My Cup Runneth Over ...

So the other night I am listening to the Mister rocking and singing along to praise and worship music to C upstairs in the nursery and smiling.  Smiling at what God has blessed me with.  As I was thanking the Lord for how blessed I am I suddenly no longer hear the singing or the rocking of the glider.  When I went upstairs to investigate, this is what I found ...

Like I said, my cup runneth over.

Standing Firm

I have been torn over the past couple of days trying to figure out what I would write about. I kept coming up with the same topic: consistency. I have learned that consistency= dependable. If I can't count on you being at A, B, or C at the time you say that I can't depend or trust you. The Lord has been dealing with me about this particular topic as I have been on my Daniel's Fast this month. Consistency starts with your mind. If you can't be consistent in your thought; than you will be all over the place in everything you actually do. James 1:8 states "....Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do." (NIV). If you want to be used of God and grow into a deeper relationship; you have to start with your mind. Make sure your actions mirror your words and thoughts. We are supposed to ask God to renew our mind daily and think on those things that will please Him. Once you do that, it will be easier to do it. But if you're back and forth, God can't bless you or use you. You have to make sure your "no" is "no" and your "yes" is "yes". Perfect example: you're either a vegan or not. Being a vegan requires maintaining a strict regimen. So you're a vegan or not. It also applies to being a child of God. You are or your not. It doesn't work if you're a Christian Sundays but Monday-Saturday you're somebody else. Either your for God or not. Pick a side and stick to it.



My prayer during my fast has been a simple one (I'm not a fan of elaborate meaningless prayers): "Lord, I love You; and I really want to please You. I ask God that You strengthen me and work in me. Renew my mind and create a clean heart in me; a heart that desires You and seeks to please You. I ask God, that You reveal to me the areas that I need to stand firm in You. I ask God that I be consistent; that I stand for You always unashamed. I want to please You and make You happy. I ask that You have total and complete control in my life and that I will not interrupt. I ask all these things in Jesus name I pray. Amen."



I hope that this helps someone like it is helping me. Be blessed.

HAPPY BIRFDAY GINNY!!!

Gin, I wish I knew how to say that in Chinese because I knew would make your day, but alas, I don't.

For those of you that don't know her, Ginny was my roommate at Baylor.  And when I say roommate, I should say "shoebox-mate".  Because that's what we lived in.  A room the size of a shoebox that we could barely walk past each other in but at the same time, had the MOST fun living in.  I don't think I could've done it with anyone besides Ginny.  Because I'm pretty sure Gin and I were cut from the same mold.  We pretty much were one person our sophmore year.  Aside from her being super smart and going to classes like Anatomy and Physiology and my going to classes like Underwater Basket Weaving, we literally had the exact same schedule every day.  We'd get up (one, being me, usually earlier than the other, being Gin - she's notsomuch a morning person) go to class, come home, get dressed to go workout, go workout for an insanely long time (oh college willpower), go to dinner somewhere, come home watch a little TV, go upstairs and sit at our computers side by side and IM each other and then go and make a giant pot of full-caf coffee and ... ahem ... "study".  Gin only studied with me if she didn't have much studying to do.  She was in REAL classes remember?  Then Gin went and left me to finish her 2nd half of nursing school in Dallas.  Dumb Baylor, what kind of plan is that?  And I will tell you when that happened I thought I was going to die.  Even contemplated following her to Dallas.  But thankfully I didn't because I would never had met and married the love of my life.  And besides, I knew Gin and I would be friends for life no matter where we lived.  Which is a good thing since she up and moved to Taiwan this past year.  Thank GOODNESS for facebook chat because I don't know what I would've done without her labor and delivery nursing expertise throughout my entire pregnancy/delivery experience.

So happy HAPPY birfday Gin!  I love you SO much and know that C does too even though he hasn't met you yet.  We'll celebrate whenever you come back to visit us from that far away land you're living in.  I hope it's a blessed day and WISH I could be there to give you this virtual birfday hug in person!

I LOVE YOU GIN!

Sidenote:  All of THESE pictures are ALSO huge motivation for my weight loss goals to be MET!

Side sidenote:  Gin, we need more recent pictures together, come home from Taiwan.

Awesome Dress #3: Monique L'Huillier

Mandy Moore has always been a favorite love of mine especially when she cut her hair off and wore it pixie style. I love her style; she always looks like a lady at events. You can never go wrong looking like a lady. ALSO, she's wearing Monique L'Huillier!!!!! I love her dresses.


image source: style.com

HAPPY (late) BIRFDAY MOH!!!

Saturday was my MOH and BFFE's birfday however I am notsomuch a weekend blogger so I thought I'd do her birfday post today.  Sooooo, HAPPY BIRFDAY MOH!  This is the year (most of) my friends are all turning 30.  So we're all hitting the dirty thirties together.  Friday night I set up a little girl's night to celebrate A's entrance into the next decade of her life.  We had a pretty fantastic little time.

{Sweet Tara was such a trooper, she's due to meet baby Annabelle February 7th!  We were all waiting for her water to break ...} 

{Erin, Alli, the birfday girl, Julianne, me and Tara (and Annabelle!)} 

{The birfday girl with her red velvet cupcake!  Mmmmm ...}

A and I have known each other for a LONG time.  It's crazy to me that we have been friends for 17 years!  We met when we were 13 at something called the "Barn Blowout" (yes I'm serious) with our church youth group.  We had known each other all of 4 minutes and I asked her if she wanted to come over (after the infamous "Barn Blowout") and spend the night.  "Hi.  My name's Creepy, what's yours?"  I mean WHO does that!?!  Invites someone over they've known for 4 (okay, let's be real it was probably closer to 2) minutes to spend the night at their house?!?!  Luckily enough for me, Andrea didn't seem to think there was a thing wrong with the idea and ended up spending the night,  We were connected at the hip from then on.  We then went to Baylor and roomed together our freshman year.  Let's just say those were not our finest moments.  We like to call them "our stupid phase" and just move on being that we stopped talking to each other right before Christmas break freshman year and didn't rekindle our friendship until later sophmore year.  But am I ever glad we did because we went on to live together in Dallas after we both graduated, saw each other through good and some notsogood times, experienced becoming mommies together (well, not TOGETHER ... you know what I mean) and NOW are experiencing entering our 30's together.  Since I have about 80 billion pictures of she and I, I'll just choose a choice few for A's happy birfday post.

HAPPY BIRFDAY MOH!  I love you the MOH-stest.  Haha.  Get it?

Sidenote:  These pictures are really good motivation to get back in shape.  I'll update y'all on that progress later.

Awesome Dress #2: Burberry

I love this dress. Classic and modern at the same time. Leighton is a daring fashionista; that's the best kind.

image source: style.com

Thoughtless Thursday!

I want this ...

... found here.  Don't you just love Etsy?

How's that for thoughtless for ya?  I do have a 30th (EEK!) birfday coming up.  Mister?  Mom?  Oprah?  Just kidding.  Don't I WISH Oprah would buy me presents!

Now it's YOUR turn!  Post your thoughtless pictures, ideas, etc. and my button and come back here and link up!