Time to finish off this 30 Days of Thanks series here on the blog!

Day 28
  I am thankful that I have not 1 but 2 wonderful families that are close enough to celebrate Thanksgiving with. It can be hard to split time on holidays between two families, but it is worth it! I am also thankful that I was able to host my family this Thanksgiving. We had such a wonderful time sitting around the table talking about our blessings and eating yummy food.

Day 29
 I am grateful to have the extra money to go shopping to buy things for my home and Christmas presents for others. Do you participate in Black Friday? My mom and sisters always like to go out together on this day. We try to avoid the craziness as much as possible... we never stand in line waiting to get in to a store and we refuse to go shopping on Thanksgiving day now that many stores open Thursday evening. We are very rarely after a hot ticket, door buster item, so there is no need to involve ourselves in ridiculous behavior over sales, but we do enjoy this shopping day/night together as girls. We get up early (or this year we went out at 12:30am), get ourselves some Starbucks and do some Christmas shopping together.

Day 30
 I am grateful for Christmastime! We always spend the weekend after Thanksgiving setting up our Christmas decorations and trimming our Christmas trees. It is a great way to transition from the fall season into the winter and Christmas spirit. Love, love love the spirit of celebration and anticipation that is in the air the whole month of December, don't you?

Todays sermon just so happened to fit beautifully with the end of this 30 Days of Thanks series. My pastor preached on 1 Chronicles chapters 15-16 with the focus on Praising the Lord. He spoke on the need to praise the Lord continuously, creatively, in celebration and despite circumstances. And to remember that God inhabits the praises of His people! What a great reminder that it is important to Praise God and thank Him for who He IS and the great things He has done not just during the month of November as we celebrate Thanksgiving, but all throughout the year.

Day 26

I am thankful for the chance to host my family at Thanksgiving this year. Me and My sister will be taking the lead for the cooking this year, which I know is a welcome break for my mom and she will be able to enjoy her holiday without the worries of making food for the family. (She's a great cook, but cooking is by far her least favorite activity - and she's not ashamed to admit it ;) )

Day 27

I am grateful for my sisters willingness to always help me out! She came over today to help with Thanksgiving preparations. She brought over some serving trays, food ingredients for tomorrows feast and her creativity! We set the table up - complete with centerpiece and place settings for everybody. She helped me brine the turkey, (This is my first year brining a turkey! I'm super nervous about how it will turn out, but the brine certainly smelled delicious as we were making it!), she helped me plan out the cooking times for all of the food tomorrow (we have a lot to make in my new oven!) And she helped me prep all of the appetizers for tomorrow.

I am so excited to put up pictures of our table for this years feast! We had to modify our small, skinny dining room table that usually only seats 6 - to a large square table that could fit all 10 of us (and actually we could probably get 12 people around it!) I can't wait to share what we did! But I'm headed off to bed because its going to be an early start for me tomorrow!

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

Day 25

Day 24

I must be completely honest as I write about my thankfulness for the church. In recent years I have become increasingly cynical of the local church. I frequently question the way in which we "go about" our Sunday morning services, our ministries, our song services, etc. In so many ways I feel we have become so immersed in our culture that we are no longer a boat in the water (the world) reaching out to those who are drowning; but instead a boat in the water that has tiny holes letting the water in slowly. So much so that we don't even realize that we are no longer effectively reaching out to the lost, but we are also drowning ourselves. I often wonder what the first century church really looked like and what those christians would say to us if they could see us now. I know this is a very broad generalization and I can't speak for every church. I am just sharing my feelings based on the churches and christians I have known over the last several years... and I include myself in this generalization.

However, this purpose of this post is not to go on and on about what might be wrong with the church, but instead to take a minute and reflect on how grateful I am for the church despite the ways in which we might be falling. And maybe more than I am grateful for the local church, I am grateful for the global church that is stretched out around the world and that has persisted throughout history and incredible persecution.

The Bible says that the church is the body of Christ -

I am falling behind again!

I decided the only way to catch up on my 30 Days of Thanks challenge 9 is to combine a few days into one post.

Day 21 
 I am thankful for the Word of the Lord. It never ceases to comfort, encourage and/or convict me. I do not spend as much time as I should reading or meditating on it. It is such a gift that I often take for granted.

Day 20

I am so, so, so thankful for the ability to read and have access to books. I have loved to read ever since I can remember! I can still remember that my very first "favorite" book was Amelia Bedelia...

Day 19

I am thankful that not only do I have a secure job in health care, but I absolutely love what I do. I get to work with kids anywhere from 8 to 18 years old and help rehabilitate them from their injuries. I work in a Sports Medicine clinic, which is perfect for me if you know me :) and I get to put all those years of playing soccer to good use to help get an athlete rehabbing from an ACL tear back onto the field.

I have a good boss and fantastic co-workers... there are some girls there that I have loved getting to know over the past few years. I mean, where else can you put on your Tough Mudder head bands, climb a rock wall and goof off taking pictures?



But more than being grateful for where I work and having a job in this tough economy, I am thankful for sound advice and wisdom from my parents when choosing what to go to school for. I currently only have an Associates Degree in Health Science and I am a Licensed Physical Therapist Assistant. At one time I had dreams of finishing a bachelors degree and then going to grad school to get a Doctorate in Physical Therapy, but I also knew I wanted to get married and have kids and then one day stay home with those kids to raise them. I struggled with this decision for a while because I had always enjoyed learning, had a fascination with the medical field and had a worldly desire to have a prestigious career to "prove" that a home schooled girl was just as smart as any one else. After much prayer and time in The Word, I knew that being a wife and mother was the occupation that was more important to me because I knew it had more eternal value than money and a career. Because of this I kept my college career to a minimum and have been blessed by that decision ever since.

If I had gone on with my schooling I would just be graduating college this spring, which means I would be most likely be more than a hundred thousand dollars in debt and just starting to work and make money right around this time - which just so happens to be the time that my heart is longing for a baby. That just wouldn't have made much sense... I am certain I would've regretted that choice. Either financially, for wasting so much money on a college degree to end up staying home, or emotionally, for putting aside starting a family in order to work and make money. I am grateful that my mother had eyes for the future, and while she didn't make the decision for me, she did present the truth of what the future would most likely hold. And I am grateful for the Holy Spirit convicting me of a much higher calling than a Doctorate degree in Physical Therapy.

Because of this leading I was able to make it through 3 years of school without incurring debt, I have been working for 3 years and I have been helping to add money to our savings during that time so that when the time comes for me to stay home the initial burden might be less on my husband.

I know many people have both a career and a family, and that might work for them! But I knew that wasn't what I wanted for me and my future family. So my plan, as long as God allows, is to continue working  and save as much money as I can from my salary until God decides to grow Mark and I's family. And as much as I enjoy my job now, I cannot wait until I can start my new job!

Day 18

Man I am falling behind in my 30 days of thankfulness posts! I didn't realize how hard it would be to sit down and blog every single day... coming up with something to be thankful for has been easy, but blogging about it? Not so much! Anyways...

For Day 18 - yesterday - I would like to take time to thank God for my awesome in-laws.


I am thankful for Mark's parents dedicating their lives to raise him into the man he is today. They have always made me feel right at home with their family and they make sure Christ is always at the center of their home. Mark's sister Ann is just the sweetest. She's always offered friendship and she used to do a lot so that I could go along on family trips with them before Mark and I were married. She would give up sharing a room with her husband Jason in hotels or beach houses and share a room with me so that I could go with their family. It may not sound  like much, but I always appreciated it.

I've heard quite a few women complain about their in-laws, mother in laws in particular, so I just wanted to say how much I love mine and how grateful I am to be a part of their family.

Day 17

Christmas came early for Mark and I this year! We have been planning this present to each other for the past 6 months and it was very exciting to finally purchase and have them put into our home. Earlier this year we decided we wanted to buy new appliances for our kitchen so we decided that could be our Christmas gift to one another. It's a pretty expensive Christmas gift, even for a joint gift, but we worked on saving money over the last few months so that we could purchase these appliances with cash. Thankfully nothing came up that required those funds to be used for something else in the meantime, so last week after being sure that we could spend the money we had set aside, we went out shopping at all the stores during their Veteran's Day sales.

It ended up being harder than we thought to find something for our kitchen, because apparently the space for our refrigerator is smaller than standard size. Of course that meant we would be paying just as much if not more money for a smaller sized fridge because it was a more "custom" size fridge and companies don't make many in that size. How lucky is that? haha We did finally find one that would fit (in size and budget) in a 3 piece suite from Lowes, but getting it into our house wasn't without challenges! Mark had to trim underneath our cabinets to ensure it wouldn't be too tall, and then in order to get it into our house the doors had to be removed from the refrigerator and then reassembled once it was in the kitchen. But it was all worth it! I love the way the new stainless steel appliances look. I feel awfully spoiled when I go into my kitchen now and see these gifts because they are so far beyond what I actually need. 

Here Piper is modeling the new fridge. I am so excited to have the bottom freezer drawer! We sold our other stove to help pay for the new appliances but we decided to keep our other fridge in the garage. I am excited to have all this new freezer space!


We got our microwave 2 black Friday's ago - Mark bought it his first year in the house before we got married but the new oven looks so pretty underneath it!

Day 16

I had the opportunity to hang out with a dear friend of mine, miss Heather. We grew up going to the same church but didn't really become friends until my sophmore and her senior year of high school. We haven't been able to spend too much time together over the last few years seeing as she's been living in the Philippines and working for the Peace Corps, but she is back in the States now so we have been trying to have regular "date nights".

On Saturday we decided to skip the main stream Starbucks coffee shop for a local place in downtown Norfolk.

Day 15

I don't think there is one season that I don't enjoy. There are some people that say they would enjoy summer year 'round, or fall all the time, but not me. I like the change, in fact I crave the change. I am all about the current season until the end of the 3rd month of the season rolls around, at that point I start looking forward to the coming differences in the world around me. The new temperatures, clothing styles, sceneries, and foods that come with each season gives me a happy heart. I am grateful that God made a world that ebbs and flows between warmth and cold, sun shine and gray skies, celebrations and work, and yes - even life and death. One of my favorite phrases to use when talking about life is referencing "the season of life" that you or I may be in. How amazing is it that we can find so many similarities between the seasons of nature and the seasons of our own lives??? How wise God is to give us something we can see with our own eyes to help us understand life and change. What a wonderful Maker we have!

Currently - obviously - I'm in full fall mode! We enjoyed temperatures in the 60s and 70s for most of October so it took a while for the leaves around here to start changing, but when they did, the trees in our neighborhood put on a beautiful display of colors.

Here was one in my neighbors yard that I had to capture. I loved the way the bottom half was still green!

 This one looked as if someone had set fire to it, the little sprigs reached towards the sky like little flickering flames. I snapped this one while on a walk with Piper a few days ago.

Day 14

My Parents.