It's Olympic Time!

Yesterday in my Random Mid-Week Thoughts post, I talked about my excitement for the Olympics. I'm not sure I really communicated the extent of my absolute love for the Olympics. In the last Olympics four years ago, I was in college and living with one of my best friends, Jordan. I decorated our house with red, white, and blue. Flags and beads and ribbons everywhere! I made everyone who watched the olympics with me wave a flag and wear beads and all! We ate Olympic cookies (special ordered from Ed's bakery) and watched every event, even into the wee hours of the morning! This year with all of the social media following the Olympics, I've kept up with the happenings even more! However, I was not planning to go all out and decorate our house because of the busyness that is our lives these days. I've been in literacy training all week and we are leaving this evening to take the seniors in our student ministry on a float trip, so I haven't had any time to decorate. 

BUT, I married the most amazing guy on the planet who knows me way too well and will not settle for a boring Olympic experience for his crazy wife. I came home from training today to find two sacks full of decorations, flags, a balloon, and a rather large Ed's bakery box full of Olympic cookies like I had ordered four years ago (Nathan said they knew what he was talking about when he ordered them--I guess not many people order these :)! We spent the afternoon decorating the house and getting pumped for the next two weeks!

Piper is even excited!

Aren't these so fun?!

My fourth of July wreath fits right in!

Of course, Piper will cheer on the USA too :)

We will be missing the opening ceremonies and some of the events tomorrow due to our float trip (which is going to be a blast!), but thankfully DVR was installed this morning and all will be well with my soul! Enjoy the Olympics, folks! 

Mid-Week Thoughts

So the summer is beginning to wind down. I can feel the days ticking by and the beginning of school getting closer. I am trying to get a head start on school year life before August hits so that I am not stressed down to the last second. However, my internal clock has decided to wait until this week to kick off, making it extremely hard to get up and around to be productive. Hopefully that won't last long :)

I've had all kinds of random thoughts/suggestions/needs running through my head this week, so I thought I would compile them in a catch-all post.

1. My brother is getting married in exactly 15 days! I cannot believe that it is already here. I am so excited that I get to not only be a sister on his special day, but also a bridesmaid! The wedding is in Dallas (where Jessica is from), so this is leaving me with a small predicament. I cannot do hair. I have no abilities to style my hair or anyone else's. This is why my hair always looks the same :) Being in Dallas, I don't know of any particular stylist to use for the big day, so I have been searching online for simple ways to do simple up-do's. Any hair pros out there have any suggestions?

Aren't they precious??? (Ivy Photography)

2. My mornings are always so rushed during the school year. I tend to sleep until the very last second, leaving little time for extra activities. When I started running back in the spring my morning got even more busy. At the same time, I HAVE to eat breakfast. I will literally fall out if I don't eat. I was so excited back in the spring to find this recipe for Oatmeal muffins that can be made in bulk and frozen for easy breakfasts! I know your first thought may be, "Oatmeal? Gross!" Trust me, these muffins are so good (my husband even likes the ones with chocolate chips!) , filling, and easy to warm up in the microwave for a breakfast on the go! They are very simple to make and are very nutritious. You can find the recipe over at Brenda's blog. I spent the evening making another batch of these last night in preparation for school starting soon!

3. My FAVORITE time of the year begins in exactly in a little over 24 hours! The Olympics!! I am a sold out fan to team USA and absolutely love to watch every event I can. In 2008 I was about to begin my sophomore year in college--seems like yesterday! I went all out for the Beijing Olympics: flags everywhere (even on the dog and in my hair), cookies from Ed's bakery with olympic rings on them, red white and blue on everything! This year will be even better! We visited London on our Europe trip last spring break, so it is so fun seeing landmarks on the olympic coverage that we've been to. I've also already started digging out my American decorations and DVR is being installed on Friday just for these amazing next two weeks! I am so impressed with NBC and their coverage of the games even before they have begun. For all you fellow Olympic fanatics, you can check out amazing videos, blogs, and photos of all of the London happenings at NBC. They're also tweeting lots of good updates from @NBColympics.

4. Is anyone into Geocaching? We spontaneously took some of the students last week after getting fro yo and I was amazed at the places these things were hidden! Who knew there was a little treasure in a light post behind Walgreens and a tree in the middle of the bike trail? It was quite fun hunting them down and I'm thinking we may need to try finding more in the future! (This may come off as a nerdy thought!)

5. Speaking of students, our new Junior high student pastor and his wife will be making their way to Conway this weekend! Stephen and Ashley Castleberry are awesome, awesome people who love the Lord and students. They are some of the most genuine people I've ever met and I am SO excited that they will be joining us at Antioch!

6. The youngest member of our family is going through her "terrible two's" right now. Our sweet, not so little dog, Piper, is stepping out a little and showing her personality these days. I never thought a dog could have a personality, but my goodness she sure knows how to talk back when we tell her to do something that she is not fond of! She's also starting to enjoy chewing, hiding under beds, refusing to go outside in the heat, and running us around like crazy! We love her to death, but my goodness, she knows which buttons to push!

Notice the stuffing of the dead toy all over the place???

7. Speaking of dogs, I was reminded recently of a very funny dog encounter I had with Jordan one time. My mom used to have a little white Maltese named Zoie. Zoie now lives with (and torments) our pastor and his family, but at one time she was one of Jordan's biggest enemies. Zoie was and still is a yappy dog who has more energy than any other living creature. We were dog sitting one night for my parents while they were out of town and Jordan decided she wanted to have a little fun with crazy little Zoie. So, we colored her hair hot pink. Now, common sense tells you that a dog with white hair is not going to take so well to pink hair dye. But we didn't really think about that. Long story short, we dyed Zoie pink, she hated it, the dye got in her eyes resulting in swollen shut eyes and a $100 vet bill for me and Jordan to pay. It took a while for the pink tint on her skin to go away and we felt pretty bad for putting her through such pain, but the pink fur was pretty funny for a few minutes!

We weren't real sure how to tell my mom...

8. Speaking of Jordan, her and her husband Marty will be celebrating their 2nd wedding anniversary on Tuesday, July 31st! I cannot believe that it has already been two years since we celebrated their wedding day! They were the first in our group of friends to tie the knot and now they have little Miss Morgan (who will also be 1 next month! So crazy!). I'm so thankful for their friendship and excited that they will be celebrating their second anniversary with so much joy!

I'm not sure why all of us white girls thought we could do the Thriller at the reception--I think we provided lots of laughs :)

And those are the random thoughts in my mind this week! :)

A New App and a New Recipe

I went to an iPAD in the classroom workshop today and made an AMAZING discovery. The class was obviously to help with using the iPAD at school, but we got off on sharing favorite apps and someone mentioned "Food on the Table". I had never heard of this app, but decided to see what it was all about! You have to get it right now! It is an amazing resource that links you with your nearest grocery store, connects the foods you like, aligns those foods with the sales going on this week, supplies you with recipes that include your favorite foods and sale items, AND makes a grocery list for you! Talk about a life saver! The cool thing about the recipes is that they only use 4-5 ingredients that are very common. 

After finding this app, I had planned to make a Mexican Stuffed Chicken Breast dinner, but was going to have to pick up a few items that we were out of. I got to thinking about the recipe and how I could adjust it using things I already had {I'm constantly trying to be thrifty!}. So, using the recipe I found on the Food on the Table app, I created my own recipe! Of course, it took a little thinking because of the picky eater who lives in my house. Luckily, he loved it! And when he loved it, I knew I had to share with all of you!

Italian Stuffed Chicken Breast Dinner

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Ingredients:

4 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts

1/2 cup Butter, divided

1/2 cup Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

1/2 Cup Shredded Parmesan Cheese

1/2 Italian Bread Crumbs (or regular bread crumbs)

2 Tablespoons of Zesty Italian Dressing Mix

1 Jar or Prego Spaghetti Sauce

Your Choice of Noodles

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 9x13 glass dish with Pam cooking spray.

2. Cut fat pieces off of chicken. You don't have to do this, but I don't like to eat the fatty pieces, so I always trim them off.

3. If you are using large chicken breasts, I would cut them in half. Then, use a meat tenderizer and pound the meat until flattened.

4. Melt half of the butter in a small bowl. Add mozzarella and parmesan cheese to the butter and stir together.

5. Place a spoonful of the cheese-butter mixture at the end of each piece of chicken. How much you put is really up to you!

5. Roll the chicken pieces up, tucking the cheese-butter mixture in as you go. Place the rolled up chicken pieces in your glass dish. I placed mine close together so that they would hold each other together.

6. Melt the other half of the butter in a small bowl. Add bread crumbs and zesty italian dressing mix. Stir together. Spread this mixture over the top of each chicken roll. I had to use my fingers to make sure it covered the entire top of each piece, but what's cooking if you don't get a little messy???

7. Poor jar of Prego spaghetti sauce around chicken breasts. Place a few spoonfuls of sauce on each breasts.

8. Top with parmesan cheese and stick it in the oven for one hour!

9. When there is about 15 minutes left for the chicken, boil your chosen type of noodles. I used wheat rigatoni noodles tonight, but any kind will work!

10. When the noodles have cooked and been drained, add a tablespoon of butter and several tablespoons of shredded parmesan noodles.

I was so excited that the first recipe I ever created turned out as a success! Hope you enjoy! :)

Jessica and Taylor's Wedding Shower

We are now midway through July and summer is starting to wind down for me! School prep is about go begin and summer relaxation will be gone. This means that a very big day in my family is coming up: My brother's wedding! Taylor and Jessica are getting married on August 10th in Dallas and we are all so excited that it is less than four weeks away! To celebrate, my aunts and I threw Jessica a bridal shower today for family and a few friends. We started planning this shower a couple of months ago and I knew right away that I wanted to try and pull out my inner designer to decorate for the occasion. Now, I am not very creative on my own, but thanks to Pinterest and other blogs I follow, I knew I could get some ideas and run with them. I had a blast over the last few weeks visiting flea markets and finding beautiful treasures that reminded me of Jessica. I wanted to reflect Jessica's personality in every way possible and I think I succeeded as best as I could! Jessica loves to be girly, but is also very simple. She loves tea pots and old heirlooms. She has an obsession with reading and loves old books. So, put it all together and you get a vintage tea party shower! I took lots of pictures to share the day with all of you!

The table that our guests saw right as they walked in the door. 

Guests wrote marriage advice for Jessica and Taylor on wooden spoons to make the Recipe for a Good Marriage!

I wish I had taken a picture of this area after all of the guests arrived--they were extremely blessed with MANY wonderful gifts for their apartment!

My aunts, mom, and grandmother did a fabulous job of putting together our snacks for the day!

This was my favorite piece out of all of the decorations!

This one runs a close second!

My mom bought the decorative plate from Etsy as a gift, but it was too cute not to use as a decoration too!

Yummy petifores from Ed's bakery!

My favorite tea cup that I found in my flea market shopping!

Another favorite tea cup! I think my own tea cup obsession has started...

The kitchen table decorations. I loved getting to incorporate some of the doilies that my grandmother used for years and years. They were beautiful additions!

I had tea pots and rose glasses everywhere I could set them :)

Mom and mimi make the BEST punch on the planet!

All of the decorations for the shower came from shopping through wonderful Flea Markets in Greenbrier. I would highly suggest these to anyone looking for good finds! They were filled with so many beautiful items and I will definitely be going back to add some pieces to my home and classroom! Here are the ones I visited:

Country Time Flea Market

Through the Years Flea Market

Midway Antiques and Fleas

Collector's Cove

I think she enjoyed her vintage tea party shower!

Jessica and her mom

Jessica's mom, Jessica, and my mom

Our moms are quite the goof balls!

I hate that this picture turned out blurry! Me, Jessica, my Aunt Donna, and Aunt Renee--The hostesses with the bride!

Guests filled out this "How well do you know the Bride and Groom?" sheet while we ate and chatted for a while. Then, I asked the same questions to Jessica to see if she could answer them in the same way that Taylor did before the shower. If she answered a question incorrectly, she had to put a large piece of bubble gum in her mouth! By the end of the game she had 8 pieces of gum in her little mouth! It definitely gave us a few laughs :)

The bride and all of the many presents loaded up and ready to be stored until the big day!

We had such a great day celebrating the upcoming marriage of my little brother to the love of his life. I am so thankful for Jessica and her family and excited to see all that God does in this wonderful new stage of life!

New Adventures

Nathan and I went on our first date on March 26, 2009. We had spent the beginning of our spring break in Picayune, Mississippi with our closest friends and drove back early because Nathan had won tickets to a Chris Tomlin concert in Little Rock. Before going to the concert, he took me to my favorite restaurant, Carino's, and took the opportunity to lay out his life plan for me. We had not been sitting down at the restaurant for 5 minutes before he jumped right in telling me how it was going to be. I am not kidding when I say that our very first conversation when we sat down in the booth began with Nathan basically telling me that he was going into the ministry, he didn't know what that meant or where he would end up, but that he did know that I was going to be there with him. First date. We weren't even labeled as "dating" yet. But he knew. And I knew. God had very clearly brought us together in the craziest way for a very specific purpose: to glorify Him in our lives together. That night Nathan made it very clear that he could not promise where ministry would take us or what it would put us doing, but that he was ready to follow wherever God lead us. Of course, I was giddy over this out-going, smooth talking, goofy boy and agreed wholeheartedly that I knew life as a pastor's wife would be unpredictable, exciting, full, and overwhelming at times. But I was sold. I knew there would be no other life that I would want to live.

Three years later, I am experiencing that first-date conversation in a real, concrete way. Life is unpredictable. Life is exciting. Life is full. And life is even overwhelming. It has been ever since that night when we verbally committed to whatever God did with us in ministry. However, we've reached one of those mile markers in life where life is unpredictable, exciting, full, and overwhelming all at the exact same time.

Last Thanksgiving, Nathan was approached about becoming the worship leader for the youth ministry at First Baptist here in Conway. Along with leading the youth in worship, he would also lead the third service there at First called Thrive. We were immediately very thrilled for this opportunity because of the wonderful leadership at First and the experience that it would provide Nathan with. We would miss our close friends and church family at Antioch, but we had been praying for guidance and experience for Nathan as he got closer to graduating and moving into full time ministry. God provided in a perfect way and we knew very easily that this was an opportunity that we could not turn down. We made the move to First Baptist at the beginning of January and were welcomed with such open arms. We were amazed by the love and kindness that we were shown by such a close group of people and were confident that God was going to do great things. And great things He has done. To look back on our six months at First makes me want to cry with joy. God has softened our hearts in so many ways. He has revealed Himself clearer than He ever has before. He has taught us the value of true fellowship. He has given us a passion for loving students and teaching them the gospel. He has brought me out of my shell. He has worked on Nathan's heart and increased his desire to teach. Nathan has been able to teach the youth several times and lead several bible studies we have had on Sunday nights and has fallen in love! He has loved leading worship and has done an amazing job (I'm not biased at all!), but his heart has really been turned towards teaching. The Lord has been abundantly faithful during all of this.

And yet He has also kept us on our toes. Several weeks ago we were approached about Nathan taking on the full time role as high school youth pastor at Antioch. We were both surprised, caught off guard, excited, thrilled, and torn at the same time. My mind was full of thoughts that crossed the whole spectrum. Wow! We could be back "home" again! We could minister to kids in the way our hearts have been leading us! But only six months into this time at First? Nathan would be able to teach! But Just when we were getting used to where we are? My parents would be thrilled that we would be in Conway indefinitely! But right when we have been put in a group of people who has loved us as their own? To say it was an emotional day is an understatement. Nathan and I sat in our kitchen floor and just let our thoughts spill out until we knew that there were no "what if's", "but's", or "how's" about it. God was opening a door that we had prayed for (without knowing it) and we would be dumb to not follow where He was leading.

So we met with Jason, we met with Bobby and Shawn, and yesterday we met with many members of the church to discuss what this new structuring of the youth ministry would look like. We are thrilled beyond belief to be stepping into this new role at Antioch. We have prayed for an opportunity to serve the Lord, serve others, and build up the Church. Neither of us thought that it would come in this way this early in our lives, but we are thankful. So thankful. We are blessed. We are eager. We are nervous. We are terrified. We are full of faith that God will provide all that we need to minister to students and their families.

So with all of this said, would you consider praying for us in this time of transition? We have both served at Antioch in different ways over the years. We have built many relationships, we know many people, we know the church, we have worked in youth ministries. But this is different. This is a new role, a new mission, a new adventure, many new people and a new life in a sense. Pray for Nathan as he teaches, leads, and ministers to high school students in Conway. Pray that he would establish relationships that would encourage and build students up in their faith. Pray for him as he takes on a role that is brand new to him and learns how to lead in this new way. Pray for me as I support Nathan in this new role. Pray that I can minister to the kids in a very meaningful way as I spend time with them, as well. We are so thankful for the support and encouragement that has been given to us and we appreciate your prayers so much!