Cute Wine Bottle

For Christmas my little sister wrapped up a bottle of wine for me called Middle Sister. The label was so cute. The girl in the middle (that's supposed to be me) kinda looks like me and the little sister has curly hair, which Ally does and the older sister is a blonde and my older sister Erin is! (Well, she usually is a blonde but every once it a while she isn't... it depends.) Anyway - just thought it was kind of cool.

This is what we actually look like! But my sister isn't blonde in this one...

Real Marriage

Are you married? Do you want to be married? Have you gotten much biblical teaching on marriage? Sadly, our culture has some warped views on marriage, men, women and children and what the purpose of marriage is. Thankfully the bible speaks to all of these topics! Starting this Sunday, January 15 Mars Hill Church is launching the Real Marriage sermon series, an eleven week series on what Jesus has to say, through the bible, about marriage.

This sermon series follows the book Real Marriage written by Pastor Mark Driscoll and his wife Grace who have been together upwards of twenty years and have five kids!

This is something that you won't want to miss! Come and see who Jesus is and how He wants to transform your marriage for His glory.

I attend Mars Hill Church Downtown Seattle which is in Belltown and we have FIVE service times on TWO different days! Just come and see what you think.

5 Questions for 2012

Happy New Year! I know, I'm 8 days late with this post, but better late then never! This year, during the week between Christmas and New Year's Caleb and I got away to a little Bed and Breakfast in Mt. Hood to do some relaxing, reading and PLANNING!

As you know, I am a full-time household manager these days and so for me, there was a lot of planning and goal making that needed to take place in order to have a successful year. I wanted to share the top 5 questions* that we ask ourselves for you to reflect upon for yourself.

I hope you can take some time to answer these questions and that you will be inspired to live a fruitful life for Jesus glory in 2012.

1. What area of your life most needs simplifying, and what's one way you could

simplify in that area?

2. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this

year?

3. In what area of your life do you most need change, and what will you do about it this

year?

4. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?

5. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what

will you do about it?

*The entire list of questions is much larger and if you'd like to see the full version I am more than happy to send it to you, we didn't make these questions up - they are from Donald Whitney!

Gluten Free Pie

Look at this pie! Would you ever guess that it is gluten free? Well it is! This was a big year for me in the traditional Thanksgiving baking world. In fact, this was my first time EVER making pumpkin pie. Weird, I know with a husband like mine you'd have thought that I would be making pumpkin pies in my sleep from September to March but Caleb actually isn't the biggest fan of it, he would much prefer pumpkin donuts, cinnamon rolls, cookies, bread, pancakes etc. This year me and my sister were assigned desserts for Thanksgiving so it seemed that I just HAD to make pumpkin pie....

I'm not sure what I had in mind to do for the crust for the gluten free one but I knew it had to be done. My wondering came to an end when I arrived at church the week before Thanksgiving. One of the sweetest ladies I know, Cheri had brought me this! It is a 5 lb bag of the most delicious gluten free flour I have ever tasted! I didn't know what to do with myself, I was so excited to give it a try and see how it tasted. I put it to the test, making a pie crust (which isn't my specialty anyway) for the pumpkin pie. I couldn't believe how perfect and flakey it turned out. I ended up serving it to non gluten free people at Thanksgiving and no one even knew! haha!

It was really special for Caleb to be able to share in the Thanksgiving dessert without feeling sick later that evening. THANK YOU CHERI!
A note about this flour: it is like hidden treasure. If you go Jules website, you'll find TWO places in all of Washington state that sell it. I have no idea why because I have not tasted a better gluten free flour. I cannot sing its praises enough! After Thanksgiving I also made pizza with it (there is a recipe on Jules website) and I have to say, that it was the BEST gluten free pizza we've ever had - even better than Romio's who I previously thought had the best GF pizza.

This whole post is to make two points:

1. THANK YOU CHERI for the flour! That was so sweet of you to think of us.

2. Check out how cool my pie looks! (Thanks Taren and B for the cookie cutters :)

3 Things I'm Thankful For

Happy Thanksgiving! (It was a couple days ago, but hey, better late then never!) I had this idea the day before Thanksgiving but just couldn't get to it then...
This Thanksgiving I have been thinking about all that I am thankful for and I have compiled a little list to share. (These are not all the things, but my top 3)

1. JESUS

I am thankful to Jesus for being God and for coming to earth to die a horrific death on the cross to atone for the sins of the world - and specifically my sins. These past couple of months I have grown to know Jesus deeper and deeper. With each passing day I have come to know more of who He is and of how much He loves me.

2. CALEB

Caleb is my husband. I love him very much. I am so thankful to be married and to be the wife of this wonderful man. He is my best friend and I am thankful to Jesus for Caleb. (You see, number one and number two are related.) We are coming up on FOUR years of holy matrimony in March and it seems like it's both flown by but also feels like we've been married forever. It's weird. My husband loves me, provides for me and tirelessly takes care of me. I am so thankful for him.

3. MARS HILL CHURCH

Mars Hill Church is my church and I am so thankful to be a part of this church in Downtown Seattle. Jesus (back to number one again) has used this church to bring me closer to himself, give me a greater understanding of the gospel and to bring me into relationship with many other Christians...not to mention CALEB! Mars Hill Church is the first church I have ever been a member of, it's where I was baptized, it's where I was married and by God's grace it will be where we dedicate our children. I am thankful for pastors and elders who preach the gospel and love God's people. Jesus grace is on Mars Hill and I am thankful to be a part of the work He is doing.

There are lot of other things I'm thankful for too - but it seemed like these were the top three right now. I am reminded over and over that everything comes from Jesus. Being "thankful" for anything is abstract if we don't know WHO we are giving thanks to. It's JESUS. He is the Creator. All we have is from Him.

Stationery card

Stylish Joy Holiday Card

Create custom new year's invitations at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

You're Joking... Right?

I was at Safeway (I hate Safeway but it's the closest fairly normal grocery store to our downtown apartment so sometimes out of utter desperation I go there - wishing the entire time that I was at Fred Meyer) a couple of nights ago picking up a few essential items for dinner that I most likely forgot on my normal grocery trip. At our Safeway they've recently had an odd collection of candy and gift-like items near the wine (of all places) section. And in that section I couldn't help but notice this! A Lord of the Rings PEZ collection! I wanted to get it for my LOTR obsessed sister (or mildly obsessed husband) until I realized that it was $20 and decided I'd pass.

The things people come up with these days...!