Goodbye Heezy's

I can't believe the one and only Ryan and Jenny Couch have officially left College Station! We just wanted to say that we will miss you dearly, friends! We love you and have enjoyed every moment spent with you.

It's so fun to reminisce about college days with Ryan and all the first impressions he had of Allen. He thought Allen and Ryan Shipley were completely nuts for some wrong and some other legitimate reasons... Allen and Shipley were always pulling pranks in the dorm and taking up money/other goods to do crazy and unspeakable things. Hearing Ryan Couch talk about the things they did just cracks me up.



Who would have known that we would have become such good friends with jennycarson@hotmail.com after emailing back and forth with her about our Germany mission trip only to have her MARRY Ryan Couch?

You know, we had conversations such like, " Why is this girl wanting to go on our mission trip at the very last minute and how come she never comes to the meetings? She seems a little shady." And then we put you in our group!

This makes me laugh because although Jenny and Ryan will forever be the couple who is SO HARD to get a hold of, shady is certainly not the word that describes you. We found that out the first time we met you and definitely when we were in Germany together. We are so blessed to have met you and to have been there when you met your future husband on the mission trip! So FUN!





I love it that the boys in that dorm room became the best of friends and lived with each other through the rest of college.

I love it that Ryan Couch got the nickname Heezy and now I can call he and Jenny "The Heezy's".

I love it that Jenny will forever be jennycarson@hotmail.com to us.

I love it that sometime in the (near-ish) future there will probably be a little bundle that we can call Baby Heezy and to correspond to that, Daddy and Mommy Heezy. I just wish I could be there to witness that!

I love it that ya'll are so committed to prayer for us and our church.

I love it that the Lord created and has grown a friendship between us in such a special way and developed it in His timing.

I hate it that you're gone, but love that the Lord is leading your way.

We are praying for you, Heezy's!

(pray that we'll find someone to play Settlers of Catan with now!)

A Cut Above

Yes...I got a cut quite above what I was originally thinking. A haircut, that is. I had picked out 4 styles that I liked and was debating all week as to which one I would get. Everyone I showed picked the shortest cut. I pretty much agreed, but was just very scared about chopping off THAT much hair. Well, without further ado, here are the results:

Haircut picture


The NEW Me!

My husband is completely taken with my new 'do. I will be doing pretty much anything around the house and look over to see him staring at me. When I say "What??", he goes on and on about how cute he thinks it is. Yay! Pleasing the hubby is number one on my list. Plus, it seems to be pretty easy to do overall and I like the look of it. Thanks to everyone who voted! :)

A Half Birthday for Beckett

Beckett is now 6 months old! I can't believe that he's halfway to a year. That is just unreal to me.

He's such a sweet baby. He LOVES to be held and to cuddle. I can already tell that touch is his love language. I am so thankful for that. Taylor Joy never wanted to cuddle or be held and she still doesn't, but just says that she wants to be held and then starts wiggling out of your arms after about 2.5 seconds. With Beckett there is a world of difference. He will fall asleep in your arms, he loves to be touched and just breaks out in that big grin when he knows he's being loved on. It's precious.

Some things he's loving this month:

-Getting around! He will literally roll around the living room to get around. Back to stomach to back and all around. He is VERY proud of his new skill! I'm not so thrilled about it...

-Holding his feet and playing with them. They are his favorite toy this month! That makes it pretty easy! Can't drop those!

-Taylor Joy! He giggles at her like none other. It is so precious to see the two of them laughing together. Nothing makes me happier than to see that. What a precious sight!

Here is a picture of Beckett's mohawk...I think he's lost even more hair on the sides since then...




We've also been trying to feed him some solids and he is SO not interested! Any tips to help this process move along? We've tried rice cereal mixed with breastmilk, rice cereal mixed with bananas and rice cereal mixed with apples, also bananas and apples separately. Each time he acts as though I've just fed him poo and tries to figure out a way to get it out of his mouth! He's so funny! He loves to watch us eat and always looks interested until it gets in his mouth. I would love some tips!

Disciplines of a Godly Woman

I must admit that, in my flesh, just reading the title of this book made me want to walk away. Discipline is never an enticing word. Just ask my two year old daughter. Whether we're two or 52, I'm afraid that big word with all the i's will always find us running away.

The one thing that does motivate me toward discipline is the Word. First Timothy 4:7 says, "Train yourself to be godly." The Greek word used for train is "gymnazo," which speaks volumes to me, having been a gymnast when I was younger. My schedule was non-stop when I was training for an upcoming meet. I would run laps before school and my coach would pick me up as soon as school was over and take me to the gym, where I stayed until 9 p.m. I'm pretty sure I did that four times a week. No only the time issue, but also the intensity factor plays into my understanding of what it means to really train yourself. We had coaches that made us sit out if we weren't giving it our all. As soon as we learned a layout, they were pushing for a full, as soon as we had the full, they were on us about doing a double. There wasn't an end in sight!

With that said, we do have the Lord's strength as we train and learn what it means to be disciplined in every aspect of our lives.

I've come to realize that there is a direct correlation between the discipline that's displayed in my life and the fruit that's borne in my life. I also think that we miss out on many blessings when we fail to respond to or initiate discipline in our own lives.

Like training for a gymnastic meet, it's essential to train consistently (daily), sacrificially, with passion and conviction, throwing off everything that hinders our progress. All this while keeping our focus on God and not ourselves. Sounds easy, right?

The areas of discipline are separated into chapters: Gospel, submission, prayer, worship, mind, contentment, propriety, perseverence, church, singleness, marriage, nurturing, good deeds, witness and giving.

One of the most helpful tidbits I drew from this book was in the very last chapter, pertaining to application. The author suggested making two lists from all the disciplines listed above. The first list is where you write down where you are doing well. Make the second list the areas where you need help and then number them in order of importance. Make suggestions as to how you can become more disciplined in those areas, pray and become accountable to somebody so that you can begin to see growth. I wouldn't recommend taking on too many areas at once because if you're like me list one is sparse and list two is pretty hefty. This really is a practical way to begin not only overcoming spiritual laziness in your life, but also in succeeding in your spiritual training and using that to bless the Lord and others around you.

I whole-heartedly recommend this book for study. Yes, there are study questions at the end of each chapter and if you just blow through the book without doing the study, you won't get the most out of this book.

Although it's a wonderful book that I highly recommend, it may not be the most exciting book to read since it goes into detail about all the ways you need to become more disciplined. That's never fun to hear. It's like telling you there's a hard road ahead and saying, "Now, let's get going!" Great! But, don't become overwhelmed! Just take it one chapter at a time and know we serve a God who desires to see us succeed and who is with us every step of the way.