Thanksgiving Weekend

The problem with Thanksgiving is that while you have a break from school, you really don't have a break from school.

And when I say, "you"...I really mean me.

I had 3 assignments due during the holiday.

Professors are such Scrooges...or whatever a Thanksgiving Scrooge is!

Even though there was homework, 

we were still able to have a wonderful holiday weekend with the Johns side of the family.

We are so blessed to have family that is willing to travel to spend the holiday with us.

It means so much to us and we are very thankful!

Cheryl and were the cooks for the meal.

(She pretty much did all of it but was gracious enough to give me credit too)

I did make my traditional (2 years running!) pecan pie...from scratch.

Its pretty delicious!

And the boys did a great job keeping us updated on all the football games

It was the perfect meal, and the perfect day.

I'm so thankful for my family!

Also, I won the Wish Bone Challenge...

I'll keep you updated on how that wish works out for me!

Tis the Season

Today I will be doing this

 While watching this

and eating this

But first, we are all going to see this!!

Who doesn't love the Muppets?!

Happy Black Friday!!

My Cup Runneth Over

I recently watched Hope Floats, and when I was thinking about all the blessings in my life, this phrase just seems to fit perfectly. 

I'm thankful for all the wonderful people every single day, but since this is the day when the rest of the country pauses to give thanks, I thought that I would as well.

These are just a few of the many things that God has blessed me with:

1 - My God, my Savior, and my Salvation! What else is there outside of this?

2 - My husband. He is way better than I could ever ask for or deserve. He is my encouraging and uplifting, so spiritual, and a servant to everyone. I love him!

3 - My family. I said it last week and I'll say it again, I have the BEST family! I love each and every one of them and am blessed by them in so many ways!

4 - My church family, and more specifically the youth group! You all teach me so much more than I could ever teach you. I'm so thankful for your energy and your love.

5 - My friends. Old and new, spread all over the country, you are so special to me! I'm so thankful for all of you (you know who you are) and that I can call on you at any time. COME VISIT ME!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

May you count your blessings every day, and may your cup always runneth over!

B(ee) is for Baby!

This past weekend I was one of the hostess for a baby shower at church.
I am not a very experienced shower-goer.
I've basically only been to my own.
Oops.
However, I am a very skilled on Pinterest, so I was able to find some cute ideas for decorations!
The shower is for one of the new couples at our church.
They've only been a JV for a few months, but we everyone is so excited to have them there, and even more excited for them to welcome their first child in January.
Keep this sweet family in your prayers as Rose finishes out her pregnancy, and pray that little baby Nathan will come out just as healthy as can be.

Now for some shower pictures!

Bunting Banner that my Mom and I made

Sign in Sheet

Getting the Mom to be(e) her corsage

Rose and the cake table

Hostesses

s

Opening Gifts

If you can't tell, the theme was bumble bees.
It was adorable and so much fun!
 And I'm kind of obsessed with it (as seen by the title and captions in this post)

Breaking Dawn

Where was I when my parents got to Houston on Thursday night??

Well, class.

But then, I was at the midnight premier of Breaking Dawn.

It was complete madness!!

The box office man told me that people had been camping out at the theater since 11 that morning. 

For the midnight showing.

Ridiculous! 

He also told me that they were using all 18 theaters for the midnight showing.

And they were all sold out.

Are you kidding me?

Crazy!

Anyways, I went with some friends from school and it was so much fun!

We arrived at 10:30 (pm...duh!) and barely got 3 seats together.

They were in the last row.

Which turned out to be perfect because we could take as many pre-movie pictures as we wanted.

And we wanted alot.

You would have never guessed we were the graduate students in the crowd. :)

(Lesley has all the fun ones...I'll post those some other day!)

The movie was amazing!!

Extremely cheesy, over the top, a little chilling, and awkward, but I completely loved it!

And, I totally called the ending.

Like exactly.

No spoilers here! I won't say anything else!

But go see it!

 Yep. We were those girls!

This was my first midnight showing of a movie...and it was such a blast!

I love these girls so much, and I already want to go see it again!

Birthday Weekend

I'm 25!

Which I found out today means that I am at the prime point in my life.

I am officially out of adolescence.

I have a fully developed brain.

And I won't start "dying" until next year!

No pressure, but this is supposed to be the best year ever!

It has definitely started out that way though!

I still can't believe that my parents surprised me and spent the whole weekend here!

It was perfect!

I really didn't want a party, or a cake...

I just wanted my family to be here!

They know me so well!

I could not have asked for a better way to start my 25th year of life! 

I am blessed in so many ways, and am so thankful for all the wonderful people God has put in my life!

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Birthday Dinner at Taste of Texas

Favorite Part = the Sparkler!

They had already decorated for Christmas! So pretty!

After church before they left to go back home!

Thanks so much for coming to visit me for my birthday Mom and Dad!!

It was the best birthday present EVER!!

And thank you to Michael for keeping it a secret for 7 months, even though all you wanted to do was tell me!!

I love you!!

Sweet Surprise

Today I received the best birthday present EVER!

I walked into my house this morning (after approx. 4 hours of sleep) to see my parents standing there yelling "SURPRISE!!"

I could not have asked for a better birthday surprise!

All I wanted was to spend the weekend with my family, and they delivered.

It made me so, so happy.

I am so blessed to have parents that will travel so far for me!

And a husband who will keep a secret for 4 months...when he is the worst secret keeper on earth.

I guess this post should really be title, Blessed Birthday, because that is what it is.

So wonderful. And so blessed.

And if that's not enough...my Dad got a video of it all.

Vampire Week(end)

Its been so long since my last post.

10 days to be exact.

I wish I could say that I have been living it up during those 10 days and having so much fun that I didn't have time to blog. 

Unfortunately that is not even close to true.

I've mostly been writing papers.

And more papers.

And reading journal articles.

And writing papers about the journal articles.

I'm counting down the days until the end of the semester. 

4 more days of classes and this crazy, busy/hard semester will be behind me!

There is one thing that has kept me motivated this week while spending so much time typing away on all these papers...

That's right.

It's Vampire Week!

And tomorrow night I will be at the midnight premier...I'm beyond excited!

Its the perfect start to my birthday weekend.

All this week, I have been watching these in preparation:

 (Told you I wasn't living it up :)

Not that I needed to watch them yet, another time, but why not?

I still say 

1) I wish they could go back and remake the first one

2) New Moon is the absolute worst

3) Eclipse is by far the best

4) Bella's hair in Eclipse makes me want to puke.

Happy Twilight Week!!

Hope you all celebrate accordingly.

Early Birthday

Let me just say, I have an incredible husband!

He's the best.

Really.

In celebration of my 25th birthday month he already gave me gifts!!

I'm so excited!

Also, he ordered midnight premier Breaking Dawn tickets for me and two friends from school.

See...The BEST!

Jolly Holiday

Its November!

Which means a few things:

1 - Its my birthday month!! 25 is coming soon!

2 - The holidays are coming up! Yay for family!

and 3 - Halloween was yesterday!

I love Halloween.

Its (at least) my 3rd favorite holiday.

Mostly because Michael and I love costumes.

They're kind of a big deal in our relationship.

Like I posted last week, we were having a hard time deciding what to be for Halloween.

Okay, I was having a hard time since its my year to choose.

At first, we were planning to be these famous Brits

But, it was just proving to be a little too difficult to come up with an outfit...and to make Michael bald, so we I decided on a different famous, British couple.

Mary Poppins and the Chimney Sweep, or Bert.

I had a blast with the costumes!

Michael may not have loved it...since he hasn't seen the movie.

Shame, shame.

We weren't the only ones in costumes around here.

There was a cute little bumble bee buzzing around...

There were a few other animals running around too...

A sweet little Toy Story family

Some fairies

Eminem...or Marshal Mathers

An iPhone

And a birthday boy/Sherlock Holmes!

Here's the whole group at the party!

We even went trick or treating...to one house.

(It was so much better than the time we lived in the apartments and almost got kicked out

We had so much fun!!

I'm so glad that Michael and I could continue our tradition of youth group Halloween parties!

I hope that all of you had a wonderful end to October!

PS - Here are a few more Mary and Bert photos.