bible

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Jimmy and I both felt incredibly blessed to spend time with our families and each other all weekend.

Our celebration started on Friday. I was off work and Jimmy had a half day, which I didn’t know because he wanted to surprise me. He came home after lunch time and accidentally scared me. He just walked in the house and I was 100% sure I was going to be killed by someone breaking in.

Once my heart stopped pounding I got to work on making a dessert for the various celebrations we were going to over the weekend. Oreo cheesecake bites!

I prepared a special Christmas dinner for us in the evening. We knew we would be busy with family on Saturday and Sunday, so we decided to have an evening in where we could relax, reflect on Christ’s birth, and enjoy each other’s company.

After dinner, we took turns reading Christ’s birth story from the beginning of Matthew and Luke and marveled at it for a bit afterwards.

We enjoyed leftover cookies for dessert and then rented Storks, which was such a cute movie! I definitely recommend it. Man do I love a good kids movie 🙂

Saturday was spent with Jimmy’s mom and boyfriend, going to church in the evening, and then going to my father-in-law’s for dinner after church.

The Christmas Eve church service was absolutely beautiful. I tried to savor every moment of it. The young kids in the church sang, and a few men (including my brother and Hannah’s fiancé!) gave a message to the congregation.

Jimmy’s grandpa, brother and sister (plus her boyfriend), and my father-in-law’s girlfriend went to my FIL’s for dinner. We all hung out, laughed, and exchanged gifts late into the evening. Since Jimmy and I have been together since 2008, I feel like his siblings are my siblings. We kind of grew up together 🙂

Jimmy and I went to church on Christmas morning and then spent time at my brother and sister-in-law’s house. They have a big gathering with Racquel’s extended family and my family each year.

One of Racquel’s family members is a chef, so the food was very gourmet and such a treat. The company was even better!

I’m usually the designated photographer at family gatherings, which I adore! How cute are my brother and his wife? I just love them so much. Their dogs are the sweetest, too.

Jimmy and I headed back to church in the evening to teach the preschool kids and we only had one child in our class. We had a blast with him and even let him paint after the lesson since he was being so good!

All in all it was a lovely and very blessed Christmas!

Hello and happy Friday! I’m up bright and early because Malcolm was biting my ear around 4:45 this morning. I decided to just get up, brew some coffee, and read my Bible while I waited for Jimmy to wake up.

There’s just something special about the quiet stillness of the morning before the sun rises.

Now I’m sipping my second cup of coffee and writing this post because I have some time before I need to leave for work. Yay! This post is going to be full of random thoughts and pictures. That’s nothing new here, though 😉

First things first, I decorated our house for fall! Our mantle is looking quite festive if I do say so myself. Jimmy and I also welcomed the new season last night by visiting a local farm to buy apples. I plan on making apple pie sometime soon, as long as I don’t eat all the apples before then!

I filmed a vlog of the decoration process, and also explained a little bit about why Jimmy and I don’t celebrate Halloween.

Malcolm left me a note the other day (aka Jimmy wrote it, haha). I had a to-do list sitting on our kitchen counter and Malcolm gave me some encouragement to finish all the tasks.

I had to laugh about the “P.S. I like your pen” part because Malcolm is kind of obsessed with knocking my pen off the counter.

My mom and I had a girls’ day last Saturday and we were about to hop into her Jeep when she noticed a butterfly on the hood.

I think it was a blue monarch? It was pretty neat because my mom and aunt always tell me that monarch butterflies remind them of their mom who passed away when they were in their 20s. Every now and then we’ll see one and it makes me smile.

I’m 100% obsessed with Malcolm.

I looked up cat strollers on Amazon the other day so I could take him on my daily walks with Lola. If pushing our cat around in a stroller is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Today is the last day of the September Bible study I made. It seems like just yesterday I was working on creating the calendar and pouring over the pages of my Bible.

It felt great to be so involved in studying God’s word. Something I’ve been thinking about lately in regards to my faith is allowing God to work in my life in His way.

I think I try to limit God so often because I have preconceived notions, preferences, and a comfort zone. I’ve been asking God to help me to know and obey His will for my life, no matter what it looks like.

Alright, I better get going. I have to order a ceiling fan part for the family I work for because I broke theirs while I was dusting. I don’t know how they put up with my clumsiness. In the year and a half I’ve worked for them, I’ve broken a vase, part of a ceiling fan, and a picture frame. Eek!

Have you ever broken something important? —> I once stapled a piece of paper on top of a glass vanity when I was younger and the vanity shattered and a shard of glass sliced my shin. Good times, haha.

Living My Full Life

Our Christmas

Up Before The Sun