Shhhh!! It's a Secret!

Okay so first of all, SHHH! This is a secret!

So all of you remember when a few weeks ago I posted "Cast your vote now" about whether I should keep my current blonde hair or go with the darker brunette that I had back when.  My husband is ALL about me having dark hair again.  Thats the color it was when he met me so I'm thinking that may have something to do with it??  I know that many of you liked the blonde better (as do I currently- but I like both just fine) but he realllllly reallllly wants me to have dark hair again.  I'm doing it- I'm going to dye my hair brown.

Here are a few reasons for dying my hair.

• I already made a promise that I would have dark hair for my wedding.....&.....
• We are soon going to take some engagement style pics (I hope) and I want my hair to be the same color in those pics as my wedding day pics (make sense?)
• Its winter... now is the time to go darker... we are having a summer wedding and I think it might be weird (or just a little "emo" as daddy used to tell me) to dye my hair dark in the middle of the summer.
• Dying my hair will most likely make it look a little healthier, and is not as bad for your hair as highlighting 
• Dying hair is WAY cheaper than highlighting it. (hundreds of dollars vs. 50 dollars)
• MOST of all, I want to surprise my hubby and make him go nuts (because I know he will). ha!

So there are some of the reasons I am MAKING THE JUMP!  I just got off the phone with the hair place that I swore I would never go to again, but they always DYED my hair when it was dark and I was always happy with it.  I'm mad that I am giving them business after this terrible hair fiasco I had this summer... but a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do... and like my friend Jen said... Toni & Guy tend to be hit and miss ... hopefully today is a HIT! (I know it will be, the lady doing it has been doing one of my friends hair for almost 3 years and she has dyed mine before.)

So 2pm today I will be heading to get my new "do!" Im freakishly nervous... don't know why... maybe because I'm surprising my man, maybe because my hair is already so damaged thanks to that "terrible hair fiasco", maybe because I'm still not 100% sure that I want dark hair ... but I'm making taking the leap! 

The hubby is at work and by the time he gets home to read this he will have already see my hair and hopefully be blown away! haha Be sure to check back later today for some new pictures :) YAY!

* Let it Snow *

Well this morning I woke up to send K off to work and we were in the living room when he turned on the TV and they were talking about "Snow in North Texas..." I got all excited (thinking that it would be snowing soon) and started squealing! Last night I was not happy because other parts of Texas were getting snow but not us.  K explained to me that the weather people were crazy and that there was no way it was going to snow... and I was like no! no! there we are on the radar... it says SNOW! ha!  He again was like, nah... no way... they are nuts (or something along those lines ha) ... BUT as he was saying this, mid sentence, he glanced over toward the window... (the blinds were closed but you could barely peak through them)... gets up off the couch and walks a little closer... says "oh my!", opens the blinds and WAH-LAH! There was SNOW already covering the ground table and EVERYthing else! :) I was thrilled, him... not so much haha he just isnt a huge fan of snow.

In the midst of all that is going on I feel like the past few days I have been in one of those ruts... I think everyone spends some time there occasionally and I don't think it is necessarily a bad place to be but more of a bad place to stay.  Its a great place to be if it brings you to your knees and back to the Lord!

Last week we found out that my pastor has a brain tumor (read more about it here).  He had a doctor appointment on Tuesday that went well and is scheduled for surgery on Friday.  Updates can be found here.  This is terrible, sad news for anyone but especially our pastor who has done so much for the body of Christ.  Dallas Morning News has also put out an article.  This has created an outpouring of prayer from all over the world from literally thousands of people which is totally amazing!   Join with us in praying!
On top of that yesterday I found out that my sisters kitty was killed in some sort of a fight outside.  Terrible news.
There are also some other things going on with K's job and the holidays coming up that we are in need of many prayers for.  
It just seems like so many negative things are happening to people all around the world.  It has managed to get me a little down.

Putting all of this aside, I think it so neat that this morning God would waken me to a beautiful gift, a surprise, of a beautiful First-snow-of-the-year (esp in TX where it never snows!) that immediately boosted my spirit and I felt instantly renewed.  I LOVE the little gifts that God gives us,  they are the greatest!

Home Sweet Home... :) Its all starting to melt...

(Nevermind that just a couple of hours later one would never know that it had snowed ha.  The streets are dry and the grass is green again. Oh well- they are calling for more on Friday- Yippee!)

Thought of the Day: 

"HOLD ON TIGHT TO THE HAND OF JESUS. THIS IS A WAR WE ARE IN!" 

"When I walk into the thick of trouble, keep me alive in the angry turmoil. With one hand strike my foes, With your other hand save me. Finish what you started in me, God. Your love is eternal—don't quit on me now." Psalm 138:7-8, The Message.

"The Spirit can make life. Sheer muscle and willpower don't make anything happen. Every word I've spoken to you is a Spirit-word, and so it is life-making." John 6:63.  

Check out  Beth Moore's Blog for more on this.... it is a GREAT read, especially how it relates to everything else I have already spoken about on here today.  Love ya'll! 

Decorating for our 1st Christmas together! :)

Now on a happier note... Tis The Season!! :)

Well yesterday K and I decided it was time to go from Fall to Christmas! We have some wonderful friends coming into town this weekend and that was kinda like a push in the butt for me to take all the Fall decor down. I will admit I had a hard time at first taking it down because I love all of the fall colors.. sooo much! Instead of taking all the decor down we opted to go for a shopping trip! K's wonderful grandma gave us a gift card to Garden Ridge (thank you again!)- it was K's idea to go there for all of our Christmas needs.  We had no anything christmas except for a few doo-dad's that I had from the past few years in my apartment.  Usually around Christmas I head home for a few weeks to be with family so I never bothered with my own tree or stockings, etc... So we head to Garden Ridge and GO TO TOWN on the christmas things.... we first chose to tackle ornaments... this was a quite a task... yellow, pink, purple, blue, gold, green, orange, brown, red... what colors to choose?? Well we went for the classic look for green and gold (SIC EM! ha) and red!  We picked out different sized glass balls in these colors then just wandered around the store.  We picked out matching stockings (that are currently being embroidered with our names, yay!) I will post pics as soon as we get them back.  We also purchased a tree skirt that matches both stockings, and 2 stocking hangers that are snowflakes!  We then headed over to Lowes, we also had a gift card from K's aunt and uncle (thank you again!) and we picked out a tree.  This was a fun event because K has never in his LIFE had a live Christmas tree.  I have ALWAYS (all of my life) had a LIVE Christmas tree. I had to teach him about the different trees, how to pick them out, looking for "holes" or gaps in the tree and all the other fun stuff you do when you shop for a real tree.  We finally decided on one that looked  just right! :)   We also picked out some lights to put outside of our house (which we haven't begun to tackle quite yet).

We came home and had a wonderful date night -- Papa John's pizza, MNF (Monday night football- Patriots and the Saints), taking down the fall things (which I was now okay with since I had some "replacements" ha!) and DECORATING for Christmas!!!!!! We had a blast! Last night was such a productive night, we even tackled part of our registry that we have started... WAHOO!

Tonight has been an equally fun day/night- We went to lunch with some of our great IBM friends at my fav. place ever! HANG OUT! Tonight K took me on a date to Outback (with another gift card from his mommy! thannnnks) and boy. was. it. good! :) I love that we had gift cards for lots of places to do are shopping- my wallet sure does like it :)

Days till Christmas: 24! Days till our Wedding: 220!! Yippee! Now enjoy some fun pictures!

Getting the stand ready (its always so difficult to get K to smile so he sometimes makes this face.  Today was my turn -- I can totally relate to your story Jen haha)

Putting the tree in the stand

Getting it adjusted

Opening the tree up :)

Yoda was such a great helper! (ignore mess and fall decor still up ha- its down now!)

bye bye fall...

stringing the lights

K helping (still no smiles... hes hiding)

putting hooks on the gold balls (Yoda again is helping)

He was in charge of trash duty.

Hanging the 1st gold ornament.  (Fake smile = better than no smile ha!)

He helped so much! I am so lucky :)

OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE!!! :) TAH-DAH!!! 

Merry Christmas to ALL! :)

Sad Sad Day... RIP Cheddar

Well earlier today I had planned on writing about my fun, exciting, night KJ and I had last night.
I guess I will still do that, but,  before I do I am going to post to you about some sad news that I got this evening. I figure at least I can end on a positive note. I guess technically these are two totally different posts so instead of ending a good note I will post another entry as soon as I am done with this one... sorry. I'm kind of all over the place tonight, unfortunately.

So KJ and I were sitting around, I was cleaning up around the house and he was working on some job app's when my phone rang and it was my mom. I knew something was wrong when she answered the phone, I asked how she was and she responded "okay"...
We have had a wonderful kitty at my parents house for the past 3 or 4 years that we have had since he was a tiny kitten. His name is Cheddar and he is the most loving and wonderful cat that you have ever met. He is friends with everyone and always greets guests at our house with a warm welcome. He purrs more than any cat I have ever met and would never hurt a soul... that is, unless you touch his big fat belly. ha! Well he always enjoys going outside and if you don't let him out he will sit patiently at the back door and meow until you do. Last night was no different. My mom let him out just like she always does and after just a few minutes my mom hears hissing and meow's and cry's from the back door (that sounded like a cat fight according to her). She immediately goes outside and starts calling his name, while the noise continues. All the calling and no Cheddar. Sometimes when our cats go outside they get in fights like that and then come back in the house a few minutes later... but not this time. :( Mom waited up till 3am and he never came home. Sometimes when we start the car or slam the car door he will come back to the house if he has been outside and mom even tried this approach late last night... all to no avail :( She finally went to bed and this morning asked around with the neighbors if they had seen Cheddar (he would sometimes hang out at their house) and they had not. Well this afternoon when my sister Aud came home from school she and mom took a walk on the creek behind our house where the sounds came from last night (Cheddar was Aud's kitty from basically Ched's birth). They walked around the creek with our dog, calling the cats name and he was nowhere to be found. Later they came across a small amount of fur that looked like Cheddars and some small organs that looked like a heart or liver (sorry for being vulgar- don't worry I am not going to talk in detail about this).
We still do not know exactly what happened but we are guessing that maybe a Coyote got ahold of him. I would love to think that he is merely injured and will be back home in no time but we all know the reality of this is not true. :( Sorry for the super sad news but I just needed to get the emotion off my chest. I love yall for listening!
Cheddar we love you and will miss you forever!!

Cheddar and another kitty in the house Shasta (named after the Univ of Houston Cougar)

best of friends :) *cuddling & cleaning each other*

A Giveaway in Time for Christmas!

Another fun giveaway! YAY!! Make sure you hop on over to Chasing After Fireflies to enter this fun giveaway and check out her cute blog!


Thank you also for all of your prayers for Matt and his family! Please keep them coming.  I will post more when I hear of any updates. Feel free to look at their blog also.  They are a sweet sweet family!!