Tennessee

I was supposed to leave tomorrow afternoon for Tennessee to be in my dear friend Stephanie's wedding. 

Well, she called me a little in a panic, just needing help. So I (thanks to me other dear friend Megan who drove me to the airport) jumped on a plane and landed in Tennessee last night. 

I am loving being in the South. I had to explain to my husband that "South" or "Southern" is a way of life, not necessarily just geographic. 

I love the brick, the accents, sweet tea, white fences and being with Steph.

I am trying to channel all of my wonderful bridesmaids. Kyle and I have said over and over that we can't wait to repay the kindness shown to us at our own wedding. So... I'm thinking of the help I recieved and give it to her. 

also, I miss kyle... a lot.

Christmas cheer

I am LOVING this time of year. The holidays are without doubt my favorite time of year. We're coming off of a great Thanksgiving and now hitting the road running into Christmas. I love the music, the baking, time with family and friends, celebrating Jesus' birth. I could go on and on and on, but I wont for your sake. 


I will only be posting until the 17th, then I'm going home for Christmas.. I may post while I'm home, but no promises. So, until then I need to impart as much Christmas cheer with you as possible. 


We'll start with music.. This is my favorite version of "O Holy Night" Celine has a beautiful voice! And she is one of the only people I can find that still sings the line "Christ is the Lord". I'm sharing the YouTube video, because I don't know how else to share it..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jr-2eyRtV4



Next is a good Christmas Recipe that I found on Allrecipes.com


Pecan Tarts 


Ingredients:

• 1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• FILLING
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup chopped pecans

  Directions

• In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and butter; blend in flour and salt. Chill for 1 hour. Shape into 1-in. balls; press into the bottom and up the sides of greased mini-muffin cups.

• For filling, beat the egg in a small mixing bowl. Add brown sugar, butter and vanilla; mix well. Stir in pecans. Bake at 325 degrees F for 25-30 minutes. Cool in pan on wire rack.

(I also posted in working out )

 

Thanksgiving

What a WONDERFUL weekend! Kyle and I got to spend our first Thanksgiving together as a married couple. I kept telling Kyle that it was our first Thanksgiving, and he would laugh at me and say 

"No, it's our third Thanksgiving together Bek, first as a married couple." 

He's so technical.

We drove up after our church's Thanksgiving service Wednesday night and crashed at my sisters house. 

We woke up early, got to spend a little time with my sister, brother in law, and nephews. We miss them so much! 

7:30am Kyle ran out the door to play flag football. What is Thanksgiving without a game of football? 

We washed up and headed down to Mom and Dad Thompson's house as quickly as we could. What a great day! I felt at times like I couldn't quit smiling. We got to catch up, eat great food and just enjoy each other.

I have a patient husband... he took this while his 49ers were playing!

We were both given surprise early Christmas presents... 

I told Kyle that I don't need anything else for Christmas, his parents outdid themselves. They got me a kitchen aid blender! 

She fits in perfectly next to Luigi

it's almost Thanksgiving!

I woke up this morning with an overwhelming thought. Something I have thought before, but it was a great reminder, and a great thing to be woken up with.

I am so thankful for how God's attribute of never changing and Jesus attribute of Saving work hand in hand. 

The Holy Spirit is ever interceding for us so that the Father sees us only through the sacrificial blood of Jesus. 
God will never take out His wrath on us because He will never change his mind and decide that what Jesus did wasn't enough.

Romans 8: 26-39  - Our Victory In Christ!

In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; ²⁷ and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

 ²⁸ And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. ²⁹ For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; ³⁰ and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

 ³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³² He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? ³³ Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; ³⁴ who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. ³⁵ Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ Just as it is written,

   “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG;
WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.”

 ³⁷ But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

my patient husband

Kyle just posted on facebook about me. 

He is a patient man... he goes along with my every whim.

Kyle's comment on this:

" This is typical communication between my wife and I.... Does anyone find else find this as funny as I do?!"

My reasoning... I was online and I saw some random comment on Jackie Chan dying of a heart attack... I thought it was weird, but I'm not really up on my current celebrity events... so I asked Kyle.. He didn't know, so I did a little googling and let him know what was up :) 


It's all really very simple.

kyle's sunday project

Kyle has been wanting a shelf over the sink for awhile now. Yesterday, he made his wish come true.  (we are not getting our deposit back on this place.)

I've already re-arranged it... so it looks different, but I was too lazy to go take another picture of it... you get the idea :)


p.s. there is a new Tall Diaries post
 

a sweet surprise

I don't think I mention enough that I have married the greatest guy! 

He got me a little surprise the a couple of days ago. The perfect surprise. A surprise that showed me just how well he knows me.

He brought me the new Michael Buble Christmas cd. 

 It's wonderful.

It's everything a Christmas album should be.

It was sweet.

I have promised not to listen to Christmas music around Kyle until AFTER Thanksgiving. 

I have a great man.

Santa Barbara

 One of the things about being a young married couple is that Kyle and I still jump in the car and are able to have mini little adventures on a whim. 

 This weekend I got to go to Santa Barbara with some great friends and see my cousin, and stay with one of the SWEETEST couples. 


We all felt a little like hobbits by the end of the trip. We didn't stop eating. We had breakfast, a snack, then tea with homemade scones that were to die for, then we had lunch, dessert, snack and more food and then a formal snack, not quite a full meal, but really we couldn't have eaten a full meal. Between and during meal times we had lots of coffee and tea! 


It was really great fellowship. I use that word because it was encouraging time and encouraging conversation. We had a lot of different people gathered together, but the Lord was at the center of it and so it was really great.

settlers of catan champions!

ali doesn't look very happy.. which is kind of ironic since we were all laughing the whole time

serj and chloa :)

friends since 5th grade.. they were finishing each others sentences.and the source of most entertainment

tough

the whole gang

Then we went to our old church on Sunday and got to see more friends and spend the afternoon with my sisters, brother and nephews! What a blast! (except that I left my phone charger in LA and so I have a dead phone...)


Sadly, we got home and I got sick... sick, as in I slept for 12 hours. I went to bed at 7pm last night. I am not feeling well! 

Now to get back into the swing of everyday life and rest up so that we can go on more adventures soon! 

a little crafting

After we cut our bed down to size ( if you don't know what I'm talking about, read the post "off the floor" we had some wood left over.. we knew that we could use it for something, but it's pretty much just been sitting under out bed and so today I decided I would do something with it... 

See the stencil's in the top left corner.. I didn't use them.. should have... the computer was to play tunes,the rest is pretty obvious.

It says "going steady" instead of dating because of my dad...

"Dad, Kyle and I are dating" -me
"I know" - dad
" How do you know? We haven't told anyone." - me
"Bekki you called me awhile ago and said that you were dating" - dad
"No, I said I liked him and we were going on dates." - me
" yeah, dating" - dad
" dad that's not dating, now he's my boyfriend." -me
"ohhhhhh, you mean your going steady." -dad
" no dad, I'm dating.. I wasn't born 50 years ago." - me

Added hooks

yellow, grey, (it looks silver there, but it's not) and blue.. our wedding colors

I think I'm going to sand it down and use the stencil... kyle thinks it's cool it's in my handwriting... we'll see how long they last.

It'll be fun to add our 50th anniversary to this. 


 

the "Arose" song

Kyle and I got to babysit two of our nephews in San Clemente on Saturday. Their grandparents (who had been watching them while Mom and Dad were away) had a very important volleyball game to go to. It was their youngest daughters Senior night... so we came in as relief.  What a blast! We really miss being so close to family and all the little ones. 

The boys LOVE kyle. As soon as David saw us coming he opened the door and said "aunt bek, where is uncle tile?" yes, "Tile" according to David there is no K in Kyle's name. 

I did get my share of cuddling and playing with the boys, but they wanted to be held by Kyle, played with by Kyle, Danny would NOT let me put him to sleep... only Kyle. 

kyle loves being an uncle! He thinks it's pretty amazing that these boys will always know him as Uncle Kyle. David's smile cracks me up! and Danny is just precious

this is David being "the Hulk" he is also "the Steele" sometimes. It's a super hero he made up for himself

David asked if we could take another picture of him laying down... not sure why, but here you go david :)

 David has a favorite song... "Up From the Grave He Arose" and singing it is one of his favorite past times.. It's always Easter in His mind. 

When we woke up on Sunday morning Kyle looked at me and immediately said "I miss the boys". We can't wait for Christmas when we get to be with all of the kids! 

Trick or Treating 2011

Have you seen the movie UP? Kyle and I LOVE it. We saw it first in the theater with my oldest sister Katie and brother in law Dan. It was a great date! Anyways, like I said we loved it, and now own it. 

When it came time to deciding what Kyle and I would be for Halloween  the choice was obvious. We had to be Russel and Kevin (the bird).... can you guess which one I was? 

my beak is having a couple issues in this picture.. oh well

We met up with the Tracy's and (and some other friends, but I didn't get them on my camera:(  ) It was a blast! 

Rapunzel

notice in this picture nacho suddenly gained weight... he was inspired by Russel's stuffing

ok, so Kyle is kind of the star.. but he's my hubby, so it's allowed :)