It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas over here at the Morgan household. All our decorations are up, Christmas presents are making their way under our tree, smell of cinnamon spice and cookies are in the air, and Christmas cards are almost ready to be sent out to family and close friends. Not to mention that the semester is finally over for Christmas break too!

It's also beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our neighborhood and my parent's as well. I just had to show everyone a picture of this house in my parent's neighborhood. This house is crazy! There are tons of lights, Santas, Christmas trees, presents, ornaments, etc. Anything that is Christmas related, trust me, can be found in this person's front yard! It's a bit overwhelming when you first look at it because there is so much going on, but I love it! I haven't seen a home this decked out in a very long time, so kudos to them!

Christmas man's house during the day:

And, his house at night:

Day 18: My Wedding

I've already posted a lot about my wedding already, but I thought I'd share a few quick facts about my wedding and a few more of my favorite pictures from my special day.

My Wedding 101

I was married on May 30 in Las Vegas, NV.

Our wedding & reception was held at Sunset Gardens.

My little sister was the maid of honor.

I was 18 and my husband was 20 when we got hitched.

The color scheme was red and ivory.

Our cake was a 3-tier vanilla cake with raspberry filling and laced with red roses.

My bouquet: red roses, stephanotis, orchids, and green filler.

My sis-in-law did all the flowers for my wedding, and they turned out beautifully!

Pastor Mike Laughrun, from my church Hope Baptist pastored our wedding.

My cousin Kristen sung 'Inside Your Heaven' by Carrie Underwood for our first dance.

'Cinderella' by Steven Curtis Chapman was my father-daughter dance.

I almost fainted after the ceremony!

I had to take a break during the photo session after the ceremony because I got dizzy and couldn't stand. My daddy was the first one to get a chair and Hor D'oeuvres for me to snack on. Thanks dad!

I got my make-up done at Estee Lauder at Caesar's Palace for free!

My dress was a white, strapless ball-gown that I got at David's Bridal for on sale for about $300. (And it originally wasn't supposed to be on sale-but they gave to me for that price anyways!)

My little sister's best friend Suzi's older sister Christine did my hair and all my bridesmaids hair.

My something old/borrowed was my necklace and earrings set. It belonged to my grandma, who gave the set to me before her Alzheimer's Disease got really bad. I wore this set at my wedding.

My something blue of course was my garter, which was handmade for me by my mother-in-law.

We were engaged for 7 months before we got married.

We had been dating for four years before we got married.

Our honeymoon was in Rivera Maya, Mexico - Cancun area.

Sites I recommend for weddings on a budget:

http://www.orientaltrading.com/

http://www.partycity.com/

http://www.joann.com/joann/home/home.jsp

http://www.michaels.com/

http://wedding.theknot.com/wedding-planning/wedding-budget.aspx

http://budgetdreamweddings.com/

Books I read during my engagement:

Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas

Before You Plan Your Wedding... Plan Your Marriage by Greg & Erin Smalley

Bride Ideas: A Creative Wedding Journal and List Maker by Stella Kim

Cheap Ways to Tie the Knot: How to Plan a Church Wedding for Less Than $5,000 by Cara Davis

A Simple Wedding: A Faith-Filled Guide to Enjoying a Stress-Free Wedding by Sharon Hanby-Robie

A Piece of Art

For today, I am to share a piece of artwork - a painting, sculpture, collage, etc. I thought I would share one of my pieces of artwork for you. In two days, I will be posting more on a few of my talents, in which I will showcase more artwork that I've done. As most of you know, I love to draw, paint, and do anything that involves arts and crafts. I love to create! The artwork below is a close up of a piece of holly that I drew in my high school art class in 2006/2007. It is done with oil pastel and sprayed with a finisher for shine and to protect the surface from damage. I wish I could tell you what I named the piece, but I don't have a name. Today, I will call it Christmas Holly.

Day 16: A Song That Makes Me Cry (Or Nearly)

For today's challenge, from Brittney's 30 Day Challenge, I am to post a song that makes me cry or nearly makes me cry. I would have to say that every time I hear Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman I cry every time or nearly do. This song is so beautiful and describes, from a dad's perspective, how much love he has for his daughter and how quickly time can pass by. The meaning behind this song is to cherish every moment you have with your children. Not too long after this song came out, Steven's youngest adopted daughter, the one whom the song was written about, was accidently ran over by one of his oldest sons. After this happened, it just put the song into more perspective for me. You never know when it's your time to go or someone else's, so that's why you need to make the most of every moment you have with loved ones and see to it that you carry out God's purpose for your life.

This song was also my father-daughter dance at my wedding. This song is beautiful and means so much to me. Here it is!

She spins and she sways
To whatever song plays
Without a care in the world
And I'm sitting here wearing
The weight of the world on my shoulders

It's been a long day
And there's still work to do
She's pulling at me
Saying "Dad, I need you

There's a ball at the castle
And I've been invited
And I need to practice my dancing
Oh, please, Daddy, please?"

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone...

She says he's a nice guy and I'd be impressed
She wants to know if I approve of the dress
She says, "Dad, the prom is just one week away
And I need to practice my dancing
Oh, please, Daddy, please?"

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone

She will be gone

Well, she came home today with a ring on her hand
Just glowing and telling us all they had planned
She says, "Dad, the wedding's still six months away
But I need to practice my dancing
Oh, please, Daddy, please?"

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone

This song has recently come out about his daughter's passing, who is now safe in the arms of God. This song too, Heaven is the Face, has made me cry.

Heaven is the face of a little girl
With dark brown eyes that disappear when she smiles
Heaven is the place where she calls my name
Says, “Daddy please come play with me for awhile”

God, I know, it’s all of this and so much more
But God, You know, that this is what I’m aching for
God, You know, I just can’t see beyond the door, so right now

Heaven is the sound of her breathing deep
Lying on my chest, falling fast asleep while I sing
And Heaven is the weight of her in my arms
Being there to keep her safe from harm while she dreams

And God, I know, it’s all of this and so much more
But God, You know, that this is what I’m longing for
God, You know, I just can’t see beyond the door

But in my mind’s eye I can see a place
Where Your glory fills every empty space
All the cancer is gone, every mouth is fed
And there’s no one left in the orphan’s bed
Every lonely heart finds their one true love
And there’s no more goodbye and no more not enough
And there’s no more enemy (no more)

Heaven is a sweet, maple syrup kiss
And a thousand other little things I miss with her gone
Heaven is the place where she takes my hand
And leads me to You and we both run into Your arms

Oh God, I know, it’s so much more than I can dream
It’s far beyond anything I can conceive
So God, You know, I’m trusting You until I see

Heaven in the face of my little girl
Heaven in the face of my little girl

My Role Model

Hello everyone, sorry I've been out-of-pocket for awhile. This past week has been so busy and with the end of the semester around-the-corner plus Christmas, I've been extra busy. This week all the craziness should die down a bit so you should be hearing from me a lot more. The topic for Day 15 of Brittney's 30 Day Challenge is to describe your role model. For me my role model is the woman described in Proverbs 31. You can read the entire chapter here. I've written about the Proverbs 31 Woman in an earlier post and is the basis for the purpose of my blog. The woman mentioned in Proverbs 31 is a woman of excellence, carrying out the purpose given to her by God. She is an amazing wife, worker, entrepreneur, keeper of the home, and mother. She is wise, thrifty, smart, caring, and crafty. Most of all she does everything with joy. This is the kind of woman, wife, and mother I want to be and that I know God wants me to become.

Another woman that I look up to is Michelle Duggar from 19 Kids and Counting. I absolutely love this show and her! She is an amazing woman of God, mother, and keeper of the home. She has 19 kids and has home schooled every one of them. Both her and Jim Bob instruct their children in God's Word and teaches them to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. It is clear that they keep Christ the center of their marriage and family. She basically seems to be the personified version of the woman in Proverbs 31. You can visit their website here to learn more about them.

"An excellent wife, who can find?

For her worth is far above jewels.

The heart of her husband trusts in her,

And he will have no lack of gain.

She does him good and not evil

All the days of her life."

~Proverbs 31:10-12~

Reading 101

Since we're on the topic of books, I found this over at my sis-in-law's blog This Camera Tells My Story and thought it would be fun to do. According to the BBC, they believe that the average person will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed below. I've bolded the books I've read, italicized the ones I started reading but didn't finish, and colored in blue the ones that are on my list to read.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (I read the first book in the series, but have yet to finish)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Travelers Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (I've literally read this book like 5 times)
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck (I honestly read the first 5 pages and I couldn't continue because it was SO boring)
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37. Kite Runner - Khalid Housseni
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Willaim Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47. Far from the Madding Crowd -- Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaids Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martell
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60. Love in the time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson
74. Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - A.S. Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - Charles Mitchell
83. The Colour Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie & the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo Illiad

Don't get me wrong this list is pretty good and I can't believe I've read only 11 books out of the 100. However, I feel that the following books should definitely be on this list: Fahrenheit 451, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Death of a Salesman, The Illiad, The Odyssey, The Tell Tale Heart/The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe, and because I love this book so much The Notebook.

How many of these books have you read? Are there any books that are left off the list that you think should be included?

A Non-Fictional Book

I am currently reading the non-fictional book A Woman After God's Own Heart and the devotional study that goes along with it by Elizabeth George. I just finished chapter five titled A Heart That Serves. In this chapter the most valuable thing I've learned is that I have been given an assignment by God and that is to help my husband. My husband is my primary career and my heart's focus and primary concern should be to serve and help my husband. I have to admit, there have been many times where I put "me first" instead of Raymond. I always knew that I, as Raymond's wife, was a helpmate to him, but I never thought of it as a career to help him.

That really hit home for me and opened my eyes to realizing how important serving is to our relationship and that I haven't been taking care of this area of our marriage as well as I should. It is my prayer that God continues to develop a servants heart in me. It is my commitment in life to follow God's plan for my life and to follow His plan that I help and not hinder my husband. This book is an awesome study and I encourage every woman - married, single, young, or old - to read this book! Not only does this book encourage woman in the area of serving others, with our husbands given top priority, it also encourages you:

To Spend daily time with God and in prayer

To trust God in every circumstance

To Love your family and to model Christlikeness

To Obey

To make every day count by setting and meeting goals

To use your influence to motivate others

God wants our whole heart-plain and simple! Not only does He want us to pursue Him, but he wants us to pursue His priorities and to put His priorities into practice in our life. What is our response to this? To praise Him unconditionally, and to follow faithfully and obediently.

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