and relaxing to



Afterwards, I decided that this would be a great pre-marital counseling session. It is definitely Communication 101! You can learn a lot about communication styles with canoeing. For example, when I get scared I start shrieking or repeating "Big branch coming up! Big branch coming up!"

We even started planning our next canoe trip! Did you do anything fun this weekend?







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Nesting

I was nesting a little bit in the house today. Right after we moved in, Joe and I hung a lot of stuff on the walls around our house. And our house definitely felt like a home but I had just not done many things since in ways of decorating.

Today as I was procrastinating on cleaning, I was in the garage and found mirrors, and picture frames that had been in our rental house. So I got on my kick and starting hanging things everyone. I couldn't find a hammer so I used a hand weight I had...I just starting making do when no hubby is around.

I get on these nesting kicks all of a sudden. I think I have everything the way I want them but then the I start rearranging things, loving pictures in magazines. With Fall quickly approaching, I keep thinking about all the decorations we need to make our home cuuute!

I always will question if this is truly what I should be focused on or is it really just futile. But I thinking my main calling in life is to be a wife, besides being a Child of God. This comes before church ministry or work. And one of my main responsibilities is making a home for us, a peaceful one. Although I know in reality Joe probably doesn't care if this picture looks better over here, I know that I am using my skills to provide.

Now I definitely have this no where figured out in my head or in practice. Our house is no where near peaceful and we don't even have kids yet, but I am always striving.

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Our Life in the Ministry

Today marks the one year anniversary of the day the church voted Joe into being the Senior Pastor. It was quite a journey to even get to that point. After the former pastor left right before we got married, many people approached Joe to full the role. Even as we were decorating the church for our wedding someone called Joe about this. I said "Absolutely not!" I was excited about being a Student Minister's wife, investing in youth, and starting a ministry together.

Fast forward a couple of months. Joe at this time had been the interim pastor, filling the pulpit, and I could see that he really enjoyed it. One day as we stood in our kitchen, I told him if you wanted to put your resume in, that I would support you. I think I thought even then, we are so young, there is no way this could happen!

But one year ago today the church voted Joe in and we started this new ride together in ministry. We've had our high peaks and our low valleys. We've had days where we have barely seen each other or barely even seen home.

But there are somethings I have learned in the last year.

• Ministry is way less about me and more about following God
• The congregation is definitely observing you but will pick you up when you fall
• I am a lot more sensitive to criticism than I realized.
• There many more blessings than trials, but you need to look for them with a heart of gratitude.
• That even in the valleys God is near.
  

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Locks of Love

I chopped 12 inches off my hair today.

That's the most I have ever cut off. I have been talking for awhile about cuttin my hair and with our church directories coming up, I knew now was the time. I have been growing my hair since before the wedding. I thought I would be more emotional about it, but I was happy to be off with it!

So without further ado here is me probably about a pound lighter holding my proud pony tail!

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