HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!

10 Things I am Thankful for this Thanksgiving:

1. My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for saving me and sustaining me every day
2. My wonderful husband who is working so hard and I am so proud of
3. Our loving parents and siblings who are so supportive
4. Our new church and small groups who are such an answer to prayer
5. My FULL TIME JOB! (Also an answer to prayer!)
6. Our apartment - such a great roof over our head in such a wonderful city
7. Our reliable vehicles
8. Our adorable dog Molly who now a member of our family
9. Our amazing Alma Mater and how far the football team has advanced this season
10.All of our wonderful friends including Ben and Jess and their family for inviting us over today for dinner since we could not make it home to Jacksonville - THANK YOU!

I hope everyone gets to spend a wonderful day with Family and Friends and please know that we are Thankful for each of you!!
We love you,

BIRTHDAY PRESENT

Our birthdays were great. We went out to dinner and ate cake, what more could we have asked for?!?! Thank you to everyone who called, wrote messages and sent cards, we felt very loved by our friends and family.

We used some of the money that we got as gifts for our birthdays to get a much needed new desk chair. We love it! It just came in this week so I wanted to post before and after pictures so that everyone can see. (Thank you!!) As you can see... the old chair was literally in pieces and did not provide much back support to Josh as he spends long hours studying. The new chair provides much more back support and even has arm rests. Not to mention it has chrome accents that brought inspiration for the new chrome hardware on the desk. We also got a new lamp for the desk that just happens to be the perfect shade of Gator Orange that now sits nicely next to the Albert the Alligator business card holder.

BEFORE

AFTER

We had great birthdays and are very excited about our little mini office renovation. Thanks everyone!

SECRET CHURCH RECAP AND FULL TIME JOB

We have been so busy over the past few weeks that I have not had time to catch everyone up on everything... so here goes...

Secret church was amazing! It was a 7.5 hour intense bible study conference held by our pastor at Brook Hills on Friday night November 6th. The topic was Angels, Demons and Spiritual Warfare. David Platt went through the foundational spiritual truths of this world, explained who and what angels and demons are, what they do and how they relate to us. He went through the scripture to explain chronologically what spiritual warfare was like in the Old Testament, during the time of Christ and what it is like today in His church. He went over several controversial topics such as deliverance ministry, demon-possession, etc. Throughout the whole night he would bring every single point back to the scriptures... trying very hard to de-bunk any myths that are so prevelant today. He conclusion focused on the coming battle spoken about in Revelation 12:7-12 where Christ will be honored as King, the devil will be cast down in defeat and the Church will rise up in victory. Secret church was truly amazing... I have never been in a study quite like this before... I know that eventually the whole night will be up on the church website at: http://www.brookhills.org/media/schurch/. It is not up now... but all of the past Secret Church conferences that Platt has done are up there. I will try to let everyone know once they post it.

The weekend was a lot of fun! Our friends Chris Brantley and Jordan Baker came from Jacksonville. Chris came to Secret Church with us while Jordan stayed with her friend at Samford. I think he really enjoyed it as well. The invitation is open to anyone who wants to make the trek to the Ham for the next Secret Church in April 2010. I will let you know the topic when we hear about it.

Now on to the big news of the past couple of weeks... I got a full time job! Calico Corners decided to move me into the position of their In-Home design consultant. I get to go into some of the nicest homes in Birmingham to make suggestions on new furniture, draperies, bedding, upholstery, etc. I am very excited about this position - it is such an answer to prayer. I started full time two weeks ago and everyone at the store has been so great to help me through the transition and on my first few calls.

I think that is all that I need to catch up on! Hope everyone had a great Monday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSHIE!

Today is Josh's 25th birthday!! For two whole days he will be a whole year older than me. 25 is good... you are able to rent a car without an underage penalty and get a big break on your car insurance...very nice.

Here is another picture down memory lane from one of our many birthdays together - this year will be our 7th birthday together. Crazy to think about actually.

I love you Joshie and I hope you have a wonderful birthday!!

SECRET CHURCH!!

SECRET CHURCH IS TONIGHT!! We are very excited! Check it out at www.secretchurch.org.

DOROTHY AND THE TIN MAN

On Saturday night (Halloween) we went to a costume party for our small group at church. It was a lot of fun. Josh and I decided to go as Dorothy and the Tin Man - it was quite easy as I already had the costume and we figured out a very easy and inexpensive way to make Josh's costume. There were a ton of people that showed up for the party... lots of food and games outside in the cold. There were definitely some creative costumes that showed up throughout the night... characters from the Office, the cartoon from our childhood DOUG, and various other animals, Disney characters and pirates. Here are some pics from the evening.

There was lots of great food - including Pumpkin cupcakes :)

Our good friends Richard and Tara came as each other - the Nurse Practitioner and the Dental Student

Our small group leaders Jim and Betty - the Pilot and Amelia Earhart

Group shot Guys

Group shot Girls

Halloween was a lot of fun! Josh and I are so thankful for all of the wonderful friends we have met since we have moved to the Ham. God is good!

HELLO (PUMPKIN) CUPCAKES

My new favorite book is a cupcake cooking and decorating book. It is called "Hello Cupcake" and has the best decorating ideas for cupcakes that I have ever seen. Check out the book website to see what great ideas this book has. Josh's parents recently got the book for me when they visited us a few weeks ago. Josh and I decided to make some pumpkin cupcakes for this weekend's Halloween festivities. We followed a recipe in the book that adds canned pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice to a boxed cake recipe. The cakes were delicious. We piped the batter into cupcake liners and baked them. Once they were cooled, we began the decorating process complete with orange-colored icing, orange sugar sprinkles and a green-colored twizzler for the pumpkin stems. Here is how they turned out...




Not too bad... we will definitely be attempting more recipes in the near future! Many more cupcake-worthy festivities are coming up soon. Hope everyone had a very sweet Halloween.