Whirlwind

That's how I see that last few months. They have totally gone by in a whirlwind! Since I haven't posted in a while, I thought I'd just share some photos of what's happened since New Year's.

1. I turned 25. And I'm surprisingly cool with that. Ryan made it great by planning a whole day of gifts where I would open one every few hours at work. First, he "made" breakfast aka got me McDonald's breakfast (my favorite) and had me open his first card and gift, a Bananza banana slicer.

I looked at it curiously because I wondered where I had seen this product before and then he said, "I got it for you because you pinned it!" I laughed and couldn't believe he stalked my Pinterest for gift ideas! So great. The next card I opened was at work and it had a PF Chang's gift card inside for dinner that night. The next card I opened right before lunch and it had a McDonald's gift card in it for lunch since he was in class and couldn't take me out to eat. Third was a Hershey's with almond candy bar for a mid-afternoon snack. I was so happy all day at work because he knew all my favorite things! When I got home, he gave me the big presents and another card. First I opened this:

Another Pinterest present! I love this movie and I love this poster. I was thrilled when I opened it! I've framed it and put it on the wall, but we'll save that for another post. The second present I opened made my heart so happy:

ALL THE HARRY POTTER SERIES IN HARDBACK. 

Love him. I've been wanting these books forever and now here they are! Gifted to me by my favorite person. Finally, we go to dinner and while we're eating he surprises me with one last gift. I opened the card and my mouth dropped when I saw the two tickets to Coldplay for this summer. COLDPLAY. I couldn't believe it! Granted these tickets were birthday-valentine's day-2 year anniversary gift all rolled into one, but I was still so excited. I'm so thankful for my hubby who loves me and knows me so well and celebrates well. He's made 25 great.

2. Valentine's Day. We're old school so he got me my favorite flowers (tulips) and favorite chocolates (ferrero rochers) and I made him a mix CD. You may think he got the short end of the stick, but he loves my mix CDs. Fo realz. That night, we went on a double date with Kara and Crockett and watched the Vow. Movie was ok, but with me being a girl and all, I could not stop crying and telling Ryan how much I loved him afterwards. I'm sucha sap. 

I also made these cookies for the Women's Systematic Theology group. I thought they were fitting for the day after Valentine's.

3. Lots of school and work....this is self explanatory and I don't have any pictures to go along with it. Soooo yeah. :)

4. Ladies' Night to celebrate Lindsey's upcoming nuptials! We ladies got all fancied up and had a great time talking about EVERYTHING and looking forward to Lindsey and Alec's wedding! I'm so happy for the sweet soon-to-be-married couple and so thankful to call these women friends!

There have been all kinds of other things happen, but I don't think anyone would want to read all that! Hope you enjoyed the highlights and hopefully I get around to blogging more frequently. 

Love,

Amy

So this is the New Year...

....and I don't feel any different. Thank you Death Cab for saying what I think every year! I guess it is fun to reflect on the previous year and think about things to change, but I kind of think we should do that all the time, ya know? Every day, actually. I don't want to make any new year's resolutions because I think it's too daunting. How about new day or new week resolutions? Every day or week will be a new attempt at changing/improving. I think that is a little more do-able than making a huge overhaul. Besides, if I fail one week, I can always start over the next instead of giving up altogether.

 One thing I would like to do this year is to have a jar in the house in which we place memories from the year and reflect on them on NYE. Ryan and I will attempt this and just put a memory in the jar any time we think of it. I found this idea on Pinterest a while ago and thought it was sweet. I can't wait to see the things hubs puts in the jar!

 As with any year, there are joys and sorrows. I'm thankful for a God who understands both and shows us His love through them. This year especially through both the joys and sorrows, I have had a greater yearning for Heaven. Through the joys because they are foretastes of the ultimate joy we will experience in being with Christ. Through the sorrows because I know that one day Jesus will come and sin and sorrow will be no more. Come Lord Jesus!

 My prayer is that this year I will grow in holiness. I know that can only happen by God's grace and I pray that he changes my heart from stone to flesh daily.

Birthdays and Such

Hey friends!

I have quite a picture filled post for you today! Last Saturday was Ryan's 25th birthday! He's such an old man now. ;) We went to Cincinnati with our friends Mallory and Camden to celebrate by going to Ikea and Pappadeaux. It was our first time in an Ikea and man, was it awesome. I want everything in that store! We've needed another bookshelf for some time because of all the books Ryan has gotten for seminary, so we were determined to get one on this trip. Our only hiccup was that we drive a Civic. Not exactly the best vehicle for hauling furniture. We ended up getting one though and got it home by taking it out of the box and placing the boards in car with part of the back seat folded down while Mal and Cam sat next to each other on the rest of the backseat. I'm so thankful for friends who love us enough to ride uncomfortably in the car! We got it all put together and it is wonderful!

After Ikea we went to Pappadeaux, Ryan's favorite restaurant. It was soooo yummy and we even got a free dessert since it was his birthday! Here we are after our meal!

Me and my hot husband-in-flannel

I also made a birthday cake for Ryan. This year was not my best work, but at least it was yummy!

Note: Royal icing and pudding frosting do not mix.

Finally, I wanted to show off my Christmas decor like I promised in my last post!

Our baby tree on the table

Christmas cookies!

Presents for the fam

The Nativity Set that I got for Christmas last year

Close up of our stockings

Front Door Wreath

Close up

Living room window

All lit up!

I love our decor this year! I'd really love to do more, but seeing as the only people who see it are me and Ryan, I thought I'd keep it low key. If we ever get a house, you better believe I'm drenching that place in Christmas!

I doubt I'll update in the next couple weeks because we'll be so busy seeing friends and family, so until then: 

Merry Christmas!!!

Loves,

Amy

Thanksgiving Goodness

Hi Friends!

Sorry it's been a couple weeks since I posted! Not a lot has happened, just a lot of little stuff preventing me from getting to the computer. Not to mention the Hubby has been studying for finals, so I have minimal laptop exposure. Anyway...Thanksgiving happened and that was good. We had a small crew but it was so much fun. Crockett and Kara came over with their sweet baby girl, Tessa as well as our friend Garrett. We had enough food for 20 people but in true Thanksgiving fashion, we engorged ourselves with goodies. Here are a few pics from the day taken by Kara.

The table before the food



The table all loaded down!

 I don't know about you, but every time I cook a turkey or whole chicken, I imagine that scene from Christmas Vacation where Clark cuts open the turkey. There is half a second where I think, "Please don't explode with steam!" Thankfully our turkey did not do that. Yay for Reynolds oven bags!

Pumpkin pie and minis

Kara did not take the previous picture. That one was snapped with my iPhone the night before. I've never made pumpkin pie before, but it turned out great! The mini pumpkin pies were so addicting! I found the recipe on Bakerella's site. They will definitely be made again!


The cooks!



The boys!

My love. :)

Kara, Tessa, and Crockett

I would like to take a second and say how awesome Kara is! She made awesome biscuits and dressing and allergen free pie for Crockett and took pictures and took care of a baby! Super-woman! Kara, I'm so thankful for your friendship and also for you getting a light scoop for your camera so I didn't look sweaty in all these pictures. (I'm sure that's why you got it, right?;) haha!)

We had to work on Black Friday which really wasn't that much of a bummer. I've never gone out deal shopping on Black Friday and I don't think I ever will. After reading all the horror stories of people getting pepper sprayed, beaten, and shot over cheap merch, I think staying home and/or going to work are my best options. We DID, however, go on an impromtu 6 hour shopping excursion on Saturday night and got 90% of our family's Christmas presents. It feels good to have it almost done. I even got them all wrapped and they are now sitting in front of our t.v. Be on the lookout for my next post...it will be full of Christmas decor and cookie goodness!

Loves,

Amy

DIY Magnets

Tutorial time! I've been wanting to post this for a while but just haven't gotten around to it. Today I want to show you how to make your own decorative magnets. I don't know about you, but I have never had "cute" magnets on my fridge. They were either pizza place magnets or magnetic chip clips. Ugly. So I decided to make my own. I can't take credit for the initial idea but I'm not linking to anyone else's blog because there are so many different ways to take them! I just wanted to show you how I did it!

1: Assemble your materials. What I used for this project were:

-pen/pencil

-scissors

-scrapbooking paper

-plain magnets

-E6000 glue

-glass marble/fake gem vase fillers

I got the magnets and scrapbooking paper at Michael's, but you could easily find them at Hobby Lobby or any craft store. I got the the glass vase fillers at the Dollar Tree. It was a little hard to find the large ones. They are about 1 1/2" in diameter. Everything else I had on hand. 

2. Find a design on the scrapbooking paper that you like. 

3. Trace around the glass gem. 

4. Apply glue to the flat side of the glass gem.

Here is what it looks like when the paper is attached to the back of the gem. You may want to slide the paper around the back of the gem to ensure that the glue spreads to the edges. You can't see it in the picture, but you will know what I'm talking about when you do it yourself. 

5. After the paper dries (who am I kidding? I didn't let the paper dry!) apply glue to the magnet.

6. Attach the magnet to the back of the paper-covered-gem

7. Admire your work! I made 4 out of the scrapbook paper and the other 4 that I made were just clip art that I printed off on regular white paper. So technically you don't even need scrapbooking paper to do this project!

I had a lot of fun making these and they didn't take long at all! They would make a great last minute gift  for any occasion. I had to stop myself from making more so that our fridge wasn't covered in beautiful magnets. I may have to make some Christmas ones and switch them out to "festive=ize" the kitchen! I hope you enjoyed the tutorial! I'll try to post another tutorial soon!

Loves,

Amy

Recently

Hey friends!

The last two weeks of October went by in such a blur! I wanted to update everyone on our recent happenings. On October 22,  I went to Arkansas to surprise my grandpa for his 90th birthday. I had a lot of fun seeing my family and celebrating such a momentous birthday! Here are a few pics of the shindig!

Grandpa's cake and some pictures of him over the years

Some of the guests

The family!

I can't wait to be able to spend more time with them over Christmas vacay!

Last Sunday, we had trunk or treat at Sojourn and had so much fun! Ryan and I dressed up like pirates and decorated our car like a pirate ship. Here are some pics of the event courtesy of our friend Kara!

Arrrg!!

Our pirate trunk complete with a treasure chest full of candy

Great friends

There was a great turnout and we saw some really great trunks! I'm already looking forward to next year. We had several kids think we were real pirates and I'm pretty sure one little boy thought I was going to take him with me to work on our pirate ship.

I'm hoping that I will be able to post a couple tutorials of crafts that I've done. I've already taken the pictures, I just need to sit down and write it out! I think I'll do a series of DIY gifts since Christmas is right around the corner! Crazy!

Hope you are all doing well!

Loves,
Amy

Happy Fall Y'all!

October is probably my favorite month of the year. The temperature is cool but not too cold, the colors on the trees are really vibrant, and pumpkins are EVERYWHERE. I also love fall decor. A couple weekends ago, I made a fall wreath out of some foam piping insulation from home depot. I thought this would be the greatest idea because it was cheap and easy. My friend, Kara, made one as well. I have yet to see her finished project, but I sure hope it turned out better than mine did. Here's my front door with the first wreath:

I evidently loaded it down with too much stuff on it so it kind of became egg-shaped after a day. I took that puppy down and went to Michael's to find a replacement. Michael's had 18" grapevine wreaths for $5 so I snagged one up and put all my "stuff" on it and this is the result!

A zillion times better. Apologies for the crappy photo. I took all the felt flowers and pom poms off the old wreath and added them to the new one along with some extras. Here's a close up of the wreath:

I love it 65435136576435 times more than the other one! The next step in prettyfying our entry way is to get a new pot for the mum. Mums smell so gross, but I love how they look! I also love that it was only $3.47 at home depot. The pumpkins by the door are fake from Michael's. Super cheap as well becuase they were 50% off. I went with fake pumpkins so I could re-use them and so I wouldn't have a rotting pumpkin by my front door. My next BIG projects in the apartment will be to paint a wall in each of the bedrooms and maybe in the kitchen as well. I'm really looking for ward to it!!! I'll definitely keep you all posted!

How do you decorate for the seasons?

Loves,
Amy