Aggies, Don't Hate Me

Cause I made this.

On purpose.

But then we sawed off the horns and at them. So it makes it ok. It was for my sister's graduation. However, cakes apparently don't do well after a couple of hours in the car. By the time we got to Austin, the cake no longer looked like it did in the picture. Does anyone remember the cake scene in Sleeping Beauty? If not, just picture a landslide of icing upon a severly deformed longhorn.


Oh yes, there were tears. At least we captured the "before" picture. I decline to post any "after" pictures :)


Here is the pretty UT grad below.

We went up to Austin on Saturday to attend the graduation. It was the best graduation ever! Under an hour. Really. Unbelievable. I didn't even have to bring my graduation-survival-kit (magazine, electronic sudoku, cards, etc). We hung out with my sister and Cody, played with their new dog, then stayed at my Dad's cousins' home and enjoyed a few rounds of catch phrase. It was a fun time haning out with everyone. Here is the gang below.

Now I Know Why People Pay for Pine Cones

I thought it would be a fun thing to collect pine cones, glitter them, then put them in a bowl on our kitchen table. I was inspired by Becky's post. It would be an inexpensive, pretty decoration. Besides, who would pay to buy pine cones at the store when you can find them outside for free? Um, I would.

We went out Sunday afternoon to collect pine cones with one of our couple friends from church. We couldn't find any good ones at first, just the small, smashed, lopsided ones were all that were left. Guess the black Friday crowd hit up all the pine cones before we got there. I knew we should have come earlier. Our husbands were so sweet to try to get us some fresh ones. They were using the frisbee to knock the real beauties out of the trees. Pretty funny to watch as they were determined to get them down. We finally hit the jackpot in the Japanese Gardens. Lot's of good ones there. We filled up our bags then headed home.

Pine cones are so Christmasy. I love them. Oh, but apparently baby roaches do too. Who would have known a small colony of roaches had taken up residency in the pine cones I collected? I unknowingly sat the whole car ride home with a bag of roach-infested pine cones upon my lap. That is sick. When we got home to form the pine cone line-up to determine who would make the bowl, I began placing them in a height line. That's when they came alive. Each one had 3-5 bugs in them. Greg was so sweet. He violently shook each one until all the bugs came out. We are not talking microscopic slow-moving bugs that you can flick out the door people. We are talking small roaches that can do 0-60 in a millisecond. Has anyone ever played the arcade game whack-a-mole where you hit the moles with those big soft mallets? It was like watching Greg play that game while I yelled their various locations. Left knee, 10 o'clock! Above the towel, by your foot! He's getting away! After an intense roach-war, finally all the casualties were removed. I sprayed all the pine cones with bug spray, then placed them in air-tight zip lock bags in case any of them had decided to lay baby roach eggs to carry on their legacy. After a couple hours of suffocation I figured they were all dead and began the glittering process. Here is the final product. I added a bag of bead fillers from hobby lobby.

Buying pine cones might not be such a bad idea after all...

A Happy Thanksgiving

"So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." Col 2:6-7

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend in Waco. We spent several days with Greg's parents, grandma, brother, sister, and her husband and baby girl. We also got to see some cousins on Thanksgiving day. There was plenty of good food the whole time. We played games, shopped, made bows for the Christmas tree, entertained Hollyn, watched football, talked, ate, and laughed. We took plenty of pictures too. The group shot above took about 15 attempts to get a good one of everyone. There were also probably 50 or more shots taken of Greg and/or Jameson jumping while posing with the frisbee. I'll save those for another post. I should make a collage of all the jumping pictures of Greg. I probably have 100 on this computer.

I am so thankful all the undeserved blessings in my life. I have a wonderful husband who is funny, kind, servant-hearted, and loving, having a wonderful loving family, the best in-laws anyone could ask for, plenty of food to eat not only on Thanksgiving, but everyday, a warm place to eat it, safety and protection, living in America with all the luxuries I take for granted daily (running water, electricity, living in peace without daily fear for my life, freedom to worship and speak openly of Christ), a stable job, our church, so many sweet friends that God has brought into our lives, our newlywed Sunday School class, my health, a mind to read and study and think on God's word, the Bible, excellent Bible teachers, and most of all, the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ.

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thes 5:15-18
Now if I could only learn to continually give thanks. I have so much to be thankful. This verse clearly states that it is God's will for me to give thanks in all circumstances. Yet sometimes I still find myself complaining. That is the exact opposite of giving thanks. I have been really convicted of that recently. Whenever I hear myself complain, this verse comes to mind and I realize I am in direct opposition to God's command here. Thanksgiving is a good time to reflect on all those things God's has given and remind myself that I should be doing that daily, in all circumstances.

I hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving!

Tag I'm It: Crazy 8's

Jill has tagged me to answer the following questions. Hopefully I am not the last one this time Jill (aka, blog police!) :)

8 TV Shows I like:

1) 24

2) The Office

3) Law & Order

4) Felicity (I used to watch the DVDs with my college roommates all the time! My new roommate doesn't seem to want to do the same...)

5) What Not to Wear

6) Cake Contest Shows (not sure what the real name of the show is)

I don't watch tons of TV show I can't really think of any other shows that I really like.

8 Restaurants I enjoy:

1) Cafe Red Onion

2) Chuys

3) PF Changs

4) Panera

5) Amazon Grill

6) Canyon Cafe

7) Cyclone Anayas

8) Chili's

8 Things that happened today:

1) I went to church

2) I got frustrated at Old Navy for not giving me the 20% off that my coupon claimed I would receive

3) Made green bean casserole for the first time

4) Washed laundry

5) Cleaned

6) Went to a potluck dinner at a friend's house and ate delicious food

7) Recorded 24 the mini movie, on VHS

8) Planned out in my head my next craft project. My inspiration comes from Becky. She posted a blog recently about collecting some pine cones to use for decoration. I have a clear glass bowl on our kitchen table filled with fake green apples that I want to trade out. I think I am going to collect some pine cones and glitter them and put them in the bowl. Maybe mix in some small round ornaments for some Christmas flare.

8 Things I am looking forward to

1) Seeing Greg's family for Thanksgiving, especially Cutie McChunky. (Picture stolen from Jill's blog)

2) Our office pot-luck lunch on Tuesday 3) Christmas music starting this week 4) Making a gingerbread house at some point in December
5) Seeing my sister in a few weeks and meeting their new dog Duma
6) 5 days in a row of no work over Thanksgiving
7) Watching 24 the mini-movie
8) Shane and Shane in concert at HFBC in December

I am skipping the last set of 8's because it is my "wish list", which i guess would be my Christmas list unless I wanted to list all serious things like world peace. So anyway, I'll leave that one out. Also, I am blogging right before bed and about to fall asleep so better wrap it up! Thanks for giving me some blogging material Jill!

If We Understood Everything in the Bible...

Would we still want to read it?

Would we want to study it?

Would we get bored with it?

Would we even want to go to bible study?

Would that knowledge puff us up with pride?

Would we delight in it?

Tonight I was thinking how great it is that we DON'T understand everything that is written in the Bible. We had some really good discussions at our small group Bible study. Many good questions were posed. Questions that cannot be answered in a night. Or maybe a lifetime. Questions that the great theologians have debated for centuries. Questions that are fun to think about. The kind that make your brain hurt as you think out loud.

For example... What is the wrath of God? I mean, what is it EXACTLY? Jesus suffered the wrath of God in our place. We (all sinners) deserve God's righteous and just wrath. But in God's mercy, through faith in Jesus Christ, we are no longer under God's wrath. Jesus took our place and paid for all our sins. But what exactly was God's wrath that Jesus suffered? Was it His crucifixion? Lot's of people have been crucified throughout history. Was He sent to Hell before He rose on the third day? I don't believe that but I have heard it preached before. Was it the fact that his death was undeserved because he was the only one who could ever live a perfect life and fulfill the standard of righteousness?

I like questions like these. And this may have a simple answer that can be found with more research and study. But in general, I like deep questions that make you think. It makes studying God's word so exciting. If you think about it, it is simply amazing that the Bible never gets old. Can you imagine a book or movie or song that you NEVER get tired of reading/watching/hearing? You could read the bible over and over again your whole life and still not exhaust it. There is infinite wisdom to be grasped. No other author could do this. Only God. No other book could be the best seller of all time. God doesn't even need sequels. He doesn't even need any new material. The same thing just keeps getting printed out and people just keep buying it. How great is that! His revealed word is sufficient to keep us busy for a lifetime.

Weekend in Pictures

I was tagged by my sister-in-law, Jill, to post the 6th picture in my 6th folder of pictures. Here is what we got.

Greg took this picture when we were in California. I think it is really pretty; I love his close-up shots. Although I was hoping for a picture that was a bit more interesting. Something more ridiculous. Something more like this.

Oh well. Maybe next time.

And while I am posting pictures, might as well just post picture from this weekend since there were a lot of good ones. Friday we took the day off work and my parent's took Greg and I fishing out on Sabine Lake with a guide. It was a blast. We didn't catch too many fish but we had fun trying. Here is my cute fisherman.

Here are my parents. I think this is a great picture. My Mom is making my Dad's camo jacket look stylish.

After we went fishing we decided to drive through Bolivar and Galveston to see where our old beach house used to be. My parent's sold it years ago so luckily we didn't own it at the time of Ike, but it was really sad to see Crystal Beach so devastated after years and years of memories spending summers on that beach. You can see in the picture below that this row of houses is completely gone. This neighborhood actually had houses, but some neighborhoods further East didn't have a single house standing.

That concrete slab and one post was literally all that was left of our old beach house. My Aunt and Uncle's old house used to be in front of it (which would be to the right in this picture, towards the water) is completely gone along with all the surrounding houses.

Someone had started piling things up on one of the concrete slabs. I found 5 pieces of silverware and added it to the pile. Who knows if the people who owned these things will ever come back for them.

I just think this picture is cool .Greg took it into a piece of broken mirror and my parents are off to the side.

A Good Post on Adoption

I read a really good post recently on adoption from a blog that I stalk. It is lengthy, but really good. Really thought-provoking. I just read it to Greg while he was fixing his fishing reel :) We agreed that we had both never thought about things in this way before. The basic point of the post is that it is easy to be anti-abortion. We should be anti-abortion, because as Christians, we are called to not murder. But beyond being anti-abortion, are we actually doing anything to be pro-life? Would we really even consider adopting? This is a great quote from her post....

"If abortion ended tomorrow (how cool would that be?) would there even be enough Christian, pro-life parents who would bring one of those babies home? Would there be enough volunteers at our local crisis pregnancy center?"

I'm not saying after reading this post, that we are considering adoption. I have thought about adoption before, but like she mentions in the post, it is easy to say that you would consider adoption. But you haven't really considered it unless you have researched it or contacted an adoption agency. So we really haven't actually considered adoption. But this has challenged me to one day in the future when we are thinking about growing our family, to put more thought into this. Also, my cousin Jodi is in the process of trying to adopt a baby, which is really encouraging to hear.

I would love to tell more about the main points, but no need repeating everything she says since she says it so well. So if you get a chance, this post is a good one to ponder.