Married to the Best Husband ever!!

Just wanted to give a shout out to the best Husband ever!! Today we are celebrating 4 years of marriage. I can't want to spend 60 more years with him!!




Love you Justin!!

Happy Birthday Justin!!

Happy Birthday to the Best Husband Ever!!



Today we are celebrating Justin's birthday!!

I am so blessed to call Justin my husband. Here is a brief list of things that I love about him...

• He loves the Lord
• He makes me laugh
• He allows me to be me
• He loves me
• He brings me fresh flowers for no reason
  
• He can create some awesome web sites... www.sixeightmedia.net
• He works 50 feet from my office
• He can dance
• He is very talented
  

If you see him today make sure you tell him Happy Birthday!!

Gobble Gobble until you Wobble Wobble!!

This year for Thanksgiving my whole family came together to celebrate - and let me say - we did some celebrating! We started the Hodges/Garcia extravaganza by traveling to my parents house. Stan (my twin) and his girlfriend drove to our house on Tuesday night (from TX) and we drove to my parent's house together on Wednesday. Once arriving at my parents we settled in and had dinner and waited for my older brother Abe and Lindsey to arrive. While traveling from Louisville, Abe and Lindsey encounter some horrendous traffic, it took them 11 hours to get to my parents (should have taken only about 8 or 9). When they got to the house we all said "hey" and then went straight to sleep.

I could type for days about all the activities we did together and all the fun we had but instead I will make a list (I love making lists)

Hung out with family
Enjoyed lots of good food
Helped a church serve Thanksgiving dinner
Played the Wii
Cooked
Had a massage
Rode the rope swing (my favorite thing)
Went shopping
Had a scavenger hunt
Made some great memories

I hope you enjoy looking at all the pics! I know that my whole family had a great time together and we are all looking forward to Christmas were we will have another Hodges/Garcia extravaganza.

Jack enjoyed the ride to my parents

Eating breakfast Thanksgiving morning.

Playing Wii- we were very intense about this game.

Tasting the turkey

This was the kids table, there are now more kids than adults...if you count people under 30-ish as kids.

My grandmother!! So sweet

My grandpa, with his great grandson (my cousin's son) - oh and they matched!

Playing corn hole

Waiting for our massages.

I am really not hurting Jack he was just smiling for the camera.

Sister!!

Waiting to start the scavenger hunt!! Justin and I really won!!!

Saturday night the girls cooked for the guys and this is what we had...

Look at this Snicker Cheese cake, not only did it look delicious but it was.

Just another pic because it was so good . Did I say that it was made from scratch?!

On Saturday we had my parents' pastor and his family over and here are some pictures of there cute kids.

It's begining to look like Thanksgiving!

I know I have been falling behind a bit on my blog updates, but my excuse is that it is just that time of year. I have lots to blog about - the trouble is finding the time to write the posts.

This is part one of my two-part Thanksgiving post.

Nothing says Thanksgiving like cute Turkey napkins.

We starting our Thanksgiving off a little early by having some friends over for a Thanksgiving dinner the weekend before the real Thanksgiving. Let me explain: a few weeks ago I was talking to my mom about our family Thanksgiving. My mom is just as over the top as I am (well, she comes up with the ideas and I do my best to get my family to participate). However, this year I too was full of ideas for our family Thanksgiving. While my mom and I talked about what we would be eating, the fun activities we would be doing, and what decor we would be having, I starting thinking about how I would set my table for Thanksgiving (that is, if we had Thanksgiving at my house.) Well, all that thinking gave me the idea to have some friends over for a "Friends Thanksgiving."

So, I started planning. My mom had given me some cute Thanksgiving-ish paper plates and I found the cutest turkey napkins on sale a few weeks ago and there was my table setting. I finished the table off with some table clothes and pumpkins as place card holders. Everyone thought of two dishes they wanted to bring and everything was set. I have to say that everything was really delicious. We ended the night hanging out and playing games.

Gotta love self timers!!!

These are the two desserts that we had that night. Not only did they both cool great they also tasted great.

I will be posting part two of mine and Justin's Thanksgiving later this week.

Christmas Card Time!!!

I love getting a great deal and I love Shutterfly, with this great offer I am getting both. Last year, Justin and I sent out Chirstmas cards for the first time, after looking all over for the best card I finially found just what I was looking for at Shutterfly.
Look at this great offer from Shutterfly, They are doing a promotion for bloggers! I loved the Christmas cards I ordered from Shutterfly last year, so when I started thinking about this year card Shutterfly was the only place I looked.
Shutterfly always has the cutest cards! I've attached some of our favorite things, including cards! This card looks like the one we orderd last year. I also really like this one and this one. Shutterfly also has the best gift ideas for everyone on your list. Our favorites are the calendars and photo books.


If you already got your Christmas cards, Shutterfly has cute cards for birthdays, moving announcements, etc. Check them out here. Also, if you are a fellow blogger and want to see more information on this amazing offer, click here!

J&A Designs

Check out this site J&A Designs.


These are friends of mine who are making handmade home accessories. They are just starting out but have been working hard to get a good inventory ready for Christmas shoppers. If you see something you like but the colors are not what you are looking for they can customize for you. I can tell you that these two are perfectionist so your products will be well made and will look great.
They just launched an online store click here to go right to it. Check out all of their wonderful products. They have great one of a kind frames, really cute magnetic boards, and cute initials

You can shop their store by clicking the link on the web site, or find them on facebook at J&A Designs.



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Book Review: Redeeming Love

This is my first book review (well I guess that is what you could call it). So here I go!

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers was one of the 12 books I got at the MC book Bazaar. To read about that click here. It was one of the first books I picked up at the book bazaar. It was also the first of the 12 books I read.

Anytime anyone saw I was reading Redeeming Love they would tell me that it was the best book ever. Friends have encouraged me to read this book for some time, but I had so many other books I wanted to read, plus I didn't have the book. Let me just say that I am not the biggest fan of Christian novels. I think it is because most of them are geared toward teenagers, or the setting is in the early 1900's or late 1800's. I personally like books that are more current, and will keep my attention. If I were completely honest I would say I like "chick books." You know what I am talking about - something set in NYC, or some other major city where the main character faces some big dilemma that always works out for the best. That is not to say I only read chick books, those are just the books that I gravitate toward.

I was a little nervous when I first started reading this book because it is not something I normally read. I knew it had to be good when Christians and non-Christians told me it was a great book.

Redeeming Love is a historical romance novel set in the 1850s Gold Rush in California. The story is inspired by the book of Hosea from the Bible. Its central theme is to portray the redeeming love of God towards sinners.

I will not be giving anything away by saying that we can do nothing that will stop God from wanting to know us as His children. This book took the story of Hosea and made it personal. It tells a story that helps all readers more clearly see how the sin in our lives can keep us from truly knowing the love of Christ.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone wanting a good love story with a deeper meaning behind it.

Happy Halloween!!

I know I am a little late posting about our Halloween events, but better late than never, right? Our Halloween weekend was really busy but really fun. I am going to let the pictures speak for themselves, but I want to give a little background. I had to come up with three different costumes this year. One for my Bunko group, another for a Halloween/Birthday party, and the last for a college small group bowling party.

I started the Halloween festivities off with a Halloween themed Bunko night. In attendance that night we had two cowboys, a bee, Hello Kitty, two doctors, Alice in Wonderland, an old lady, Mother Christmas, a spider web (me), a Stepford wife, and a spooky teacher. We had a great time and ended the night eating some really good ghost cake.



While I was at Bunko, Justin worked on our pumpkin. Last year Justin wowed me with the Southern Miss pumpkin. I was very impressed!! This year we thought long and hard about what our pumpkin should look like. We could not think of anything quite as good as last year but Justin did you a great job carving the spooky house on this years pumpkin.

This is the pumpkin that Justin carved for us last year.

This years pumpkin, bats and a scary house.

We had a Halloween/Birthday party on Saturday night, unofficially dubbed Birthoween. It was really run. We all dressed up, carved pumpkins, had cake, and watched Ghostbusters. Justin went as Steve Jobs and I went as Elle Woods.

If you didn't guess it Justin carved the Apple logo. The pumpkin that won was the Fleur De Lis. I guess there was a lot of Saints fan at the party and not as many Apple fans.

The silly string finally came out.

Singing to the Birthday girl!!

I love this pic because all the pumpkins are lined up in front of the garage.

Of, course I had to dress Jack up for Halloween. He is just too cute to not. Last year Jack was a Jack-O-Lantern, this year he was Turtle. I don't think he liked being the custom. I made him wear it all night (well not the hat but the shell). He is just too cute.


To end the Halloween weekend we had a college small group bowling party. Not only did they ask us to come dressed up, but they asked us to dress as a group. I went to Google for inspiration and found the perfect idea - we would dress up as Tetris pieces. Justin and I gathered all the materials and invited the group over on Saturday to make the costumes. I think they turned out great. We had a great time bowling with all the other small groups. I think our costumes were the best (I am not biased).

Another small group leader, oh and by the way this is not his costume. He really dresses like this.
Beth Ann showing off her bowling skills.

Sweet Lyndsey, AKA Tinker Bell!!