The Best of 2009

I got this idea from Anne Marie's blog and thought it was a great way to reflect on some highlights from this past year.

Top 10 of 2009:

10. My wonderful job at our church. I love the people I work with and I love working from home.

9. Our small group with 3 other couples. We love walking through life with these great friends.

8. 10 days at the beach for a little “babymoon “and getaway before John left for Philly this summer.
7. Spending lots of time with my mom. My mom is a teacher and this was the first summer in years she has not worked – she totally deserved the time off too! I loved being with her in B’ham, Atlanta, and Philly and New York.

6. John’s summer internship with J&J. We were so grateful for this opportunity and the fun experiences it provided.

5. 13 Auburn friends reunion and annual Watercolor trip with our friends in Atlanta. We are so blessed with amazing friends.

4. Beach with the Phelps and lake weekend with my family and the Gailey’s. We LOVE spending time with family!

3. John’s job offer post graduate school. This was such a huge blessing in the middle of a rough economy.

2. Friends getting married! We celebrated Mary Brantley and Lee’s wedding and Mark and Kristen’s engagement. We are so excited for both these couples!

1. Sweet Caroline. We are beyond grateful for this healthy baby girl the Lord has entrusted to us.

Happy New Year! We are looking forward to a new decade and what the Lord has for us in the coming year.

Merry Christmas!

I am a little behind on this post, but I figure as long as it is before New Years is over it is not too late.

Our Christmas was wonderful. This was our year to be in Birmingham with my family. We had a lot of time sitting by the fire with the Christmas tree lights on, seeing old friends, being with my sweet grandmother, eating like kings, looking through all the Christmas cards, annual trip to Milo's and many more fun memories! Here are some pics from our holiday.

Caroline hasn't figured out the whole "looking at the camera" for pictures yet.

Christmas Eve dinner

College friends (Jana, don't get mad at me for posting this pic...it turned out cute)!

Christmas cookies!

Caroline is so tired of pictures

Christmas morning

Exhausted

Whoever said traveling with a baby is different, they are right! Totally worth it, though!

Busy Season

Well, it is that time of year again and I can hardly believe it! I love the holidays even though they are pretty hectic most of the time, they are also refreshing. Sorry, for the lack of blog attention, but here is a little summary since Thanksgiving.

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know we love to go places and have an excuse for a getaway just about any chance we can! About three weeks after Caroline was born I was reay to venture to Birmingham for a weekend and then when she was six weeks, we headed up to the lake for a few days. I love the lake in the winter about as much as I love it in the summer.

We had a wonderfully relaxing time: fire going, in PJs all day, little one sleeping on the couch, and reading = heaven on earth!

Oh, and we were able to see our friends, Andrew and Stacey while up at the lake. This is their youngest, Owen, who is six weeks older than Caroline. How cute are they? I think Owen is smitten over Caroline! :)
Since then, we celebrated Mark and Kristen with an ornament shower. I cannot believe they will be married in two months! I am SO excited!! Have I mentioned she lives here now too?? Yes, it is wonderful!

We went to the amazing annual Atlanta Youth Academy Art Auction. This is one of our favorite events of the year. Go HERE to see more about this amazing school on their website or go HERE to watch an awesome video. John and I love this place and believe in it whole heartedly!

We went to a party for the consulting firm John will start work with this summer. This was fun for us to meet many new people as well as their spouses. I love to put faces with names so I especially appreciated meeting people I have been hearing about.

Caroline went to see Santa Claus. She did great. This is one off our camera, but I will post some professional ones once we get them in the mail.

We fried a turkey with our small group and had a delicious Christmas meal! I wish I had a picture. It was fried in our driveway - yes, we looked like rednecks for the day. Have you ever had fried turkey though? It was a first for me and it was so yummy!

John and I had our annual Christmas date - dinner at Houston's and then Christmas shopping/people watching while sipping hot chocolate. We really do not like to go to the mall at all if we can avoid it at Christmas, but we love to go once for this date.

We celebrated our friends Anna and Caleb last weekend with a baby shower for baby Clark arriving in January! We cannot wait for this little one to arrive and find out if it is a bor or girl!

Oh, and last but certainly not least, John finished exams and is off school for a month! Only one more semester to go.

Whoa...Sorry to catch you up on so much at once! More Christmas parties and a wedding to celebrate this weekend! Yay for Christmas in just one week!

Turkey Day

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving here in Atlanta with John's family. John has a tradition of running the Atlanta 1/2 marathon every Thanksgiving morning. Caroline and I went bright and early to support him at mile 7. I am pretty sure John was more excited about getting a picture with Caroline during the race than he was the race itself. After the race, we headed to the Phelps' house. His mother makes the most amazing meal. She does it all herself and all homecooked from scratch!

At the race

A friend of John's from school joined us this year for lunch. Ruslan and his wife, Louisa do not have any family in the states. And they just had a baby boy born two weeks after Caroline. They Phelps always like to invite friends who may not have family nearby to join their Thanksgiving. I love that tradition!

Ruslan, Louisa, Altay, John, and the Phelps

The rest of the weekend was wonderful and relaxing minus some football games we were not very happy about! Christian and Linsey were in town for Thanksgiving with the Alison's. So, Mom came over for the weekend to see everyone too. We were thrilled to spend time with them!

Uncle Christian and Caroline matched for the Auburn game!

War Eagle anyway!

We also got our Christmas tree and are in the process of decorating! Will have to add some pictures soon! Hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving!

Thankful

I love Thanksgiving. I am ashasmed to admit though the reasons I usually love Thanksgiving have to do with good food, cold weather and a warm fire, a day or two off from work, a low key day to rest before the hustle and bustle of Christmas, great football, etc. Growing up, my family would always share a couple things we were thankful for each year at Thanksgiving. And just as it says below, I immediately aslways jump to the good, to the Lord's provision and blessings. Granted, there have been numerous times looking back now I have seen how the difficult, the pain and hurt as well have molded me and shaped me for the better. But, those are not usually the pretty things I would think about at Thanksgiving.

However, this little devotion I read below gave me a different perspective this year.

Am I thankful?
Sure I am. As long as it’s convenient.
As long as the gift-giver is within ear’s reach of my thank you. And as long as what I’m thankful for is good, comfortable, pleasant and smells great.
I never thank anyone for rolling over my toe with their cart in the grocery store or thank someone for an unkind word. And I never thank God for struggles.
I mean, how stupid would I sound:
Thank you, God, for NO MONEY to pay the mortgage today.
Thank you that my seven-year-old has emotional outbursts every morning before school that reduce her to a pile of unbrushed auburn waves and tears on the bathroom floor.
Thanks for spilled apple juice, dried and sticky on the floor.
Thank you, God, for the rejection of friends and that crazy mean email last week. Thank you for the tears it cost.
Thank you for the argument I had with my husband last night. Thank you, God, that he doesn’t understand me.
No.
We are usually thankful for blessings.
Gifts. Encouragement. Provision.
We send thank-you notes to mothers and cousins for baby gifts and Christmas packages. We call our pastors and thank them for the sermon. We are grateful for warm beds and fireplaces that glow in our family rooms.
We are thankful because it’s easy and expected.
But the sweet times, the easy-flowing happy times are not what shape me. I am comfortable and will stay the same if everything always goes my way.
Discomfort is the only way I grow. And I am never grateful for sitting in the valley of hurt and pain. I’m never thankful when things don’t work out like I planned.
I stamp my feet instead and no-fair God. I tell Him He doesn’t know what its like to be me.
I’m not changed in the lots-of-money, kids-are-well, husband-adores-me days.
But I am changed in the I’m-fat, second-argument-this-week-with-my-mom, worried-about-my-kids days.
This is when I’m moved to trust. I have to because nothing else works.
These are the days when God comes in and under-girds my heart with His own, turns my head to refocus my attention and then asks me to trust.
And I should be grateful that He thinks enough of me to carefully craft difficulty to edge me toward beauty, kindness, and grace with pressure.
I don’t want to just be thankful for the easy. I want to be grateful for the hard. And that involves a choice...one I'm making today.

Easter

I have to admit Easter is my favorite holiday and one of my favorite times of the year. Christmas is always a child’s favorite holiday though, right? Not for me, even as a little girl it has always been Easter. Growing up Easter was all about a new dress for church, a day you could officially bring out your white and seersucker for the season, the onset of warm weather, Easter baskets with eggs full of pastel colored candy, and the amazing Easter egg hunt at my grandparent’s house. While I still love these things (and who doesn’t?!), it wasn’t until later in life that Easter held a larger meaning to me.
Last week as I was reading and reflecting on Holy week, I read several verses about this topic: Luke 9:18 where Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do the crowds say I am?” In Matthew 21, those crowds called Him a king, a prophet, and a teacher. The same crowds who called Jesus those words, crucified him just days later.
In light of these scriptures, I’ve reflected on who Jesus is to me? I heard a quote last week that said, “Most people make Jesus someone they can live with instead of someone they cannot live without.” I pray Jesus is someone I continually cannot live without. At different times in my life and depending on certain circumstances I face, Jesus shows me he is a provider, a father, a faithful friend, an encouragement, a listening ear, and much more.
No matter what my joys or struggles, Jesus will always constantly be my Savior and my hope. Those who call him Lord, He freely gives life. As believers, Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection give us life and hope in Him. And because of that Easter will continue to be my favorite time of the year!