Road to Recovery Sermon

A few weeks back Jeremy preached at church for our last series- Road to Recovery.  Below is the video link if you'd like to watch.  As always, I'm so proud of my husband- he does such a great job when he preaches!

http://elementc3.com/media.htm

2 Free 8x10's at Walgreens

Walgreens has two coupon codes out for free 8x10s!  FREE4ME and FREE4ME2 both will get a free print.



The coupon codes expire tomorrow on May 12th, 2012

Girl's Weekend Recap

Last weekend I went to Myrtle Beach, SC to meet up with some of my college girlfriends.  It was a much needed time of relaxing and destressing!  (Although I did have to take a test at Coastal Carolina while I was there...but we'll get into that later).

We had such a wonderful time.  Here are some pictures from the weekend

Roomies!!!

One of the girls had a gift card for $100 to Fresh Market, and doesn't have a Fresh Market near her.  So we got to indulge and spent $100 on groceries for 2 days!  It was not my normal kind of shopping, but it was a treat to go in and not worry about staying in a budget :) 

We cooked one dinner and we made it a good one...

Tuna Steaks with zucchini, squash, and roasted potatoes.  I was surprised that I actually liked the tuna steaks- I normally do not eat any kind of fish/seafood.

Layed out on the beach (and some got really sunburned!)

Before we left we went and ate at Red Robin.  It was my first experience at Red Robin, and it really was yummmmm!  :)

So blessed to call these girls my friends!  I miss y'all!

Weight Watchers Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Today I have the easiest recipe to share with you.  It only contains 2 ingredients....

A can of pumpkin puree, and a box of spice cake mix.  That's it!

Mix together until smooth and bake according to the box directions. (I did cook my muffins about 10 min. longer than the box said)  The mix will be thick and you'll need to spoon into the muffin tin.

They are super easy and super yummy!

A co-worker gave me this recipe and said that it could also be done with devil's food cake mix or vanilla cake mix.  You can add chocolate chips, raisins, or any little extras.

I haven't figured out the nutritional info yet, but it is a weight watchers recipe, so it can't be that bad, right?  :)

If you'd like a homemade pumpkin spice muffin check out this recipe... but I'm gonna bet it's a little less healthy.

Beach Bound

I took off work today and I'm heading to the beach to meet up with some of my best friends.  These girls are awesome, and I've missed them so much!  It's been almost a year since I've seen any of them and I'm so looking forward to catching up.

 (Here's the gang minus one)

This is back when we all first met- My sophomore year in college. (Waiting outside of a Shane and Shane concert- love them!)  My how we have changed!  Married, babies, moved.... but so glad that we are getting to meet up. These ladies have encouraged me so much throughout the years and I'm blessed to call them friends.

God's Love

God's love is meteoric,

His loyalty astronomic,

His purpose titanic,

His verdicts oceanic.

Yet in his largeness

Nothing gets lost;

Not a man, not a mouse,

Slips through the cracks.

Psalms 36:5-6 Message Bible

Living Room Update (Part 1)

We have updated our living room a little bit since I last showed you guys around.

This is what it looked like about six months ago...

Not a huge difference but we've added some pictures to the walls, moved "Jezebel"- our big blue chair- from the office into the living room, and added a ruffle skirt to the ottoman.  We've been doing without the rug for the past two weeks.  I took it up while I was spring cleaning to wash it and just kinda liked the openness of not having the rug down.  I'd love to get a rug that is actually the right size for the space that has some blue in it.  I'm thinking something like this:

Too bad this one is well over $1,000 via Pottery Barn :) 

I did see a few similar rugs at Home Goods for $199, so I'm thinking of saving for one of those. 

There is more to see on the other side of the room, but it wasn't totally clean when I took this picture, so that will have to wait to another day....Part 2 to come :)

Our Bedroom Update

Our little bedroom has received a couple of updates since I gave you the official tour.

We have gotten curtains, a new Nest pillow from Pottery Barn (a Christmas gift), a DIY sheet music wreath, I moved the rug from the kitchen, and I scored that big picture frame on clearance for $5 at Big Lots.  

Here is what our bedroom looked like six months ago...

Can you tell that #1- I had the duvet cover on and #2 - I had ironed the duvet cover for that picture?  :)  The cover is very heavy and has just gotten too hot now that the weather is warming up.  So we took it off and I've just been washing our comforter every couple weeks.

I think the new additions give the room a little more life!

Plates to Hang on Wall

I mentioned several months ago that I wanted to add a plate wall in our kitchen.  I've been slowly collecting plates, but I need several more to make it look full.  

Here's the plates I have so far...

So here's my question, should I go ahead and hang the plates I have now, and add more as I get them or should I wait to have as many plates I want and hang them at once?  Any opinions?

Also, I saw this on Pinterest and thought it was an interesting way to hang plates!  I may have to put this to the test.

Element Easter and Helicopter Egg Drop

Our church did something a little out of the ordinary for our Easter service today.  It was located at the local minor league baseball stadium.  What a blessing to see it fill up!

We started with praise and worship and then our pastor gave a great message on the Hope of the Resurrection.

Our focus was on reaching people far from God.  Our vision at Element is to see people receive Christ as their Savior and to see lives changed and transformed by Him by developing reproducing disciples.  

We were talking yesterday at our volunteer meeting about what we as a church will do to see people come to Christ.  Our pastoral staff went to a retreat recently and heard it said it perfectly...anything short of sin.  

This year we rented out the baseball stadium and hired a helicopter to drop 12,000 Easter eggs onto the field after our worship service!  

We had the field divided into two sections for different age groups...

And then the helicopter flew over dropping out candy filled Easter eggs!

Our youth were awesome and volunteered to take out huge bags  and drop out additional Easter eggs- filling in any holes the helicopter left.

The kids were so excited to get out there!  

I wish I had pictures of the eggs out on the field but it was a mad rush and I didn't have time to snap a picture!

Some may ask if we were really focused on the Resurrection, on Christ, and on the true meaning of the Easter.  Absolutely.  Maybe not in the traditional way, but we were able to present the Gospel to people today who would have never walked into the doors of the church.  Praise be to God- 36 people accepted Christ as their Savior this morning during the service!  That makes it all worth the effort.

Sometimes we have to go outside of our comfort zone, and outside of tradition.  Jesus was radical, nonconforming, and went to those who were hurting and lost.  We are called to do the same.

What will we do to reach people far from God?  Anything short of sin- even dropping 12,000 Easter eggs out of a helicopter.