Family

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My Niece!

Good morning everyone!

I had to post a few pictures of my new baby niece! Lily was born on Friday at 8:30AM, weighing a little over eight pounds and with a full head of hair. Both mom and baby are doing great! Thank you so much for your prayers!

All the pics we’ve gotten so far are phone pics, so they aren’t the best quality. But as soon as I get a good picture, I’ll be sure to post that as well!

Jon and I are so excited – we can’t wait to meet this precious baby girl!

The proud daddy 🙂

Little Lily
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One Week!

This week is going to be extremely exciting! Come Friday morning, I will be the proud aunt of both a nephew and a brand-new niece, Lillian May! My sister-in-law is due for a C-Section at the end of this week. Would you please send up a prayer or two for Ashlee and our little Easter Lily? 🙂 Thank you! Jon and I are SO SO SO excited to meet this little girl!

What an amazing day to be born, right? Good Friday. When I was a kid, I always thought it should be called Bad Friday or Awful Friday or something like that since it was the day Christ died. We used to go to a church that would have a very solemn, very quiet Good Friday service. You came in, you sat down, you didn’t visit with other people. You can understand why I would get confused about the name.

The older I get, the more I think that Good Friday isn’t a day of sadness. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us! That’s a cause worth celebrating, not mourning! Christ obeyed the will of His Father. You have been purchased with a price, and not silver or gold, but the blood of the Son of God.

I’m not sure “Good Friday” does it justice.

This Good Friday, lets mourn for the sin that put Him there, but lets also rejoice that He was there! Through His resurrection, He defeated death, but through the cross, He bought our salvation. If you’re looking for True Love, look no further. This Man loved you enough to lay His own life down onto two wooden planks. He loved you enough to stretch His arms out and have spikes driven through His flesh. He loved you enough to be spit at, beaten, mocked and ridiculed. All for you.

Paul says in Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

This Easter weekend, I’m praying that I won’t let Christ’s death be for nothing by continually worrying about measuring up. That I’ll confess my sins and then rest in His forgiveness, instead of always beating myself up over my shortcomings. That I’ll focus on forgiving others as I have been forgiven, instead of holding grudges and witholding grace.

Lets do this together, okay? 🙂

“Grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ…” 2 Peter 3:18

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Me As A Nerd

I like to think of myself as being relatively normal. And I like to think that on the whole, I come across that way. I love coffee, so does most of America. I love chick-flicks, so do most American girls. I hate ketchup, so does French’s Mustard. And I hate the movie Hot Rod. But that one is self-explanatory.

But I guess occasionally, I do slip into the Nerdy Writer role and yesterday was just one of those days. Jon came home, heard me giggling over the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest and quite emphatically announced that I was a nerd.

“Nuh-uh!” This was my brilliant comeback.

For those of you who haven’t heard of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, you need to know. This is the most hilarious writing competition in the world! The whole contest is based on Edward George Bulwer-Lytton’s famously plagiarized first sentence in his 1830 novel Paul Clifford:

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents–except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

Horrific, right? 🙂

So, in honor of this sentence, there is a Worst First Sentence Contest that has been held every year for the past 26 years. People enter from all over the world and they take submissions up until April 15. So, if you’ve got a ridiculously awful first sentence that you feel deserves this dishonor, please submit it!

I pulled a few of my favorites from last year’s winners:

“Lightning flashed from the blue-black sky of this alien world and shattered the engines of the spaceship, destroying Reninger’s last chance of escaping and reminding him of the time his sister returned from New York with the tips of her hair dyed blue, except for the part about the lightning and the spaceship.” – Mark Murata, Kirkland, WA

“Special agent Mark Park’s strong chin and firm mouth showed that he was a man to be reckoned with, while his twinkling blue eyes revealed surprising depths of kindness and humor, the scar on his cheek a past filled with violence and danger, and his left ear a fondness for M and Ms, but only the red ones.” – John R. Cooper, Portland, OR

“The penguin stood on the iceberg, cutting a striking black-on-white profile, much like the silhouette produced by a person standing behind a screen in front of a bright light while holding up a Twinkie to represent the penguin and placing it atop a Yorkshire terrier to represent the iceberg.” – Sarah Totton, Owen Sound, Ontario

You can find tons more of these here.

So, for all you fellow nerds out there, I hope you enjoy them! Some are funnier than others and I think I appreciated more of the Dishonorable Mentions than the winners.

P.S. I thought you all would appreciate a few pictures from the past few weeks – we took Kody to the other side of the mountain to play in some snow and there’s pics from a recent trip to Vegas with my parents – I MET ELVIS!!!

My handsome boys

 

Kody posing

 

Thus the reason for the lead. This one’s a runner!

 

Our nice waterfall picture

 

And our not nice one

 

ELVIS!!!

Notice the running water fountain that makes the canopy

 

Mom and Jon playing with the fountain

 

No need to go to France now. Aren’t we like the most attractive couple?! 😛

 

He stands so still…it’s amazing!

Family pic with the King of Rock and Roll

 

It’s Red!

 

In front of the famous Bellagio, waiting for the fountain show

 

I love my husband. 🙂

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Spring Break is Over – So Tragical!

Hi!

Today is the first day back to my normal schedule, so I apologize for the lateness in this blog. Last week was Jon’s spring break, the weekend before that I was in Dallas and had SO much fun! I got to meet several of you (YAY!!) and had an amazing time seeing old friends and making new ones.

I have a lot of extended family in Dallas, so I was able to catch up with them as well – it’s so weird to see how much my cousins have grown up! Part of me hates it, but then again, there’s lots of good things that come with getting older (like Jon), so I guess it’s okay. 🙂 I got to see one of my best friends since the seventh grade who lives in Dallas too – awesome! So, between the Christian Book Expo and the Cheesecake Factory, I had an amazing weekend!

Here’s a few pics of me meeting some incredible girls at the Book Expo: 🙂

SUCH FUN!!!

So, last night, after hiding it for more than a year, Jon finally discovered something pretty awful about me. I think he knew about it, he just didn’t know the depth of it. And no, it’s not some tattoo thing like the lady had on Three Musketeers. I’m going to confess it to you just because I’ve heard confession is good for the soul.

I HATE MICE.

And not just hate in a “Oh, I don’t particularly like them” kind of a way. I hate them. I have panic attacks just thinking about mice. I could probably have made my living being a pole vaulter without the pole if someone just let a bunch of mice out behind me.

It happened because we were watching a show where someone rubbed their cheek with a mouse. DISGUSTING. Obviously, I flipped out.

I think Jon cried from laughing so hard last night. It started with him lightly touching my cheek with our fuzzy blanket so I’d begin shrieking and ended with him running his fingers up my arm like some horrendous creature.

Bleugh.

Despite the gross factor, last night was fun and silly and relaxing and a perfect way to end spring break.

I hope all of you are having a fabulous week!