Books Read in 2015

Source

My ever growing list of books. here is my 2015 list of books that i have read. I love keeping track of books. There are so, so many that i want to dive into. thankful for books. i just can't get enough.

An O'Malley Love Story:Jennifer-Dee Henderson
Loving Frank-Nancy Horan
The Night Circus-Erin Morgenstern
Walking on Water-Richard Paul Evans
Home of Our Hearts-Robin Jones Gunn
Bread and Wine-Shauna Niequist
A Million Little Ways-Emily P. Freeman
Angels Walking-Karen Kingsbury
Bridge to Haven-Franciene Rivers
Claim-Lisa Tawn Bergren
The Poisonwood Bible- Barbara Kingsolver
The Longest Ride-Nicholas Sparks
The Selection-Kiera Cass
Flush-Carl Hiaasen
For the Love-Jen Hatmaker
Grace for the Good girl-Emily P. Freeman
Sarah's Key-Tatiana Rosnay
Riding Lessons-Sara Gruen
One More Wish-Robin Jones Gunn
Spoken For- Robin Jones Gunn and Alyssa B
The Fringe Hours-Jessica N Turner
The Girl on the Train-Paula Hawkins
The Chase-Kyle and Kelsey Kupecky
The Nesting Place-Myquillyn Smith
Love finds you in Martha's Vineyard-Melody Carlson
Where'd you go Bernadette-Maria Semple
The Wednesday Letters-Jason F. Wright
The Heir-Kiera Cass
Mummies in the Morning-Mary Pope Osborne
The Best Yes-Lysa Terkeurst
Happily Ever After-Kiera Cass
Miracle at the Higher Ground Cafe-Max Lucado
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up-Marie Kondo

Adventure 52

this year was the first year that my sister and brother in law were in their new house and it was her year to have Christmas at her house. it was a lot of fun being all together and eating some yummy food and watching the kids play.

one of little girls favorite things was to get a make over from Aunt LC.

I can't believe that this year of Adventures has come to an end. it was a blast playing along. I am so glad that I did. thanks Lily

Adventure 51

adventures is food

lots of food

delicious food

a food experience that i am so happy to have had and shared with such great friends

i wish that i had taken more pictures of the food that we had

it was all so wonderful and delicious

these sweet friends brought gifts (which they totally didn't have too) and wonderful conversation and laughs. they make life good and fun and full. 

thankful that they were all willing to celebrate my birthday dinner here. it was such a great time. adventures are everywhere and i am learning that and seeing that through out this year of adventures that i participated in with my cousin Lily

it has been a fun adventure just blogging about all of my adventures.

Advent

i have been going through the She Reads Truth Advent study the past few weeks.  I am a bit behind on the days, as i didn't start the study on time. I loved the refreshing words from one of my favorite bloggers, Ashley Ann at Under the Sycamore tree, "December arrives and in the past I’ve thought if we didn’t begin by the first day of Advent, well, all was lost. This year I decided that is ridiculous. I didn’t need to let WHEN we start take away from WHY we were counting down the days."

In her post she is referring to an Advent calendar that she made for her family but it was refreshing for me to read when i thought about not starting the Advent study on the exact day that the study started on.

I have gotten so much goodness out of this study and i love how it has made me think and see things in the Bible in whole new ways.

Two days ago i read this study, day 13: Jesus is the true and better Manna.  There were so many good things that i got out of the study but this one really stood out to me. In the story of the Israelites and the Manna from heave, "God the Father wanted to provide for His children, but He also wanted them to know their provider."  The miracle with the loaves and the fish, "They were so busy looking for the miracle, they forgot to stop and take notice of the One who performend it."

May i never miss knowing my Provider and His Son, Jesus. I can very easily fall into just wanting the food and to see the miracle that i loose sight of all that He has provided and the relationship with Jesus.

when life just seems overwhelming and you wonder if the choices you are making with parenting....

are the correct ones

if they are worth it

if they are making a difference

if your child/children gets it

if they are benefiting from it

when you con't understand the things your child does, because they are so different from what you would have done and a friend reassures you of what may have been going through their head....perspective

when you feel as though all you are doing is for naught and then you get an email from the teacher saying, not only are they still doing well, behavior wise today but they came straight into class this morning and let the teacher know what we discussed last night.

you sigh out all that wonder

you feel the tears well up

you realize that it was all worth it

they get it

it is a process

the process can be beautiful, even in the ugly

it is COMPLETELY worth it

we are not trying to raise just moral children, we are aiming to raise Godly children who love the Lord with all of their hearts and souls. Praying for these children of mine and that they learn to depend on Him and to chase after Him with all of their hearts and souls, even in the difficult times.

Adventure 50

on Saturday we participated in a sweet potato drop with the Society of St Andrew and lots of other people who came out to bag 40,000 pounds of sweet potatoes

here is the first crate that we started on

we (the kids and I) have participated in veggie drops during VBS before but this was my Hubby's first time participating in a veggie drop and he just really enjoyed it

Golden boy was so sweet to help the little one.

Little girl and one of her friends working together to bag those sweet potatoes

this is just one section of crates that were loaded down with sweet potatoes

our first crate almost empty

we put the kids in to help grab those sweet potatoes off of the bottom and bag them

Little girl and one of her very best friends. she loves spending time with Jasper. she is my little social butterfly so she was very interested in talking and socializing with everyone there

the sweet potatoes went to many different families who are in need of food all over the norther part of our state. there were a number of organizations that came by and collected bags of potatoes to take to many families.

our very first empty crate

this was another whole section of of crates with more sweet potatoes in them

some of the boxes were completely lifted up and placed on flat bed trucks to be delivered to different places.

if we didn't have this organization to help bag these veggies then the farmers would just have dump these sweet potatoes in the forest to rot. it still blows my mind that we have starving people in America. i loved that my family could help participate in this and seeing that every single truck that came to get sweet potatoes was prayed over, for the families getting them, the hands that bagged them and the drivers and people who where delivering them, just made this experience even more special.

the kids even rounded up and prayed with the drivers after helping load their trucks with bags and bags of sweet potatoes.

this is Little girl holding the hand of an older gentleman that come to pick up some of the potatoes.

and here is Framer Mary Lynn and quite a few of the kids that were there participating in the veggie drop. it was so wonderful to all come together to help.

the Body of Christ, His Hand and Feet.

Adventure 49

first let me say that i can't believe that we are at week 49 of this year and right around the corner from ending the adventures of 2015

it has been so much fun participating in this with my cousin Lily and her friend Brenda 

second my computer at home has been having wifi issues so i can't upload a photo of that i wanted to post about, our group picture from our Sunday school Christmas party. hopefully i can get the computer working again and i can upload that picture right here but i will just say that it was a great time with some great and fun people. i am so glad that we got together and for to hang out with such wonderful friends.

third! another fun thing that has been going on is that our office was given a ginger bread house to decorate for a contest. we did #ahousedivided #an officeunited

i think it turned out so great. i work with a very creative staff and love the ladies so much. 

i mean, is it not the cutest thing you have ever seen. 

Here is the link to VOTE

click the link and then under the logo of the gingerbread house, click the vote tab and then find our house to vote on.
Please go vote for our house.

Adventure 48

Adventures in planning thanksgiving

Since Golden Boy was born we have never spent thanksgiving at our house. we are always traveling to my home town or to my parents lake house. this year my parents weren't going to be home or at the lake house so we decided to stay home. I wanted to have thanksgiving at home. my hubby asked me if i was going to cook a turkey, i thought that i would just get a boneless butter ball turkey and put it in the crock pot. Golden boy wanted to a turkey leg though so my sweet mother in law said she would handle the turkey and i said great, i will do all of the sides. it was fun. i started with my granny's home made macaroni and cheese. a few years ago i asked her for the recipe in her own handwriting. i love that i have this from her, even though i couldn't be with her at thanksgiving this year. i had the added fun of Little girl helping me out too.

we made other sides too, as well as set the table and had loads of dishes to clean. it was a fun day.

 i would have had a picture of the table with all of the food on it, (or at least some of it, all of the food wouldn't fit) but right as it we were making plates and sitting down to eat little girl spilled her whole glass of sparkling grape juice. it was mess. i am glad that we at least got this one before we started piling everything on. she is so me. apparently she i was little i spilled drink ALL-THE-TIME. she comes by it honestly, i guess. poor thing. it was a good day though.

Adventure 47

This past weekend my father in law hit a milestone birthday and we celebrated with in and out of town family. it was so much fun to have all the aunts and uncles and cousins from his side of the family come in to celebrate.

birthday boy and my mother inlaw, two sons and their families

oldest brother and his wife

the baby of the family and his wife and daughter (her hubby wasn't able to come)

the little sister and her husband, two children, her inlaws and a boyfriend

All of us together

all of us being silly

it was  a great weekend celebrating this silly and fun man!

Adventure 46

let me first start by saying that this shower was not at all my idea.

it was all contrived around the idea that the mommy to be had for a woodland themed nursery.

the ladies that I had the honor to serve with in hosting this shower did such a great job of coming up with ideas for all the details for the shower. we had an extensive email chain going of ideas and thoughts. there was one lady that wasn't able to make it but ordered the cutest invitations for the event from here

at the last minute Melissa and I decided that favors may be something that we should have for the ladies that were to attend. I had pinned this on pinterest here, and decided to go with something like it. I found two boxed of Celestial Seasons Peppermint tea, I was advised not to get chamomile because that was momma to be's least favorite tea flavor. I was even more thrilled to find out that Anne loved tea and that they had just gone to the Celestial Seasons tea headquarters. So cool!

I went to Michaels and found the favor boxes but upon further looking was able to find these cute bags in the Halloween section and knew they would be perfect. (it was after Halloween so they were  a good deal too)

Melissa ordered this cute diaper cake off of etsy

she also borrowed these great mason jars from a friend who had just gotten married and they went great with the woodsy theme, filled with pine straw it was perfect. I had seen this on pinterest, here and thought it would be fun to have a jar like this. I had one around the house so filled it up and brought it with me.

my daughter collected the acorns from my inlaws yard for the other mason jar. loved all of the touches of nature around the place.

truly the club house that we had the shower at was pretty much perfect so we could have done nothing and it would have been lovely but it was fun adding all of the other details

I found the bunting banner right when we first started planning the shower and Paige cut some templates for BabyGirl and she gave me some fabric to cut out to create this banner. I love the way that it came out and went great the with quilting activity that we did.

One of the details that was at the shower, that I loved, were these cuts of trees. somewhat like this, but thinner cuts. they were on top of the fireplace mantel and those jars were sitting on them. I wish I had gotten a closer picture of them because I loved them 

our main activity was to make this quilt for Anne. we were blessed to have Paige who can sew and make, truly amazing things. she created the checkered side and then the templates of all sorts of woodland cutouts for us to trace and iron onto the squares. she was going to stitch around all of them and then sew it to the backing that is hanging on the window back there (a closer picture is below.)

the food, of course was wonderful. Kadee, Sara and Karen did a wonderful job getting all of that together.

thank you Karen for doing this. you made my heart happy. I just love it.
( I know that you did too.)

the advice cards were something that i have seen and admired before. I had even pinned them here. so when Melissa said that she had ordered them for the shower I was thrilled. I told her how excited I was that she had ordered them and how much I loved them. they did not disappoint either. they were made on a great card stock and were beautifully done.

the beautiful momma to be. She was just stunning. I am so thrilled for her and her husband.

here is one last look of all the creatures and foliage that were cut out and placed on the quilt for Baby Girl. I can't wait to see the final product. Paige, you are sure to amaze.

Thank you J.Crew for getting this picture and sending it to me.

here is the group picture of all that attended. It was sweet that Chad was there, although i am sure he heard way more than he would have liked to about us ladies.

thank you Blakeley for taking these i really appreciate it. they came out great

is this not the sweetest picture of the mommy and daddy to be?

the hostesses of the showers.
it was so great to plan with these ladies. they had it all on the ball and had such great ideas. I loved being a part of it and helping to bless Anne

Paige, Kadee, Sara, Anne(mommy), Melissa, Karen and Me

i mentioned above that i missed the gift opening and that is usually my favorite part of showers. here are a few things that she got that i loved seeing pictures off

my guess is that this is from Kelly

 this little hat is from me. i saw it and knew that i had to get it for Anne

a picture of the full quilt. isn't it great.