He is never changing

Today at church I was reminded of something that I always seem to lose sight of,

But it's a truth that I always find so much joy in:

God does not change. 

And He does not fail.

Ever. 

In all my humanness, it is so hard for me to really understand this truth 

When I fail to read the Word, when I fail to talk to Him, when I fail to BE like Him

He doesn't change. 

How comforting to serve a God that doesn't change His mind

How comforting it is to serve a God that is not fickle

He is eternal, He is the same. 

No matter how selfish I am, He doesn't change 

No matter how much I put Him off, 

He's STILL there. 

I change so much, one day I feel one way & the next I feel another 

But He is constant

He is steadfast

This truth has brought me comfort beyond belief. 

________________________

On a side note, I realized something else today:

{I know, I'm on a role today!}

All of our formality has caused us to lose our sincerity

Isn't this so true?

In our churches, schools, & just life in general 

We are so obsessed with making everything fit into a box,

 we want everything to follow 'our' rules 

I always get a picture in my head of an African village singing and praising God in the middle of a field, 

No building, 

No structure,

No timed services,  

Just God. 

How beautiful this is! 

My prayer is that America will lose its obsession with formality,

 and just maybe start obsessing about the sincerity of our worship, of our education,

& of our lives

New tabs!

So, I now have tabs! 

:) 

Feel free to read all about our silly selves! 

Not too much has been going on around here lately,

 we've just been relaxing and enjoying the sunshine
 {except today was mostly overcast & rainy}

Hope you all are having a lovely weekend!

Be thankful for the small things, 

and cherish the ones you love!

{via}

Our first dinner... on a table!

Ha... ok this isn't actually our first dinner at a table. obviously. 

But it is at our new apartment! 

We took quite awhile to buy a table... but yesterday we finally did! 

I was like super excited to have a table to eat at! 

:) 

Funny how you enjoy such simple things when you go without them! 

So we had a romantic dinner to celebrate our first meal with our table- 

I made chicken breast in the oven with olive oil, salt & pepper, and garlic 

(thanks to my SIL for this tasty idea!.... we eat it all the time!) 

And then we had rice noodles (it's the healthier option people, and they taste good!),

with some sauteed veggies

It was pretty yummy

I even attempted to decorate ;) 

It was so fun eating at a table... it felt like we were at a restaurant! 

So here's to many more romantic dinners........ on a table! 

;) 

Fabulous florida fruit

One of the many things I love about living here, is the FRUIT! 

Oh my goodness... it doesn't matter where you get it.. it's always so juicy, fresh & so so yummy, 

I'm like a fruit freak, and even Lee is venturing outside of his ONE fruit that he eats (apple), and is enjoying all kinds of fruits! 

When I go into the grocery store, I'm seriously dangerous in the fruit section ;) 

I get everyyyy fruit in sight. Ha

Fruit salads are our favorite:

I LOVE brown cow organic yo-gurt with red raspberries:

The other day, I asked Lee to bring me a peach... and look what he brought me: 

Aw... what a thoughtful hubby I have! 

And of course I'm still making fruit-filled crepes, probably a little too often ;)

I'm actually going to try them with RED raspberries tonight! 

Ok... so yah I really just dedicated a whole post to fruit.

Oh well, I think fruit deserves it! 

Yum... how can something so tasty actually be healthy for you!? 

yay for florida's awesome fruit! 

A full heart

Lee started his new job this week at Ruby Tuesday's... yum! 

Let me just say my husband is a PRO at getting any job he applies for. 

It's ridiculous... he makes getting a job seem so EASY 

I guess its just his INSTANT loveability {ya... think I made that word up or maybe just spelled it wrong} ;) 

Anyways, this is his third day- he likes it,

I mean, as much as you can like working..

And what am I doing? 

Well, I'm just doing typical house wife things ;) 

Which surprisingly there is actually a lot to keep me busy 

The two of us can get pretty messy, 

so I always have an abundance of cleaning, organizing, laundry, and of course dish washing

I was just thinking as I was loading the dishwasher how happy I am to be in this part of my life:

It really is so fun

so new 

so exciting 

Before Lee was about to leave for work today, 

I said.... 'you seem excited for work'

he replied, 'no I'm just excited to come home and see you' 

what a sweet boy!

I'm sure you're thinking we are just pathetic newlyweds ;) 

There's nothing that makes me happier then cooking dinner for my husband, making the house look pretty for when he comes home, excitedly waiting for his return from work, cuddling and watching movies as late as we want, reading the Bible and praying together, waking up with him next to me every morning, & spending endless hours laughing and loving each other

And, so, as I reflect on these things,

I realize that my heart is full

Don't worry

There are so many things you can worry about in life 

I decided yesterday to just stop

Life is too short

When you look at the big picture:

petty things don't matter 

God will provide- He always has 

So rest in this truth.

Don't worry- be happy & enjoy the precious gift of life!

Vanilla Crepes

Like a week ago I found an AWESOME crepe recipe, 

I had never made them before & I've heard that they can be a bit difficult to make, 

but this recipe was great & made it super simple! 

It seems like I'm making these every night for Lee & I's 'little snack' after dinner- 

their super easy and so yummy, {maybe not TOO healthy though... but hey, at least I use raw organic sugar!}

Basically all you do is mix a few BASIC ingredients and you're done. 

The recipe I found, she used a warm red raspberry compote filling. 

Which looks so good, but when I went to pick up some red raspberries, there were none.

 I guess there not quite in season yet?? 

So I just used Blackberries. But you can totally use anything you want for the filling. 

Basically for the filling, you just put the fruit, in my case blackberries, in a pan turned on low with butter, a little sugar and lemon juice if you want. The filling is so yummy! 

I made Lee a banana one the other night... {his request... it sounded yucky to me ;) } 

He thought it was pretty good.

 But lately he's been putting a little lunch meat in his or just eating it plain. 

One thing I need to work on is getting my crepe a little bit thinner.

Mine seems rather thick... {it's not supposed to be like a pancake} Ha

Also, this recipe calls for two teaspoons of vanilla {hence the title, vanilla crepes}

I loved incorporating vanilla into these! It's such a unique yummy taste for a crepe!

obviously my pics aren't too spectacular... photography is still on my list of things to work on! ;)

I'm excited to try these with red raspberries... but the blackberries are delish too! 

Click here for the recipe

Happy crepe making! ;) 

My 20th Birthday

So yesterday was my birthday. 

Lee had such a fun, relaxing day planned for me. 

He's such a sweet boy! 

He took me to the Naples Zoo! 

We've both been dying to go to the zoo... so I was super excited! 

The zoo was not too large in size one but it was gorgeous & it was all-inclusive. Which meant that all the shows/cruises/activities were all included with admission!

We loved watching the shows {we went to just about every one of them ;) } 

They were really neat and super informative {which was always boring as a kid, but super exciting to learn  awesome things about animals as an adult}

Anyways, we had so much fun &

 it was so wonderful spending the whole day with the one that I love:

I didn't take too many pictures, just because we were having too much fun,

 but here's some of my favorites: 

{aww their kissing}

What a happy birthday :) 

Thanks hubby!

6 months of marriage

Yesterday was our 6 MONTH anniversary. 

I can't believe its been that long!
It has seriously been the best time of our lives,
I love him so much

Lee planned out a wonderful day for us, 

we had a ton of fun, plus the weather was beautiful. {kind of like it is everyday here :) }

here's some pictures from our great day: 

{taking the trolley down to the beach!}

{the water temperature was 84 degrees... perfect if you ask me!}

{this was so cool... there's so much wildlife on this beach!}

after the beach, we went to an extremely fancy movie theatre...

 {one that we will probably not go to again for a LONG time... it was extremely pricey}

but it WAS the nicest one we've EVER been to!

the chairs sooo comfortable. 

i want one for our appt! ha ;) 

they were HUGE fluffy leather chairs. 

and we even got delicious pizza to eat IN the movie. how cool!

_____________________________

what a wonderful day with my very best friend

he never fails to amaze me 

:)

Lemon Blueberry Muffins

I found this recipe a while back on my old volleyball coach, Amy's, blog:
 {ameliagrazia.blogspot.com}
& had it saved until we got an apartment ;) 

She had gotten it from Joy Ever After's Lemon Blueberry Muffins

When I first read about these I LOVED the idea of combining lemon and blueberry-

So last night I convinced lee we needed to go out and get all the ingredients for them 

{not that they required anything unusual, we just didn't have basic stuff like flour, baking powder, etc}

Anyways, I made them this morning & I think they turned out fairly well! 

This was the first time I used our oven-

 I've been doing ALL my cooking on the stove, 

so I was excited to use it ;)

Although I had originally FOUND the recipe on Amy's blog... I failed to actually re-read some things that she had suggested and I just used the link that directly took me to the recipe.

 Oops. I wish I had re-read what she wrote. 

Basically she had said to actually use the correct amount of yo-gurt in these, but of course, that was the ONE thing I just estimated.

So I thought they were going to be a little dry... just because I didn't think I had put enough yo-gurt, but honestly they weren't bad.
{I will probably add a tad more yo-gurt next time tho}

&& I totally agreed with the other comment she had said about using MORE lemon zest. 

Like I said, I should have of read her critiques first!

But nonetheless, they turned out quite yummy.

Lee even liked them! {he wasn't originally as excited as i was about the recipe ;) }

We both ate these up rather quickly

& I will definitely be making these again.

So, thank you Amy for the yummy post! :)


Hope you all had a good week!

My mom

Everyday I'm alive I think of a million reasons why I love my mom, 

and, well, in honor of mothers day I decided to write about them

I have hands down the best mom in the world.

I have never met anyone as caring, kind, self-sacrificing, or loving as her 

She is a pure example of Christ 

She is a giver 

She is a helper 

My mom listens, she gives me irreplaceable advice, she comforts me 

There is no one I am more eager to talk to:

She gets excited about things that I'm excited about 

even the ridiculous things, like finding a whole foods store or discovering a smoothie recipe :) 

ha 

She loves me for who I am, 

NOT what she wants me to be 

She supports me, she encourages me in everything I do

She is a friend that doesn't leave, she's always there 

Our relationship doesn't fade over time, it only grows 

Distance never separates us no matter how far apart we are

My mom is a funny lady,

We laugh together all the time

Some of my best times- have been with her :) 

My mom brings such joy into my life, I'd be lost without her 

Thank you God for a mother full of unconditional love

Thank you for putting a tangible direct example of You in my life

Thank you for a mother who has prayed and loved me unconditionally

 my entire life

My hope is to one day be a mother like her, 

to give my children a life so filled with love- 

so filled with Christ's love

Thank you God for a beautiful mother 

So, to the best mom any girl could ever dream of having-

I love you

.there are no words great enough to express my thankfulness for you.

Out & About

Last night, Lee and I went to P.F. Changs (our first time!!) 

We've heard great things about this place-
 and we were excited to see that our town has one!

It was super good... a little different then we had expected, but excellent nonetheless 

Its a Chinese restaurent... we were thinking it would be a large buffet
 (or maybe we were hoping ;) 

but it was actually a sit-down, semi-fancy place

I really liked the feel of it- 

it was a bit smaller then we thought it would be too, but it was a really nice place 

I got Lo Mein w/ chicken.. yum! It was delish 

And they have this excellent sauce that they bring out and make for you... it was so so good   

                                             

We went to see 'Water for Elephants' last night. 

EXCELLENT movie. 

We loved it!

have any of you seen it? 

_______________________________________________________

Today, we went to the Village at Venetian Bay... there really cute little shops. 

There's a lot of little shopping places around here- 

there so fun to look at! 

These sort of had a European feel... really pretty! 

There were lots of pretty flowers- 

and we found this really sweet ivy covered building (love those!)

{ lee was such a good sport about me taking TONS of pictures of random things ;) }

After our little stroll through the Village,

 we checked out the mall for the first time. 

It was huge! 

I was hoping so bad that they would have a Forever 21 {my fave store!}

And they DO!

So of course I dragged Lee in with me :) 

I got a super cute dress and top {for great prices, of course}

Lee and I calculated that this was the first time I have bought any clothing in something like:
 SEVEN MONTHS!

So this was definitely exciting... 

I'll post soon what I got w/ pics :)

Anyways,

Hope you all had a marvelous Saturday! 

Isn't the weekend so relaxing and wonderful after a week of work?!

:) 

'Lucky'

One thing I love is when were at a random place (i.e. a store, in the car, basically anywhere) and our first dance wedding song comes on the radio, 

I always get a rush of romantic giddy feelings

One time I had walked into Kohl's to go to the bathroom and it came on 

I was so happy, I just danced around the store like a little girl, singing every word & stalling so I wouldn't have to go into the bathroom until the song was over..

(ha pathetic, i know) 

it came on the radio today while we were driving... 

you can imagine how excited i got 

we both sang along and enjoyed every second of it!

:) 

every time I hear it, I get to re-live a tiny part of our special day 

I am oh so lucky to be in love with my best friend 

:) 

via instagram

hope your weekend was wonderful!

{and sunny!}

:)