Happy Birthday to My Husband!!

To my dear husband on his 26th birthday......I LOVE YOU! :)

Oh, Sadie...our little "child" who helped open gifts :)

*Don't look too close at the cake..it's pretty pathetic! I got him the "Blue Planet" DVD collection so I wanted to make a cake that had an "ocean" theme..... let's just say that at least it tasted good! haha...oh the memories :) Just goes to show my husband makes anything look good! :)

Hair

Of course this would happen! I struggle to write stuff for two weeks and finally write a post about how I don't have anything to talk about. The next day, I think of 5 things I could and want to blog about! Honestly...I thought about deleting that last post and just writing again, but it just makes it funnier :)

SO....about our hair. We have it all wrong! Aaron is growing out his hair and I chopped mine off today. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Perhaps...except Aaron is growing out his facial hair....ahhh! I convinced him to shave off his full beard at least but his gotee remains. I think it makes him look older which is what he'll be tomorrow so I guess it fits him well :)

Our Hair!

Soon and Very Soon.....

I will hopefully have something to blog about again! I've been having quite the time trying to blog and facebook lately. Although I love keeping in touch with friends, the idea that my stuff is so...online...has been a little frustrating as I feel trapped in the things I can talk about. I'm at a stand still and until I can figure it out or until something exciting happens in our life, you may not be hearing much from me :) Thanks for your patience and I'll hopefully be back soon :)

*Sitting and pondering what to blog about next

Lock-In

I love lock ins. I mean, really, what other time would you play spoons at 4:00 in the morning and be laughing so hard you start crying? Or, what other time would pictionary be an all out war at 2:00 in the morning? I cannot even begin to tell you what an incredible night we had last night. It is kind of a blur since I have my day mixed up now, but we had such a great group of high schoolers and had a blast! We played dodgeball with strobe lights and a fog machine, played ultimate pictionary, did a "polar run" (NWC people, we don't quite have a hole in the ice that we can do a "polar plunge" but we made them run outside in the freezing cold :) Somewhat similiar!)
It was a hilariously fun night!

So, I had a thought. Why can't adults have lock-ins anymore? I mean, how fun would that be? I think we're all just a little too comfortable in our beds...oh, yeah, and most of you have kids. :) Any married without children, we definitely need to have a lock in...or at least stay up until 1:00 playing spoons :) Until that happens, I'm pretty content having fun with the high schoolers :)

*I finally downloaded some pics from the lock-in

Randomness....

Have you ever had one of those days?? You know, those days when everthing seems to go wrong and you go crazy by the end of the day? Wednesday was one of those days... Here's just a little snippet:

7:30~Woke up late and had pin curls in my hair that I had to try to work with. It didn't turn out as well as it used to and I had ridiculously frizzy hair all day.

8:00-1:00~Teaching preschool is always crazy although there wasn't anything besides normal preschool things

1:00~The bathrooms at the preschool backed up. Awful smells emerged

2:00~While trying to do my work, a truck came in and pumped the toilets out. Our room was a mess!

4:00~Took my dog outside, hooked her up to her chain and forgot about her.

5:00~Hadn't heard my dog bark for a while. Went to check on her and she was nowhere to be found.

5:00-5:45~Searched for my missing dog. Finally found her and she smelled like death!

5:45~Drove to church for youth group night

6:05~Late for cantata practice and had to practice our duet we hadn't even practiced. Yikes!

6:30-10:30~Youth Group. Again, randomness always occurs

10:30~Gave Sadie a bath since she smelled like death

10:45~Decided we needed to do something ultimately random. Drove to Walmart and walked around at 11:00 at night

12:00~Waited in line at GameStop for the Warcraft expansion to come out (my husband's idea)

1:00~Tried to sleep

We have some more random things coming up. Senior high lock in tonight, high school play tomorrow, high school play on Sunday, and a harvest festival on Sunday night. I'm just a little peopled out right now but I'm praying an afternoon at home today and extensive time in the Word will bring me the refreshing that I need.

Oh The Weather Outside is Frightful!

We joined the club this morning. We have snow on the ground...eek! On Sunday, our yard looked like this:

Today, we woke up to this:

Sadie is pondering whether she likes snow or not. She found out quickly that she doesn't. :) Fortunately, I didn't have to work today since it is Veteran's Day so it feels like a good ole snow day! I'm going to finish painting my guest bedroom and catch up on cleaning projects. And, maybe throw a few snowballs at my husband :) Whatever I do, I'm staying inside today....it's WAY too cold out there :)

Opportunities

"Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." Colossians 4:5-6

Tonight this verse laid heavily on my heart. Funny that it takes "awkward" situations to help us remember what God's purpose for us is, but I'm grateful for them. Today I was asked to drive a total stranger 30 minutes away to a meeting. I knew the girl had very different ideas than me and had a completely different lifestyle. To say the least, I was reluctant and not willing. About an hour before I was supposed to leave, the Holy Spirit reminded me of this verse. Still reluctant, I decided to try to have a good attitude about it. However, there's nothing more awkward than driving a long distance with someone you have never met :)

I was blown away as I usually am by God's ideal plan for this meeting. Why am I reluctant when I know that God always has reasons for things :) We had SO much in common, except spiritual-wise, and really had a great talk about marriage, how we got to where we are today, and her future goals in life. And, I talked about my church and Aaron's job as a youth pastor. Perhaps a small seed was sown.....I can only hope and pray.

Speaking of awkward and uncomfortable situations, I'm up for another one tomorrow as I have an in-service. *Sigh* I think I need to meditate on this verse tonight and again give up MY will. I'm pretty reluctant...why can't I learn? :)

Election Day

Today has been such a fun day. I love voting! There's just something about the dignity of it that makes me excited to vote. I am so thankful we still have a say in our government and are not under a dictatorship.

In preschool today, we taught our kids how to vote for something by having a pretend voting poll! It was absolutely hysterical to see the kids coming over and secretly marking their vote between an apple or an orange. Then, we kept telling them to tell their parents to vote tonight. As one little boy was leaving, he said, "Mom, the apple won. Don't forget to vote tonight!" Ahhh...training little citizens...that's what I like to see :)

Aaron and I had fun voting...I don't know if you're really supposed to talk while voting but we talked through almost all of it, asking "Did you vote for this? What does this mean? I've never even HEARD of these people!" The most important one was for president and we strongly support McCain/Palin (well, we strongly support Palin at least) so I suppose the rest of them don't matter quite as much! I pray that God would put the right people in and that His justice would be done. I cringe as I think of some of the things that could become law again if Obama is president, however, I put it in God's hands and trust that He has a plan. Let's gather together tonight and bathe this night in prayer!!!