These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

The Christmas season is special for so many reasons, and this year it takes on a whole new perspective for us as we enjoy it through the bright, sparkling eyes of our new baby girl. She watches the world in wonder as she learns more and more about life each day! I pray that we will be the kind of parents, and that I will ultimately be the kind of mother, who each day points her to Christ and is a godly example for her to follow. I pray as the keeper of our home (Titus 2:5), that I will be able to create a God glorifying atmosphere of peace and love for her to learn and grow in.
These are a few of my favorite things around our home that I love about this time of year, and what God has blessed us with...

Our sweet Emmy Grace who lights up our lives with her smiles...

The 80 acres of beautiful scenery at the camp we live on, we are constantly amazed at how God provided such a breath-taking place for us to live, and the ability to work off our rent by taking care of it...

A cup of steaming hot coffee, especially in the winter, and Christmas Cinnamon Spice is my favorite, Mmmmm...

Decorating and having company over to sit around our table and fellowship...

(Our family tradition for decorating our Christmas tree is a new ornament with a picture of our growing family each year, and it was so fun to add one of Emmy for 2010! We have 4 on the tree this year!)

(My Christmas table decor., it makes it easy living out here at the camp to use fresh pine and pine cones to decorate with, very cheap and easy!)

But most of all, my favorite thing this time of year is spending time as a family enjoying these things together!

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family! May it be filled with blessings and reflections upon our creator and savior Jesus Christ!

Yay for Deals!

Check out a sneak peak of our Christmas cards before they get to you! Shutterfly has done it again, yet another way to score big "holiday points" with me...a $25 gift card for sharing our cute Christmas cards with you!

Precious Memories

Pictures are our most important way of preserving our family's memories, and it is especially important to my Jon and I as we have a little one now, to take lots of pictures of her so we can look back someday and remember her precious years growing up!

We were always told by other parents..."don't blink or you'll miss it", and it's so true! I feel like we blinked and our tiny baby is now growing so quickly and I am so thankful we took lots of pictures to remember all her cuteness from when she was first born! Each phase is so cute and special, we don't want to forget anything! That's why I love Shutterfly and the way they make preserving these precious memories of my baby girl so easy!

I first used Shutterfly for Emmy's birth announcements and they turned out sooo incredibly cute! They did a great job getting them shipped to me quickly too! This year Christmas gifts for family is easy with all the pictures of our little sweetie the grandparents and great-grandparents are dying for! Emmy's Grammy and a Mimi MUST have cute photo calendars full of pictures of her; what a great way to show off their first grandbaby! I have made a few...but I can't spoil the surprise that is their Christmas presents this year, I know they will LOVE them!

Thank you Shutterfly for making it easy...and CHEAP to send out our Christmas cards this year!

If you want to get in on their great deals go to http://bit.ly/sfly2010.

Home is Where our Story Begins!

Well, I'm finally getting around to creating my first blog post. Needless to say, life with a new baby is pretty hectic! But oh so worth it! I love our little family of three, and feel so blessed to have a beautiful, happy, and healthy baby girl! The purpose of this blog is to give our friends and family that live far away from us a glimps into our family's life and to give God the glory for each day we're given to live for Him! Without Him we would be nothing, if not for His amazing grace!
To catch you up on where we are and what we're doing, I'll back up a little. My wonderful husband Jonathan and I were married three and half years ago on June 9, 2007. We met at The Wilds of Colorado, a Bible camp, where we were both seeking the will of God for our lives and learning to be godly leaders. It was there that we both grew closer to our creator and savior Jesus Christ, and surrendered our lives to full-time Christian service, specifically to work with teenagers like ourselves someday. I dreamed of being a youth pastor's wife and have always felt the burden for young girls and the issues they deal with today. Jon felt the same thing, and little did we know at the time, that God was preparing us to fall in love and carry out His will for our lives as a team!
And that is exactly what we're doing here in Crawfordsville, Indiana, a small town about forty-five minutes from Indianapolis at Calvary Baptist Church. We spent the first few years of our marriage in Greenville, SC where Jon finished up his Bachelor's degree in Bible at Bob Jones University and worked hard to pay off his student loans and be debt free before entering the ministry. Then a year and a half ago we took the leap of faith, left our stable jobs in South Carolina and our family and friends, and moved to Indiana to a church that couldn't support us fully right away. But God made it so clear that if we took that leap of faith that He would provide for us and He has shown us time and time again that this is His will! And oh the peace that comes from being in the center of God's will for your life! I'm glad by God's grace, that we didn't let our fears get in the way!  What blessings we would have missed out on! Being able to make a difference in the lives of teenagers and watch them grow as we strive to point them towards Christ is so worth it!
This year in particular has been a big one for us as we welcomed our sweet baby girl, Emelia "Emmy" Grace into our lives on July 8! She is the best thing that's ever happened to us, what an amazing day her birthday was! It is such a joy to watch her grow and learn new things each day and I love being her mommy!
So that's a little about us to start this blog off, I hope as I post about what God is doing in our lives and ministry that it will be a blessing to you!
Welcome to our story!