Baby's debut

I have about a million things to say on here now that I'm not keeping a huge secret (which is mostly the reason I have been slacking so badly on the blogging), but don't have time now, so for now, here is a picture of baby:

This is a great article about the purpose of marriage.

Real Christianity

I really liked today's devo - it hits on Christianity that is real & alive, vs. plain old religion, which is what a lot of people are unknowingly living.

"These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." - 1 Peter 1:7

"One of the great tragedies of the Christian life is that if we fail to enter into a relationship with God that is born of the Holy Spirit, we are left with a religion, not a relationship. Many a person today lives with an intellectual belief in God, but without a relationship that is based on two-way communication. This is the greatest tragedy of all. It's like having a brand-new car but never having the gas to run it. It can't move you anywhere. It only looks pretty, but one cannot enjoy the ride or smell the newness inside.

Peter tells us that until our faith is proved genuine, we will never be able to give praise, glory, and honor to Jesus, because until such testing He will not be revealed in our lives. Peter describes this in the verse before: "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials" (1 Pet. 1:6). Trials are designed to bring us to a level of trust and experience with God that we would never know otherwise. These "faith experiences" with God allow us to know firsthand the faithfulness of God, the love of God, and the personal nature of God. If you cannot recount several instances when God has met you personally, then chances are your faith has not been born of the Holy Spirit into a living relationship with God. It is easy to fall prey to a relationship to God that never experiences His real presence; rather, it is based on knowledge only. This is a tragic place to be.

If this is where you have been in your Christian experience, ask God today to make Himself real to you. Ask Him to show you His personal nature and love. He desires to do this. Those whom He has called know His voice. He will show Himself to those who are His. "He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I too will love him and show Myself to him" (Jn. 14:21b)."

-Os Hillman

Beautiful day!!

Josh & I had a fun day today!

We slept in a while, got cleaned up, ate some lunch while watching infomercials & talking about how someone would have to be crazy to spend so much money on such a thing, then headed outside to do some yard work. The weather is AWESOME these days, in the 70's with the occasional day of rain. (Sidenote: the wildflowers are in full bloom too; I love seeing ALL the bluebonnets, as well as the pretty red, pink, purple, & yellow flowers growing with all the GREEN... so pretty.) Josh did some mowing & pulling weeds while I trimmed bushes in the front & back. It was nice to just spend time outside being productive - I'm glad we had a free Saturday that was also so nice out!

Then we headed to Best Buy & bought The Blindside (in our opinions, a must-own) as well as a fun DVD pack of 4 Hugh Grant movies, including Two Weeks Notice, Music & Lyrics, & Mickey Blue Eyes, for $9.99!! What a great deal! So, we'll be watching a movie tonight!

Then we got smoothies & walked (remember, great weather) over to Target & browsed there, mainly in the kids' toy section, because that's how we roll. I showed him toys that I played with as a kid (like Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, & big buckets of chalk). They have these vintage Barbies out now; there were a couple from 1965, 1985, & some other year, so I was able to show him the progression of Barbie & what she looked like when I played with her... not so glam. We decided our girl(s) can't play with Barbie because she wears not modest clothing. Bummer.

After a quick run to the Heeb (HEB, that is), we are home for the rest of the evening. I may have to think of another reason to go outside, though....

LATE update!

Wow, almost a month since I blogged... what a loser!! Unfortunately now that I sit here to try to not be a loser... I don't know that I have much to say. Let me think.

I went to five showers in the last month... four baby & one bridal. I think that's enough to last a while. Of course they were all fun, & I like being able to make people feel special. & thankfully none of them have included ridiculous games! Games, yes, just not the "grin & bear it" kind. (If you've been to a baby shower, you know what I'm talking about.) In fact, today's couples baby shower really focused on the guys/the father, which was fun! They had a competition where the guys had to wear bibs & suck prune juice through tiny bottles as fast as they could to see who could do it the fastest. It's amazing how guys will do anything to win a competition - the faces they made drinking that stuff were hilarious, but they kept going! Oh yes, & half of the guys were pastors from our church. I hope those pictures pop up somewhere expected someday; that'd be funny.

Josh & I are in the works planning a vacation with Zac & Cara to San Francisco! We decided 2 years in a row in DC was enough to see all we cared to see, so we're heading west this time. If you have any recommendations on things we should do, let me know!

So I've done John MacArthur Bible studies for the past year & a half or so, & I really enjoy them, so I downloaded a few of his sermons for a couple trips I've taken recently. I love his sermons! He speaks TRUTH unapologetically. One of the series I listened to was about how he thinks the number one problem with the American church (which, that's a whole series on its own) is the lack of ability to discern who is a Christian & who is not. God has revealed so much to me regarding this topic. Consider your definition of a "Christian" - does it line up with Scripture? ALL of Scripture??

I really recommend John MacArthur for a good Bible study or sermon.

Ah, then there's the Africa/India trip some of our pastors/leaders just got back from... God is going to be doing some stuff in our church, GOOD stuff that I'm really excited about. Maybe I'll blog about that soon....

Anyways, there is a bit of an update on our lives. Hopefully I'll get back on here sooner than later. :-)

Birthday Weekend!

Two weekends ago, Josh took me to Austin for my birthday. He took Friday off & we drove up, dropped Sage off with my parents, then went to have a fun time together! I documented our trip well with pictures, so here we go!

We drove to the mall & picked up our movie tickets to see When in Rome!

Then we ate in the food court - I got this South Philly Cheesesteak, which is the REAL kind mind you, just like we had in Philadelphia!

We walked around a bit & I got a nice calf massage by the iSqueeze - ahh.

We saw the movie, which was cute! Then went to get some cupcakes at Sugar Mama's Bakery in the South Congress area. They were super yummy! Mine was vanilla on vanilla, called the Marilyn of course!

I loved these hanging light things in there!

We checked in to our hotel downtown, the Intercontinental Stephen F. Austin (yay for getting deals on Priceline!) & I took a nice nap, then we headed to dinner at Sandra Bullock's restaurant, Bess Bistro. It was yummy & a cool atmosphere. I got chicken pot pie & Josh got fish & chips.

We got a taxi there & back so we wouldn't have to pay for parking, & what came to pick us up but the Land Yacht, party central! It was funny. Loud music, crazy colors, all wasted on us just wanting to get back to our hotel!

This was the view from the hotel balcony toward the Capitol. Pretty!

The next morning, we slept in, checked out of our hotel then headed to brunch at Magnolia Cafe. I got the guacamole omelette - guac, black beans, bacon, & jack cheese, with queso on top. SOOO GOOD!

Driving toward the Capitol to take a tour - pretty view!

After our tour of the Capitol, we went to the Domain & pretended like we could afford to be there, then went out to my parents house to ride with them to one of the best meals of my life...

THIS!! Crab, asparagus, & sweet potato fries, finished with French press coffee & a birthday dessert! My dad's birthday was last week, so we always get together to do a joint birthday dinner... this was a good one!!

Then we went back to get Sage & headed back to SA so we could be at church the next morning. It was a very fun birthday weekend!!

No time to blog!

Work got crazy this week & I'm helping throw a baby shower tomorrow night (YAY WHITNEY!) so I've been quite the busy bee!! But I've got a few blog ideas floating around in my head so stay tuned for when I get some free time!

"No time! There's never any time! I don't have time to study, I'll never get into Stanford!"

- anyone?? :-)