a little life update

HEY FRIENDS!

Wow. I wrote those really honest posts and then disappeared for a bit. Sorry about that. I have been super busy with life stuff for the past week. So let me just fill you in on some of what's going on in this girl's life. 

-I started the She Reads Truth Hosea plan. Y'all. It has been SO GOOD. It is such a beautiful picture of grace and redemption. But also a picture of what happens when we turn our backs on our Father. It has been such a good reminder that, even when I am faithless, He remains faithful because He cannot deny Himself.

-I've been hearing some amazing sermons! As some of you know, who follow Mom's blog or are personal friends, we left our church. We've been attending CBC of Savannah. IT IS AMAZING. The worship, the sermons, the people...everything. I recommend going to the churches website and listening to the sermons that Bill has been preaching for the past few weeks. There are incredible. 

-I've been realizing how darn lucky I am to have my older brothers. Seriously, y'all. They blow my mind. Here's example a:

That boy. I love him. He knew what I needed to hear that night. Blew me away. Blog post about that conversation coming sometime soon. 

And now example b:

That boy. He's my boss. And my hero. And my best friend. And he called me yesterday while I was in Wal-Mart. We talked about work stuff. And then he asked me how many days I was going to be gone to Slovakia. I told him and asked why he wanted to know. He wanted to know because he's writing me a note for every day I'm gone!! I melted into a puddle on the floor in Wal-Mart. Sweetest thing ever. (He's the same guy that texted me on Valentine's Day). :) I love that dude. 

-addressing, stamping, stuffing and sealing lots of envelopes. Like, 300 envelopes. Yeah. It was work stuff. I enjoy it though!

-obsessing over this little guy. Seriously, I can't stand that much cuteness.

Anyway. That about wraps it up for now. Hope that y'all are having a lovely weekend.

Be back soon! 

thankfulness

Thursday is Thanksgiving. But you knew that, right? If you didn't, you are in need of some help, I'm afraid. Moving on...

Lately I've been thinking about thankfulness. My thoughts even led to starting a "things I'm thankful for" page on my blog. I just keep adding things to that list. It's funny how much I actually have to be thankful for. So much more than I think I ever realized. God has seriously blessed me, y'all. 

So here's a list of things I'm thankful for right now:
-a new cell phone
-Zeke
-younger siblings
-our "we are thankful for..." white board at our house
-water
-iPods
-older brothers
-Mom
-Dad
-relatives coming into town for Thanksgiving
-Gamecocks/Clemson game on Saturday (which I am attending in person... ;)

and so many more things. God is good. He gives me so many things that I don't need and I don't deserve, but He gives them to me just to show that He loves me and that He cares. And I'm thankful for that, friend. I'm thankful for His love for me, even though I don't deserve it. 

I'll be back after Thanksgiving has passed, full of turkey and ham and many desserts, with some thoughts on legalism, grace, husbands/guys (yep, going back to that topic again), convictions and other things. And if at any time, you have a question or would like me to write a post on a certain subject, just email me at betterthatway@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you!

Happy Thanksgiving, friend.       

our thankfulness board

some pictures to make your Saturday happy (hopefully! :)

Here's some pictures for you to enjoy this Saturday!

Zeke!

ooohhh, wish I had one of those right now!

Madeline (Bubble) and me (Clank)

me and Jessie

classic roller coaster faces

piano lesson time!

yep. that's about right.

Have a happy weekend, friends! :) 

learning about contentment

If any of you are like me at all, you will relate to this. You'll totally get the fact that I struggle with being content. You'll understand that I long for change. You'll be right there with me on the minimal patience thing. 

Lately, God's being teaching me a lesson about contentment. He's been teaching me that it isn't a huge deal. That it isn't about tomorrow or three years down the road. He's taught me that contentment is about today. It's about how I react to today and the situations I encounter today. 

 If you really stop to think about it, contentment is all about being grateful. It's all about being thankful for what you have and not wishing for other things. So this post is about some things I'm super thankful for. 

 How could I not be thankful for that adorable thing? Zeke is amazing. He spent all day Saturday with us and we got to have some "Aunt Jen-Zeke" time. It was great! :) 

 Absolutely gorgeous sunsets. 

That picture. It's on my wall and makes me laugh every time I look at it.

 Those two people. That picture. Seriously. Makes me smile every time I see it. (Yes, you can say "aww...")

And then that girl. She's a really good friend of mine, Frances. We got to hang out for a while on Sunday night. She's hilariously funny, beautiful inside and out, and loves Jesus a whole lot. (And that's her boyfriend, Micah, who just so happens to be as nice and funny as she is. It must be because they're both second-born children. I don't know :). 

and then there are random things that I'm grateful for that I don't have pictures for:
-my iPod (even though it's on it's deathbed)
-Mom's blog (go check it out. I mean it. She will explain some of the reason why I have been absent here lately)
-my bed
-talking with good friends under the stars with the smell of smoke filling the fall air
-my guitar
-Voddie Baucham sermons (You should listen to this one)  

I'll be back soon with more posts about life and some of the things God is teaching me. 

Until then, stay strong, friends, and have a happy weekend.

Wedding Recap, Part 1: Thursday (ironing, Heather and Zeke) and Friday (day with the girls)

It's time to start our little wedding recap! Excited?? Okay, well let's get started!

Uncle Sam and Baby Zeke :)

Thursday, September 13th, was Sam's 11th birthday. Heather and Zeke came over and hung out with us for most of the day. Sweet mama and baby were so fun to be with as always.

Michael was in Alabama at a church conference, so I was planning to spend the night with Heather that night and then hang out with Becca and the other bridesmaids on Friday. 

But...on Thursday I had some stuff I had to do. So here's what Thursday looked like in pictures:

packing my bags

ironing. had to iron all the guy's shirts and ties

brownies. need I say anything else?

Sam's birthday cake :)

After we ate birthday cake and everyone was happy, Heather and I headed back to the apartment. Poor Zeke was not too happy about being in the car, and may or may not have cried the whole way home. But once we got to the apartment he was happy as a lark. Heather fed him and he got to "talk" to his daddy on the phone, and then went to sleep. 

Heather and I stayed up late talking, and laughing and just enjoying each other's company. It was so nice to be able to hangout with her for a while. Definitely doing that again soon!

Friday morning came! Hung out with this cute guy!

seriously? is he not adorable?? :)

After coffee and breakfast, Heather took me into Savannah and dropped me off at Becca's house. Thomas was there, along with Meagan (Becca's former roommate) and Lindsay (Becca's sister). Oh yeah, and Becca. =) They were all lounging, laughing at Thomas' jokes, and showering. In that order. After everyone had lounged, laughed and showered, Becca began preparing to ice her wedding cake. Thomas left to do his own thing and we moved to the dining room, where this happened:

yummy cake

the icing was amazingly good

Becca and Meagan ran to CVS really quickly, and Lindsay and I sat around and chatted.  After they got back, and everyone was ready, we headed to eat lunch. We went to the Green Truck Pub, and boy, was it ever delicious!! 

Lindsay, Meag and Becca walking towards Green Truck

Becca's dad, her brother, Scott, and Carson, Lindsay's husband were in Savannah doing some wedding deliveries, so they stopped by while we were enduring our 45 minute wait and talked to us for a while. Carson took this picture of us girls.

Becca, Lindsay, Meagan and me

After what seemed like an everlasting wait, we went inside and ordered. The food...yeah...it was amazing!! =) Their french fries were delicious. I'll definitely be visiting there again soon! 

We ate until we were stuffed, and then ate some more (cough, cough, Meagan and Jen). Then we loaded into the car and headed to paint pottery! It was so much fun! 

We walked in and stood around indecisively trying to pick out our pieces. Then we stood around some more. Finally, I picked a leaf dish, Becca picked a plate, Meag picked a little vase and Lindsay picked a cool (and practical) spoon rest! =) Then we picked out our colours. This is what I started out with:

Painting pottery was a good way to spend time together, because we didn't really feel pressured to talk, but when we did it wasn't awkward because we were working at the same time. It was fun and I enjoyed it a lot. Becca was a little out of it though; at one point, Lindsay and Meagan were discussing the time and Becca said, "oh yeah, we have some wedding thing to go to tonight, don't we?" Um, yeah, Becca, as in your rehearsal dinner!! =)

The girls hard at work

Becca and Meagan

Once all our pieces were finished,  we headed to the church to "help set  up tables" and get the fellowship hall ready for the rehearsal dinner. When we got there, Thomas was laying on the couch in the fellowship hall and everything was already set up and ready. He and Becca sat on the couch and talked while I took their picture. 

Since there wasn't much we could do there, we went back to Becca's house to prepare for the rehearsal dinner. 

That's when I started getting nervous, excited and a little sad. All day I had managed to not think about it, but then it all of a sudden hit me, "oh my gosh, we are getting ready for the rehearsal dinner. Thomas is getting married!!!" Yeah. But I got myself all ready and around 6ish, we headed back to the church. But you'll hear all about that tomorrow.

Here's What You Missed

(Note to the reader: the pictures in this post are all old. None of them were actually taken this week. I just love them and decided to use them today Because #1-I love pictures. #2-you love seeing pictures)  :)

I apologize for being AWOL (absent without leave) for the past few days. I usually post on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays…but some crazy stuff happened here this week, so I was absent from the world of blogging. But hey, I only missed one day, so I'm doing good, right??

Here's a quick review of my week up until Thursday when all the crazy stuff happened.

Monday: I watched my siblings while my younger brother went to the orthodontist. He gets his braces off in February! And he's super excited!! Although it'll be strange seeing him without braces. 

Oh yeah and this past Thursday, the 9th, one of my best friends got her braces off. She is soooo happy!

stole this pic off her sister's blog

That there's. Madeline. Or Bubble as I call her. That picture doesn't portray the real her. She doesn't always look like a model. :)

There. Now that's more like it. (I'm wearing the grey, she's wearing yellow, if you wondered. The girl you hear laughing in the background is my friend, Abby, and the girl who talks at the end is Victoria, Bubble's sister. She was our camera lady! :)

I don’t know exactly what we were trying to accomplish in that video. Just making complete fools of ourselves basically. For the record that was years ago. We were both 15 years old. So yeah, two years ago. :) Oh well, you'll do anything after you've been downtown all day, and worn several strapless dresses and had frozen coffee and laughed way too much.(Hopefully she won't kill me for posting that!)

Tuesday: Stayed home most of the day. Cleaned my room. Practiced piano and worked on Wednesday's blog post.

Wednesday: I loved pretty much everything about Wednesday! It was a fun day. I got up fairly early, like 6:45. I ate breakfast, worked out (oooohhh the pain!) took a quick shower, did my hair and makeup (doing my hair means I glanced in the mirror and ran my hand through it and said, "oh yeah it's fine." Haha)

 I went into town with Mom and John-boy, my younger brother, who had a speech therapy appointment. He officially graduated and can now say his r's better than anyone else in our house!! 

After that we got lunch from Chick-fil-a and ate at my grandma's office. We then headed to Becca's parents house for a bridesmaid dress fitting. It's a beauty but a little too big on the top, so Mrs. Norman is gonna fix it up good! I was really so amazed at her work, and the dress is everything I hoped it would be and so much more!! Plus it has pockets!! 

Why does this baby have to be so stinkin' cute?? Zeke, you're awesome!! :)

After the dress fitting, I got to hang out all afternoon with one of my favorite people. Ms. Kathy and I have known each other since I was a kid, and her husband, Mr. Bryan taught my Sunday school class when I was in 4th, 5th and 5th grade. No, you read that right. I went through 5th grade twice. Anyways, over the past several months, Ms. Kathy and I have grown really close and have shared many long talks, lots of emails and a love for Jesus. So that was awesome. She has a sweet, funny personality and I love being with her. (we have yet to get a picture of us together. We need to fix that soon!) 

 After coffee and laughing and talking to three of her four sons, we headed to church. We're both involved in orchestra (along with two of her four sons!) and it worked out that we were all playing on the same night.
 

Orchestra was fun as always! I'm loving being back in and playing and just being so happy to sit at a keyboard and do something I love. Everyone has been so friendly and welcoming and I have loved every single minute of it! 

So basically that's my life up until Thursday morning. But once Thursday came...boy! Well, that's a whole 'nother story for another blog post. It wasn't anything too huge, just a brother in the hospital and an appendix being removed and all that good stuff. But now he's much better and will be coming home today. So I'll write his whole story sometime soon. 

Oh and today is my Mimi's birthday! She's probably the best maternal grandmother anyone ever had. She gives me money, candy and lets me play her awesome piano. Happy Birthday, Mimi! Hope you have many more! :)