New Year's Resolutions

This past year I made some resolutions. This is worth noting because I don't usually make New Year's Resolutions...but this year I had some goals I thought would be fun to see if I could keep.
I made my resolutions simple and attainable. I had two goals...

1. Make a greater effort to wear my jewelry and not buy any new jewelry

2. Send out cards to people in my family for their birthday's

I picked wearing my jewelry because I have a lot of fun jewelry I like but wasn't in a good habit of putting it on before I would leave. I also wanted to make sure I am using what I have and not just continually buying new stuff. I did get new jewelry this year but it was either from my husband or I had a gift card that I used (which means I got them from someone else). It was interesting for me to discover what kind of jewelry I wear the most and which pieces are the easiest to wear with what I have.

The reason I picked sending cards to people in my family was wanting to stay better connected to my nieces and nephews. I remember my own Aunts and Uncles sending me cards for my birthday and thinking back on how much it meant to me. So I gathered up birthday's for my siblings, in-laws, and nieces and nephews and made an effort every month to get cards and send out birthday wishes. It was fun to do but I am not sure if I will continue it next year. I might do it just for my nieces and nephews, but I will wait and see.

For this new year I am still deciding what I want to do, but I am considering and excited about trying to "make before buying"...just not sure yet how I want to set it up. This would include things like making my own pizza sauce, cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, etc....a bit of "going green" but I like earth so I want to do my hand to help, plus I am hoping it is a way for us to save more money and use what we have first.

Christmas in Michigan

This Christmas Dan and I headed up to Michigan to spend the holiday with my family. We got there on Saturday (after exchanging our gifts at home). The night we arrived we decided to open gifts so the kids wouldn't have to wait the whole weekend...and they kept asking when we could do it. Here are some pictures of the kids opening their gifts.

Records we framed for the kid's rooms

Stephen's new art work

Glad we are finally opening presents!

Figuring out the new car

 The kids both got slippers that move when you walk...the monster's opened their mouths and the zebra's ear's pop up. The kids LOVED them...I had never heard of them before.

We had fun the rest of the weekend watching movies, staying up late teaching Dan Cities and Knights for Catan, and eating lots of good snacks and sweets, and swaping YouTube video's. Stephen and Michelle left on the 24th and that night we went to my parent's Christmas Eve service and then out to dinner with two other couples from church. We then spent Christmas morning opening gifts and went to see Les Miserable with my parents before heading home.

We finished the evening off by Skyping with Dan's family in Texas and then watching some Scrubs and Elf before going to bed. It was a good Christmas and the only down side was not having any snow...which showed up on the 26th :) of course.

Merry Christmas!!

 

From our hearts and home to yours...Merry Christmas

Cookies!

Dan and I decided to make Christmas cookies this year. We were going to be taking some to Michigan, have a Christmas party with a few friends, and make up plates of cookies for Dan to give to his co-workers. In 2 hours we made 6 different cookies and I finished making a couple more things the next day. Here are pictures of our labor :)

Everything out and ready



Chocolate Mint cookies

Butterscotch Haystacks and Chocolate Ball cookies

Molasses and modified Church Window cookies

Filling up the plates

Hungry yet :) If only this was a scratch and sniff blog

Weekend with Friends

After my office party on Friday we went and spent time with Jason and Angie at their place. We ended up staying really late and crashed in their spare room, but we had to leave early in the morning to get home for our other friend coming to visit. Jen drove up from Indy and we had a chance to spend the day hanging out. We watched a movie, played a couple games, and had time to grab dinner before parting ways.

I am always reminded how grateful I am for Jen when we hang out. It is so easy for us to slip into our friendship again even after not getting to see each other for a while. Usually I go up in December to Chicago to spend time with her and a couple other friends from college but this year I was really stressed out and we had a funeral on Friday in Ohio the weekend of the hangout.

After parting ways with Jen, Dan and I headed back to Marion to attend a surprise birthday party for Jason. His birthday was 12.12.12 this year so the theme was 12...we were encouraged to dress like we were 12, write 12 on our faces, etc. Most people dressed the way they did when they were 12, which was fantastic, one person even put on 12 shirts. We had fun watching Saved by the Bell and then playing 90's trivial pursuit...which I am not good at but we had a good time. Dan and I didn't get home till around 1am but it was worth the time spent with friends.

Office Party

This past Friday Dan and I had my office Christmas party. I can't remember why we couldn't go last year but this year worked out. It was in Wabash, IN at the Honeywell House...they are the family who sells Honeywell Thermostat's, I think my parents use to have one in our house. Anyways, this was a beautiful house that the wife bought and lived in after her husband died. I got a few pictures from inside (it was too dark to get pictures of the back yard).

Front sitting room

Formal Dinning room

Stair Way

Main living room/ were we ate (this is Jason and Angie)

 We had a great time at our table. Jason and Angie also were there because Angie works for the same place I do. It was fun getting to spend time with them as well as some of my fellow co-workers. We all set our own schedules so I don't always get to see or talk with the people at my office. We had a nice dinner and live Christmas music (a talented pianist). And Dan and I got our picture taken by the beautiful Christmas tree.

Done

The semester is finally over! No more getting up early to drive to Marion, grading papers, preparing for lectures....now what to do with all my time! :) I plan on taking some time next week to hopefully clean the house and begin to study for my exam. I also have a couple quilt projects that I am working on and a couple books that have been waiting for me.

And best of all...I am going to soak up and enjoy this Christmas season. I have been drinking hot chocolate, listening to Christmas music, Dan and I have an advent devotional we have been doing, I have been wrapping gifts, watching Christmas movies, and simply enjoying our house being decorated and watching the lights twinkle on our tree. I want these next few weeks to be slow and to allow myself time to remember the gift that Christ is...the amazing story of His birth and contemplate the puzzle of how God picked Joseph and Mary to be the parents to His Son. If you haven't watched The Nativity...rent it!

A baby....He came as a baby. He came to show His love, to give His grace, and to free us. He came so He could relate to us. He came, and for that I am forever grateful.

This past week

This past week has been crazy. I am finishing up my classes and they turned in their huge end of the year paper on Monday. So my week has been grading, with more, grading, and more grading! I am thankful for the job but VERY ready to be done with waking up early and dealing with freshman. In the middle of all my grading and still seeing my regular clients at work I started to get the itch to cut my hair. Finally on Thursday as I was washing my hair I had enough...it had to go! So I didn't even bother drying my hair and simply went to get it cut.

Here are the before pictures:

 And after....

They cut about 5 inches off....It feels so nice! Plus I can still put it up and it will be much more manageable :)

Setting up Christmas

Dan and I got a Christmas tree on Sunday and started the task of setting up all our decorations. This is exciting for a couple reasons, first we LOVE Christmas and second we are taking our house off the market for the season which means we finally get to feel like we live in our house. It really is stressful and tiring to have your house look perfect all the time and seeing as we have been living this way since March...we are both really excited. Here are pictures of what we set up and some of our new additions this year:

Our Tree

Making space for our Angel

New Ornament from Dan's parents

Decorating the tree

New Lighting Bug Ornament from Bronner's

Dan and his new Nutcracker

Dining Room

Close up of the top

Fireplace room

We had a lot of fun this year setting up. Last year Dan was really sick so it was nice that he was feeling well and we also watched old clay-mation Christmas movies :) The fireplace room turned out amazing and it is my favorite room this year.

Prayer

As Thanksgiving is approaching I have been reflecting back on a commitment I was challenged to make at my parents church last year. We spent Thanksgiving in Michigan and on Sunday the pastor talked about prayer and being committed to prayer. He challenged us to pray for a year and see what God would do. When Dan and I got home I sat down with my journal and thought about what was on my heart, what was close to my heart, and what I would love to see God's movement in. I had three categories family, friends, and personal issues that I wanted to commit to God during my devotional time...

...and then I began to pray.

I won't say it was easy...there have been some really hard days this year, busy times when I haven't been able to be as diligent as I would like. I have fought with God over wanting to do my devotions and other days when I can't spend enough time with Him. I have adding things to my list and crossed other things off; because things have changed.

As I looked over my journal this morning I felt sad at how some of my hopes for my community have not come to pass, how things I wished for still seem distant, and than I realized something.

Something I was confronted with, the simplest and yet most profound part...the things I have been praying for personally are now true or are coming true in my life! Things I have wept over and cried out to God for peace and understanding, things I have prayed for freedom from. The simple truth is that nothing in my community or personal relationships can change unless I am changing. I am the only one that can choose how I am going to act and what I am going to say "no" to. I am the only one who can think through how I want to respond and then act on it. If I want change to happen it has to start with me.

And yes, there are things I wish were different in some of my relationships and things I wish I could wave a magic wand and make things perfect but that doesn't allow God to work in me or in the other person. So pray....pray for the things you desire and wish to be true and invite God to show you how He is working in all the small details of your life. Take the challenge to be changed.

Wedding Weekend

This past weekend Dan and I had a wedding we were both involved in. Our friends Jason and Angie got married. Dan was asked to be an usher and I was asked to play the piano, read a poem a friend wrote who couldn't attend, and be the Bride's assistant. So as this past weekend approached I started to realize all the things I was going to be doing and helping Angie handle. In hindsight I would have done better with simply doing one or two of the things but not all three. In my role as assistant I was helping to coordinate and keep things running smoothly, answer questions, and make sure things got to where they needed to be.

So as much as I loved being with everyone this weekend I was also on high alert mode and didn't have a chance to really unwind until Dan and I were headed home. I loved being able to do what I did for Jason and Angie and felt very privileged to be asked to be a part of their special day. They had some really cool elements to their ceremony including mixing sand, but not just them but they included their families, bridal party, and small group. They also had everyone from this community pray over them as a couple. Unfortunately because of my involvement during the wedding I didn't get a chance to get any pictures :( I was able to get some pictures once we got to the reception, which was fun being in a barn, but cold seeing as it is November :) They had heaters going but my feet had no feeling in them for quite a few hours.

The Barn

Pictures of their Parents and Grandparents Wedding Photo's

All the cakes

Walk way up to the Barn

Me and Angie

The Wedding Party

Dan and me with Alex and Ben getting into the picture

Dan and Me

Dinner was two different kinds of Chili

Jason and Angie dancing together

Dan and I are so excited for them and can't wait for them to get back from their Honeymoon so we can hang out :)

Anniversary Dinner

Dan and I went out on our anniversary for dinner. We were hoping to go to our favorite Thai place and realized they are closed on Monday. So we chose the place we went to for our second date :) It was fun getting dressed up and going out for dinner.

Weekend Getaway

For our anniversary Dan and I decided to listen to the advice of others and plan something simple and fun for our anniversary instead of trying to do something big. We choose to go to Frankenmuth, Michigan for the weekend which was a lot of fun. We arrived later on Friday night and after checking into the hotel crashed for the night (after watching a show about a white collar criminal...we kind of got sucked in). On Saturday we wanted to start the day with Christmas, which meant going to Bronner's.

A Nativity scene

One of the displays

 After leaving Bronner's we went to Zhender's for their all you can eat lunch buffet. We ate till we were stuffed and then tried to walk around town, which is hard when you are really full. We finally had to sit down for a while in a coffee shop before finishing up our shopping. We decided we wanted to see a movie so we found a theatre and saw Cloud Atlas...which was kind of disappointing. We grabbed a pizza and headed back to our hotel for dinner. We also exchanged presents...I made a Cincinnati Red's fleece blanket for Dan and he gave me another charm for my charm bracelet and an engraved jewelry box.

The next morning we drove a little over an hour to my brother-in-law's church and got to spend the day with them. Sadly my nephew and niece weren't there but we had so much fun hanging out with my sister and her husband. We even went to a really fun orchard that has a huge, free, small zoo. Here are some of the pictures from our afternoon outing:

The goats

Reindeer

Peacocks

Artic fox pups

Lemur's

Kangaroo's

Little monkey's

Tons of Parrots

In their open bird room

Michelle and Stephen

Bunnies to hold

Camels (which you can ride)

 After we could no longer feel our fingers and toes we went inside to see what they were selling. We bought homemade doughnuts, apple cider, and pop-corn kernels. We then headed back to Stephen and Michelle's for homemade guacamole and popcorn before heading home.

Trying on hats

We had so much fun and was a great way to celebrate our anniversary. Here is a video from inside the bird house: