Home Sweet Home

SO, I had the BEST weekend in tally, BUT all the pics are on my actual camera so I'm going to blog on it when I get my cord back.  Service Scholars, Gamma Phi,Church, best friend time.... It was a perfect weekend.  So stay tuned fora recap!

In the meantime, I literally had the most FUN, kid like day yesterday!  Robbie (my lil bro) and I were home and carless (since I flew into town instead of driving), both parents at work, so we had to get creative to entertain ourselves!

So, we decided to play tennis, but to get there, we had  to ride our bikes! LOL!  So we round up 2 bicycles, found an air pump, and were on our way!

I am literally obsessed with Robbie.  He is my CLONE and we have either a WONDERFUL time together or one of ends up hugely upset.  We are SO competitive its like a joke.

While most siblings could play a friendly game or two, we looked up the rules and decided to play the conventional best 2 out of 3 sets with a set being first to 6 games....  Needless to say we played over 30 games over half of which went into multiple rounds of deuce 

First set Robbie won 6-2.  Second set I won 6-3 and last set....... (kill me) Robbie won 6-4.  I threw a literal temper tantrum..... Oops!

We seriously had so much fun and played SO hard.  Mom came towards the end and got to witness my humiliating loss... She snapped our pics for us.

I am VERY VERY sore today but want Robbie to wake up so we can have a rematch.....

Can't Wait!

I seriously can NOT wait until March 17th and beyond!

I'm SO excited for the wedding weekend, all the fun festivities leading up to it, and of course THE day!  I keep visualizing myself walking down the aisle to meet Chris.... EEK I just get so excited!! All our loved ones will be there standing up there with us and in the audience.  My 2 favorite pastors will marry us.  The beach will be minutes away and the bay steps away.  The venue will be heavenly and decorated like I dream of it.  My 12 best friends will be waiting up there for me too; during the ceremony they will be pledging to play a part in this marriage: To always encourage me to be the wife that points Chris to Christ.  And they'll look gorgeous in their LulaKate dresses :)

But more than the excitement for all the wedding festivities, I am beyond excited to become MARRIED to my best friend, soul mate, and Partner in Christ, Chris!  I am excited to share my entire life with him.  I'm excited to serve Jesus by his side.  He is such a blessing and I'm not sure I could ask for a more Jesus-Seeking Man! 

As I begin a season of more heavy wedding planning, I pray I focus even more energy on becoming the daughter of Jesus I'm meant to be and in that, I will becoming a better wife-to-be!

Prayers during this time would mean so much! Pray that Chris and I continue to seek Christ and our identity in Him first.  Then that we would learn to love each other deeply and wholly!

Thank you all so much!

Gamma Phi Beta

This Friday, coincidentally 11-11-11, was our Founders Day.  It was my first time participating in it as an alum.  I joined the ladies in the Gamma Phi Beta Alumni Chapter of Louisville for a Founders Day Luncheon.  This year it was held in the house of a sister who was a graduate of Syracuse University.  It was a lovely afternoon with yummy food and good conversation.

Thankfully, I'm lucky enough to have an FSU Gamma Phi Alum here in Louisville with me.  Christin and I had fun at the luncheon

Saturday reminded me what a blessing Gamma Phi Beta has been to me.  it has had such an effect on not only my college career, but no has made moving to Louisville so much easier.

This was my first picture as a Gamma Phi.

Initiation day

Graduation 

Gamma Phi has been such a blessing to me! Happy 137th Birthday Gamma Phi!

Cookin' Up a STORM!

In the past couple of weeks I have made multiple home made dinners!

The absolute BEST PART has been making my mommas homemade bread! She bought us THE Bread Machine and we've been using the kits we made when she was here.  It's SO easy and SO yummy! The whole house smells good.

Mom started a blog for me here: http://advicefrommamalinda.blogspot.com/ and on it she writes recipes for me.  Our favorite is the Italian Veggie Soup.  YUM! We've made it a few times!

But besides mom's blog, we've lived off of Pintrest recipes:

1) (This is Chris's Fav):  Baked Butter Garlic Crumbed Chicken, Green Beans, and Red Potatoes.

The recipe is here! SO yummy!

2) Creamy Chicken Vegtable Soup-  This is SO yummy to me and it's a CROCK POT recipe :)

The recipe is here!

3) Mac N Cheese- Another Crock Pot Recipe

Recipe here!

4) Spinach, Chicken and Cheese Pasta Dish

Recipe is here!

5)  S'more Bars! SO YUMMY!!!  By far my favorite :)

The recipe is here! You HAVE to make it!

So ya!  We've been well fed recently and now have lots of left overs.....

Happy Wednesday!

Annabelle ACED 1st Grade

Annabelle is officially a graduate!  She graduated the "Beginner" class at Petsmart this week!  

She was quite the pupil if I do say so myself :)  The past 6 weeks, every Tuesday, Chris, Anna and I get in the car and go to "Annabelle's School" for an hour of lessons.  Then immediately following, we go to Chick fil A for a post school treat! (Actually there are NO Chick fil A's remotely close and since we've already traveled the 20 min to PetSmart, we decided we should take advantage of the Chick fil A across the street while we could.

Such a fun mid week treat :) )

At "School" Anna learned to 

sit,

stay,

lie down

"Leave It" which means I put a treat in front of her, say "leave it" and she doesn't eat it until I say "take it"

"Take It"

Come

AND she got a boyfriend, Gus.  It was true love!

What she still needs so much help on is

Off

and dealing with separation anxiety...

Besides those 2 things she's perfect!  We're so blessed to have such a wonderful baby girl.  Annabelle is a gift!

Halloween!!

We celebrated Halloween to the FULLEST this year.

First off, we carved some SERIOUS pumpkins.  Chris got this kit that included patterns and special tools to help carve a perfect pumpkin.  We owned it.  Annabelle definitely helped us :)

The finished products were awesome (I think at least)!  Definitely my best pumpkin I've ever made :)

Friday night, Chris's dental class had a Halloween party!  They rented out the top portion of a local bar and it was seriously undergrad socials all over again!!  We dressed up like "farmers". People thought we were trying to be Kentuckians!!  OOPS!

Anyways it was SUCH a fun night.  My bff from Bella Bridesmaids was there with her fiancee and so I got to meet all of her girlfriends. Loved them!  I also got to meet all Chris's friends a lil more... Everyone was seriously dressed up! So much fun!

Then on the ACTUAL Halloween night, we went over to Chip and Lauren's , sat around a pit fire, and handed out candy to the trick or treaters.  Perfect night!