Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All

I absolutely love Christmas, and just about everything that comes with it. As November rolls by, and Thanksgiving comes and passes, I get excited about listening to Christmas music, Christmas decorations, Christmas festivities, Christmas presents, Christmas lights...just about everything Christmas-related. However, all of this often distracts me from the TRUE meaning of the season.

Jennifer Frazier (one of my old bible study leaders from high school) recently sent out an email containing the link to a website called, "Advent Conspiracy." http://www.adventconspiracy.org/hope

The website/Advent Conspiracy was created in 2006 by 5 pastors throughout the country. One of the pastors, Chris Seay, is at Ecclesia from Houston, TX. The purpose? To encourage their churches and communities to, " Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More and Love All."
Although it began in response to the Christmas season, I think the concept can apply to our daily lives. On the link I gave above, you can click on each concept for a brief explaination of what they mean. This website does a great job of recapturing what the TRUE Christmas spirit should be all about; the true Christmas Spirit being the Holy Spirit, the glory of the birth of Jesus Christ, the son of God. (Matthew 1:20)

This Christmas should be a season to give "PRESENCE," not just presents. If we are to give glory to God in everything we do, then loving is included in that. Being joyful in giving is included in that. Celebrating and SHARING the birth of Christ Jesus is included in that. Being good and faithful stewards like in Matthew 25:14-30 is included. (especially by not being greedy with our money, but also not being careless with how much we spend).

I pray for this Christmas season, that I wouldn't be caught up with the worldly meaning of Christmas, but rather, the JOY of what the season truly means to us all.

'Tis the season!

He has made everything beautiful in its time.

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace...He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live."

~Ecclesiastes 3:1-12 ♥ you B.

all that comes with Halloween

I decided I'd make another post for Halloween with a few pictures. Julie and I get overly excited about holidays (or just about life in general), so we've been preparing for Halloween for quite some time. Technically, Julie's mom is to blame for that because she sent us a Halloween Care Package with lots of decorations and fun stuff...so of course that spurred on our excitement.

When we came to Austin for Matts lacrosse scrimmage, Julie and I picked some baby pumpkins from moms pumpkin "patch."

Then the weekend before Halloween we made the mistake of carving our pumpkins. Unfortunately we forgot how fast pumpkins go bad down here in this Texas heat so they were pretty "wilty" by Halloween...but at least we had fun carving them. (Oh and did I forget to mention, they were awesome!?)












Julie's was a willow tree, mine was a mummy, and Jesse's was a....cyclops?...we think? haha He's a pretty simple guy so I guess the pumpkin did a good job of reflecting that. (or maybe he's just smarter than us because by only carving two small triangles...his pumpkin lasted longer than ours).











And finally, here is a picture from working the Haunted House at the dance studio. Julie, Matt, Matt's roomates (Mark and Shane), and Troutt helped me out at the studio. (I discovered I have AMAZINGly reliable friends....and the night all worked out, thanks to them!)













In case the picture isn't clear enough:
I'm Elastigirl from The Incredibles,
Shane, Matt, and Mark are professional athletes (go figure)...but when they put the pillow cases over their heads, they're characters from The Strangers. (I think?)
and Julie was Tracy Turnblad from Hairspray!!

As October turns to November...

So some updates on things going on in my life. Sorry I'm not good at being a "regular blogger."

First off, since the last post was like 2 weeks ago...my graduating/class status has changed. I have since met with the departmental advisor (a very last minute meeting), changed my major to general mass communication, been given permission to substitute some classes that are NOT normally allowed, AND I am happy to say I am now graduating in May again!! In other words, even when I doubted....God was faithful. After lots of frustration and praying, I finally let God take control of the situation and trusted that He had a different plan for me. Once I had peace with it all, I couldn't believe how easily God worked everything out for the best. Wow, let me just say...God is good.

Next, I found myself planning, setting up, working, and cleaning up the "Haunted House" that our dance studio put on. It was a pretty long day of running on little sleep and a lot of running around trying to get stuff done in time for the kids to show up. It ended up working out pretty well (all thanks to my WONDERFUL reliable friends who helped out a ton!) There weren't as many kids as I hoped for, but it was a fun time. I was "Elastigirl" from The Incredibles and Julie (my roommate) was Tracy Turnblad from Hairspray. I mean it IS the one day a year that you can go all out in getting dressed up, so we took advantage of the fun night. :)

Finally, this past weekend I got to go home and see the family--and britt and matt came into town so we got to watch the Texas v. Texas Tech game....yes......unfortunately it was an upsetting night for football. Except for my sister, who happened to be the only one wearing red at The Tavern, where we went to watch the game. All well--a well-deserved Tech win.

Let's see, on top of this all I haven't really had a voice, so I've sounded like a man for about a week now unfortunately, and on top of that--the cough is back. Yep, for those few of you reading that truly know me...you know what I'm talking about. I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that as my voice comes back, the cough will go away, but we all know how that has worked out over the years haha...

Oh and I told all my (dance) classes that they could either wear part of their costume or something orange and black to class the week of Halloween. A few of them came all dressed up so I took some pictures because I couldn't stop cracking up at how adorable they looked!

Now that Halloween has passed though, I am really looking forward to Thanksgiving because that means only about a week of classes after that and then it's CHRISTMAS BREAK! Oh I loooove this time of year (I think I said that on one of my last posts, but just wanted to reinforce that opinion of mine).

Fall is officially here!

It has been a busy busy week and weekend. I talked to my advisor recently about my last classes for next semester (oh and I teach her daughter, Avery, so it's neat to get to know her and her family more), but anyways, apparently I didn't know that one class I have to take is a pre-requisite for another class that I need. Basically, she was saying I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like you're not going to be able to graduate in May. haha gotta love those reminders that God is in control and NOT us...but it's just a minor bump in the road in the scheme of things I suppose. Anyways, I have to go talk to the department about my options and hopefully find a way to work everything out.

So that added a little stress to my week, BUT at least having this "cooler" weather seems to make life so much more enjoyable, and puts me in a better mood. Especially for times like this weekend; we had an awesome football-filled Saturday with Texas States' homecoming and the Texas v Mizzou game! Weekends like that are always good stress-relieving weekends.

Oh how I love love love this time of the year! :)

And of course I finally took some pictures of my dance classes. It's funny how much the pictures reflect most of their personalities, some of them have tons of personality (and it shows), and then there are still a few girls who are a little difficult in class.--but that's alright.

This is my Wednesday Combo A class (meaning 6 & 7 year olds). This is the class I talked about last time--one of my favorite classes I teach! From left to right there is:

Devyn--the girl who fractured her collarbone, but is back!! ;

Laisha--the girl who runs up to me everytime yelling "Hi Miss Tatie"and gives me a huge hug ;

Avery--the very mature for her age advisors' daughter ;

and Katie--one of the prettiest and quietest girls out of the entire studio! (Oh and the girls still get a big kick out of the fact that Katie and I have the same name.)

These are two of the girls in my Saturday Preschool B class (4 year olds). From left to right:

Krystal--the girl that (at age 4) already loves a challenge. She needs a little competition to keep her listening and participating.

and Sofia--perhaps the CUTEST and most contagious laugh ever, and she starts every sentence off with "Miss Katie did you know..."

Ah my oh so crazy Kindergarten class on Saturdays. This is one of my most difficult classes because they're all "best friends" so they feed off of each other. There is a LOT of talking in this class, so I have to be really creative in coming up with new ways to help them pay attention. Don't get me wrong, I still love 'em and they're still cute little kiddos.

and finally, 3 of my oldest girls that I teach, my Saturday Combo A class (6 & 7 yr olds):

La'Maisha, Estella, and Anouk--these are 3 girls just bursting with personality; especially Anouk (at the bottom). She is fluent in French and English so whenever I am teaching a new "term" in ballet, she understands a little better than most girls because she can understand that "plie" means "to bend" and tendu means "to stretch," etc.

Lamers and Grasshoppers

So I have a feeling most of these posts are going to be about work and the funny things kids say...because it's not like I'm traveling Europe (like Kim) or buying new houses (sister and brother)....but anyways kids should provide enough entertainment to keep this going. We've been talking about Halloween lately in classes and I've been asking the girls what they're going to be for Halloween. My favorites so far were 2 girls from one of my classes: one is going to be a grasshopper, and the other, Cecily, is going to be a "LAMER." When I asked what a "Lamer" was, I could hear here mom cracking up in the hallway and she said, "It's an animal like a monkey." I soon realized that Cecily was meaning to say "Lemur" haha. I guess the days are over where little girls want to be princesses and disney characters, now it's insects and lemurs. W're having a Halloween Haunted House at the studio, and needless to say I am very excited to get to see all the girls dressed up in their costumes!

Oh and I did talk to a physical therapist and it's going to be like $100 just for them to help me work out my knee and give me a few excercises to do...so it's not really worth it. Good ol heat, ice, and compression is going to have to be good enough.

Oh and one more quick thing.....HOOK 'EM. :)

The Busiest semester yet.

Alright sister...since you insist on this, I will try to keep you updated on things as my last year of college speeds by.

This week seemed to take forever, but it could have been because I got about 2-4 hours of sleep every night, since I was studying for midterms, tests, and writing papers (I thought this semester was supposed to be EASIER than others since I'm only taking 12 hours, but I guess I was mislead).

So, I'm in Austin today and tomorrow for a little break. I just got back from the doctor--who told me nothing that I didn't already know--that I need to go to physical therapy. So, I told her I'd make an appointment in San Marcos; I don't know how often I would actually go, but I might as well go talk to them and see if they can help me out a little so my knees stop aching.

One last thing to make a comment on: the kiddos at work. Lately, the girls have been in the habit of talking a lot, so we've had to practice a lot of "good listening" and with only 45 minutes to do stretching, ballet, AND tap....I'm constantly trying to figure out new ways to help keep their attention! I do have one class, however, that is the exception to the rule. It's my smallest and yet oldest class, made up of 3 incredibly behaving beautiful little girls (and I guess it also happens to be my favorite class, though I'm trying to not play favorites). Last Wednesday I told them that we couldn't start unless they each told me what they did that day. haha In every other class I'm constantly asking the girls to stop talking and listen more, but in this class I find myself doing everything I can just to get the girls to talk!

I'm finding myself to love this job more and more. It's tough to be prepared every time I go to class because it means I can't really have an off day--but on the other hand, every time I have a bad day, their goofy little selves just make me smile!

It's pretty self explanatory

I've never been a big fan of "bloggers" but since I'm left to reading Kims blog from London and I'm discovering vital pieces of information through Britt and Matts new blog--I suppose I can support another new addiction on the computer.