Merry Christmas!

I can finally post my Christmas card picture now that I have finally sent them out. I'm ashamed of how late they are. Oops! I don't know what happened to the planner in me!

Sorry I couldnt send them to everyone, stamps are so darn expensive.

From our house to yours!

I hope everyone has a blessed Christmas. Enjoy your time off work and your time with your families!

Pizza- pizza

Our 2nd annual homemade pizza making Christmas get together.

And this is what happens...

Community group pj Christmas party

We had our 3rd anual community group Christmas party last night at the Baileys!
We had such a blast. This year we decided to wear christmas pj's which was way fun! Jenessa did a great job of hosting of course.





















Andrew was the big winner of the white elephant gift! He won "hairy chest shampoo", compliments of Aubs!




We had a blast with everyone! We are truly thankful for each and every couple in our group! They are all so sweet and wonderful!


Post From My iPhone

Location:W Earnhardt Dr,Fayetteville,United States

Christmas pics 09

Here is a little preview of our christmas card!




And here is one just for fun! Marc Showing his softer side!

Thank you to Will flowers for taking some amazing pics of us! We haven't had a professional pic of us in four years!
You can check out his site at http://www.jflowersphoto.com/index2.php

So Proud

I'm so proud of my little sis, Megan! A couple of weekends ago she got baptized! Marc and I had the privilege of going to witness this special occasion in Little Rock at Fellowship Bible Church. She told us the week before that she felt it was time and that she had prayerfully made this decision.



Brandon: "Meg, Is it your desire to follow Christ for the rest of your life?'
Meg: "yes"
Brandon: "Then it is my privilege to Baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit...







Raised to walk in newness of life"





Yay Meg! We are so proud of you for making you decision to follow Christ publicly. We are so happy for you and hope that lives will be changed through you.


That Sunday was also special, because we were able to take my grandmother to church with us. She hasn't been in several years, and she just loved it! I said, "Nana, you know we (as in my parents) can come get you and take you to church all the time, its not that far away. She responded, "Well I would just love that!"




Acts 2:38

Peter replied,
"Each of you must turn from sins and turn to God and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is to you an your children, and even to the Gentiles, all who have been called by the Lord our God."

I did it!

I took the plunge and decorated my house early for Christmas. I did this only because we leave for thanksgiving tomorrow and tonight we are helping our friends move into their wonderful, newly built home 5 houses down from us!
I have never decorated ealry before, but I'm so glad I did so that I can enjoy for longer than 3 weeks. I also have never decorated without my moms help, so this was a big step! I guess you gotta learn sometime.

Marc was amazing in helping me. He was such a trooper and didn't complain at all. He also helped me do it all! So thank you honey! I couldn't have done it without you.

We started at 6:30 and finished at 9! Not too terribly bad!

What do you think?










He was loving it!



Finished product!



My willow tree nativity!



This tree is so special to me. I put it up every year. My grandfather made this with all my grandmothers jewlry in which he would bring back to her from traveling in the navy. I absolutely love and treasure this piece.











And the aftermath:


Yikes.

So glad to have it all finished before we leave town. It will be so nice to come home to!

I Hope everyone has a happy thanksgiving! We are headed to the lakehouse with my parents, marcs mom and stepdad, and his brother! Im so thankful our families get along so well. I feel tremendously blessed!


-- Post From My iPhone

Bzzzz

Me and my bumble bee...









Hung out with this bumble bee in little rock all weekend.....




Aren't they cute! We had fun, not so sure they did!



-- Post From My iPhone

And the Winner is....

I just put all of your names in a bowl and the name I drew out was.....
LOUISE!!! Yay you are the winner of a Kelly Parks cd! (I promise I did not look or cheat.)
The great thing is Louise loves her already and got a preview of the cd in my car the other day!

Thanks everyone for participating, this was really fun! Thanks again for reading my blog, I really appreciate it! I hope to have more giveaways in the future.

Have a wonderful weekend! I'm officially a deer widower for the next 6 days... boo, so I'm headed to Little Rock to hang out with my fam!

Last chance!

Don't forget! Its not too late to enter to win the Kelly Parks CD! I will be drawing on Friday, so you have until noon on Friday to leave me a comment on this post or the other one.
This CD is really incredible and inspirational. She has worked on it for the past 3 yrs and is very talented. You will love it, I promise!

You can preview it on itunes.


Just click on this link!
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/to-tell-story/id335948986

Hope everyone is having a great week so far! Happy Hump day!

My Ironman

My sweet, ironman of a hubby surprised me the other day with this really cool ironman watch!





What makes this watch so special is that . 1- mine is orange. 2- It can control your ipod while you are running (or in my case walking)! 3- water resistant and very sporty 4- my hubby surprised me with one!
This would be a great option for a Christmas present for someone. Marc found mine on woot.com , which are one-day deals, but they are also available at Target, Amazon.com, and I'm sure other places that sell watches.
It comes with a small connector that plugs into the bottom of your ipod which makes it connect with the watch. I was very impressed! I'm a sucker for electronic devices... and yes I know I'm a dork. I was able to work a vcr when I was 3.
Anyways, just a fun option for a fun gift!

Here are some specific features on it! (If you really care.)

Keep Your Sports Training Focused with this Sports Watch
Resin Band ; Buckle Closure
Indiglo Night-Light
Features 50-Lap Memory, 2 Interval Timers and 3 Alarms
Battery Powered
Water-Resistant to 100 Meters
Resin Case
Band Length: 205mm

Just thought I would pass this along!
I Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Happy 100th Post!

I can't believe it! This is my 100th post. My first post was on January 11, 2008. It has taken me quite awhile to get to this.

I started blogging originally to keep our family and friends updated about our lives, but then I wanted to start documenting our lives because Marc and I don't always have the best memory. I realized I couldn't remember what I had done for my birthday the year before, and so it was time to keep up with what was going on. I also wanted to make sure and document what the Lord is doing in our lives and it to be a testimony to others. Although, our life seems pretty steady at this time, I know we will go through ups and downs and this is such a great way to tell our story.

In honor of this 100th post and as a thank you to all of my followers that actually read this blog, I'm going to have my very first GIVEAWAY! Yep that's right!

I will be giving away a NEW Kelly Parks CD! Kelly Parks is an amazing singer, I work with her husband at church and used to work with her. She has worked on this album for the past 3 yrs and it is really great. It is called, "To tell the Story." She wrote all of the songs but one, only because it is an old hymn.

So to enter this giveaway, all you have to do is become a follower and leave me a comment! I will have a drawing one week from today!

Have fun! And thanks for reading my blog!

Pi Phi Weekend

Although this post is a week late, I still wanted to make sure and post it so I can always remember!

Last weekend I had a fun pi phi reunion weekend. For those of you that read this blog and don't know what pi phi is, it is the sorority I was in while in college. It was a great experience for me, I made some lifelong friends and had such a wonderful college experience. I'm so grateful for all of the memories that I have from it.

Last weekend, I was able to see all of those friends that have moved away and had a great time of re-connecting. We had a centennial and Balfour celebration. The pi phis have now been on the University of Arkansas campus for 100 years. This called for some serious celebrating! They also won #1 chapter in the nation for 3 yrs in a row now. This means they won the Balfour cup which is super hard to do and you have to apply 4 yrs in advance to even be considered for winning. You have to meet certain requirements such as involvement on campus, GPA, etc.

I'm very proud of them for winning.

In honor of being on campus for 100 yrs, they have decided to donate a massive gate to the U of A . So to raise money for this really expensive gate, they had a silent auction before the luncheon and at this silent auction I bid on a Hawaii trip not thinking I would actually win, but I did! I got a great deal on it too. Its 7 nights in Maui and we are pumped. We are going to take a 5yr anniversary trip coming up in August! A pi phi alum owns this hotel in Maui and donated it for pi phi!

Look how gorgeous!

Friday night a bunch of us went to Powerhouse to hang out and eat dinner.

Saturday, we had a luncheon at the Fayetteville Town Center. There were over 600 alums!

And a reception that night!

We all had so much fun hanging out! I'm so grateful for all my wonderful friends. It made me miss college so badly and made me realize I'm getting old.

And this how I know I'm old.... My composite picture from 2002 (the year I pledged) is now in the snack closet at the Pi Phi house. When I lived there, we used to say, "Oh my gosh those girls are so old" and LAUGH! At least I'm not off from the wall!

WOW...

Shopping on Saturday

Today marc and I went with our friends matt and kara hartness (aka future neighbors) to help them find some things for their new house! I'm so excited about their new house because she has let me help them pick out and do a lot of design stuff for their house. Of course with the help of my mothers assistance since she is the pro and all! She has taught me everything I know about decorating. I really enjoy it and love to help others. I remeber when we built our 1st house and was so clueless, but being that my dad is an amazing builder and mom is an incredible decorator, I have learned a few things.
All that to say I feel like the hartnesses house has become my baby ( my project). I have become way too emotionally involved but loving every second of it. They are a couple of weeks out until move in, but I will post pics of the finished project when its completed!
So today we got some important items that were a must have!
We went to io metro in Rogers and found an amazing dining table for 50% off and some beautiful chairs to go with it. Plus we got a decorator discount of 10% from my mom. I have decided I am a pro at spending other peoples money! But at least I make them get good deals so really I save them money in the end!

Fun chairs



Truck loaded! Karas pumped!



Funky legs of the table



And one of my favorite things that will be going in the house... Her awesome uttermost pendants that my mom and I picked out! They are just gorgeous!



Can't wait to see the finished project with all the fun goodies we have found! (for less)!


Here is a sneak peak of the outside!!!



Have a great weekend!

-- Post From My iPhone

Hostess with the Mostess

Today marks the 6th consecutive day of Hostessing the mostess people in my house in 1 week!

It all started on Friday when these beautiful girls came to stay with me for our pi phi centennial celebration! Mare and Kirstin are some of my oldest, dearest friends, and of course my pi phi sisters. We have all known each other since pre-school. WOW, we go WAY back. It was a blast catching up with them. (More on my fun pi phi weekend in a different post)

I had these yummy Ricks cookies waiting for them at the house to start off our fun weekend!

They left Monday morning around 9 and then I hosted a team "fun day" at my house at 9:30 for the people I work with. There are about 12 of us total. We also celebrated 3 birthdays with some yummy Ricks cakes. They had their very own so they would each feel special. I designed their cakes according to their personalities. We had a great day hanging out and playing games!

Monday night my mom came in town, and Marc had guys over to play poker.

Tuesday night my sister was playing in the state volleyball championship in Siloam Springs. She played her last volleyball game ever because she is a senior. The coach asked me to have everyone over afterwards because I am the only one she knows in this area with a house. (She was my coach for 6 yrs and she was Megan's coach for 6yrs. I think I probably owed it to her after her putting up with us for so many years!) Soo... After the game, the WHOLE team came over to my house for dinner. That would be a total of about 30 people in my house. WOW again. I did not cook, Marc's step dad, Keith came over and made some yummy BBQ, beans, and potatoes! It was fabulous.

Yes this was in front of my house...

Tonight, being Wednesday night, I'm hosting community group at my house!

Tomorrow being Thursday- Marc and I are hosting a table at the Loving Choices banquet. (I guess that doesn't count since its not really at my house, but still!)

After all of this hosting the mostess people ever I feel like this:

Lets just say I'm looking forward to my weekend of nothingness!

Whew!

More fall!

I'm loving fall but it is going by way too fast!

















The trees are breathtaking In northwest Arkansas right now!


-- Post From My iPhone