Count Your Blessings: Part 1

Lately I've been thinking about my life, thinking about all the blessings I have.  I have so many blessings, and most of the time I just take them for granted, as I'm sure everyone does once in a while.  There's my family, my friends, my church, my camera, food and clean water, heat, air conditioning (thank you, Jesus!), my new driver's license, and, most of all, that my parents love Jesus and are raising me to love Him too.
So I thought, "Why don't I write about my blessing on my blog?!"  And that's just what I'm going to do.  I have no idea how many parts this will be--hopefully I don't get too carried away!  But I hope that someone reading this will be blessed by my blessings and start thinking about their blessings.


First on the list of blessings are friends.
My friends are... amazing.  They're all awesome girls who love the LORD and wish to serve Him.
My oldest friend is Brennah.  We've been friends for... forever.  I've really known her since I was born.  She's exactly one month and three days older than me.  I don't have any recent pictures with her, due to the fact that she hates getting her picture taken.  Which is... weird.

That's her... with her back to the camera.

Again, covering her face up with Skittles.

On the far left, covering her face up with a package of diapers.  And, can you believe it?  There's her sister, covering her face up too!

Aww, look... in the only recent picture I have of her, she's holding a wine glass.  Isn't that cute?  Don't worry, it's water. ;)

Here's the only picture I can find of us together:

Brennah is awesome, though.  She's good at everything.  Really.  It gets on my nerves, but I still love her like she's my own sister.  She is excellent at cosmetology-like stuff.  She's cut my hair more than once, and got us all ready for our home school formal.  She also a phenomenal artist, cook, singer, musician, and soccer player.  Actually, she's good at all sports.  She's my best friend.  We've been through everything together.
I'm so, so blessed to have her as a friend, she holds me up when I need it, and I do the same for her.  As she would say, "I hope we're friends till we're just ol' biddies."


And this...  

... is Micah.  Micah is about a year and a half younger than me, so originally she was mainly Bekah's friend, but now Micah and I are as close as Brennah and I.  She's a character.  Everyone thinks she's so shy, which couldn't be farther from the truth.  She's a hilarious, vivacious and exuberant.  She, like Brennah, is good at everything too.  She is an awesome musician.  She can play anything, doesn't matter what.  She just picks things up incredibly quickly.  She plays the guitar, bass, drums, piano, violin, and she sings.  There's also a ton of other things she's good at, soccer the most.

Last, but most certainly not least are Kami and Melissa.  They're twins that go to our church.  They are possibly the most crazy, funny, animated people I know.

I love them both so much!  Even though they're twins, they're incredibly different.  It's easy to tell who's the oldest--Melissa.  She just has that older-sister-quality to her.  She always wants to be in charge and the best at everything--and she usually is.  She's gorgeous, friendly, funny, and creative.  She's an awesome artist too!  One paragraph cannot possibly describe all the angles of Melissa, but this is getting to be a long post!  I just want to say that, Melissa, if you're reading this, I love you.


Kami is... Kami.  I've never met anyone like her (in a very good way)!  She's imaginative, hilarious, beautiful, crazy, ridiculous, and awesome!  She makes you laugh so hard... I've almost peed my pants many, many times.  She is an awesome photographer, even though she doesn't think so.  Kami, I love you too.


All of my friends are definitely gifts from God.  We're there for each other through thick and thin, and even though we have our fights, we always get over them.  I hope my blessing will get you thinking about your blessings.  Have a blessed week!!

It's Been Too Long

It's been too long.  Much too long.  I haven't posted for at least a month, probably two.  I'm just so darn busy!  Summer is the time when you're supposed to relax and have fun, you know?  But every year, summer is busier than the whole school year put together.  Figures.

Things that have happened since I last posted:

1. My friends and I had a bake sale to benefit Joplin.  We only made about $200, but it was pretty good for the amount of time we spent out there--only an hour and a half!
2. I got an amazing new lens.  It's awesome!  I love it.  One guy at church was drooling over it the other day.
3. The Home School Convention!  If you're home schooled and you live around these parts and you've never been to a TPA (Teaching Parents Association) convention, you're lame.  Anyone who's anyone is there.  Even though it's the home school event of the year, it's really super boring.  You just walk around a convention hall, looking at different booths all day long.

Wow.  Three things.  I know there's more, I just can't remember right now.

Things that are happening this summer:

1. VBS!!  Actually, it's happening right now.  But it's so much fun, I love doing it and working with the kids!  They're so funny, and I have new stories to tell about them every day. :)
2. Mission trip in Oklahoma.  It's going to be amazing.  We're working with two old ladies, serving them in any way we can.  We just had a fundraiser for it and raised $1200.
3. My cousin's wedding.  The cousins on my mom's side of the family are super close, so it's fun to go hang out with them.
4. Camp.  I'm sponsoring my little sister's camp.  Seriously, sponsoring is way more fun than actually attending the camp.  Who knew?
5. My birthday!!!  June 29. :)

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how selfish people are.  We never watch any TV, just Netflix (by the way, if you have Netflix, watch The Twilight Zone.  It's my new favorite show).  But when we watched the Survivor season finale, the commercials just drove me crazy!  Just stuff, stuff, stuff.  And people think that stuff will actually make them happy--complete their life.  That's just crazy to me.  And that got me to thinking about selfishness.  Those commercials just scream, "Me, me, me!" don't they?  And everywhere I looked, people were selfish.  It seemed like the world was spiraling out of control, but then, yesterday, somebody anonymously sent us a family pool pass for the pool across the street from our house.  We have no idea who it was, but it was such a sweet thing to do.  It reminded me that the world is selfish, but God isn't and there are people who aren't.  And as long as we're with God we won't be, because we'll be loving others as ourselves.   It really got me.  It was so sweet. :)

Hope everyone has an amazing summer!  This will probably be my last post for a while--summer, ugh.

God bless,

Spring Gala Blog Party!

Hello everyone!  I'm entering the Spring Gala Blog Party from Brablewood Fashion and Virtuous Girlhood!

Normally, I don't do this.  But I really, really like the prizes, and I really like these blogs too!  Here's my party post. :)

1. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?

 Italy!!  I really want to go!  Do you have any idea how many good photo opportunities there would be there?  Oh my goodness, it would be so fun.  I'm going there for my honeymoon.  Definitely.

2. What is the oldest item you own?
The oldest item I own, I think, is my grandpa's Bible he got during the war.  I'm not really sure what war it was--how stupid is that.  I think the Vietnam War.


3. If you had to pick one hero, who would it be?
A hero... hmm... honestly, probably Paul from the Bible.  He persecuted Christians left and right, but then still became one and spread the gospel everywhere!  He was an amazing Christian, but he still made mistakes and had to live with them.


4. If you could have dinner with any three people, living or dead. Who would it be?
1. Jesus.  I know that's a classic, Sunday school answer, but it's the truth.  Jesus would be my top pick.
2. Kari Jobe.  She's such a good songer, and she uses her talent for God.
3. Samuel Potter.  He has Samuel Potter Photography, and he's absolutely amazing.


5. Which do you like better, Coke or Pepsi?
Coke.  It's not as sweet.  But I'm not really a fan of either one.


6. What would you rather have- chocolate or a cookie?
If it's with peanut butter, chocolate.  But if it's gooey and warm, a cookie.


7. What is your favorite season?
Spring.  It's when all the beautiful flowers bloom, and it makes for some amazing pictures.

8. What's your favorite thing about Spring?
The beautiful flowers and pictures!!!!


9. What's your favorite music?
Anything Christian, just not country.  I HATE country music.  Yuck.  Worship music is the best. :)


10. What's your fashion/personal style?
My fashion style?  Umm... I don't know... whatever is comfortable, modest, and looks good.  And is not "Out-of-style." 

Awesome Sleepover, Amazing Trampoline Pictures, Awkward Prayer, Delectible Cinnamon Rolls, And Easter

Phew... that's a long title.  I wasn't even sure it was going to let me use that many characters.
This weekend was awesome!!  It was Easter weekend... of course it was awesome.  But this Easter weekend was exceptionally awesome.  For Easter our church was doing a 24 hour prayer, so some of my best friends (Kami and Melissa Olson, and Bekah) and I had the great idea to sign up for the midnight slot, and pray at midnight.  And while we were at it, we just made it a sleepover.  And let me tell you... it was awesome.  Those girls are so funny and creative, they make everything fun!
Our sleepover started off on a good note with Faith spilling egg dye all over our wood floor and permanently staining it!  Ok.  Just kidding.  It was a bad note.  My dad was so mad!  But he got over it quickly, and now our floor has a little more character.

After that episode, we went outside to take some amazing trampoline pictures.

After that we had the Passover Feast (which we don't do every year, just this one), played Taboo and Rock Band, and made cookies.  When midnight rolled around, we walked over to the church for the prayer.  We had signed up for the 12-1 slot, and someone else was supposed to come pray after us at 1.  So we prayed... and prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and the other guy never came!  Maybe it was because we needed to talk to God more.. or something. ;)
We came home at 1:30, watched a (small) meteor shower and rolled into bed.  The next morning we woke up and made cinnamon rolls.  Yum!  Actually, they made cinnamon rolls.  I just watched.  And took pictures.

This, I believe, is the scariest picture ever.

Oh man, they were good.  Really good.  :)
And the next day was Easter!  The happiest day of the year, where we celebrate Jesus conquering death not just for himself, but for everyone else that's ever lived.  The day that made us what we are: redeemed.
And the day where you have family over, eat, then hunt for eggs.  At least that's how it is with my family.  We were supposed to have a bunch of family come over, but everyone backed out, so we only had 9 people--including us.  Which makes 3 guests.  Whoopee.  We had so much food though, and it was impossible for our small group to eat all of it!

For the Easter egg hunt, since the only kids there were my sisters and me, we hid the eggs for each other.  Bekah and I hid them for Faith and Laurel, then they hid them for us.  It was actually pretty fun.
We wrote on the chalkboard:

The top opens up, so we could have hidden some eggs in there, but we wrote this instead.  And there really wasn't any eggs there.  See?

We also did this:

There wasn't anything in that one either!  We also put some vegetables in some of them, just to make Faith and Laurel mad.  But don't worry, we gave them their candy afterwards.

HA!

What?  She's actually looking!

Faith's mad at me... she found lettuce in her egg. :)

It took them forever to find this one!  And it was right out in the open.

This was my best hiding spot... it was the last one they found.

Faith and Laurel made these cute little Reese's Peanut Butter Cup chicks.

And that was our Easter day.  Congratulations if you made it to the end of this post.  I'm pretty sure it's the longest one I've ever done!  Happy Easter, all!

Written by Brooke, with Laurel helping (just a tiny bit).  ;) HA!  Take that Laurel!

iTunes

I have an iPod.  Not a cool iPod Touch, but a tiny, pink Nano--I still love it anyway.  But if you have an iPod, you have to have iTunes to put any kind of music on to it (which is kind of stupid, in my opinion.  And how you have to sync your whole iTunes library to it is retarded too!).  Which isn't a problem for most people.  It's only a problem if you have my dad... he has some weird thing with Apple... doesn't like any of their stuff.  It's probably just because he doesn't have one; he's jealous. ;)
The whole iTunes thing wasn't a problem for me either until just recently.  Bekah, my sister, had a laptop that she said I could download it onto, so I was covered.  But then her laptop crashed and my whole iTunes library along with it!
I kept asking my dad if he could download iTunes onto his computer--and he said yes.  But he kept procrastinating about it.  Finally he downloaded it one day, and I was so excited!  But guess what happened after about two weeks.  The other computer crashed!
Once we got the computer up and running again, I asked my dad if he could put iTunes back on sometime, but this time it was a little harder to get him to do it.  (It could be because, after he downloaded it the first time, I said, "Wow.  The computer didn't explode.  Imagine that.")  I kept asking and asking.  It turned from "Could you put iTunes on the computer sometime?" to "Could you put it on the computer right now?!?!?"  He always said, "yep," but it never happened.  I'm sure it wasn't just my dad trying to be mean.  He's really very nice, and I love him.  He probably just forgot.
But finally I got fed up with it and put a note on the desktop, reminding him.

"That should work!" I thought.  But a whole day went by, and it still wasn't installed!  So I went to more drastic measures.  Using my mom's idea, I put sticky notes all over the house remind him about it!

On the stairs...

On his laptop...

On the computer chair...

On his guitar...

Even on my picture in their room (I know... it's dusty.  And I don't like that picture at all).

My sisters even started getting in on it.  In case you're wondering, Bekah does not really have a mustache!  But we had a stick-on mustache, and I put it on Bekah's picture.  It fits perfectly, don't you think?  Haha!!

Faith wrote this one and put it on the toilet.  Ha!

My dad thought it was funny. :)  And yes... iTunes is intalled. :D  Mission accomplished.