Favorite Things Fridays

It is the day after Thanksgiving.  I love being together with my family.  We always have so much fun cooking in the kitchen.  And I love eating Thanksgiving food: dressing, sweet potato casserole, chocolate pie, honey baked ham.  But most of all I love Greenberg turkey.  I'm not even a big fan of turkey but this turkey is AMAZING.  They are based out of Tyler, TX and have the most amazing smoked turkeys seasoned with the secret family recipe.  Wow! is all I can say.  It was actually featured on Oprah's favorite things show.  Apparently she orders one every year as well. I'm just glad we get to eat leftovers.  I think I'm going to go now and make a Greenberg Turkey sandwich.

Here's their website:

SOO Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!

I am thankful for so much this year but only one thing can top these two

And that is God's gracious gift of salvation.  Thank you Father for such a wonderful season to celebrate your Son.

Date Night

Thanks KiKi for keeping our son while we had date night last week.  We had so much fun!

Sorry, I don't have any pictures I didn't think to take a camera.  Anyway, we went to our local movie theater to see New Moon.  We have both read the books and were excited to get to go to the movies alone.  (I was even excited and I would much rather watch a movie on DVD in my pjs on my couch.)  It was crazy, we showed up at the theater at 11:40 for the 12:00 movie thinking that going during school hours was the way to go.  Of course it was much more crowded than we thought it would be!!  We waited in line until 12:05ish to get tickets so we decided to go to the 1:00 movie instead.  Sterling was spending the night with my mom so we didn't have to hurry home.  We strolled around Books-A-Million until we could enter our theater and went to find a seat.  When we walked in there were maybe 10 other people in the theater; however, after about 10 minutes we noticed that the theater was quickly filling up.  Remember, school was still in, but apparently everyone was "sick" last Friday!

The movie was great!  If you haven't read the books and watched Twilight I can understand that you would wonder what all the hype was about.  It was low budget and the acting was awkward, a bit of a disappointment for such a well written book.  However, New Moon was much better.  Which is funny because it was my least favorite book.  We both enjoyed it very much.

After the movie we ventured to Lowes and Hobby Lobby to get some things I needed for Sterling's shade, and then went out to eat.  I can't remember going out to eat just the two of us since Sterling was born.  We had a great time and a relaxing evening at home.  Thanks KiKi, Aunt Tor, and Aunt Meghan.

Happy Aniversary

My mom is keeping Sterling today so I am trying to get some updates out as well as some things done around the house.  But speaking of my mom, my parents celebrated their 27th Wedding Anniversary!!  Happy Anniversary mom and dad.

It's so sad that so many children grow up without the security that their parents are deeply in love with one another.  To the glory of God, that was not something that my siblings and I had to worry about.
Our parents have always very obviously loved one another.  I also appreciate their honesty with us that I think has helped us have a healthy outlook on marriage.  Love is not being "in love."  If you are "in love" what happens when you are "out of love?"  Marriage is about a choice to stay together no matter what, and putting one another first and not yourself.  True love is denying yourself and putting the others needs above your own.

As part of my dad's job he does marriage conferences and counseling for numerous of soldiers and spouses.  I am so glad that God has put him in the path of so many.  He is highly qualified for such a job because he lives it out at home.  My mother has also been a strong influence in so many young men and women's lives.  Her approach is more subtle, but she is constantly looking for opportunities to remind young people about God's truth.  I can't tell you how many of my friends (not to mention Hillary, Tori, and Jameson's) have heard her speak truth about biblical relationships.  Many of my friends would actually come over to our house just ask her to share wisdom about their own relationship issues. 

Thank you Mom and Dad for being such a testimony of God's Way.  I hope the Lord gives you another 27 years together.

Keep scrolling to see pictures of Sterling!

Roll Tide!!

 

Canon, if you send me a check you can use him for advertising!

Keep scrolling to see additions to Sterling's room

A Little Paint

Here are some pictures of what I've been up to this week.

 I finally got somethings on the walls.  Originally I wasn't going to do letters above his crib, but I think they turned out cute.

 

Thanks Tori for the animal print idea. It goes well with his nursery!

I painted a stool for his bathroom.  Now he will be able to reach the sink to wash his hands and brush his teeth in a year or so.  Until then his Daddy knees have really appreciated having somewhere to sit while giving Sterling a bath.

Here are some paintings I did for Sterling's room as well.  I got the animals from the toile scenes in his bedding fabric.  I did them a few months ago, but the only frames I could find that were the right size were black so I just got around to spray painting them brown this week.  The frames were $3.50 at Hobby Lobby, the spray paint we already had, the paper cost $0.50ish a piece, and I used textured scrapbook paper for the matting that cost $5.00 for the whole pack (I only used eight sheets out of about 25 sheets so you do the math).  This was definitely one of the most thrifty projects I've done in a while.

  

Standing Tall

I've been so busy these past few weeks doing projects around the house.  I've had a couple of craft projects I've been doing for Sterling as well as making balloon shades for his room. I will post pictures of what I've been up to later.

Anyway, I walked in to Sterling's room two weeks ago to find him like this.

So he is officially "pulling up." It started off in the crib and now he is pulling himself up all over the house.  I noticed the other day little teeth marks all along the rail of the crib.  So, now that he can stand he has also found himself a new chew toy! :(

Now he can get into his toy basket whenever he wants.  Don't worry we moved the basket to a different part of the room so that he doesn't hit his head on the fireplace.

Fun Fonts

I love fun fonts!!  I have so many fonts on my computer.  Most of them I never use but they are there just in case.  I just love to have something original and different!  Anyway, I stumbled upon this girl's blog and saw that she had a free font download to the side.  It was adorable so I downloaded it; then, I realized she will actually make your handwriting into a font for free.  Now, I hate my own handwriting but she has over 300 handwriting fonts, they are all great, and she updates them as she makes new ones.  I've downloaded a few. 

I put her button on the side of my blog so if you are like me click on it and check her out.

Speaking of fonts I am trying to learn how to change the fonts on my blog to something other than the standard blogger fonts.  If anyone knows how to do this I would appreciate the help!

10 Months Old

Sterling is 10 months.  I can't believe it!  He just gets more and more fun everyday.  We just love watching him play and scoot around.  He can get where he is going so quickly now, and it is so amazing how well babies can communicate what they need before they are able to talk. I love watching him figure out ways to tell me what he wants (especially when it doesn't involve whining).

 

The toy sitting on the floor lights up and plays classical music; Sterling has always loved it.  It came off of his play mat from when he was a baby.  I just found it hiding under the bed the other day and gave it to Sterling.  He hasn't let it out of his sight!!  This is the day I found it.  I was cleaning our room and he was playing on the floor.  He had this See 'n' Say and a few other toys.  He would crawl around and play with them on the floor all while that toy was playing music.  As soon as it would go off he would crawl over to it and push the button to make it play another song and then crawl back over to his other toys.  Since I found it it has been playing constantly!  Thankfully it plays classical music and not those little songs that get stuck in you head all day; otherwise, I'm afraid it would "accidentally" disappear again!  :)  Thank you Baby Einstein for taking mommies nerves into consideration.

 

 

Playing with that same music toy.

Desiring God - Free Audiobook

For those of you who would love to read but don't have the time.  Christian Audio gives away a free audio book every month.  They have some great books.  I've downloaded many great books from them (I have not listened to all of them though).  This month they have Desiring God for the free download.  I have been wanting to read this book for forever.  I have started it a couple of times but never gotten very far.  Just make an account with them and put in the coupon code NOV2009 in the checkout and you can listen to this book for free as you are doing things around the house or riding in the car.

I listened to the first chapter and got my whole house picked up at the same time!