{i celebrate the day}

I celebrate the day that You were born to die,

so I could one day pray for You to save my life

Go turn off all the lights, turn on the Christmas tree, and listen to this song :)

Merry Christmas, y'all!  I hope you had an amazing day :)

(By the way, it's 7 PM, and we haven't finished opening presents yet - we like to spread our presents out throughout the day :)

Christmas Lights Galore!

My family went to the cutest little Christmas light village in College Station a couple weeks ago.  The hay ride through the lights was amazing, and the little Texas town was so cute!

 Haha in Texas we have to use bubbles if we want to have snow :)

 My brother and I were in a competition to get the coolest light picture :)

 You gotta love small towns in Texas - the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension scene was incredible. 

Our zoo was all decked out in Christmas lights, so we went with Megan and some other friends to go see it!

It's Christmas Time!

Here is my Christmas decorations post, as requested by Lauricia!!!

 A couple of the nutcrackers from my collection of around 46 nutcrackers :)

We have a huge Christmas village that takes 9 hours for us to set up :)  But it's tons of fun :)

     Me as a kid                                                  Mason as a kid                                            Mason as a kid
       

  Me as a kid                                                                                                 Mom as a kid :)
         

Christmas totally snuck up on me this year - can you believe it's under a week away?!?

It hasn't really felt like Christmas to me this year.  Maybe it's cuz we've had an unusually warm winter (I was really hot outside yesterday, and I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt).  I've learned that Christmas loses its magic as you get older, because every year I've gotten less and less excited about it.  It makes me sad, but I guess it just comes with growing up!  

I hope y'all have an amazing Christmas!

Lately...

What I've been up to lately (in a bullet point list cuz I can't think of a cute way to do it :)

• This Thursday I went on a field trip with my worldview class (Bible, history, literature, and writing all in one class).  We went to the fine arts museum to look at paintings and two churches/cathedrals since we were studying Gothic architecture.  It would've been a fun field trip....if you like art and architecture...and I don't.... And it it was about 3 hours long and we were standing for most of that time, which isn't too fun cuz your back and feet start hurting 5 minutes into the field trip.  But we got to hang out with friends, so that was fun :) 

• Thursday night my family went to a Christmas play at a small theater where we always see the Christmas play each year.  It was a lot of fun :)

(At the play with my best friend, who happens to be my brother ;)

• Thursday night/morning (are you getting the feel that Thursday was a busy day? ;) we went to got see the midnight premier of the Hobbit.  It was so amazingly fun because practically everyone I've ever known was a the theater...and of course it's so much more fun at midnight with your friends :)  I went to bed at 3:45 and woke up at 11:45 :)  It wasn't exactly my kind of movie - it was a little too much fighting and other-worldly stuff in it, but hey it's Lord of The Rings :)  My favorite actor, Richard Armitage (from North and South, the BBC Robin Hood TV show, and Captain America) was in it though, so that was really cool :)  He looks waaaay different as Thorin Oakenshield :)

Me and my friend with her awesome elf ears at the midnight showing :)

• Other stuff going on: highschool homeschool Christmas party, family in town, hosting a My Favorite Stocking Stuffers party at my house, getting my iPhone 5, discovering emoticons on said iPhone 5, and finishing up school for Christmas break! :)

{the selflessness challenge}

Hi, everyone! I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving!

Recently I have been convicted of the sin of selfishness.  I can be a very selfish person, and I need to do something about it.  So I came up with the idea to do something I'm calling The Selflessness Challenge, and I thought that I would invite y'all to do it with me.  Here's what it is: starting tomorrow, I'm am going to be deliberate in striving to be unselfish for the next week.  When I am tempted to be selfish, I am going to instead act in unselfish ways.  I am going to be intentional in seeking out opportunities to serve others and sacrifice my own desires.

If you want to do it with me, let me know in a comment!  Even post about it on your blog if you want to so that your followers can participate too!  Even if you aren't going to do it, I would love it if you pray for me and anyone who is going to do it with me - it's not going to be easy, but with God's help we can do it.  And I'll be praying for those of you who are doing it too :)

I have a really hard time remembering to act on the things I want to work on, so here are some things I'm going to do that might help you as well:

• If you listen to secular music (or fun Christian music that doesn't specifically uplift you or draw you to worship) listen to Christian music that will encourage you.  Either listen to songs about unselfishness and serving others like Outta My Mind, Give Me Your Eyes, So Long Self, or My Own Little World to help focus you on it
• Wear a ring on a different finger than you normally do or something like that that you'll notice frequently.  Or put a band-aid on your finger and write something on it to remind you
• Write yourself a note in dry erase marker on your mirror
• Set yourself alarms throughout the day

And of course we shouldn't stop after this week - hopefully it will become a habit and we'll continue to do it!  I'm excited to see what God is going to do in our hearts and lives this week!

if you met me

Inspired by Petie, one of my favorite bloggers ever :)

(Hey y'all, did I ever tell you that I won a photo contest in my neighborhood with this picture? :)

If you met me, we would go to Sonic (at happy hour of course, because who wants to pay full price for a slushy that costs a dollar)

If you met me, I would ask if you’ve seen the BBC show Robin Hood, then convince you that we should watch an episode because it is the best show ever

If you met me, I would interrogate you on your tastes in music, hoping that they would match up with mine

If you met me, I’d probably end up telling you the story of how I met Anthem Lights at the Newsboys concert

If you met me, I might awkwardly ask you if you would mind if we went on a photo shoot, because I don’t really have many people to take pictures of

If you met me, I’d probably abruptly change subjects in the middle of a sentence because it reminded me of something else 

If you met me, I’d end up showing you our music room

If you met me, I’d probably tell you about how Richard Armitage is going to be in Hobbit and then tell you all the other movies he’s in

If you met me, I’d probably say that my room is a mess (cuz it probably would be)

If you met me, we’d end up on the topic of school 

If you met me, you’d probably get lost when I tried to tell you what grade I’m and how I’m a non-homeschooled homeschooler

If you met me, I’d try to see if you like Jane Austen, then which Pride and Prejudice movie you like better (then try to convince you that the Keira Knighley version is better and that Ending isn’t dorky, it’s important to the story)

If you met me, I’d mention my friends every other sentence 

If you met me, we’d laugh a lot

If you met me, we’d eat a lot. Like, a lot.

If you met me, I’d probably show you the nine Vera Bradley bags I have in my pattern

If you met me, we’d have a lot of fun

November Photo Challenge {Week 3}

November 12: Drink

November 13: Where you slept.

Yes - I still sleep with a stuffed animal.  His name is Geoffrey Scott, and he's a knock-off pillow pet they were giving out at a baseball game....we've been inseparable ever since :)

November 14: man-made

A doll my dad got me from Norway :)

November 15: in your bag

My awesome aunts always keep me stocked up on Sonic gift cards :)

November 16: the view from your window

November 17: the last thing you bought

Vera Bradley pencil case

I just had to put this on here cuz it's pretty cool!