Tonight Andrew is watching scary movies in an attempt to stay up late since he works tomorrow night.  I detest scary movies, so I've been playing around on the internet all evening.   :)  Did you notice that lovely music player on the right side? Yah, that was me.

Go to http://www.photographyshoppe.net/main.php and wait for the "Client Proofs" link to pop up on the right hand side. Click on that and scroll down (it's alphabetical) to Stephanie and Andrew.

Our Password is:  stephanieandandrew  (no spaces or caps!) 

Let me know what you think!!!!

For Christmas, my awesome husband got me a Beginners Singer Sewing machine.


 All I have to say is, if this is a beginners machine, I don't want to see a more advanced one for a loooong time! It took me two and a half hours to thread the bobbin and the needle through the machine.  Bobbin was easy. Threading the top of the machine down to the needle, not so easy.  There was this step I couldn't get past.  I tried and tried and tried. Cursed myself, cursed myself, cursed myself. What was I thinking!? I've never sewn before in my life.  By God, I was determined to finish my first "EASY" project.

After threading the machine, it was 10:30PM.  Please keep in mind, I am usually in bed by 10PM at the latest.  I pondered going to bed, then decided that if I didn't finish this project now, I would probably put it off.  So, a sewin' I went!

So, here is what I was trying to make.  A coffee coozie.  Looks simple enough, right?

                                                                  Courtesy of http://oursoftspottoland.blogspot.com

Wrong! I should have known this would be a disaster.

Actually, to be quite honest with you, the only thing that really went wrong, is the hook (hair elastic) that I originally had sewn onto the outer fabric didn't (SOMEHOW) get flipped out to the outer portion when I had sewn all the edges and went to turn the fabric right side out.  All in all, I suppose, it didn't turn out TOO bad.  Right?

Hi guys! Oops! I stayed away too long, huh?  My bad! :)

So, Christmas happened and New Years happened.  Whoo! Yes, I plan on recapping these occasions! No fear.   I hope I don't bore you with tons of pics a videos though.  There's quite a bit though, so grab a cup of hot chocolate, coffee, wine...whatever.   I won't judge :)

So, every year we all get together to do Christmas cookies a few weeks before Christmas.  This year, only a few of us could get together because of conflicting schedules but we had tons of fun anyway!

Welcome to the family Andrew, now you officially have to help put toys together at Christmas :)

My nephew, Eli, got an Etch a sketch! Haven't seen one of those in a long time!

It was a wonderful holiday and I am lucky to have the two best families in the world. Hope everyone had a fabulous holiday as well and got to spend it with the people you love the most.


Okay, New Years post is next time. :)

There is a reason for the season, you know.  We all tend to get caught up in gift buying, decorating, parties, etc so much so, that we rarely, if ever, stop long enough to remember why we celebrate Christmas.

Why DO we celebrate Christmas, you ask? Allow me to tell you! :)

We celebrate Christmas out of Love. Actually, we celebrate God's act of love for us by sending His one and only son to save the world. God sent his son to us to take punishment for all our sins. In case you didn't get the picture yet....when Christ was born, our salvation began.  We should be giving gifts to celebrate the birth of our Savior, not just because we need new clothes or a Playstation. 

We shouldn't take off work to Christmas shop or decorate.  We should take off work to give to those less fortunate than us, to go to Church and to celebrate the birth of Christ. To sing to Him. To reach out for Him. To show our LOVE for Him who gave up everything for all of us. 

I am truely making an effort this year to stop as often as I can and to think about that. You should too.  After all, it's the reason we are all here.  The reason we can have families, friends, dogs, cats, shoes, homes, etc.  All of it. 

Take some time this Christmas season to stop and tell Him how much you love Him and what He did for us.

This year I am just completely overwhelmed.

I feel so incredibly blessed.  I've ALWAYS been blessed in my life, don't get me wrong.  Really though, look at all I've got this year.

• A job.  A steady one.  A faithful income.  Awesome employees.
• A car.  It gets me to and from my job.  Back and forth to see family and friends.
• A house that is slowly but steadily becoming a home with all our love and finishing touches that are going into it right now.
• A dog.  Who sometimes drives me completely mad, but is always there to give me kisses and lick up my tears.  He never judges me and loves me beyond what I can fathom.
• Health.  I can see, smell and feel everything around me.  I can fully enjoy what God has given me.
• A family.  Who loves me no matter what and is always there.
• New family. Who accepted me in so easily to their already-made family.
• Friends.  They are always there. Never judging.
• A husband.  I think this is the one that puts me over the edge this year.  He went from boyfriend, to fiancee to husband in 8 months. He went from a boy to a man. He made a promise to be with only me for the rest of his life.  That's pretty awesome.  He loves me enough to make these vows. I love him more than I can even describe.
• Faith.  The past year has shown me a lot.  Learning about God and Christianity is a life long process, but this year we started it.  First me and then us.  It's so exciting.  So enriching.  So. Awesome.

I know there is much more to be thankful for this time of year...but those are my top things.

"Do you see what we've got? An unshakable kingdom! And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God. For God is not an indifferent bystander. He's actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won't quit until it's all cleansed. God himself is Fire!" - Hebrews 12:28

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours this season.  Let everyone know you love them because you never know what tomorrow will bring. 

Love.

One of our wedding gifts was a lovely Oster bread machine.  I was so excited when I opened it.  Yesterday I unpackaged it and went out on the hunt for bread ingredients. 

I was a little intimidated of the whole process.  The instructions scared me. They talked about the importance of VERY precise measurements. Eek!  At one point after it told me the order in which to add ingredients into the pan it said "Never let the wet and dry ingredients touch."  Um, excuse me?  Don't they HAVE to touch in order to add them into the bread pan.  The picture even had the two touching.  Someone apparently didn't have a good editor look over their booklet...

Anyway! Here's my stash for making the bread for Thanksgiving at the O'D's!