2016 Christmas Card

I've confessed to you before that I am ridiculous about the mail. I wait every day for the mail truck to drive up and barely give it time to pass by before I fly out of the house and rush to see what treasures await. {And if the only "treasures" turn out to be bills, I'm sorely disappointed.}

So Christmas card season is just about my favorite. I love sending cards. Real cards. And I love getting them, too!! Since there are so many of you, and I don't know where all of you live, I'll send you my card this way, and I'll even include my letter! Enjoy!! :)

2016 from  A to Z in Shafferland!

Almost 9 months passed  this year before we resumed our quest to visit all 92 counties in Indiana. We did manage to get to Tippecanoe and Delaware counties before the year ended. But  if you keep reading, you'll quickly see why we were too busy to visit more!

Book time! Bekah released a new book this year, called Be Still: Learning to Know He is God. It's a combination of story and study, and we are really excited to see how God is using it! 

Clean eating! Starting with our 3rd anniversary last December, we began a journey of new, consistent workouts and improved eating habits. We feel so much better, and Bekah lost about 30 pounds!

Dog sitting was a new adventure this year. In March, we watched a Great Dane for a couple of days, and in May, we got to keep little Phoebe, a miniature Golden Doodle, for a week. Her people have let us watch her many times since, and we love her!

EF3 tornado came through Kokomo and flattened our Starbucks {and did a lot of other damage}. We were thankful that our home wasn't damaged and other than Bekah's panic attack, neither were we! 

Focus no more! We sold Bekah's car this year. We figured since I no longer drive to work, we didn't need to own three vehicles. So the Bekah-mobile, which turned over to 200,000 miles this year, found a new owner in a college student! 

Greensburg, Kansas, was the location of our summer trip. We pulled an all-nighter to drive 850 miles to attend Bekah's niece's wedding. The wedding was beautiful, and we enjoyed a few extra days in Kansas spending time with family and seeing the town!

Home improvements! We moved into a move-in-ready house and spent four months overhauling it to make it ours. Yes. We're crazy. But it really is perfect now! {Kudos to Ryan for HOURS of hard work!}

Ignoring Bekah's mom's wishes for NO PARTY meant we got to celebrate her 80th birthday to the hilt. We hosted a fun cookies and canvas party for her and her friends, and a bonus: both of Bekah's sisters came too, so it was a double surprise party!

Just a few side jobs popped up this year! Ryan dabbled in home health care in addition to his PTA job at the rehab hospital, and Bekah did some photography, writing, and editing, as well as joining the "carpool" ranks by driving one of our friend's kids to school every morning. 

Kokomo is our home now! In January, we put an offer on a house, we closed in March, and took possession a week later. We adore our new home and town and are thankful for the faith journey God took us on to get us here. 

Leading small groups! We hosted a small group in Marion {through our church} before we moved, and we co-led another group this fall, along with Ryan's boss and his wife. We love having enough time in our schedule to do this! 

Mommapalooza 3.0 was our first big party to host in our new home. We love having both our families come together to celebrate Mother's Day every year, and despite having a frigid-weather day for this year's party, we had a great time!

Newspaper debut! After Bekah blogged about the great garage makeover of 2016, we were contacted by a Wall Street Journal reporter, who included us in an article about the changing face of garage use! Never thought we'd see our names in the WSJ!

Our little Braeya kitty turned ten this year. She was unimpressed with the gift we gave her: a new home. She has finally settled in, but turning ten made her no less of a diva! Whew!

Podcasting continues to be one of our favorite things to do together! Every Tuesday, we release a new episode of Spill the Beans, a half hour podcast about life, where we try to balance much laughter and story-telling with a few things of eternal significance! And this month, Bekah added a second interview-based podcast called The Conversation Cafe.

Quality time together...on our dates! We kept up our tradition of observing our monthiversary on the 2nd day of every month, and we went on many dates, big and small, all year long! 

Retreats were our thing this year. Ryan served on a Brethren Way of Christ team in March, Bekah spoke at two women's retreats in the fall, and she spoke at a number of other events throughout the year as well. 

Sold our first house! The house Bekah lived in since 2000 {which had been her grandparents' home for their entire marriage} finally sold after five years of being on and off the market. So thankful!

Twenty years out of high school for Bekah meant attending a class reunion! 17 classmates got together for a tailgate party before a football game and we had fun seeing old friends! 

Unique new project we started is called "Tuesdays at the Table," which keeps us accountable to inviting someone over to share a meal with us every other Tuesday evening. We LOVE opening our home and can't wait to carry this into next year!

Visited Lake Webster with ALL of Ryan's family - 15 of us under one cottage roof made for a tight squeeze, but it was fun to be together for the weekend and to enjoy time at the lake!

Wisconsin...specifically Chilton, Wisconsin, was the site of our annual birthday trip this year. We combined business with pleasure to travel there so Bekah could speak at a conference. We stayed with our friends, Tom and Olivia, and they treated us to a peek at life in Wisconsin!

X-rays and hospital visits were part of our fall this year. Not for either of us, but for Ryan's Grandpa, who had brain surgery {twice} and then spent some time in the hospital where Ryan works, recovering and rehabilitating. We loved being close enough to visit him every day!

Yuletide is one of our favorite times of the year, and we are excited to decorate our new home for Christmas, make new traditions in our new town, and celebrate the birth of Jesus!

Zee end of zis letter has finally arrived. You're welcome. Thanks for reading along, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

The Shafferland Shuffle

What a LOVELY week it has been! Thank you so much, to all of you who sent us well-wishes for our anniversary! It was a beautiful day, and I'm so excited to tell you about all our adventures. Meanwhile...here is a peek at our week!

* Because I had been sick the day after Thanksgiving, I didn't QUITE finish all the decorating of the house by Saturday night. So after church on Sunday, Ryan and I finished up the few decorations that hadn't been assembled. I was SO HAPPY when night came and the house was all twinkly with pretty lights. It was a lovely way to end a weekend/begin a week!

* On Monday, I had to stop by Ryan's work to drop off a wreath his work girls had made at our craft night. {They had left it at our house because it was raining so hard that night.} Until they needed the wreath, I hung it on Brutus, Ryan's rhino coat hook. Hilarious! Speaking of rain, Monday was a dreary, rainy day - perfect for staying inside and working, which is exactly what I did. And that night, I organized all the journals I told you about in the blog post earlier this week, and Ryan wanted a picture of me with all the journals in which I prayed over my someday-husband!

* Tuesday was the premiere of Fixer Upper, so of course I had to show my support with my #shiplap shirt! :) After it was over, I realized I didn't have all 10,000 steps in for the day, so I finished by walking the house, and Braeya did her favorite thing, which is to high-five me as I walk past the chair. It's hysterical. She does this ALL THE TIME when I finish my steps by walking the house. Must have worn her out, though, because she went to rest under the Christmas tree when that was over.

* Wednesday, I had a major Christmas-card-addressing party, which was much fun. Got them all done, and Ryan did my least favorite part which was sealing them all. {HUSBAND AWARD!!!} And even though it was early, we exchanged our anniversary gifts that day. The reasons behind that are much too long for a recap post, but I'll tell you more about it later. So here's Ryan with his anniversary pie, and here I am with my anniversary planter! :)

* Ryan worked all day Thursday, and while he did so, I packed our suitcases and the car so we could leave right away for our anniversary getaway! I can't wait to tell you all about our trip, because we had SO MUCH FUN, but here are a few highlights to get you started. Our destination was French Lick, which is a town about 3 hours south of where we live. Our trip was pretty uneventful...dinner...Starbucks...narrowly missing hitting a deer...and finally getting settled in our hotel room late that evening. {There actually were a handful of funny stories from this day, but I'll save them.}

* Friday was our actual anniversary, and we had such a fun day together. The Lord blessed us with a sunny day {although nowhere near the 82 degrees of our ACTUAL wedding day} and we had such fun touring the fancy hotels in French Lick, walking around town, doing our anniversary photo shoot, watching our wedding video, taking a carriage ride, enjoying food and coffee together, and creating some wonderful memories to last forever! Loved our day!

* Yesterday was THE most wonderful, low-key, restful day. We loved it. Sleeping in, BBQ, walks through Christmas finery, exploring town squares, coffee and checkers, movies, good talks, and just...lovely. {By the way. Bet you can't guess who lost at checkers.}

The Shafferland Shuffle

* I think we tried ALL the seasons this week, starting with our first real, beautiful frost last Sunday morning. Ryan took pictures of it all on his own! {A thousand husbandly points!} We got our first red cups of the season, and I replaced all the pictures in our living room wall collage, using the new ones we had taken this fall. Add about 29 pages of scrapping to that and it was a full Sunday!

* Monday was the same busy day Monday always is, but I had the added bonus of a whole new crop of Hallmark Christmas movies to watch, because I remembered there are TWO Hallmark channels! WOO HOO!!!!! In the afternoon, I had a fun treat: my friend Elisa came all the way from Fort Wayne to visit me and see our new house! Loved that! :) And that night, we saw the first of this week's spectacular moon viewing!

* Just as I was about to fix lunch on Tuesday, Ryan texted and asked if I was up for a lunch out at Wendy's. Don't have to twist my arm! I'll take a surprise, impromptu lunch date! :) We had Bible study that night and ran some errands while we were out, which included a trip to Lowe's...should we get this TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLAR lawn ornament?? And that night we contacted Fitbit about replacing mine...because I didn't think the taped together version would hold much longer. They were so great about replacing it!

* You already read about  my "interesting" Wednesday, when Starbucks was out of all the drinks I wanted, I almost put diesel in the car, and all kinds of crazy things happened. BUT! It was also the day all our Christmas cards arrived in the mail! YAY!! I am excited: ready to start addressing! Ryan found the latest update on Sonic when he was out and about, and he even pitched in to help work on the office wreath by being the official spray-painter! What a good work sport he is!

* After 2 days of working on website creation, I needed movies and naps! My brain was so tired by the end of Thursday, I couldn't think at all. Ryan came home from work and did what we hope is the final mowing for this year, and I went for a run/walk to clear my head. Gorgeous sunset and PERFECT running weather!

* Friday night, we had a first here in Shafferland: craft night hosted in the garage! It was sort of a random last-minute idea, but I invited a handful of girls over (most were Ryan's co-workers) to just have fun. Bring a snack, bring a craft, and come hang out for the evening! LITERALLY in the hour they arrived, the weather switched to winter, and we had a sudden temperature drop and horrible thunderstorms with tons of wind and rain, but we were cozy and warm little crafters in the garage!

* And yesterday, Ryan and I spent the entire day together - Christmas shopping! Yes, it's true! He had a day off work, so we headed to Indianapolis to shop and enjoy a whole day of fun {in the wind, rain and snow} together! We also had dinner at his cousins' house, which was a fun way to end the day! The only one unhappy was Braeya, who did not approve of our absence!

Christmas Card 2015

Before I show you our Christmas card from this year, I wanted to tell you that our newest podcast is up! This week we're talking Christmas traditions and wrestling...and no, the two are not related. Click below the picture to hear...hope you enjoy this one!

 Click here to listen

I love mail.

And it's possible that during the Christmas season, I practically meet the mailman AT the door to see what treasures he brought that day, because Christmas card season has arrived!!!!

I know a lot of people have given up the card-sending because it's so expensive, but we still like to send them. We can't send to EVERYONE, though, so I thought I would share the card here for you to see! :) It's a Merry Christmas to you from us!

The front of our card. {Click to enlarge}

...and the back!

Since our anniversary is so close to Christmas, we use the card-sending moment to document each season of our marriage, and our letter matches it. Here's this year's letter, if you want to see it!

No matter what comes our way...with you, I am home.

            And that sums up our third complete season of Shafferland, which we just celebrated on December 2. Actually, the 3rd season began away from home, in Chicago, where we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary. We did all the Chicago-ey things of visiting the SkyDeck at Willis tower, walking the Magnificent Mile, visiting the Bean, strolling through Lincoln Park Zoo, visiting IKEA for the first time, and having a romantic anniversary dinner at the Signature Room on the 95th floor of the John Hancock building. And then we came home. 

            At that time, we actually still owned two homes, but on December 11th of last year, 141 days after we agreed to the offer placed on the house, Ryan's Greentown home finally sold, leaving us as one-home owners and greatly rejoicing in this change! It was the perfect way to end a calendar year and begin a marriage year.

            We spent a little extra time in our home in the early part of this year, because in January, I ended up in the emergency room and after a long month of tests, waiting, and  stunning medical miscommunications, I had surgery to remove the gallbladder that has apparently been the culprit of my 15 years of intermittent abdominal pain. I took two weeks of gallternity leave, and Ryan took excellent care of me as I recovered and got back to whatever normal is for me. 

            We continued the adventure we began in 2014 {though we didn't get very far on it this year} of visiting all 92 counties in the state of Indiana. We trudged through snow to visit Huntington County, went home to Howard County, ventured north to Steuben County, and squeezed in a trip to Madison County later in the year...returning to the same state park where we made our relationship official three years ago. We also packed in one last tour right before our 3rd anniversary, crossing Allen County off the list, too! We still have almost 80 counties to go in this adventure, so maybe in the year to come, we can pick up the pace a bit!

            Day trips to counties weren't our only adventures away from home this year. In May, we took our annual birthday trip and drove to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg, Tennessee for a long weekend away. We drove around in the mountains, hiked 5 miles round trip to a picturesque waterfall, went shopping, had the lovely caricature from the back of our Christmas card made, visited an aquarium, and had all sorts of fun. And then in October, we took our first long vacation since our cruise two years ago. In eight days, we saw seven states and two countries, when we visited Virginia Beach, Colonial Williamsburg, the Cape Henry Lighthouse, Furnace Hills Coffee Roasters, Letchworth State Park, and Niagara Falls. Braeya wasn't too happy with us when we finally came home from that trip. She made us pay for a while.

            As you know, for the first 2 1/2 years of our marriage, we've been double commuters. While we both loved our jobs so much, we were weary of four collective hours on the road each day, pouring our paychecks into our gas tanks, and coming home each night utterly exhausted. Once we only owned one home, we had more freedom to make changes, so our HUGE life change this year was my resignation from WBCL. It was difficult to turn in a resignation letter to a place that so changed the trajectory of my life and also held memories of the beginning of our life as the Shaffers, but we knew we were walking in obedience by making this change. After three months of preparing to leave and training a new producer, I left the station at the end of June, and both of us were eager to see what God had next for our little Shaffer home.

            Actually, our home itself has undergone more change this year. In January, we brought home a new couch, which we named Mo. It converts to a queen size bed and we spent a lot of happy weekends curled up on Mo, resting from busy weeks. {It also came in handy for that gallternity leave and recovery!} We redecorated our master bedroom, relieving Ryan from a three-shades-of-purple sanctuary and transforming it into a beach paradise, minus the beach, of course. And we had a new heating and air system installed, rounding out the changes - hopefully for a long time - on this home of ours.

            We put our house on the market this summer, hoping to move closer to Kokomo and Ryan's work, but so far, God seems to be indicating that our place is here in Marion, and we're learning {to be fair, I'm learning} to be content with our calling for this time. 

            This 3rd season of Shafferland brought so much more with it: a surprise 60th birthday party for Ryan's mom, some speaking engagements for me {one of them was to 350 women - eeek!}, monthiversary celebrations on the second day of each month, venturing into the world of essential oils, photography gigs, hosting game nights and family get-togethers, a new nephew, visits from family, training for a half marathon {that turned into a 5K}, taking a gun safety class and visiting a shooting range, holding our first ever rummage sale, jury duty {that was Ryan's week of fun - he was even elected foreman!} and many other adventures.

            It's definitely been a full year. We're grateful, as we look back to one year ago, that things are so different today. Though going down to one income has been an adjustment, we're grateful for the calmness we've begun to know, having me home each day and able to be a homemaker and pursue writing. {I finished a new book manuscript already, so I'm excited to see where that journey takes us.} Ryan is still driving back and forth to his PTA job in Kokomo and has added a side home health care job to try out that atmosphere and see how it compares to working full time in a hospital. We're excited to begin our fourth season of life together, to begin recording and sharing a podcast about life {we actually already have three episodes under our belt!}, to serve God together in our church, and to wait for His further direction on what He wants from us as a couple.

            A busy, fulfilling year. A year of change. But a year that has made us realize that no matter where we are, no matter what chaos upends us, when we're together, we're home.

The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday night, Hallmark aired the movie based on the Karen Kingsbury book, The Bridge, and my friend Sandee had invited me to watch it with her and some of her friends and family. Ryan assured me he could represent us in watching the Colts game and told me to go watch and have a good time. So I did! I enjoyed the movie {though not waiting a year to see the end of it} - and it was extra fun to see my book on the coffee table in the host's home!!

* Monday morning was fine - and then I looked up while I worked on our podcast and noticed it had suddenly gotten foggy. That's odd! It's odd for fog to settle as far in town as where we live, so I can only imagine what it was like out in the country! I spent the day polishing our "new" dining room table and chairs - and I thought they turned out quite shiny and lovely!

* Tuesday's task was addressing Christmas cards - a huge job, but definitely easier when I had an entire day to do it! Ryan and I got a new gift from his mom - a coffee Christmas rug. How perfect is this!?!?!? Not perfect was the help we received while working out. Bench press that, Braeya!! LOL!

* Wednesday I mailed my cards, and I ended up sitting in the Walgreen's parking lot with a washcloth, sealing them all in the front seat of the car. I'm so classy!! Ryan asked if I would buy him some gum - and I had to make a big deal out of it because as you may or may not know, I hate EVERYTHING about gum. {I'm so weird.} That night Ryan FINALLY got the alternator off his truck. He's been working on it for about a month but kept running into issues. He was pretty happy it was done.

* Thursday I had a HUGE treat: I got to watch our friends Nate and Jenna's kiddos for a little bit. They are adorable and we had a good little time. Apparently our house was the coolest because we had all the cartoon channels. :)

* I started wrapping gifts on Friday - and it was fun to do with Christmas movies playing in the background! It was SO WARM on Friday that we walked the light display in the park without even wearing hats or gloves - or very warm coats! It was the most fun date. I'm so glad we had a good night to go. {The first two years we went, it was snowing when we arrived, and we had to drive it!}

* Yesterday we got to SLEEP IN and eat breakfast at home - which was so lovely! We went to a birthday party for a friend's kiddo who turned one, and then we set out to finish as much of our Christmas shopping as we could! It was a good all-day date day! And can I tell you how much fun that is to do when it's almost seventy degrees IN DECEMBER?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

The Saturday Six

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IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR!!!!!! Set those clocks back an hour tonight and get a whole extra hour of sleep in the morning. You can know we will be!! Goodbye, stinkin' DST. I might not complain about you on the blog as much as I used to, but I still don't like you!!

Two.

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This article is both truly informative and truly hilarious. It covers the grammar rules for writing your last name on a Christmas card without using an apostrophe {which most people use but it's not grammatically correct}. I hesitated to put this on the Six, because somebody might be planning to send me a card and will now strike me from the list, fearing I will be hiding on Mo with a red pen editing their card. I WON'T!!!! This is merely a helpful guide. The comments, though...read those for a good time. Fight! Fight!

Three.

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 Several years ago, I read a book written by a woman who faced an unexpected pregnancy. The book ripped me apart, because I was that baby in my family. I wrote some blog posts about it and many months later, discovered the author had found them and she left me a not-so-nice comment. I was sad I'd upset her, but I still get high blood pressure thinking about the delivery of her book. So when I found a link to this article by another mother facing an unexpected pregnancy, I was scared to click on it. But I did, and I'm so glad I did. Her words are laced with so much grace, and I appreciate the way she was able to blend honesty with kindness. I am so thankful for her approach, I can't help but share!

Four.

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Did anyone else LOVE Trading Spaces as much as I did? I watched it every single week from the second season on until it ended. {Most memorable episode? The one where the woman hated the brown room. I loved that brown room, but she sure didn't!} Anyway. Found this article about where the designers and carpenters and hosts are now! 

Five.

 You've been so kind to read about our vacation this week - and we have just a couple more days of recap coming up, but I thought you might like to see the VIDEO we made as well. We did about a minute at each destination and some parts of it are pretty funny. {Like when we get sidetracked by something we just said and stop to talk about it.} Hope you enjoy!

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I took a week of vacation from reading {when I was on vacation}, but now I'm back to reading and reviewing!

I asked to read Lauraine Snelling's newest novel, Streams of Mercy, mostly because I wanted to try something a little different in the fiction world.  Lauraine has written over 70 books, but I've not read any of them yet, so I figured it was high time I try a new {to me} author. I chose this one from the list because it had a different time period and historical background from what I normally lean toward, and I wanted to branch out a bit.

First let me give you the synopsis of the book. This is actually the third book in the Song of Blessing series, and it is set in North Dakota in the early 1900's. The little town of Blessing is getting back on its feet after an explosion destroyed the grain elevator and other buildings in town a year and a half prior. The citizens of Blessing are aching for spring after a hard North Dakota winter, and they work together to support each other as family. Anji Moen has just recently returned to her home in North Dakota from her husband's native Norway, where she lived with him and their children. After her husband's death, she brought the children home and finds herself wrestling with settling in, motherhood...and uninvited feelings for the minister in town. When a health crisis settles over the town and threatens lives of friends and strangers alike, Anji and Father Devlin find themselves wondering what the future holds for all of them.

I'll be honest...I struggled with this book. It's long {378 pages} and I was a good 100 pages in before the story captured me. Now, once it did, I was hooked. But that was a long wait to get to the capturing. And also in truth, I never did master the relationships between some of the people in the book. There are so many characters and so many relatives, and the names are heavily Norwegian, making it even harder to keep straight. To be fair, there is a family tree in the front of the book, but I didn't want to keep flipping back to it to keep everyone straight.

Maybe if I had read the first two books in the series, it would have been easier, but I finally gave up trying to keep the people straight and just tried to enjoy the story. There was also an infiltration of Norwegian words scattered throughout the conversations in the book, and while that was interesting on one hand, it sometimes distracted me from the story, because I had to stop for context clues.

The love story in the book was not as prominent as I anticipated it would be, which did not take away from the story itself, but it just surprised and disappointed me a little. I'm such a sucker for love stories. Given the ending of the book, I imagine a fourth story lurks somewhere down the road, and while I'm curious to know how some of the mysteries unravel, I'm not sure I will hunt down the fourth book to read it.

It's not that I didn't enjoy the story...I did. But I think I may have strayed a bit too far from what I enjoy in a novel's setting, so this one wasn't my most favorite I've ever read. Having said that, I do think Lauraine is a good storyteller and if the setting/historical aspects had perhaps been up my alley a bit more, and I'd read the previous books in the series first, I might feel differently about this one.

** Thanks, Bethany House, for sending a copy of this book my way to read and review. The opinions are all my own. *
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The Saturday Six

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Tis the season to being hunting for the perfect Christmas card photo shoot poses...no, seriously! It's less than 100 days until Christmas, people!! I was hunting around online for some ideas and happened upon this article with some samples of pictures taken of a couple over the course of their marriage. While I in NO WAY want to speed along our life, I do look forward to someday looking back and seeing our history of photos over the years!

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Earlier this week, I had curled up on the living room floor to pray and seek the Lord over some areas where my heart wrestled. I happened upon this prayer by Rachel Wojo, and it was so perfectly timed for what was happening in my jumbled mind. I am sure I'm not the only one with a jumbled mind, so if you have it too - these words might comfort you as well.

Three.

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 I made many friends in my time at the station...and one of them was Don Otis, a publicist who took time to get to know me as a person, not just a producer. He just completed a HUGE accomplishment: he hiked all 66 mountains in the lower 48 states that have peaks of 14,000 feet or greater. I cannot even imagine the effort put into that kind of goal, and I'm so proud of him for hiking to the last summit just recently. Check out this article he wrote about his journey...and CONGRATULATIONS, Don!

Four. 

Just in case you are behind on the happenings of David Phelps, this is his rendition of We Shall Behold Him. I dare you to not get goose bumps.  

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YOU GUYS!! Did you see this one? A couple had their engagement pictures taken by recreating some scenes from 101 Dalmations. Stinking adorable. Check out the link at the end of the article for more pictures. I can't handle the cuteness!!! 

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Earlier this week, I told you about Kristen Strong's new book called Girl Meets Change...which is a fabulous read for any of you facing a season of change {of ANY kind} right now. I wanted to also let you know that she has a companion small group study guide available that you can get free if you purchase her book before the end of the month and submit the proof of purchase {directions in this blog post}. Tis the season for searching out good books to study together, so this is a good and affordable idea!