Project 365

March 9th

My daughter Gracious & I at her class Valentine Ice-Cream Social!

March 11th

Girls Retreat - I took a group of 15 girls to my friend's Girls Retreat she hosts at her church. It was an AMAZING EVENT and those girls and their stories bring tears to my eyes even now. I love watching a girl hear God for the first time & realizing it's REAL. The above photo is me and my two group leaders that tagged along and got kept up that night :)

March 12th

We got to bed by 2:15 AM but still arose ready to hear more from God. Here is a picture of our group at the end of this fantastic journey.

March 14th

If you read my previous post you know that we unexpectedly took a trip to see my in-laws. So I was a bit distracted during this week...well this month so don't expect a picture from everyday or perhaps that week :/. However even though I'm not in it here is a picture of the sunrise over my husband's home ranch.

March 15th

It is my birthday. However due to plans we postponed my "party" plans for another time and instead I played in the snow piles with my kids, cooked for my in-laws, visited with some aunts I rarely see and ate chocolate cake they brought - not to mention enjoyed gazing at the flowers they also brought. My favorite flower is a Lilly. And they just happened to have brought me some :)

My class is done!! Woohoo!

To celebrate my class FINALLY being over (for quite awhile too) I'm going to attempt to catch up on my Project 365! Hey don't laugh...it's possible. (sheepishly) Right?

Well we'll find out. Here's the first set:

February 14th

We celebrated the Friday night before since we were both working on Valentine's Day but I had to take a picture with my honey anyways today! Cuz he's my BABE!

February 16th

This lil guy is a Sugar Glider - our new CrossFire mascot! (Not really - but a teen owns him and brings him so we can play every Wednesday night :) )

February 17th

I wish I wasn't behind on photos so some of them like the one above could be bigger for you. I have said on here before that mu hubby REALLY is a good photographer - he has a very creative eye. I came up with this shot (as we finished a Domino game) however he had to pull it off and he did MORE than pull it off don't you think?

February 19th

We are on the Speed the Light Walk to Drive Event with some teens from our youth group - we are walking 5K to raise money for missionaries! The above photo is a tile mural in one of the tunnels on the waterway where we walked. The picture below is some of my walking buddies.

February 21st

I finished the month long boot camp at Gold's Gym and have now started some P90X a couple times a week as I figure out what workout schedule I want next - so I thought I'd celebrate with a Muscle Picture!

February 22nd

Okay so this picture is at like 11:30 p.m. - I had spent the last three hours making horse cupcakes for Cowboy Day at Gracie's school to only have a major disaster at the end and they not turn out! GRRRRRRRR! None-the-less I got a photo of my annoyance.

February 23rd

Cowboy Day at Gracie's school!

February 26th

If you can believe it, weeds are already growing around here! My kids being the age they are bring mommy every flower they find (weed or not)! And it's adorable. And sweet. And cute. And it touches a mommy's heart. So I wanted to take a picture to remember it by.

February 27th

Sunday night is the night I meet with my prayer partner. Every other week we meet at Starbucks and treat ourselves to a mocha or something yummy, however the other weeks we simply call each other up. Tonight was a stay at home night but we still ended up "meeting" for like an hour and by the time I was done I had two bibles, two spiral notebooks with scriptures and prayers, my journal, an array of pens and highlighters and me! Sheesh this definitely deserved a picture!

March 2nd

Okay so you can't see me exactly but I'm sure you guessed that these are my footprints. One of the things I LOVE it watching the birds feed at our feeder in the mornings. This morning I had looked out to find it empty (hungry little things) and so tiptoed through the dew covered grass to quickly fill it back up. And lo and behold my footprints were left as a sign that I'd been there. And then I had to raise my lens a bit as my dog Menina came to see what in the world I was up to but also to capture the foggy morning it was.

March 6th

Nope, I haven't changed THAT much.

March 7th

Before you go accusing me of not following rules let me explain. I DID take this picture - and it's of myself. So what is the problem? I actually took a photo of a photo in my scrapbook for my Facebook photo challenge that I'm doing. And hey it fit the rules so why not use it? It's of me and my two cousins at the San Diego Zoo when we were probably around 12??

Okay so everyone can thank my best friend, Jaci, for me ACTUALLY catching up (I know I still have more but they are coming in separate posts - I didn't want to overwhelm you in one post). She sent me a birthday wishes email and reminded me how far behind I am in this project, and since we live a state away she told me how much she enjoys seeing the pics of me. :) I know it warmed my heart too! So I decided I'd been bad for too long and owed it at least to her. So here you are Jaci - and thank you for my sweet Birthday Wishes, I miss ya girl!

And I also realized if I switch to the smaller photos I can get these done much quicker - so are they okay or are the bigger ones worth the time? Please comment and let me know!

Oh and did you notice I got on a Sepia kick there towards the end? Guess I see my life in brownish tones right now, hmm.

I'm having withdrawals

I am so glad to announce that I will be taking my final for my college class this week and then I will have a long break until the fall! SOOO I might actually get to come back to my poor abandoned blog! I feel like I finally start getting some momentum and then I get so swamped with homework and, well the rest of my life, that I just crash and burn and then I'm left trying to pick all the pieces back up and build up my masterpiece again. Can you relate?

But since I have a moment I wanted to share an awesome writing by Charles Spurgeon that I read in my textbook.

"Jesus is more ready to pardon

than you are to sin,

more willing to supply your wants

than you are to confess them.

Never tolerate low thoughts of Him.

You may study, look, and meditate,

but Jesus is a greater Savior than

you think Him to be

when your thoughts are at their highest."

Isn't that beautiful? And this is my college class. I love attending a Christian University and am getting SO much out of my classes, not just intellectually but spiritually too.

On another note, here are a few more catch-ups from my Project 365:

February 3rd

Okay no, it's not me. We're just going to call February my forgetful month because I forgot a lot of days to take a photo of myself. However I still am a photo freak and DID capture some moments - so here is my daughter with the ONLY snowball of our winter!

February 4th

My daughter made her own HUGE snowflake at school with a massive coffee filter paper! She was so proud and it was too cute.

February 6th

SUPERBOWL!! Need I say more?

February 9th

Okay I'm back in the photos finally! On this night my daughter, who is 4, was walking around the house talking. When I stopped to ask what she was doing she informed me she was reading her bible. (which yes she was carrying a New Testament around) When I started listening, everything she said was dead on...perhaps it didn't quite form a structured sentence but the points she made were right! I was such a proud momma that night.

February 10th

Partly because he can't EVER wait to get a gift or give a gift and two because I challenged him to actually surprise me this year and NOT tell me what I was getting before I got it - I arrived home on Thursday afternoon from picking up my son from school and when I walk up to my house I find a note taped on my door. It is a clue written in my hubby's handwriting and it explains to find the next clue. I think 8 clues later and after being in and out of my house it eventually led me to my favorite reading chair where my Valentine's gift lay! It was so sweet and he knows me to a "T" because I love treasure hunts and things of the sort! He got me one of my fave movies - Avatar!!

Crunch Time

Can you tell I'm in the last couple weeks of my class?? I have passed my Mid-Term and am now in the final two week stretch of the current class I'm taking in college. Which is why I've almost been absent from my blog. However, I finished up my homework tonight and figured I could afford a quick post. And since I'm WAY behind (only like a month right?) I think I better do a few 365 of Me Project Pictures! So here are a few.

January 29th

A very good friend of mine, Jenna Hardin (yes I must brag that she is a former Miss New Mexico), got hitched to her best friend on January 29th and I was not about to miss it! It was right over the Guadalupe River in the Hill Country of Texas - divine. So I grabbed my honey and got a couple pics with the beautiful river in the background.

January 30th
My mother-in-law is too organized! She already got her Valentine's out! Man I wish I was that good.


February 2nd

I realized a lot of my pictures are taken in my kitchen. And to be honest I'm sick of seeing it in the pictures. So I cropped it out! (Smile) And if I do say so myself I look like a model in a magazine showing off the winter line (this is Texas winter but still I had to snap this picture to show I actually had to get a hat, scarf and mittens and everything out!!)

My new friend

So on a sunny Friday morning I was out front pruning my plants getting them cleaned up and ready for the hard freezes coming up. When I lifted a few dead leaves I found this little brown lizard lying there. I was stunned it hadn't darted off yet as usually as quick as you see them, they are gone. When I moved around some more and it still hadn't moved I assumed it must be dead. So I gently picked it up by the tail to add it to my trash bag but instead the little booger latched on to the stick underneath him! He was alive?! So now I assumed it was "almost" dead but figured I would give it a chance. I called my husband out first to see this lizard. Why? Because I'm weird. He apparently knew some lizard knowledge I did not. He said they are cold-blooded animals and if they can't find sunlight to warm themselves back up they will end up freezing to death.
Well, after learning this I moved him to the grass in full sunlight to see if he would warm up and survive.

You can't see it well in this photo but as he started warming up he turned GREEN! It was really cool to watch. The whole time I'm like 2 inches from him snapping photos of course and he just calmly watched my every move but still never moved. My husband again came outside to see the lizard and when he came out the commotion finally scared or jump started this lizard enough to move. Do you know where he went?

Right straight to me and up on my boots! It was insane and I've NEVER seen one do this or even get near you like this! And I've lived around these lizards my whole life!

It kept going too! It started climbing my boot so I stuck my hand by it...

And what do you know - it hopped right on like we were pals!

My husband loves this next shot he got - he said it looks like the lizard is hugging me in thanks for saving him. Hehe, I'll let you decide.

This lil guy stayed on me for near an hour! And I just enjoyed every minute of it.

(this is also my January 28th picture of Project 365 of Me)

My daughter wanted to hold it too, so we tried it...

Sure enough - no problem there either.

God gave me a sweet moment that day - I'll never forget it.

365 of Me - jumbled update

Okay it's late and I've been studying and reading for my college class, thus I feel lazy. So I'm going to update my 365 of Me Project in an un-orderly fashion. If this bugs you, close the screen now. Okay you had your chance. Here goes:

January 25th

KSBJ - our local Christian Radio Station hosted a FREE Brown Bag Concert (an outdoor concert at a Chic-Fil-A) with Brandon Heath! Woohoo! Wasn't gonna miss this one - especially since this was only 15 minutes from my home! Before the show I got a pic with the Chic-Fil-A cow!

January 27th

This is me holding my...drum roll please...My Italian Family Recipe for Minestrone Soup! One of my New Year's resolutions was to cook recipes from my family heritage cookbook (try to do one a month) and for January it was "Luisa's Minestrone" It took literally ALL day and I'm actually in my work out clothes above because I left to work out and came back to finally finish up this absolutely DELICIOUS best Minestrone soup I've ever had!!

January 20th (?I think?) Is all I remember is I was having a bad day and didn't want to take a picture so I snapped one not caring that my emotions OBVIOUSLY showed. I'm human. I'm allowed to get upset.

January 24th
Daddy was at Monday night church so it's our "kid-meal" night. We did a home-made pizza with Pioneer Woman's Pizza Crust dough recipe (tried it here for the first time). It turned out fabulous!

My little mini-cooks are great help!

January 23rd

I'm doing laundry on Sunday afternoon. Yep that's my day-to-day regular life.

January 25th

I received my Beth Moore "Siesta Memory Scripture Memory Team" spiral notebook in the mail from a fellow Siesta blogger!! Was SO excited!! Thanks Sheri! You can check out her blog here: The Leaking Window
(I HAD to let my daughter take a picture w/ me too!)

January 18th

Here was the picture I was missing because it was on my phone! It's me and Gracie at the library gettin' us some new books to read at bedtime.

And that's all I could find and download before I got too rummy to do homework anymore. They are out of order, missing days and just downright jumbled. Sorry - I'll at least apologize. But I won't change it. It is what it is. I'm tired. Goodnight.