halloween traditions

dinner:

chili + rice.

My mom always made a mean batch of Chili on Halloween night to warm us up before we adventured out into the cold for candy gathering.

in college I didn't have my mom but still wanted the chili, so I just made it from a can :)

and my wonderful roommates my sophomore year introduced me to a rice cooker and to adding rice into the mix with chili. It quickly became one of my favorite easy meals and my new easy Halloween meal until I learn to/have the time to make great Chili.

movies: so because I actually HATE scary movies with a passion, these are my Halloween favorites:

Hocus Pocus

Double Double Toil & Trouble

Teen Witch

treats:

pumpkin pie

candy corn

joys pumpkin bread

{recipe and pictures to come!!}

happy...

BIRTHDAY to my WONDERFUL friend jill.

Jill, I am so thankful for you in my life and so excited to walk through

ALL seasons of life with you.

xoxoxo.

happy birthday

to my baby sister.

I love her so much

she is my best friend

i can't wait to do life together forever

i am so blessed to have her

Happy 21st birthday to the most wonderful and fabulous woman that I know!!

sisters, sisters

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wish I was here wednesday

Thinking of making Wish I was here Wednesday a link up post...

thoughts? any interest?

some...

more fun DIY projects I'd like to try!

misc monday

Oh Monday.. you've come too soon for me.  linking up with Carissa today over at Lowercase Letters!

{1.} " Your love is, your love is, your love is strong."

Haven't been able to stop singing this song since church yesterday. Brian and I sang it with his guitar yesterday too. It's so beautiful and so simple. I'm captivated by this right now. It's all so simple. God is so big and His love for us is completely ENOUGH. and it's so strong. It's okay that we feel weak, tired and nothing, He is everything and we don't need to be anything.

{2.} I watch too much TV. The sad thing is, I never just browse channels, I actually have so many shows that I watch on a regular basis that I always have something (also it doesn't help that I'm obsessed with FRIENDS ... which is such an easy TV show to watch for 3 hours when you own all of the DVDs..)

SO: I've been making more of an effort to do things around my house that aren't TV...
I did a little reorganizing/redecorating to my quiet time space and crafting space in the hopes that I would be drawn to it more, and yesterday as it was POURING down rain, I was!!! It was a wonderful evening.

pictures to come...

{3.} my computer is out of commission.. there was an accidental spill of red wine (... not by me...) onto it. For the most part it has dried out and works but there are a few keys not working so it's on bed rest right now..

{4.} I had a wonderful weekend.  My friend Jill and I went to Moonstruck Chocolate on NW 23rd for a little snack while we waited to pick up our husbands from a comedy show. We got truffles (my favorite: raspberry) and Soy Mayan hot chocolates. Never had this before... and let me tell you, it was to die for. I thought I didn't like hot chocolate... turns out I just never had a good one before.

in case you missed it...

I opened up a little etsy shop!! It's called "For you"


It's not much right now but I've been having a blast crafting and excited to dream up more to add to it.

Check it out, favorite it if you desire and maybe buy a magnet set!

They're big! The size of a silver dollar or a bit bigger!

the one with all of the pumpkins

Happy Friday!!!

Don't forget to head over to (my sister) Anna's blog and enter her giveaway!! Super cute you don't want to miss out!

a fun surf

house in PC that we LOVED

Dashboard Confessional lyrics? yes please

loving white pumpkins

super cute shop

can't get over it

coffee shop loves

truth

sissy's first giveaway!! go over and enter

AND amazing reader celebration happening over at one of my favoirte blogs: Wild & Precious

i just opened up a little etsy shop... more to come

wish I was here wednesday

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engagement

2 years ago today, I had the most wonderful man, put one knee to the ground and ask me the most important question...

 

Here is the story: Brian and I are a part of a non-profit fundraiser event Wild Canyon Games. We went out to Washington Family Ranch (formerly known as Wild Horse Canyon) on occasion for working meetings. The Ranch is a really special place for both of us. As a sophomore in high school Brian met the Lord and began a relationship with Him at Wild Horse. I spent time on work crew and summer staff at the Ranch. It is a wonderful place filled with Jesus. Young Life is also important to Brian and I as we met through it in high school and both led in college and now both lead together at Sunset.

All day Saturday Brian started asking me if I wanted to hike Communication Hill to watch the sunrise Sunday morning. I told him "no thanks..." over and over all day. I've hiked it a million times and while the view is incredible, the hike is pretty brutal... and after a long weekend working hard, waking up early on Sunday and pushing my legs on up there wasn't my frist choice.

he continued to ask and be persistent

{now... i'm not going to lie, I was getting pretty antsy about getting engaged. everyone around me was and i knew it was going to happen soon... but going into this weekend I had NO idea it was about to happen. we drove out by ourselves which was a fun 4 hour drive where Brian fell asleep and I almost hit a deer going 60mph in "downtown" antelope at midnight. No one acted weird before I left... no one was acting werid on our trip... except---}

Saturday night when other people started asking if we were going hiking in the morning and how fun it will be. This started my suspicion... as I fell asleep in my large king sized bed alone that night, I kept thinking that tomorrow, I could be getting engaged!

Sunday morning we woke up early to hike to see the sunrise, i felt like I didn't sleep one minute the night before, so excited but not nervous at all. we had a great 45 minute hike up to the top. The view is incredible the whole way and it's a super great work out. It was one of my favorite Oregon Fall days where there was a crisp feel in the air but the sun still so warm

When we arrived at the top, Brian's guitar case was there.... with his guitar in it, along with some coffee in mugs and a little mini breakfast set up. Brian sat me down and sang a song that him and I had started writing together a year before hand but never finished it. He changed some of the lyrics and the ending to fit with asking me to marry him, and talked about our special day. After he was through, we talked for a bit about our relationship and about how much he loved me-- somewhere between my tears, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.

 

it turned out that Brian had 2 of our great friends hike up before us and set everything up, they hid on the other side of the hill and we brought them out after the tears and smiles slowed down. They snapped a few pictures of us and then headed down the hill to leave us with some more time alone. It was amazing to be served like that that day, at our place of refuge at the Ranch, a place so spiritually and emotionally special to us. I couldn't have asked for anything better.

After we walked down, we showered and had breakfast with everyone from our implementation team. They were so happy and excited for us, I remember being so energized and joyful. We packed our stuff and headed back to Portland. We had a wonderful 4 hour drive to talk about our life and our plans and our wedding. it was the best.

We showed up to Brian's moms house to a HUGE party with all of our family and friends. It was amazing... a perfect end to the day! Brian told the story with lots of funny details and we drank champagne and had a blast.

bri telling the story

mom and sis

janice :)

ALSO: my mom had taken me the week before to get a manicure with her... but i had NO idea her intentions behind it. I love this picture of me and jill celebrating the night she got a job. you can see my "100 degrees in the shade" beautiful nail polish a few days before the engagement... she knew why, but I didnt  :) soo sneaky mom... so sneaky.

organized: praying

yesterday my sister and I went to church in Eugene and got to hear an amazing message about a man whose son was born 11 months ago with a failing heart. He was so humble and so simplistic with his words but they spoke with such strong power. It was so clear that the Lord was speaking through him as he talked about prayer, and his struggle with his son over the past year. He spoke on how scripture calls us to boldly and shamelessly ask God and be in prayer always to enter into what God is doing. I really felt the Lord calling me to prayer and the devotion of the time with Him.

as sad as it is to say, praying for other people can be tough. It's something I always desire to do, and have grown to know the importance of it more and more as I grow deeper in my walk with the Lord


Colossians 4:2 "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful"

it is so hard to be watchful and thankful when prayers are answered if you don't know what you are and have been praying for.

As a Young Life leader I have also found this to be tough as there are so many girls with different prayer requests as they are in different walks of their faith.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 "Pray continually"

my bible study leader Terri gave us a SIMPLE idea of creating a prayer calendar.

I printed out an outlook "week" calendar (Monday-Sunday). I started going through my friends and writing down 2 names on each day of the week ( I thought that this would space out my family from my YL girls, from my friends so that I would always be praying for different types of people in my life each day) I also put down things in my life on different days that I wanted to surrender to the Lord

Then, next to their name, I would write their prayer request if that had one, if not I just pray for them in general :)

heaven

thats me taking a self picture of me and my mom

today i'm dreaming of my perfect evening:

(to be in this picture) at PC

 drinking wine

 with my family and best friends

watching the sun go down

wearing a tshirt and sweat pants

totally relaxed

admiring the Lord's beauty

what is your dream for yourself today!?

where would you like to be and what would you like to be doing?

do a post of your own today and link up.

i want to own this

obesess: 10x8 print

some friday blanks

playing along with Lauren and her gang today :)

1. Blogging is: an outlet for me for my incredibly uncreative day at work and a wonderful world I just stumbled upon because I was craving being creative during my days!


2. A current fashion trend I wish I was brave enough to wear is ... hmm.. not sure ...black leather skinnies? any shoe with a heel?

3. My greatest accomplishment in life thus far is : making it all the way through school. and all of the little accomplishments in being married and running a home etc.

4. If I had to choose between a mountain or a beach vacation I'd choose: ooo this is tough. I think I have to go with Beach. I love the Oregon Coast more than any place.. I have fallen in love with Bend over the last few years BUT it doesn't quite compare to how I feel relaxed at Pacific City

5. A talent I wish I had is to sing well. Brian is a musician and I always wish that we could be that cute couple that sings and plays guitar together, I also think that he would play more if I sang more.

6. A talent I do have is looking in the fridge and creating a meal, and making a space in a home feel comfortable and look cute with what you have.

7. This week has been brutal and I am so grateful for the weekend as well as the SUN

psalm 119:50

organized: clothes

starting a little bit of a new series called "organized" as a request by my best friend, maggie.

one of my most favorite things it to clean out my clothes.

Step 1: pick an area/drawer to clear

Step 2: Dump out everything

Step 3: Begin to fold as if you were to put them all back, and while you are about to fold each item ask yourself:

1. Do I love this
2. Do I feel comfortable when I wear this
3. Have I worn this more than once in the last 6 months- a year?

if you have answered yes to all of these questions then ask yourself the following:
1. Does this need to go here, in a box to put away for summer (or whatever season you are not in) or somehwere else in my closet/drawers?

for example: When sorting through my T-Shirts I just recently moved them into categories:
a. put in storage to keep because I won't wear them but don't want to throw them away yet
b. t-shirts that I work out in
c. t- shirts that i wear on the weekends
d. t-shirts that I wear to work
e. t-shirts that I sleep in

Then I sort into different drawers/places in my room accordingly!
This is so helpful when finding something to wear to work because then you don't have to dig through a pile of shirts that you aren't even going to consider on a Tuesday morning!

wish I was here wednesday

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cutest

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loving me a little boho today

Majesty, Majesty.

Your grace has found me just as I am,

Empty handed but alive in your hands.

Singing Majesty, Majesty.

Forever I am changed by Your love,

In the presence of Your Majesty.

Majesty.

hallway

i really can't wait to have a hallway. a big one someday. loving these and these: