Healer

I was introduced to the artist of this song by a good friend of mine in Texas a couple of years ago. This song is my very favorite of hers thus far. It's one of those songs that when I am having a tough day or things just don't seem to make much sense, I can listen to it and I am reminded in a powerful way that no matter how hard life may get sometimes, God is always there for me and my ultimate Healer. So I wanted to share this song with you and I hope it brings hope to whatever tough situation you may be facing...

Closing a Chapter...

August of 2009, Will and I signed the final papers and were handed the key of our very first home! It was the most amazing feeling to have a house that was actually ours.

We watched it be built from the ground up. Our apartment we were living in at the time was 30 minutes away from the new house yet we would make many drives down there just to see the daily progress.

Our families came down to help us move in. I was lucky and got out of doing most things because I was 6 months pregnant with Emma :) So my job was setting up house, which I did pretty quickly because I couldn't wait to have everything in it's place.

We had so many great memories in our house. The biggest was bringing Emma home from the hospital to the beautiful nursery we had decorated for her.

So when God called us away from Texas in July of 2010, needless to say, it was a very emotional for us. We did not expect to be leaving our sweet little home so soon after moving in but God had bigger plans for our lives then we did and we had to follow His plan.

The house went up on the market and without much interest we struggled until we got a renter in it in November. And yet again God had bigger plans for us. We were called to move again in March, this time back to our home in Tennessee. We continued to rent our house in Texas and moved in with my mom and dad until we decided how to proceed. We decided to put the house back on the market around September and in doing so, our renter moved out. At this point, we were paying the mortgage again and needed to move forward with our lives here in Tennessee so we really needed to for the house to sell.

With each showing, we never had any further interest. It was very difficult and a time where I had to learn patience and completely trust that God had a master plan for our family. We then had a curveball thrown at us in November. A guy in our church had a house that he was selling and wanted to show it to us. We looked at it and pretty much fell in love. So now we were stuck. We can't have two house payments so all we could do was pray that if the house here was meant for us then something would happen with our house in Texas.

Then a little over a week ago, we got not one but two offers on our house. We countered and within a day someone accepted our offer, which means, as long as everything falls in to place, we have sold our house! The close date is set for March 16 or before. And while I am so excited and thankful beyond belief that this burden will be lifted, there is a part of me that is breaking. I will never again walk through the doors of my house; I will never again sit in my little girl's nursery; I will never again stand in my kitchen cooking dinner while I watch Emma playing. And I know, some may say its just a house and yes it is, but I am a very sentimental person and it was more than just a house to me. But life moves forward and I know that there are great things in store for our family in the future. I don't know if the house we love here is meant for us but I do know that wherever we end up, we will make more great memories just like we made at 500 Jennifer Drive...

Cookies

Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Cookies

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

Zest of 1 lemon

3 tbsp lemon juice

2 eggs

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3 cup flour

1 cup blueberries

1/2 pkg cream cheese, cut into 1 tsp cubes

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and position a rack in the center. Line your baking sheets with parchment paper and set them aside.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer cream together the butter and sugar until it's light and fluffy. Blend in the lemon zest, juice and eggs. Make sure to scrape off any bits of zest that stick to the mixer paddle.

In a separate bowl whisk together the baking soda, baking powder, salt and flour then mix it into the wet ingredients. Gently fold in the blueberries so as not to burst any. Refrigerate the dough for about 15 – 20 minutes to make it stiff enough to roll.

For each cookie, roll 1 heaping tbsp of dough into a ball then flatten it slightly into a disc shape. Place a 1 tsp cream cheese cube into the center and form the dough around it creating a ball again. Bake them for about 10 - 14 minutes until the edges brown slightly. Transfer them to a cooling rack and enjoy!

*I haven't tried this recipe yet but I found it on my new addiction, Pinterest!, and thought these cookies looked incredible!*

What Did God Make?

On Wednesday nights at church, Emma is in a class with her other 2 year olds friends called...

It's the first club you are in of the Awana program. This is a great program that churches offer for kids to really dive into scripture. Now obviously at 2 years old, we aren't having them memorize bible verses quite yet but we are teaching them some very valuable lessons on a 2 year old level. I teach Emma's class along with another lady and each week, through a story time and craft, we teach the kids something different that God made. This year so far we have learned that God made the sun, the flowers, vegetables, farm animals, fish and birds, zoo animals...just to name a few. So last night's lesson was God Made Me! During our story we talk about what God made and then we have the kids say "God Made (fill in the blank)" several times so it will hopefully sink in. They really like it too when we have them say it really loud and then really quiet! We then make a craft to go along with our story so last night we made a picture frame...

The kids really enjoyed getting to decorate their frames with their own pictures. And they are always so proud to show Mom and Dad what they did when they get picked up. So Emma and I were driving home last night and I started asking her what she learned in her class. Now Emma is actually too young to be a Puggle because you aren't really supposed to start the program until the year you are 2 the September Awanas starts. But since I was teaching the class, and she turned 2 just a few couple months later, we went ahead and started her this year and then she will just repeat Puggles again next year. So she is a bit younger than most of the kids in her class and I don't really ever expect her to retain as much of what we teach as the others. But last night she absolutely blew me away. I said, "Emma, tell Mommy what God made tonight?" Without missing a beat she said, "God make-a-Emma!" I cannot even tell you how much that warmed my heart :) So I asked her, "Who else did God make?" Again she immediately role called her whole class, "God make-a-Cawee(aka Callie) an Wuke(aka Luke) an Zoe an Manawin(aka Madelyn) an Way(aka Rae)!" Oh my goodness, I was one proud Mommy! My sweet baby amazes me everyday but that hit the top of my list. I love her to pieces!!

Snow...

I've never been a huge fan of January. It's the month that officially marks the end of Christmas, other than a few of my friend's birthdays and Annie's birthday there are no exciting events during the month, and it's usually just cold and dreary. But there is one thing that can make January wonderful...SNOW!

 I have so missed seeing snow since we've lived away from Tennessee and I was so looking forward to this winter being back here and getting to play in the snow with Emma. However, the weather people are saying that the percentage of precipitation we've had is the lowest this year since like the 1950s. And the temperatures looking ahead are not snowy temperatures either. Emma has only been in the snow once and she was just a few months old. We had a snow in Texas and we got her out to play for just a few minutes, well really just to take her picture in her first snow!

So c'mon snow! Where are you?! If it's not gonna snow, then spring can go ahead and make its debut and I'd be ok with that. But really, I just wanna see some snow :) ... and lots of it!

Nothing but the Water Beneath Us and the Sky Above Us!

I'm a little late writing about mine and Will's cruise we took in November but nether the less, here is the story or our trip. It was the most amazing experience and just to spend a week with just Will was wonderful. Now not to say that it was not crazy hard to be away from Emma for that long because it was extremely difficult, but we had a great time together.

We drove down to Orlando, which to some may seem way too long of a drive but after driving back and forth from Texas so many times, the 10 hours seemed like nothing to us! And the anticipation of the trip definitely helped :). We spent the night in Daytona and got up on Saturday and finished the remaining 45 minutes to Orlando. When we arrived to Port Canaveral, I started to get really nervous. I have a slight fear of water so I was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing but once we boarded the boat and saw how incredible everything was, I was alright!

It took us forever to finally leave port that evening. We waited and waited to see the ship pull out but it came time for dinner and we had to go in. The boat pulled away as we sat down in the dining room which was not great timing...I got really nauseated. I wasn't able to enjoy dinner that night whatsoever and we had to go back to the room where we spent the rest of the night. I woke the next morning in my clothes from the night before! Luckily, we were docked in Freeport Bahamas so when I got up we weren't moving. Seabands went on for the rest of the trip :) and they worked wonders!

We did not do any excursions so once we stolled through the market in Freeport, there wasn't much else to do so we decided to get back on the boat and enjoy a nice relaxing day in the sun. It was fantastic! Here are a few pics from our day in Freeport, Bahamas.

Day two, Will woke up pretty early so he could get some great pics as we pulled in to Nassau, Bahamas. I went out with him not too much later and we were able to see Nassau as the sun came up as well as several other ships pull in to port. We saw the Royal Caribbean ship the Allure of the Seas, which just happens to be the largest cruise ship in the world! It pulled in right beside us and it was huge! We would love to cruise on it someday. The Disney ship pulled in on the other side of our boat and it was also quite large. We hope to take Emma on it someday soon! When, we got off our boat, we found a water taxi and took it over the Atlantis hotel. We didn't get to see much of the actual hotel but really enjoyed walking through the village outside of it. We took the taxi back and walked through the famous straw market and what an experience that was! Every single booth had someone trying to get you to buy their stuff! We went back to the boat for lunch and then spent a few hours out in the sun until we pulled away from Nassau. It got pretty windy and quite chilly actually so we went in and got ready for the evening. Here are some pictures from our day in Nassau, Bahamas.

Day three we woke up sailing not too far out from Key West, Florida. Will and I were both so excited to see Key West as we've always wanted to visit there! We actually docked inside a Naval base so we got on a trolley that took us from our ship to the heart of Key West and as we left the port we drove past Navy Seals in training which was incredible to get to see! We had an amazing time in Key West. We took a trolley tour around the town so we could see as much as possible. We at lunch at a little seafood stand, had key lime floats, and of course key lime pie! Key West is definitely a place we would like to visit again and see much more of! Here are some pictures from our day in Key West!

Day four was spent on the ocean all day! I thought I wasn't going to enjoy this very much being confined to the boat for so long but it was actually quite wonderful. We took the whole day and relaxed our in the sun. I finished a book I've been trying to finish for two years! We had one last dinner that evening and went to several comedy shows which we really enjoyed. Here are a few pictures of our day at sea!

So we docked in Port Canaveral early that morning. We had all our luggage ready to go and got off the ship in no time! We were pleasantly surprised how quickly the process went because we were both beyond ready to get back home to Emma. But we had a fantastic time. Our ship was a little older so next time we'd like to go on a more updated ship but the whole experience was simply amazing. So fortunate we were able to take this trip together!