Saturday, December 24, 2011

This weeks events

Youth Group Christmas Party
 Last Sunday night we had a Christmas party at our house for our youth group, we had some delicious dinner, played "Honey if you Love me won't you please please smile?"...very entertaining  :)  We did a silly white elephant gift exchange, ate some good deserts, and enjoyed a bon-fire in the back yard.  I'm so thankful for these lovely folks, they brighten my life, and I always look forward to the time we get to spend with them.  As crazy as they are I love them dearly  :)
Everyone showing off their white elephant gifts
 
This Christmas Eve before going to church






















30 weeks

 This is the second year I am spending Christmas away from my family, the first year being when I was in South Africa.  It's kind of weird, but yet feels so natural to be spending this Christmas with my little family in our own home.  Today we have been wrapping presents, and getting things ready for Christmas day, we also got some lunch and went to the park to eat and play with Ava on the play ground, it was a fairly relaxed day I would say.  Tonight we went to the Christmas eve service at our church, then came home had a nice dinner, and are getting the kitchen and house cleaned up for tomorrow... I mean, who wants a messy house on Christmas day?!  Anyway, I'm feeling rather ready for Christmas day as far as preparations go, as far as the Christmas season goes, I am sad that it has almost come to an end, it's definitely one of my favorite times of the year.




The lines on my shirt do trippy things  :)
On another note but still concerning Christmas, my Jehovah's Witness friend came over the other day and we talked for a while, one of the things we talked about was why I don't refer to God as "Jehovah" every time I talk about him.  She felt it was irreverent of me, and as we were talking, I realized a few things.  For one, God has many names so just to stick to one of His names doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.  She mentioned that we are to make his name known, to her that name being Jehovah, and I explained that I don't think God is offended by me not calling him Jehovah every time I talk about him, He wants to see and know that I'm living for him, that my complete trust is His, that I have surrendered myself to him and his work in my life.  Also, because I believe Jesus is God, I want to make His name known... I want to let people know who Jesus Christ is, the He is God and that He humbled himself by becoming a human like us living in a sinful world, and then taking Sin upon his perfect self and dying so that we don't have to... and after ALL that, raising himself from the dead, so that we can LIVE forever in Him.  So... is Jehovah my God?  Yes... just as Jesus Christ, his son is my God.
I feel like this girl and I are going around and around on this subject of Jesus being God, she wanted to talk about other things last time, but I explained to her that this is the cornerstone of my faith, and there is no use talking about other things, when she is believing a lie, when we disagree on such important things... pray for her, only God is able to do a work in her heart.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Chris & Kelly's wedding

Kelly, the man of honor, and her girls

cousin Mariah



















Me and my baby

Our little family















Lori and Mark walking Kelly down the Isle


TJ was our instrumentalist


















pretty bridesmaids

Love this girl!

Ava was the flower girl... she loved the rose pedals



Ella and Ava entertaining themselves during the ceremony














witnessing the marriage of their children

Congratulations Chris and Kelly

Beautiful!  (Kelly wore her mom's dress)


















My sister in law Cherie... I love her to death!

dancing... woop woop!


Ava enjoyed dancing as well... crazy girl!


















Somebody loves her daddy

So... as you can see, yesterday was a pretty big day for the Shropshire family, TJ's younger sister Kelly became to wife of Christopher Byron.  If we back up a little bit I can tell you that  Thursday night TJ's Aunt Nancy, Uncle Tim, and cousin Joanna came from Texas to stay with us for the wedding, it has been so much fun having them here... they leave today :(.  Friday Aunt Nancy and I spent all day doing the flowers, she did all the bouquet's and I did all the boutonnieres and corsages... lots of work, but definitely fun!
Saturday, I prepared Ceasar Salad for the reception, helped get the flowers ready to go, got myself ready while TJ kindly gave Ava a bath and dressed her, and we were off to the beach to have a wedding.  Ava and her cousin Levi were the flower girl and ring bearer, they were so cute!  Kelly looked beautiful in her mother's dress, and the whether couldn't have been better on that beach!
The reception was at a different location of course, we had yummy food, and lots of fun dancing, Ava never fails to dance whenever she hears some good music  :).  I hope and pray that God can be honored and glorified in this union of marriage, only by his grace do we have the ability to honor him, and it is only through Christ that we can truly love one another... so Congratulations Chris and Kelly Byron, may you love each other with the love that God has already bestowed upon you!

29 weeks



















 This baby is getting bigger... it's starting to wear me out a lot more these days, but it has also been a very busy week, so I'm sure the combination has made things seem harder than they are.  My favorite part about getting bigger is watching and feeling this active little baby move all around... very fun for me!  :)