An Encouraging Verse

I read this yesterday and found it encouraging...

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

~1 Thessalonians 5:9

Heart Still Beats Inside

Okay, so it's been really way too long since I've posted. Sorry everyone! I was sick for about 3 months (yes I'm pregnant!) and so writting a blog post wasn't my first priority. :) Let's see if I can catch up on what's happened...

Christmas was great. We got up at 2:30 am to open presents and then went to sleep again. :D Saw my parents and siblings and grandparents and had some amazing ham from my Grandma. My contribution was carrot cake. It was so fun to make using my new food processor. Josh has been trying to train me to use it since I didn't grow up with one. It certainly makes grating FOUR cups of carrots a lot faster! It turned out very nice I think - even though I kind of made them fall a little by pulling them out of the oven too early. Oops.

New Years Eve I didn't feel well, so I stayed home from the festivities. :( I didn't even hear noise at midnight to wake me up! Josh wasn't feeling well either I dont think. Hmm...We've either had to cancel plans or not make plans because I'm sick or Josh is sick. Usually two different kinds of sickness. ;)

On New Years day we celebrated my sister Jessica's birthday. :D She's 19 - I can't believe it!

Patrick turned 18 this year too. So he and the guys went paintballing. Josh was so excited to go. He had been before at various times, but not in Texas. I guess the rules were different than in Oklahoma, but they still had a grand old time. They got back and that was all they talked about the whole night. They were comparing welts and talking about how they shot so-and-so and how this person got them out. Josh was pretty tired after that, since he was/is fighting a cold. Thankfully it's getting better. :D I'm soo glad I asked Josh not to go paintballing for his bachelor party!

We've mostly been trying to keep up with things. This last week was incredibly long. I had a dr. appointment on Monday morning, but we got there and found out the dr. was sick with a cold. So I had to go back on Wednesday. Tuesday I had jury duty, and was picked to be on a panel (pre-jury) for Thursday morning. They didn't pick me to be on the jury once they found out I am an emotional pregnant woman. Yay!

On Thursday Josh and I got to hear the baby's heartbeat!!! I nearly cried. :D It's so exciting to actually hear the baby and not worry that something went wrong like I have heard so often. The Lord is sooo good to us! The little baby's heart was going twice the speed of my own - poor little guy must have been nervous. j/k I don't know if it's a boy or girl yet, but I'll keep you posted. haha Pun intended.

So now it's Monday and I'm feeling a lot better (usually) so I've been trying to get back on track with cleaning and making menus for each week. We're going grocery shopping tonight. I hope we can find some chard for Josh...he really likes it. I'm hoping to find some apples! :D

Holiday Cheer

We had our office Christmas party on Friday. It's always fun to dress up and spend time visiting with the families. We all brought different dishes to share for dinner - some people brought amazing mashed potatoes! We brought rolls and pumpkin pie. :) We all enjoyed the different skits and songs - including "the Twilight Zone" with a GFA twist. I hope someone taped it.

Today we are thinking to go Christmas shopping for family gifts. We searched almost everywhere for wrapping paper in Walmart...to no avail. I think they hide it so you have to look at all their stuff on sale while looking for just wrapping paper!

Last weekend we made some paper snowflakes to hang up on our window. I think I'll finally put those up today. ;) Plus most of our Christmas cards are signed and stuffed! I feel so accomplished. I'm telling ya, any small task finished is amazing for a first trimester pregnant woman. :D

The Tree

Friday after Thanksgiving we had a nice time visiting with Katie and decorating our Christmas tree. It's so pretty. :) We didn't buy lots of ornaments, because those tend to add up through the years. I look forward to adding little handmade ornaments our children make (and me too!).

Finally!

I have some pictures!! :)

This is me and my crab. We ate a couple times at this restaurant on our honeymoon. The food was really yummy! There were tons of fun pictures and articles pasted on the tables, too.

My handsome husband. We both got really sunburned from the beach and spray on sunblock.

The Alamo!! It was so neat to walk through, thinking about how people lived there a long time ago on the same spot. Josh was pretty impressed with their bowie knife display. :)

We did a lot of driving.

The pie I made the next Sunday we were home. I really wanted to use my china so I made a big Sunday dinner. I haven't really done it since.

There is a city named after us!!

Weekend

We had a lovely Thanksgiving. I hope you all had a nice one too! We went to my grandparents in the afternoon.
There were no mishaps with cooking. Hooray!
The day after we went and found a Christmas tree. Kates came over in the evening and helped decorate it. It's so pretty. :) When we went looking for decorations I asked Josh if he liked "icicles". He looked puzzled, so I said "angel hair?"...Then he realized what I meant and said "ooooh, tinsel!". :)
I tried getting some pictures uploaded, but can't find the cable for our camera. Maybe I can find it soon. :)

This and That

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving! :) I'm grateful to have family close to spend time with. :)
Tonight we are having dinner with my mom and dad. I invited us over thinking it would be a nice relaxing time. Then I got a phonecall from mom this morning asking me if I wouldn't mind cutting Patrick's hair. I have been meaning to do it, and tonight will be a perfect opportunity. Poor guy - I've been meaning to do it for weeks now.
Tonight I plan on making some refrigerator rolls once we get home. After that I plan on collapsing into bed. It's been so busy this past week. I'm really looking forward to some time of rest. :)
Have a splendid Thanksgiving.

Toasting Seasonly

We found some sparkling cider at Costco this weekend! We were searching high and low for it to take with us on our honeymoon. I found out that it's seasonal. :( The good news is, someone graciously found a place that sells it year round! :D Anyways, it's fun seeing it around now. That and an entire aisle at WalMart devoted to baking (besides it's usual aisle). The funny part is that they are all brand name things. Talk about marketing. It worked for me. I was thinking how I needed baking supplies for the holidays when I saw it. So, I tried to get things I definatly would use in sizes that are larger than "normal" yearly stock. They weren't highly priced. So that was nice. Just made me laugh inside when I thought about it.

I volunteered myself into baking pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving...

There IS Life After Marriage

It's me. I'm back! I got lost under Fall decorating, cleaning, working, having people over...basically life. :)

I finally got to decorate the apartment with leaves and flowers. It looks so nice and cozy! It was fake foliage, so they needed some good wire cutters to be separated from the bunch they came in. I knew we had them somewhere, but my search was in vain. But - I have a husband who was an Eagle Scout and is always prepared. I found his pocket knife with nice sturdy thinking it would work wonderfully. Poor Josh was rather suprised when he heard it, but was sweet about. I'll remember next time that's for sure!

I was trying to cut the leaves of with Josh's pocket knife, a task that was proving harder than expected, when I cut my hand instead of a leaf-stem. I spent the rest of the evening decorating while clutching a rag over my wounded hand. It was still fun to do, and I got to show Josh when he arrived home from a moving party. (A party to move someone into a house, not a party that brings one to tears).

After that I was ready for company to come. :D We invited my parents and sister over last Sunday for dinner! I enjoyed getting ready for it. I made spaghetti, bread, and salad. It's sort of a joke in my family, because almost every time Josh came to my house for dinner when we were dating we had spaghetti. I actually was nervous right before they arrived and was turning circles in my kitchen making sure things were set. It's so odd being a hostess, rather than a hostess's daughter. Things happen to you like everyone watching you finish dinner, or being responsible to provide conversation topics. It wasn't hard, just made me nervous a tiney bit. Everything was just great, though!

I want to get some pictures up soon...here's hoping. :)

Duplicate Trouble

So I came into work this morning and found this suprise.

Apparently the arm on our dvd burner was tired of it's continuous task of moving a dvd from the spindle into the burner, then into the printer, then onto another spindle. It decided to show it's contempt by throwing the dvd's across the floor!

Actually, we just installed the new "arm" and the belt is a little tight inside. The arm keeps missing the spindle and dropping the dvd's on the floor.

I was quite impressed with it's skill in doing so...

I think it was so cool how it just fell like that. Kind of like how silly putty being invented by accident.