Community Group

Almost a year ago Jeffrey and I joined a community group through our church Compass in Colleyville. We knew Compass was the place for us because we were looking for a group of people to do life with and to encourage each other on our spiritual journeys. The very first visit we had to compass we were asked if we wanted to join a group at the church for young couples. We knew God had led us here for a purpose. Our group started off as a small, but excellent group filled with three couples. We were timid, complete strangers but all very eager to get to know each other and to walk in the word. Our community group prayed for us during our entire engagement, gave us words of wisdom for the wedding day and will continue to walk with us on our journey through life. We feel so blessed to have a group of people that love us unconditionally for who we are. We hope that we are a source of encouragement in their lives and are excited to see how God shapes and forms each one of them. In just a short year our group has grown to 10 couples.  10 incredible couples who each bring a unique gift to our group. It is so fun to meet on Sunday nights to hear about each others lives, the good and the bad. It is so refreshing to be surrounded by such incredible couples. We are so excited about how God is working through our community group and our prayer is that we continue to grow, worship and love God together.  Last Sunday night we enjoyed each other in a celebration filled with wonderful patio weather, tasty dessert and AMAZING community. It was so fun to just enjoy each other and celebrate how God brought us all together so perfectly. Enjoy the few pictures I got to capture the evening.

Thankful for Community,

MJ

Happy Birthday Annie!!

So thankful I have a little sister to do life with! You have blessed my
life with many amazing memories the past 23 years! Can't wait for many
more birthday celebrations! Last night we celebrated at the Ranch and Friday night we are going to Joe T Garcias and the Aaron Watson concert! Happy Birthday Annie! I love you!!

Frozen Crock Pot Dinners

So Jeffrey and I are trying to learn to budget our money now that the two of us are combined. It is much easier to budget for yourself so we are tweaking, takings lots of tips from otheres and being very prayerful in our decisions on what is best for us to manage our money.  It is quite a journey and I am sure we will change the way we do it many times before we find exactly what works for us.  Right now we are working on dropping the cost we spend on groceries. I found some really great tips here Freezer Cooking  on cooking for the month. We are going to try to cook for two weeks. So basically we picked 4 crock pot dinners and prepared them all and put them into baggies to freeze until we are ready to cook. This is quite a task and with both of us working together it took about an hour to cut and portion everything off. I would highly reccommend doing this with your spouse, roomate etc.  So we will cook two this week and two the following. The other nights we will shop our pantry which I find a lot of information about that here Shop your Pantry  We will see how it works out/tastes. I'll update once we have made it through the first round!

Thankful for our crock pot,

MJ

March Maddness



So proud to be a Baylor Bear ALWAYS, but especially this year with all that is going on in the sports arena. Friday night we watched our Bears earn their way to a spot in the Elite 8 which they will play today. We cannot wait to cheer them on today and hopefully into the championship game. SIC EM BEARS!!!!!

Homemade Chocolate chip cookies, milk and Baylor Basketbal=Happy Husband!



Thankful to be a BAYLOR BEAR,

MJ

Spring Break 2012 via Instagram

So my digital camera is dead and I cannot find the charger so I decided to document spring break 2012 via my IPHONE using instagram.  I am slightly obsessed with this app. This was probably one of the most low key spring break's I have had in a long time and I loved every minute of it! Heres a recap:

DAY 1: Spent the entire day at STARBUCKS doing homework 

DAY 2: Got my china out and started my Spring table setting, met up with my two favorite girls for shopping (complete with mini facials at LUSH our new favorite store), lunch and ice cream  

DAY 3: Talked Jeffrey into taking the day off..we spent it at the STOCKYARDS (see previous post) complete with a picnic lunch and dessert at Sammie's treats in Fort Worth.. then came home to make a year long wreath 

DAY 4: Lunch with my best friend KRISTA in Waxahachie followed by a tour of the sheriff's office (I am so sad I did not get any pictures of Krista and I), Then we met with some friends to see the LORAX and ended the night with a BAYLOR WIN 

DAY 5: Brunch and a Grapevine main street stroll with my sweet friend Savannah & precious John Ryman followed by an evening out celebrating Sarah's birthday! 

Day 6: Happy St. Patricks Day and Happy Birthday Jen! Spent the day lunching with Aunt Judy then hit up Greenville and an Irish Pub to celebrate!! Ended the evening with Baylor securing their spot in the SWEET 16 SIC EM BEARS! 

Well that about sums up my week! So thankful for a week off work! 

Thankful for only 12 more mornings until the next holiday, 

MJ 

DIY: One Wreath All Year

So if you know me well at all you know I am not the craftiest person there is. I have gotten a lot better and am still practicing. I am determined to be a more creative DIY type of person. I have been wanting to make a wreath for our front door for a very long time. I searched PINTEREST and found several that I liked. I decided to combine a few. I wanted a burlap bubble wreath, but I liked the idea of having my same wreath all year round and just switch out some element of it for every holiday. I am currently obsessed with the letter J so I decided mine would have different J's for every holiday. I also decided that since this was a big project for me and I was doing it all by myself I would document the creation part of it so here we go:

First I went to hobby lobby and purchased: 10 wooden J's, Mod Podge ( I was out), Scrap book paper for every season (it was 50% off), sewing pins, adhesive, 1.5 yards of burlap, a 10 inch plastic wreath

The Base for the Wreath (10inches) 

 The Pins I used 

Step 1: Cut your 1.5 yards of burlap into 4x4 squares 

I think I ended up having over 100 squares 

Then it is time to make the bubbles that will be pinned on to the wreath. 

 Fold the square to form a triangle 

 Take the right side and fold it towards the point of the triangle 

Take the left side and fold it towards the point of the triangle on the opposite side 

You will then stick the pin through all four corners and then attach it to the wreath, Make sure you attach each new bubble close enough that it covers the pin of the previous bubble. 

After I did a few I placed my J where I wanted it on the wreath that way I did not but bubbles in that area 

Instead I wrapped that area with burlap to cover the white and then used my adhesive to place the J on there. 

Here is what mine looked like with the adhesive in place. 

And then you put the other sticky stuff on the J so that they can stick together like above! 

Heres what the back looks like to give you an idea.. You may need to put bubbles on the upper back and even on the inside to cover all of the white. I also know that some people use different color burlaps and paint their wreath that color first. 

Then I cut up my paper and mod podge all 9 J's that way I would be done with the wreath and would not have to worry. I did one for: St. Patricks Day, Spring, Summer, 4th of July, Baylor Football, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines Day 

Honestly this was the hardest part of the entire wreath. Next time I might make a bigger bubble wreath and just do different colored ribbons for each holiday.

I found this idea on Pinterest and used this incredible blog site to walk me step by step through the process!!  Bubble Wreath Tutorial

Thankful for PINTEREST crafts, 

MJ 

Stockyards

So yesterday was the third day of Spring Break ( I'll do a spring break recap at the end of the week) and Jeffrey had already decided he would go into work around 9 so that we could have breakfast together. As he headed up stairs to his office I yelled up hey do you want to take the day off and go to the zoo? Never did I think he would say yes..but he did! So I got a bonus spring break date with my sweet hubby! We threw out the zoo idea because of crowds and decided to hit up the stockyards. We spent the afternoon walking all around, seeing the famous cattle heard down exchange street, packed a picnic lunch, toured a gorgeous Ft. Worth neighborhood and  got some yummy ice cream to end the day! It was so relaxing and a great way for me to practice some of my camera skills! I got some really cool shots and I hope you enjoy!

Thankful for a day with Jeffrey,

MJ