stuff

We finished off Christmas celebrating last weekend with a trip to the Dallas area to have Christmas with the Essex clan at his Aunt's house. It was a fantastic weekend. Even with the hardest bed ever, we had a great time!

We got some great stuff. Wonderful luggage to take skiing next week, some fantastic kitchen gadgets for me. John Paul got a quilt that his mom made for him. A nice brown and black argyle. It's really pretty, i'll take a pics at some point.

I'm spending New Years in Tulsa alone. JP went home for a party with "The Group" The people he's been friends with since the 4th grade. I'm bummed I'm not going to be there with him, but he had to take his car to OKC to get it fixed, so it made the most sense.

I've been having a fantastic evening putting all my CDs on my computer to put on the new MP3 player i got with my christmas money, as well as I made a trip to the knitting store. I got some great yarn and I'm hoping to make a scarf for skiing!!

Tommorow I'll be packing up my bag to head to CO. (we leave Sunday) I'm so excited!!! I'm not even going to worry about hurting myself!!

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

This is the most different Christmas I've ever experienced. John Paul is still sleeping soundly in bed. Instead of getting up early and helping Dad make a big breakfast before mom gets home, I just made some biscuits, from a box no less. No eggs, sausage, gravy or the other fixings of Christmas past. No unwrapping of gifts for that matter either.

Last night John Paul took me out to a FANCY steak dinner for Christmas. I've been asking to go out for a meal there for about a year, so it was a thoughtful gift. The steak was great, the appetizer cheese tray was wonderful, but the best part was the lava cake. *drools* They bake it fresh for you. So, you have to order it when you get your food. What a treat!

When John Paul gets up, He'll open his one gift, and we will lay around the rest of the day. We brought home leftovers from the Christmas dinner at my house last weekend, and tomorrow we will head down to Texas to have Christmas with his family at his aunt's house.

Even though there's no breakfast and stacks of presents today, I know it will be a great day. We will play with the Wii my mom gave us last weekend, and spend some no pressure to do anything else time together. What a treat!!!

Merry Christmas, and may your days be filled with peace and love!

the only little kids who like me, and their sister who doesn't

So, these are the Clift twins. They will be 3 in June. They belong to a couple who I went to church with in Chickasha, as well as the husband was one of my favorite high school teachers. Mr. Clift (he taught math in case you had him)

When I was a senior, his wife Lisa had a miscarriage, and I could see on her face week to week the pain that she was going through. So I began to pray that God would bring a child into their life. 3 years later, He brought the boys, Aaron and Jacob to the Clifts.

They are such a reminder that God does hear our prayers and answers. It may not be in our timing, or exactly how we expected, but He is loving and faithful.

So every time I see the boys it is a really happy time. The Clifts came up to the farm show and they took us out to dinner. They have a baby sister who was born in March. She doesn't really like me, but that's ok. There are 2 little boys who think I'm pretty neat.

They came over to the house before dinner, and we played and wrestled for about 45 minutes. I had a great time, other than they were sooooooo loud! Talking to Lisa after dinner she said I'd be a great mom, and that was just crazy and scary.

Since Friday night I've been having I'm going to be/am a mom nightmares. It's aweful. I'm so glad a lot of wonderful people out there are excited about being a mom, but I'm just not one of those people.

So, I guess the main thought is God is good, it's exciting to be loved, but I'm not ready for little ones yet!

I had a day, and I won $100!

So Friday was a great day. Things went good at work, John Paul came to visit me while I was there. We accepted a job offer for him, and it was exciting. After work I hung out with my crazy friend Ellen, and had a great time. We met a friend of hers for a drink then went to the City of Tulsa's christmas party for their employees. (Ellen works for the parks dept.) Well, they had a drawing and I won the grand prize $100. It would have been an awesome day anyway, but man the money lifted my spirits!



The next day John Paul and I went to the gun show in town and spent it and more getting me my very own revolver and most everyone we were lacking's Christmas gifts. We had a great time together. I love the weekends when we get to spend more than 5 minutes together!

To cap the weekend off, I went to a women's ministry christmas party. Instead of dirty santa gifts we did a cookie exchange with the same rules. It was so much fun! The men's ministry group served us tacos (good even with fake hamburger) I got a really yummy gooey bar recipe. I thought I'd share since I could lol

Magic Cookie Bars

1 3/4 Stick margarine
2 C Graham cracker crumbs
12 Oz Chocolate chips
2 C Coconut
2 C pecans
2 cans sweetened condensed milk

Melt margerine in a 9 X13 pan in oven. Sprinkle grahms into melted butter. Mix well and pat down evenly in bottom of pan. Next layer chocolate, coconut, then pecans. Top with Sweetened condensed milk.

Bake at 350 for 25 mins

Cool or refrigerate before cutting into squares.

yummy gooey goodness!

Christmas time is coming to town...

Life has been crazy the last month or so!

I looked over my camera to see what interesting things I could show for my big lack of blogging lol!

I went to Stillwater for about 24 hours over homecoming weekend. It was a great time with old friends. I left before the game to avoid traffic. Little did I think I would be LEAVING when everyone else was coming. It was soooo good to see seas of people wearing orange. For never having school spirit before in my life, it's strange to miss orange as much as I do. lol!


This is the only picture I have from the reception at home. John Paul's dad took some great pictures. I need to have him make us a copy. If we look tired, it's because we were. My parents did a wonderful job helping set up! I'm so lucky to have them. Hopefully they feel the same about us.

We aren't very decorative around our house. We did get a decoration from John Paul's grandma. It plays music and lights up. Someone suggested we take it out of the box, but it's tree shaped this way. We weren't planning on getting a tree.
Until, I went to wal-greens. These cute little guys were dry as a bone and all squished on a shelf. I had to do a plant rescue mission. It hurts me to know those little guys I left behind would probably wilt away if they didn't have the strong cellulose structures making it rigid.
In other news, Tuesday we celebrated 2 months being married. Well, we said happy two months lol!

We got a sleep number bed about a month ago. It's fabulous!! I really am sleeping better. Mostly it's the bed, and a little bit it's I'm now used to fighting over the covers and rolling over into someone in the night lol

Thanksgiving was fun. We survived 2 meals, and enjoyed spending time with our families. We did have to leave kind of early because I got to work the big day after thanksgiving sale. Luckily I had what I thought was the best job in the store. I got to hand out the high demand items to people after they had purchased them. Not only did I avoid the stress of a register, I was able to make sure that the stock stayed correct!

I am learning my happiness in marriage is directly related to how many piles of stuff there are. The first month was pretty rough, but i got the thank yous sent, and then was able to sort organize and store the abundance of gifts we received. They last boxes went to the shed last week, and it's soooo much better to live in this tiny house. At least it's full of love!

New stuff!!

So, I love our little house, but I must emphasize that after the outpouring of love through wedding gifts our poor little house wants to explode. I thought about taking pictures, but the stress of piles of stuff isn't something I wanna relive lol!

I did make great strides in organizing all this great stuff because last weekend John Paul's dad came up to go to the gun show with John Paul. I didn't want to be embarassed so I kicked it into high gear. Didn't get it done, but the stress level is way less!!

The exciting news is while he was up here we went shopping. John Paul's parents wanted to buy us a sleep number bed, so we went and ordered one of those, as well as used some gift cards to get bedding too!

The best purchase of the day had to be this!

Quite an upgrade from the 13 inch one from the dorm. It's hard to tell, but it's 32 inch. We feel like the most blessed people in the world. Well, minus that John Paul is stressing about school,but it's the end of the semester and everything just keeps piling up!

it's all over, but the thank yous....

so, we survived the reception. it went way better than I had expected, and gladly I'm not having the anxiety issues with the gifts as I had thought.

Instead of freaking out over where to put stuff, John Paul and I are both humbled by the fact that so many people thought enough of us to get us so much NICE stuff!! We are truely blessed!!!

I think I just have o, 50-60 thank yous left to write, not sure how many addresses I need to track down. One person we both didn't know, but knew both of our parents was very sweet and included their address in the card. it was an awesome idea. I'm stealing it!!!

John Paul went to Houston yesterday for a job interview, and he won't be back until Friday night., The house feels big and lonely without him. i can't wait til he gets back. it was so hard to walk away from the security line when I left him at the airport!

Since he's gone, some of my friends are coming over for girls night. Sounds like fun, but I've gotta clean up gifts so there will be enough room for everyone to sit lol! I rented sex in the city and we are ordering pizza. I'm sure it will be a blast, can't wait for them to get here!!!

long time no post

Sorry it's been awhile. Life has been a bit crazy to say the least.

I've been all over doing all sorts of fun stuff, and am just to tired to catch everyone up lol!

Last weekend we made a quick trip home. John Paul's mom wanted him to clean his room, and his little brother was on fall break.

We came back to Tulsa and the next day I went to OSU homecoming. By saying I went to homecoming, don't think I went to the game, just the fun evening before stuff. I stayed my first night away from my new hubby. It was sad, but fun.

John Paul has been busy interviewing for jobs. There was a big career fair before we got married so he's been busy following those leads. He's stressed out by all the things he needs to be doing, but he's doing a great job getting stuff done. I'm proud of him!

This weekend we are going home for the big reception. We are leaving town after JP takes a big test on Saturday. So, it will be a whirlwind trip home.

Sorry it took so long, but maybe life will quiet down a little bit in the coming weeks? With the holidays approaching I'm not to optimistic lol!!

Family!!

John Paul and I met the cousins down in OKC and
had a great time at Incredible Pizza. Here's the few pictures I took. I must say Roger and Mack do look related!! Had a blast, I'm so glad we could get together!!