5 year anniversary trip

Chris and I celebrated FIVE years of marriage this year! Can't believe it's already been 5 years. This season of life is SOO BUSY right now, so we celebrated with an overnight stay in Austin.

We started out at Homeslice Pizza. Delicious. Would definitely recommend it.

I saw Hey Cupcake next door and HAD to have a Red Velvet with cream. Delicious.

We stayed at the Omni in downtown Austin. It was fancy!

The night we got into Austin was the same night as the A&M football opener. Chris found a place called Moviehouse & Eatery. We watched the game on a huge movie screen from electric leather chairs where we could push a button and get more food/drink. It was AWESOME! A little pricy, but totally worth it.

The next day we drove to San Marcos and shopped at the endless outlet stores for a few hours. My sweet husband said he was taking me shopping and I had a minimum amount I had to spend. He never complained and said he enjoyed himself, although he bought a few things too. ;) So glad I get to live life with that man! Here's to many many many more years!

family time

This past weekend we took a quick trip to my parents' house. It was a great time with family! 

Saturday morning I went with my mom and sisters to a women's conference at their church. 

That afternoon we had some time to hang out at the house and swim. 

Love these people!! We had a blast and we were sad we only got to stay about 36 hours, but short visits are better than none!

This was Scout only a few minutes into our ride home. He stayed this way the entire drive home! He's usually in my lap, so I knew he was exhausted from playing hard. 

life updates

Day Shift
I am working day shift at the hospital now. 7am-7pm. I've been on this more regular schedule since May. I enjoy having a more normal schedule, but day shift is definitely busier! I didn't realize how much extra time I sometimes had on nightshift that I used for doing various things...paying bills, blogging, answering House of Shep emails, etc. When that time was gone, I really missed it!

House of Shep
Wow, where do I even start?! The shop became much much busier around August last year.  I did about 400+ total orders in 2012. 300+ of those orders were between August and December! It has been such a blessing making pretty things for people! I love to think how a hobby turned in to a side job. The extra income helps, but it's not taking the place of any other "real" jobs right now.

Church
Chris and I are still hosting our young married small group two nights a month. We are also co-leading/hosting the college group every Thursday. We love having people in our home and using what God has blessed us with to bless others. There's not much better than having 26 college students in our small living room all worshiping together. Such a great thing. Chris is also working part time at the church doing some AV stuff, editing, etc and I'm starting back in helping with the children's ministry a few Sundays a month.

Small Business Owners
We bought a small business over the summer last year and what a ride it has been! The opportunity came for us to purchase the newspaper that Chris had worked for off and on over the past 4 years. We have learned a LOT and still have even more to learn about being business owners. Chris is his own boss, which has its benefits, but writing your own checks (or not..) is not one of them! Ha. I was even named "Business Manager." Still figuring out what that means!

Scout
Happy to report things are the same in Scout's world. No ear infections in about a year. He is such a goof ball. His latest thing is (when we aren't looking) pulling the towel down off of the towel bar and rolling around on it! I get annoyed when I find the towel on the ground, but I can't help but laugh because he looks so goofy doing it!

Blogging
I love reading back over our adventures that have been written on this blog. I'm sad to look back over the last year and have almost nothing recorded for the majority of the year. I am unapologetic about blogging infrequently, because ultimately this blog is for us. BUT, I want to make a goal to blog more, so that I can look back later and read about our lives now.

both of us watching Passion live via Chris' iPad last week

we were visiting my family the first week in January and Chris was loving on Brooklynn

one of my favorites we made for a Christmas order!

warren family pictures

Love this sweet precious family!

the purpose of Christmas

 

The Purpose of Christmas in spoken word from Brazos Fellowship on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas 

from the Shepperds...

whale of a time

We Chris put our tree up in late November this year. When he put it up, this is what it looked like...

The top part of the lights were burned out. :( It didn't survive a Texas summer in the attic. I'm actually kind of impressed the other lights still work after several ridiculous hot summers in the attic.

Anyways...we decided we should do something about this sad tree. We Chris strung a single strand of lights in the top part of the tree and it was good as new! It looks perfect in person, but the new lights photograph differently. Very strange.

We went a little sparse on the ornaments this year. I had almost decided not to dress the tree at all because it was almost two weeks into December and I still hadn't put anything on it. Buuut, we are hosting Christmas this year and our nephews will be here and I know that's special for them, so I did! 

I participated in Megan and Julie's ornament swap again this year!

I was excited to get paired with Anna, a fellow nurse who lives in Idaho.

I loved the packaging she sent the ornament in!

And inside was this gem...

How cute is he?!

He's hanging front and center of our Christmas tree! 

Thank you Anna!!

You can see the ornament I made her here.

I love Christmas time! :)