Welcome, December!

Love love love December.  There are so many special things for our family that happen during December and January.  Besides the obvious much-adored family time we get to have at Christmas, there are several birthdays (and when I say several- I mean 7 between our 2 families!), our anniversary (4 years this year!  I feel old.), and vacation time.

I play Christmas music starting in October, if not a little earlier.  Thankfully, my husband puts up with it pretty well. Our tree tradition is to order pizza, put up the tree, and then watch Muppets Christmas Carol. Childish, I know, but we love it. I think originally the tradition was to just watch a Christmas movie, but we always end up choosing this one.

This year, we put our tree up the weekend before Thanksgiving.  We planned to do it on a Friday night because, well, it was the only night we had free. 
Disaster.  Here is why:

• Daniel had to work late, so he didn't get home until 9 (after 14 hours of work) and we decorated for an hour.  =(  He had a bad day, but did a really good job of leaving it at work and loving on me when he got home.  Still, I knew he was fuming inside.  My heart hurts when that happens.
• We had purchased a tree for $10 at a rummage sale and it was an 8.5 footer.  Gorg. Took it out of the box, and an entire section is missing.  Had to put up our Charlie brown 4 footer instead.
• Had gotten Muppets Christmas Carol from someone at work on a flash drive.  He said any newer flat screen should have a USB port for us to watch it from.  I didn't check until Friday night.  Nope.  No movie.
• Pizza was kinda cold.  I ate too much of it because of my emotional eating issues.

Ugh.  The whole time, I was thinking "I want to be the kind of person who says, "Well, despite everything, I am so joyful because I have my husband to share it with and so much to be thankful for".  I am ashamed to say that wasn't my attitude at all.  I was being a wretched human being- about to cry because my Christmas tree was only 4 ft tall and I couldn't watch a movie.  Really?  If I could go back in time, I would slap my own face and say "get over yourself".  Oh well!  Here is our tree- it's such an awkward size that I haven't found a tree skirt to fit it and haven't had the time to make one.  I feel like it's in an awkward part of the room, too.  I tell ya- the things we stress over.

I always listen to a local Christian radio station on the way to work and they are mixing in Christmas music with the normal praise and worship.  I heard this song by Casting Crowns the other day and loved it.  New spin on Joyful Joyful.  Not sure if it is new or not- but I would listen to this all year round!

I know everyone says this, but I just can't imagine an all-sovereign, heavenly king being born to be human on earth.  I mean, what was it like in heaven right before that happened?  What would it have been like to know the inner most being of every child- the number of hairs on their heads and number of their days- to then be born as a baby, so hopelessly dependent on a mother for so much?  If women, as mothers, struggle constantly with "am I a good mother", how did Mary feel knowing her Son created the Earth?  Wow.  I wonder if Jesus was some super-toddler.  Ya know?  Crazy.  Will be an exciting day to find that out!  =)

Hoping your are embracing December and much as I am- Love this time of year!

Zip It.

Absolutely love Etsy.

It has been a blessing to us financially to be able to make a buck here and there on fun things.  Not that it's payin da billz, but it at least pays for fabric.. and my sewing addiction.

I needed to make my sis-in-law a Boppy Cover to go over the boppy pillow I found new at Goodwill for $1.98.
Shhhwweeet.

I didn't have any zippers and they weren't on sale anywhere (I told you I was cheap!).  I checked on Etsy and found ZipIt.

I was able to order 10 Twenty-Two inch zippers for $8.
YEP.
Ya heard it here.
8 bucks.

Not even a dollar each, when in the store they are around $2.50 each.  You can purchase any kind of zipper you want from this gal.  Short or long, pink or white.  Love it.

What was even better about finding these zippers was the frustration that I experienced waiting for them.
What?
No, it didn't take long to ship.
I was a DUMMY and forgot to change my shipping address to our new house.  So, after 2 weeks, I checked Etsy and figured out- WHY YES, I had them shipped to our apartment.  They arrived super quick- there.  =)

I messaged Jennie, the store owner, to ask if the packaged had been returned to the sender.  She was so sweet, said they had not, but to let her know if she could help in any way.  She also checked in with me a week later to see if I had them yet.  Who does that?  Sweet people- people the world needs more of!

Thankfully, our old apartment is 5 minutes from my school.  I called the complex to see if they had them, and they didn't.  DANG IT.  I finally decided-I am going to knock on that door and see if they have my zippers!

After sweating through the pits of my shirt and drying my sweaty palms, I knocked- no one was home.  All this sweating and heart palpitating for nothin.

I wrote a note on the back of a receipt and left it at the door.  The girl who lives there texted me that night and said she had it still in the mailbox.

Woop!  So, finally, last night I was reunited (or united?) with my zippers.

They are awesome, were such a great deal, came with an adorable decorative pull tab just for fun, and I made a new friend in the Zipit lady- Jennie =)

SO, if you need zippers, order from Zipit.  You will not regret it!

P.S. Amy Grant Pandora apparently loves Twila Paris.  I have no idea who that is or how you say "Twila", but I looove her!

Thankful

I have really enjoyed reading about all of things people are thankful for over the past month.  I think it's really cool how we can challenge each other to post about things that are positive.  I wish I could say I am as thankful all year long as I am during the month of November, but, as much as I wish it were true, it simply isn't.
Correction- I wish I was aware of how thankful I should be all year long.
I wish I could be thankful this much when I am sad, mad, or tired.  I wish I could be thankful this much when life is hard and I feel like God is a million miles away (even though I know he's not).  I wish I told all the people I love how much they mean to me all year long.
I am always, always, always thankful.  I know the source of my thankfulness comes from Jesus and that all I have is from Him.  However, me being me-I forget January through October to be truly grateful.
SO, I am challenging myself to be grateful-this grateful-all the time.

Thanksgiving this year was just wonderful.  I don't know if it was because it was our first Thanksgiving in our house or what-but I felt like a real adult for the first time ever. Last week was a short work week and we only had school Monday and Tuesday (Score!).  Tuesday night we had our church dinner and it was nothing short of a huge huge blessing.  I am so thankful for our church family.  There are times when I imagine living somewhere else, but I always come back to our church family-we could never live without them.  They are home to me and the first/only church family I've ever known.  I was able to sit and talk with a woman from our church that I have never had the joy of really talking to.  It was so wonderful to learn from her and hear her heart.

A few weeks ago in Sunday school, we were reading from 1 Thessalonians 5 (which we studied in college but surprise, surprise, I forgot it all):
¹⁶ Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.  Do not quench the Spirit.

Okay, I get the first sentence-I may be really bad at it, but I get it.  "Quench the spirit"?  What does that even mean?? After learning what it meant, it realized, WELP, I do that a lot.  The spirit leads me to do things and I flat out refuse to do them.  Horrible.

So anyway, as I was talking to this woman, I had this strong urge to pray for her...  right there at the table.  I had had the urge before, but I never did anything about it.  This verse came to mind (thank you Jesus for your Word!) and I started almost chanting in my head Don't quench!  Don't quench!  We got up to leave and, in the midst of my quenching (more like dousing), I asked this woman if I could pray over her.

Um, are these words coming out of my mouth?  I see people do this all the time.  Praying is not hard.  Why do I fear it?

Whatever,  Get over yourself and pray for this woman! is what I heard in my head.  I think my heart was about to burst from my chest!  We prayed and it was awesome.   I will remember it for the rest of my life.  Do you ever get that feeling?  That feeling of knowing you are doing exactly what God wants you to do at that moment- ahh,  There is no single greater joy than that.  I hardly ever experience it (I'm working on that part!), but when I do, it's huge.

I don't mean to share that to make you think I am holy-bah, far from it-just to testify to the work God promises to do in us.  He is working hard!

Wednesday Daniel got off work early and we were able to spend the afternoon out together.  I love that man.  We also went with our church fam to see fireworks at the lake to Christmas music.  We looked like homeless people eating chili, hotdogs and smores, warming up over grills in the dark.  So fun.

Thursday we spent allllll day with Daniel's family, which I always adore.  I am so thankful the Lord prepared me for and for me a family that I feel I've always been a part of, even before we met.  Sounds weird, but I promise it's true.

I did not go Black Friday shopping, but organized my craft/gift closet instead:

From...

 You'd think we were expecting with all of that baby crap.  Boppy "models", clearance clothes, fabric everywhere!!

 I am a total bag lady- bags and bags and bags of fabric and notions.

To...

Ahh, so much better.  Those drawers were full of sewing scraps and junk that I had neglected for two years.  They were filthy from 2 rounds of moving, so I decided to finally put them to use.  Still full of baby clothes, but that will change in January!

Saturday Daniel and I were total fatties and barely left the house (Daniel didn't.  I took a few boxes to Goodwill and got groceries).  We watched 2 entire seasons of Big Bang Theory and scarfed half a batch of no bake cookies.  Pathetic.  =)

Today church was great, as usual.  I learned that 1.  I love hearing bible stories being told like a children's book, as opposed to being read (both have their strengths!) and 2.  I need to read more.  My Father in law was paraphrasing Job and he moved on-I leaned over and said to Daniel, "Sooo, how does it end!?!?".  I felt stupid not knowing (and he looked at me like I was crazy), but thankful I have a husband who teaches me continually.

We went out to lunch with some good friends and will have our 6th and final Thanksgiving with my brother and his wife tonight.  Thankful to soon eat something besides turkey and mashed potatoes, but looking forward to the last 3 weeks of the semester and more family over Christmas.

I am so thankful.  Really, full.  Almost to the point where I am waiting for something bad to happen because life really can't be this good, can it?
I will trust that no matter what lies ahead for us, good, bad, blessing, or struggle, our God loves us enough to bring us through it, teaching us along the way.