Day #4

...your favorite book:

Well, I'm not sure I can pin-point my favorite book but I can talk about the books I have read.

My favorite book in the Bible is Acts. I really love Paul and all of his adventures and how he is so courageous. I love toward the end when he gets shipwrecked. Not that I love this happened to him, but its just and exciting story that sounds like it could be made into a movie. It just really held my attention which is sort of hard to do when you're reading the Bible. Right now I am reading through the Corinthians. I am half-way through 2 Corinthians. Sometimes my husband and I read it together and sometimes I read it by myself. I haven't been reading it everyday like I wanted to, but it's still always uplifting and helping me to grow in my relationship with Christ.

In High School I used to love romance novels. My aunt would give my sister and I Christian romance novels when she was done with them. Then after I graduated, I was more into 'self-help' books. I really like Joyce Meyer's books. We have The Ransomed Heart by John Eldridge and some of his other books too. I kind of want to read 'The Case for Christ' and 'The Case for a Creator' but I'm not super motivated because I am back into the Romance Novel phase!

I have 3 books that were made into movies...'A Walk to Remember' (long time ago), 'Water for Elephants' and 'Breaking Dawn'. All really good books. I remember that the movie 'A Walk to Remember' was a little different than the book, but I liked them both. The book 'Water for Elephants' was a little boring to me at first and it took me a while to finish it, but once I got to the climax I was hooked. I loved the movie especially because I love Reese Witherspoon. I did really like Robert Pattinson in it too! I was worried when I heard they were making it a movie, that it would be rated R and would be a little inappropriate but they left the parts of the book out that I was appalled by. I loved 'Breaking Dawn'. It was the only book I read of the series, but I'd seen all the movies. I can't wait for it to come to theaters in November!!! I'm sure I'll be going with a group of ladies :)

Well, I guess that about wraps up my reading experiences...well a summary and the highlights at least. I can't write about EVERYTHING I've ever read.

Day #3

So...My hubby deleted the list I had saved of the 30 day challenge (probably didn't know what it was), so I figured I'd take different questions/suggestions that I like from random ones. Here's day #3 of one I liked:

A picture of you and your friends: (Please take note that I look way different in each photo, haha...they are all from different points in my life and I tend to change my look)

This is me and my bestest friend (besides my hubby), Missy! She is one of the few people that is always there for me and does so much for me and my family! She is also one of the best, most generous people I know! I'm so glad to know her! This was taken last weekend at the beach!

This is my lifegroup from 707 (minus Heather :( ) Kristin (our leader) just had her baby so we all gathered for a photo.

These are my old friends from youth group. We were such a fun group, but unfortunately I don't see them much anymore. I try not to let it bug me and cherish the times I was with them.

This is me and Holly. We have been friends since 6th grade! We see each other every once in a while and I love hanging out with her! She's a lot of fun!

This is my older sister on the left and my cousin on the right! We were in florida (visiting my cousin and family)

This is my husbands cousin Angie. love her! This was at a murder mystery dinner at church! She was quite the actress

This is me and my little sister Madi. She is one of my best friends! We have so much fun together

This is Kelsey...we dont see each other much, but when we do, its like we're best friends again! Wish she lived closer!

Well, that about wraps it up! I have a lot of random friends from random times in my life and although sometimes I get kind of depressed and angry with myself for not being a better friend, I really appreciate all the friends I have!

Day #2

DISCUSS: WHERE YOU'D LIKE IN 10 YEARS

Hmmm...10 years from now, I will be 34. I will have been married for 13 (almost 14) years. Matthew will be almost 13! (his birthday is July 31st). Wil will be 10 and we will most likely have one or 2 other kids. Hopefully they will be 8 and 6 (a girl and boy...I want one girl, but mostly boys). I know its not up to me, obviously, but just wishful thinking. If it was different I'd still be happy! I'm a go-with-the-flow type of person. Hopefully we will be in our house we have just purchased. Haven't moved yet though. Our close date is Monday! (Super super excited!!). I will be a doula, having maybe 2 clients a month and most likely watching kids at my house for extra money. Shaun will hopefully still be teaching at Cardinal Middle School in Middlefield and coaching basketball in the winter. Maybe Shaun will be the pastor of a planted church. Our pastor (Shaun's uncle) and the congregation are very passionate about planting churches in different cities and towns instead of expanding one church building to be huge. We feel like it's hard to get plugged into church activities if it's too big. Its just overwhelming then. Maybe I'll even be on the praise team and provide them with input on more modern songs. (Our praise team tends to do older songs, around 10 years old, and they don't introduce new songs very often).

Well, that's all I can think of discussing for this topic.

WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE IN 10 YEARS???

30 day(?) challenge

So, I stumbled across this 30 day challenge when I was looking at random blogs today. I think I would like to use it as a guideline for what I write about, but I KNOW I will not be able to write everyday. Maybe over the summer, when my husband is done teaching in another week, but don't want to make any promises since I'm a busy mom. Okay, so here's #1: "Discuss your current relationship..."
Shaun William Spence is my husband, best friend and the best Daddy to our 2 boys!
Want to hear the (short) story of how we met? :) Of course you do!
Well, it was 2005, the fall right after I graduated high school. It was his last year attending the local community college and my first semester. He was the Campus Crusade for Christ bible study leader and I was very intimidated by him at first since he was so smart (and serious). I was used to dating guys who were 'jokesters', if you will, and so I can't say I was immediately attracted to him, although now we joke with each other all the time. The 2nd or 3rd time I came to the bible study, I was the only person to show up besides him, so we just sat there and talked for a couple hours. We soon found that we liked some of the same bands, both love to play tennis, and even loved the movie 'Clifford' with Martin Short. (I know very few people who have seen this movie from the 80's, and if they have seen it, they usually hate it for some reason). Then we found out we had some mutual 'friends' we knew. The rest is history :)
Here are some pictures of us over the years:







Thank you God for blessing me such a godly man who serves You and puts others before himself! I am truly blessed!

Living

I came across a strangers blog today that really inspired me. It was about all the hype about the rapture. The writer didn't say whether or not she believed the rapture would happen yesterday or not, but she used it as a moment to teach her sixth grade son. She talked to him about how we should live as followers of Christ on a daily basis. I hope that this will be me in 9 or 10 years when my older son is that age.

I leave you with this scripture from my devotion:

The scriptures say: “Do what your king commands; you gave a sacred oath of obedience. Don’t worryingly second-guess your orders or try to back out when the task is unpleasant. You’re serving his pleasure, not yours. The king has the last word. Who dares say to him, ‘What are you doing?’ Carrying out orders won’t hurt you a bit; the wise person obeys promptly and accurately.” (Ecclesiastes 8:2-5, MSG)

Osama bin Laden

I know some of the hype about Osama bin Laden's death is over, but will it truly be over? His name and story will forever be in history textbooks. So, since I haven't blogged in a while, I choose this topic. I know it is a difficult subject for Christians, so my husband and I talked about what we both thought about his death.
First of all; is it really fair to expect God to extend grace to us, but not to someone else who was created to bring glory to God? I know you and I never have and will never will kill innocent people, but what if, what if you had a family member who was a murderer (or did something else horrifying) and they confessed at the end of their life that Christ is Lord and they were extremely sorrowful about the things they have done. Would you also think that God should not extend grace toward them? There are rewards in heaven for those of who have done God's will for most of our lives. And I'm not saying that Osama confessed Christ on his death bed, or toward the end of his life. I'm just saying that it isn't fair, or Christ-like to judge others or celebrate someone's death when God mourns their life here on earth. We should be mourning because we know that he isn't with our Heavenly Father. In an article I read (http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/current-events/op-ed-blog/25463-should-christians-celebrate-the-death-of-osama-bin-laden), the author says we should instead be relieved that he cannot harm anyone else. After all, he was responsible for so many deaths. The author's last sentence is this: "Yet even as our spirits lift knowing that this man will do no more evil, our eyes should burst forth with weeping knowing that bin Laden will likely spend eternity like he spent his life: separated from the true God. " Let us leave justice to our all-knowing, holy God!

P.S. DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT read the comments after the article on relevantmagazine.com unless you want to get very angry at some people. I just did. Why do atheist and Christian haters have to comment on things like this?? Im pretty sure that most Christians, or at least REAL Christ-followers would never seek out atheist articles and leave nasty comments on them! I know people are going to disagree in this world because of sin, but can't we all just have respect for each other??

Sorry to get all serious on everyone :) I'll try to make the next one a light-hearted fun one.

January

My cousin Brittany and her new husband dancing

My beautiful little sister

My cousin Christen with Wil

Our friends Kelsey and Micah got married!

Wil is 2 months old!!

Matthew and Uncle Baxter at the airport on our way to Florida for the wedding