We're going to be out of the loop, but...........

We are almost all packed and about to head out to Arkansas to see Brandon's side of the family for a week. So, since we are not going to be posting for a while, we thought we'd share some links of some good reading for all of you. Brandon's parents barely have reception so we'll see if we can log in at all!

BTW......Brandon is speaking on the Internet campus this weekend (via video) on Saturday, Dec 29th at 7 pm (central) and Sunday December 30th at 10:00 and 11:30 am (central). Hope you can check it out!!!

Here are the links:

Solar Crash-Faith

Robin Meadows- Lessons from.....
(I really liked the 5pt. series "Lessons from my husband"

Cindy Beall- a story about forgiveness
(this is a 5 pt. series about Cindy and Chris' marriage- get your kleenex's out!)

Anne Jackson (AKA Flowerdust)- confessional
(pretty much anything Anne writes is open, honest and thought provoking)

Swerve-40 lessons from a 40 yr old pastor by Craig Groeshel.

See ya next year!!! Happy New Year!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Hey! I hopped on for a bit to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! We are about to head over to my sisters house for some bunco, yummy lunch, and great quality family time. Hope you are having a wonderful Christmas too!!

BTW......Elf and the Original Grinch won for favorite Christmas movie on our quiz.

I AM LEGEND

If you haven't seen I am Legend- go see it this weekend! The visual effects are amazing, the acting is top notch (and the dog is included in that!). It was a very intense movie that left us thinking about a lot of things. We thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Have you already seen it? What did you think?

It really is better to give than receive......right?

I'm a gift giver. I love trying to find the perfect gift. Something that is sentimental but maybe didn't cost a pretty penny. I love planning in my head how I will wrap it up with ribbons and bows. I love making gifts as well. I love thinking that I have found the "perfect" gift for someone. I enjoy the "hunt". I enjoy seeing their face when they open it. I just love giving gifts!

One story I remember was from my first year of marriage. Brandon's family drew names for the first time. I was so nervous being new into the family. I ended up drawing Brandon's mom's name to buy for. I thought long and hard about what to get. What would make her love her daughter in law even more? I ended up buying her the Tombstone DVD because I had heard her mention it before. She opened it up and teared up. I was so surprised. It was just a movie, right?She said that it meant a lot to her that I had really listened to her. I felt like a million bucks and needless to say, the family accepted me as their own because I made Mama bear happy:) I remember that day so clearly because I felt so proud and happy. I know I had made her day.

Another story I have is of a girl who received a wonderful purse one year. It was expensive and leather. She had mentioned she wanted a "Coach" purse and that's what it was. She opened it up wondering what it was and exclaimed "Thank you!.....but that's not the one I wanted". She crushed the person who gave it to her. They felt hurt and wished they had not wasted time and money on something not appreciated. I know that story because (and I hate to say) that girl is me and I still remember that from 18 yrs ago. Granted, I was in high school, but what a brat I was! I was not a good gift receiver at all!

I LOVE to give, but when I receive I tend to put expectations on it and it make it no fun for the giver. This is something I am working on. Brandon has such a hard time buying for me because I am picky. I can make him a list but I tell him exactly what I want without any room for surprises. Maybe it's the control freak in me. With the Christmas "gift" season next week, I just wanted to reflect on how you should not act when you open a gift:( I need to work on my expression and what I say (seriously).

Do you love to give gifts? Is it hard for you to buy for people? Do you like surprises? What's on your wish list this year? Would you say you are a better giver or receiver?

Christmas Traditions?

I was talking with a friend the other day about what we always did for Christmas when I was growing up. It's amazing how we think the way our family did things is the way it should be for everyone or it's just not Christmas!

With our family changing and growing each year, we decided we want to start some family traditions of our own to share with the boys. Things that they can talk about when they are older and telling people about what they always did.

So far, this is year 1 for a real tree (see previous post on this), year 2 for making sugar cookies and decorating them, and year 3 for getting hot chocolate and going to look at lights. They may not seem like a big deal to you but to a 5 and 8 yr.old, the lights thing has been huge! In fact, Ethan thinks we should only get hot chocolate when we look at lights- no other time of year!! (what a sacrifice for me:)

One tradition we have and ALWAYS WILL have is teaching them that Christmas is celebrated to honor Christ's birth! It's not about the presents or even the fun things I mentioned above but it's about our savior.

Did you do some fun things growing up? My mom bought us one ornament a year and put our names on it with the year. When we got married, we got all of our ornaments to start our tree with. I still use them and am carrying this tradition on with my kids.

So- what traditions does your family partake in? Any ones you are wanting to start? What makes Christmas special for you? Please share!

The blogosphere

It seems that a lot of people are writing/reading blogs these days. I love it- it's a great way to connect with friends and strangers alike. I do however have a few questions for those in the blogosphere.......

How many blogs do you subscribe to/have on your reader?

What are your top 3-5 favorite blogs?

Do you have a blog? if so- why/when did you start one? how often do you post?

Enquiring minds what to know!! I realize we do not have many readers but I'd love to hear from all of you:)

Date night, Disney store and the Denver Broncos

We had a fun date last night. We first went to BJ's....every time I try something new there I love it. We also enjoyed a chocolate chunk pizookie (Which is from heaven I'm sure) while watching our Broncos get beat:(

Then we headed to the mall because I HAD to get some stuff for my lifepacks. I picked 2 girls thinking it would be fun to buy for a female but boy I was wrong. I could have picked out stuff for boys in about 2 minutes. In fact, I saw several things I wanted to get for my boys. The girls on the other hand made me stress out! Lord, I pray right now for the girl we adopt to have patience with me!!

Then we saw the movie Enchanted and I truly loved it. It was a clean, sweet movie that had a great message with it about relaxing and enjoying your spouse and being spontaneous.

We're getting ready for the snow storm that comes in tonight. What are your weekend plans? If you have some free time- check out BJ's and the movie Enchanted:)

Merry Christmas?!

Drummer boy RETURNS

LifeChurch.tv does a few things well. One thing you cannot miss this Christmas season is the song drummer boy. Trent Austin, the worship pastor at the LifeChurch.tv Edmond Campus, brings this song every Christmas season. Well, it is back. You can catch it on the Edmond Campus or on the Internet Campus (Channel 2). Here is just a little taste!

Oh, the weather outside is frightful!!

We had our first "ice storm" for this season in Oklahoma today. It snows, goes through a layer of heat to melt, then hits another layer and re-freezes. Let's just say it's COLD outside! Thank the Lord that we still have power!! I don't mind staying inside when we have power and movies and a fire:) I'm hoping the kids are out of school tomorrow. I'm going to go start the fire and make some cocoa.....I'm dreaming of a white Christmas!!

So- what's your Sunday been like?

Lifechurch.tv December event

We just finished a 4 day "December event" with the staff at Lifechurch.tv. It was exhausting and amazing at the same time. We kicked it off on Tuesday with all the campus pastors and the team leaders dinner. It was very humbling to be in the room with some incredible leaders! On Wednesday we split up from our spouses and the women talked about our strengths from strengths finder while the men talked about leadership and brainstormed ideas. Then we met back up to have a marriage seminar with Kim Kimberling. It was REALLY good!

Wednesday night kicked off our all staff event. We had dinner and then heard from Perry Noble. It was SO refreshing hearing from someone outside of our church. He was hilarious too so that helped us all just relax and take in what he was saying. he is the Senior pastor of NewSpring church in Anderson, South Carolina.

Thursday, we had spouses look at spiritual gifts while the staff met with their teams. The spouses also had an opportunity to hear from some veteran spouses. It was really neat hearing all the things they have learned. We then had heard from Craig and he brought it home (as usual). After lunch, things digressed (ha ha) and we had the talent show. We truly do have amazing talent at lifechurch!! Then we heard from all the DLT (directional leadership team) members. It was interesting seeing how they are so very different men but all with the same focus and vision. I love being able to trust and believe in the leadership of our church!!!

That night we went to the Coca cola center and had a delicious meal. We were surprised to have Aranda play for us. It was a blast just cutting loose and dancing to our hearts content! The pics on here are from this.

Friday morning kicked off several workshops. I took Brandon's quickshop first which was "Mastering the Bible". It was really good (and I'm not just saying that since I'm his wife!). I then went to Terry and Robin Storch's quickshop about blogging.

We met back up with the staff and heard a message from Craig about the year to come and then had another delicious lunch. The whole weekend we were re-connecting with old faces and meeting new ones as well. The staff is up to 235 which is so crazy because I remember meeting at Craig's house the first year we were on staff. The next year we had a back room at a steak house. Man, times have changed!

We feel so blessed that God has placed us at Lifechurch.tv! We are enjoying the ride. Check out the pics here. They will continue to be updated throughout the weekend!

The Golden Compass

THE GOLDEN COMPASS....I must start off this post stating that Brandon and I are sort of still in discussion on this one. When we first saw the previews, we were both looking forward to seeing this movie (and even considered bringing our 7-yr. old along with us!). We went to the bookstore and Brandon wanted to read the series before the movie because in his mind the book is always better. A friend of our told us about the authors' religious views. We decided to hold off and do a little research.

It wasn't too much later that we started getting bombarded with e-mails about the movie (and believe me they were not good reviews!). I've looked into it and they are not rumor- they are true. Check out what SNOPES has to say about the writer and his views and intentions.

Remember when I mentioned above that Brandon and I are in a little bit of disagreement on this one? Brandon just doesn't want to blanketly say we will not see it because an atheist wrote it. I mean, how many movies do we see written by people we have no idea about? Personally, I don't want to see it at all. In fact, I refuse to. I just can't support something that is totally against what I believe. I guess I'm kind of a black and white kind of girl. I also don't want to subject our kiddos to confusion. Besides, I heard the movie was way too scary for kids. Why not spend the time instead on things I DO believe in???

So, are you going to see the movie? What are your thoughts on this? Please share!!

We got our first real Christmas tree!!

Ok....so funny story. You know I always have a story, huh? Well, we decided we wanted a real tree this year. Our old artificial one broke last year but we had used it for 10 yrs (and it was a cheapy one, believe me). I decided I didn't want a real one from Wal-Mart so I did a search online and searched for Christmas Tree nurseries. 4 Total came up. 3 in the Tulsa area (too far away) and 1 in Purcell (which was do-able).

So, we picked up the kiddos from school and went on our Christmas tree adventure. It was really fun! We found the "tree farm" and believe me- they had MANY choices! They had 6 different types of trees and then they had many different sizes in each type. We went with the Virginia Pine that has very soft bristles. We all took turns chopping it down.

As I was paying for the tree, the lady said "so, what brought you all the way down here?" I told her I found out about them online. She replied "oh, well there's a place in OKC and in Midwest City" (which are both half the distance that Purcell was). We decided the adventure was worth the drive and might even make it a family tradition.

We are loving the smell of Pine in our house actually and so far it's looking very lively. We've started a tradition that I'm pretty sure will continue for years.

Do you use a real tree? An artificial one? How long have you had yours? Any tree stories you'd like to share??

If you are looking for a place, I recommend the tree farm in Purcell where you actually get to chop down your own tree!!

Traditions vs obedience

Mark 7:9 -And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!

We hold so hard to our traditions that we confuse them with the commands of God. I have been leading an Internet Campus at LifeChurch.tv for the last 1 1/2 years. It has forced me to define what is the true church and what is just our traditions. I don't want to dishonor God, and at the same time I never want to limit how we spread His gospel to the world. I have found that our man-made traditions can be a powerful thing, and they can so easily be labeled as God's design. Being clear on the distinction between God's commands and our traditions is a worthy goal.

HIV infections higher than what we first thought

An article from Time, indicates that Federal health officials are revising their estimate of how many people are infected by HIV each year. Some say the number could rise by 35 percent or more.

Looks like the Aids policies we have been incorporating are not doing the job. The documentary, Miss HIV, looks at the war of ideologies and policy-making in Africa. You can also be a part of the conversation at Ethnographic.tv. Maybe there is a better way than only pushing condoms for HIV prevention...