A Shower for Eliza Grace

We made a very quick trip to Springdale this past weekend to help host a baby shower for my sister-in-law, Lauren, brother-in-law, Scott, and baby Eliza Grace. It was a couples shower. It was so much fun and Scott and Lauren got tons of great stuff for the Eliza Grace.









One of the things we did at this shower, was have a photo booth. You stood in front of a white sheet and wrote a message and/or used props and then had your picture taken. They are going to print out all of the messages and put them in a book for Scott and Lauren. We had two pictures taken, one with a nice message and one with a funny message. Below is a picture of the funny message.



We also got to see the nursery...it is almost done! I didn't take any pictures, but I wish I would have. It is super cute with bright colors.

The other thing we did while in Springdale was make a quick trip to Red Robin for lunch on Saturday. We don't have one here in Central Arkansas and I have missed it soo much. I think it was the best cheeseburger I've had in ages and the milkshake was pretty awesome too.

All in all it was a great trip. I just wish we could have stayed longer, but we had to get back Sunday because our friends, Bass and Wendy, were having their baby, Penelope, baptized on Sunday and they had a reception before church. I have no pictures, but it went really well. Congrats!!

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday Scott and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary. I can't believe it's been 7 years. Time has flown. We have moved 6 times...3 apartments...3 houses. I have worked 4 different places and Scott has worked 3 (I think). We have been living in our current house about a year and have both found jobs that we really enjoy.

For our 5 year anniversary, we went back to Jamaica. We spent our honeymoon at Sandals Negril and loved it. Sandals had opened a new resort in Jamaica...Sandals Whitehouse so we went and had a blast. We will definitely plan other trip somewhere for our 10 year!

Last night however, after both working all day, we had dinner at Riverfront Steakhouse. I am pretty sure this is one of Scott's favorite places, but it is kinda pricey so we don't make it there too often. We did go between 5-6 which is what they call Customer Appreciation hour where you buy on entree get one free. I call it Senior Citizen hour. But hey, we like to eat dinner early and I live to SAVE money, so it was win win.

Here's to another 50 or so years of this craziness we call our life!!

Reading List

So I love to read. I have always loved to read...well as long as it wasn't a book for school anyway. I read mostly fiction. I am a huge fan of Jane Green, Nicholas Sparks, Sophie Kinsella, Stephanie Meyer and many more. Once I start reading a book, I can't put it down and this often makes Scott aggravated. It gets pretty bad over Christmas break when I am off work for two weeks and have nothing better to do. I keep a list of books I want to read in an excel spreadsheet, which is no surprise due to my love of excel spreadsheets (but that's a whole other story). I have turned to the library to help fund my reading habit as it can get pretty expensive after a while. It has also caused me to read even more books, which as previously stated gets under Scott's skin after a while. So when I decided it was time to read the Bible in a year back in January, I also decided it would have to be time to take a break from my fiction books. I figured that if I would be more likely to fail at reading the Bible in a year if I was always tempted with another book laying around that I had gotten caught up with. I think I have actually only read one book other than my Bible this year, but that doesn't stop my reading list from growing.

One of my co-workers knows my love for the Twilight Saga and gave me "Dead Until Dark" for my birthday. I believe it is the 1st of the series of vampire books that True Blood is based off of. I have never seen True Blood as I am too much of a tight wad to pay for HBO, but I hear it is great.

My sister-in-law gave me 2 books for my birthday. This is our usual gift to one another since we both like to read and she said she only read one of the books this time before giving it to me. I can't blame her. I started the trend when I bought a book for her birthday while in Las Vegas a few years ago and read it on the plane ride home. Then leaving it wrapped up in the Mandalay Bay Bookstore bag, gave it to her for her birthday. I can't remember exactly how she found out I had read it, but needless to say it started a trend.

Lauren also brought 2 more books this past weekend. One was the book I gave her for her birthday last year. I bought it just before her birthday or I would have read it. The other was a book I gave her for Christmas a few years ago...Eat, Pray, Love. At the time, I didn't think I'd ever want to read it, but now that the movie is coming out, I thought I would read it before I eventually watch the movie on DVD. We don't go to the movies much...why when u can rent it for $1 a night on DVD.

Happy Reading! I have made it to November 11th on my journey of reading the Bible in a year! Not much longer to go!

Great Bible Verses

I came across these as I was reading other blogs today and thought I would share.

"Jesus replied: It is because you don't have enough faith! But I can promise you this. If you had faith no larger than a mustard seed, you could tell this mountain to move from here to there. And it would. Everything would be possible for you." ~ Matthew 17:20-21


"I will bless you with a future filled with hope - a future of success, not of suffering." ~ Jeremiah 29:11


"God's spirit doesn't make cowards out of us. The Spirit gives us power, love, and self-control." ~ 2 Timothy 1:7

Kim's Baby Shower

My friend and coworker Kim is about to have a baby so we showered her with gifts and chocolate cake at work on Thursday. She got lots of good stuff. Baby Graham is going to be very spoiled.

The cake was from Community Bakery and it was sooo good!!

Here is Kim with all the loot.

Me and the Momma-to-be.

I knew it was a rough day, but I didn't realize how rough I looked until I saw this picture. Oh well, the shower was a great way to end the day and the chocolate cake made the bad day feel much better.

Now we just have to wait on Graham to make his appearance.

Bible in a Year

So I have tried following a plan to read the Bible in a year before and it didn't work out so well. It started out really well, but then I started to fall behind and before I knew it I was about a month behind. I eventually stopped. Then around New Year's I started seeing tons of posts on Facebook about people who had just finished reading the Bible in a Year and I thought "I CAN DO THIS and actually finish this time!"

So on January 2, I decided that this was the year to accomplish that task. I found a great website that would let me choose why type of Bible I was reading and how I wanted to read the Bible (Beginning to End, Chronological, etc) and then even pick which month of the year I wanted to start. You can even click right on the links and read that days reading online. I chose chronological order and I have a Contemporary English Version Bible. I have had this Bible for many years and I love it because it puts everything in plain English and is very easy to understand.

My goal was to read the Bible in a year or less. I knew was going to have a problem making myself read EVERY day (even though I should). I decided that days where I had extra time I would read a couple of days worth to make up for the days I knew I would end up skipping. About a month ago I decided to set my alarm about 10 minutes early and spend that extra 10 minutes reading my daily scripture. This has worked out great and I am proud to report that this morning I completed the Old Testament!! According to the the guide I wasn't supposed to complete the Old Testament until September 30th. That means I am a little over 2 months ahead of schedule. I hope to keep this up and have the entire thing finished by the end of October. I make no promises and if something happens and I don't finish until December 31st, this will still have been an success.

Along the way, I have found a few chapters that I will go back and re-read once this is over. I have found a few new favorite Bible verses and I am sure I will find even more as I start reading the New Testament. I can't believe I was 28 years old (turned 29 in the middle of the process) before I actually read the Bible cover to cover. I'll post again when I actually finish and tell exactly how long it took me!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Well today is my birthday....my 29th to be exact. I am saying it is my 25th as I don't want to admit that I am now only a year away from the big 3-0!

I actually worked today which should either be illegal or given to you as a holiday (some companies actually do this!).

Scott and I don't really exchange gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, etc. We usually just buy what we want or give each other money for our birthdays to buy what we want. This year we both bought our presents VERY early. Scott got an iPad which he believed he couldn't live without and I got a new camera. I had decided that it was time to upgrade our camera. We had a Kodak and it worked pretty good but I always have to remove red eye from the pictures. I decided it was time to get a good camera that can last us many years. So, after a little research, I decided on a Nikon D3000. It is a DSLR camera and is totally awesome. I have only had it about 2 weeks and am still trying to figure it all out, but I totally love it. It came with a 2nd lens which is awesome for zooming in on stuff.

Today is also my friend (and college roommate) Audra's birthday! She turned 30 today, so happy birthday Audra!! Hope you had a good one also!!

All in all today was a pretty good day. I received tons of birthday wishes from awesome friends and family!

Audra and I celebrating my 26th and her 27th birthday together!

I just realized most of my pictures are old! I guess I better get to using the new camera to solve that problem!

Let the countdown to 30 begin! BOOOO!!!