WOL girls lock-in {1.20-1.21}

Yesterday night, all the girls from WOL converged at Landmark to have one of the most epic sleepovers ever. Seriously. Camp was amazing, but this sleepover was wicked cool too.Thanks to all the WOL leader ladies (say that three times fast!) that planned the whole event...I will remember with a stupid grin on my face forever.

Before all the fun began, we wielded staple guns (scaryyy) and tacked up the from last year to get a head start on the decorating...

Funny story...we were arranging the verse so it read right but couldn't remember how it went so we just stared at it. Then Meg was like "OH! a Bible!" and picks it up. We laughed..it was awesome.

This was what it looked like before we ate...can't show ya the after without giving it away! 

Break for pizza & Dr. Pepper. Lauren ate a whole pizza. By herself. Everyone had a blast tallying up the slices as she ate.

Shiny metal chairs on the table...I couldn't resist.

Back to the decorating! We finished up the gym decor (no problem since we had lots of people helping. someone was on to something when they said "Many hands make light work.") and then went into the old kitchen to have our silhouettes drawn by the resident artists Emily & Rebecca.

After we finished with the decorating (around 9:30), we trekked upstairs to play Catch Phrase. Everyone played it a different way, but we found a style that worked for everyone...but Katie and I were ruthless on each other since we played the same way.

Note everyone's expressions. They are so diverse! 

So many cameras! I don't know how we heard each other over the sound of the shutter clicking.

Abbey and her Nikon. I still love her despite her camera company choice. 

Abbey and Emily. 

Lauren AKA the girl who ate EIGHT pieces of pizza.

PJ's were put on and then we gathered upstairs to split up into teams and play an AMAZING hour & a half of Sardines. In a dark church/gym. Best game of Sardines ever. I'm pretty sure there was snorting involved on my part because do you know how hard it is to sit under a conference room table on top of your friend's legs while she does a Hollywood-equse scream?! Unbelievably hard. It was even harder to control my laughter when we all started making animal noises after the billionth time the other teams ran past us.

Back upstairs for a midnight dance party!

There's Abbey again. She is such a natural photographer!

Talking. A requirement at a sleepover.

 I was deemed the Queen of the Cotton Eye Joe dance. OK, maybe that was only in my mind. But I totally was rockin' out to that, Glee, and various other artists. Everyone kinda dissipated and formed little groups to talk in (as evidenced below). Rebecca & I bonded over blinding each other with the flash on Katie's Droid.

At some point (1AM maybe?) we started the movie, Courageous, but Becca & I were oblivious to it all...only catching snippets of was totally worth talking with her. We only stopped talking because it was 3AM and the leaders were semi-threatening us. Hahaha. Good times.

Becca & I were the first ones up & sat in our sleeping bags trying to keep warm (it was freezing!) and talked for another hour, then ventured downstairs to stuff our faces with egg casserole and a fourth doughnut in 24 hours. I'm not proud of that fact but they were just SO good.

Again, thanks to all the leaders who made this happen...it was so awesome!

it's the little things {link up #4}

One of the most gorgeous and talented blogging women you'll ever met, Lindsay, started hosting a link up called "It's the Little Things" to remind us that God blesses in a not-so big ways. A whole day can turn around when I get a special little something in the mail or my favorite show is on TV that night, and it's great to document the little things God puts in our day to show us he loves us!




...applying for part time jobs. Frustrating because I haven't been hired anywhere, but excited because HOLY COW I'm filling out a job application. & I'll get monies in mah pocket.
...puppy snuggles from a ::ahem:: no pooping dog. Bullet needs to learn that the grass is his bathroom. That is all. 
...sitting in the Coffee Shack writing this post. & eating a panini with the jazz music blasting behind me.
...reading blogs on my Kindle Fire. Thanks to Emily for reminding me about
...wearing my brother's shirt. Forget about waiting until I'm married to wear men's clothes...I can go into Clark's closet and have plaid shirts all ready for me to wear ;)
...lock-ins at church with my best friends. 

Happy Friday readers! I'm off the aforementioned lock-in for WOL girls...pictures to come!

photography rut no more!

Today I picked up my camera. Like, really picked it up and enjoyed getting the settings right, capturing the joy on the CBS kiddos faces, and showed off my photography because I WAS PROUD OF IT. I haven't been proud of my photography in a longgg time.

Ruts are a-okay every once in awhile, because eventually you pick up whatever your hobby is & see it in a new light. That's what happened to me today. Having cute kiddos who love the camera helps.

Happy Thursday, readers. May your Friday be amazing and your weekend even more so.

blimey cow

A year or so ago, I used to love Julian Smith. My friends and I would laugh our heads off at this video...and this one. And maybe this one too. Oh yeah, can't forget this one. TOO funny. Then we fell off the bandwagon and I forgot the awesomeness of funny YouTube videos. That is, until I watched this video that's circling around the blogosphere (and Facebook. but, ya know, i wouldn't know about that).

While Seven Lies about Homeschooling is amazing, Stupid People Who Do Stupid Things on the Internet convicted me while making me laugh so hard tears ran down my face. Just watch...




Convicting, right? I mean, I do things for the sole reason of telling ya'll about it. It's not nessicarily a bad thing because it keeps me accountable on projects, New Years resolutions, etc...but when it gets in the way of your life, that's when it gets bad.

Let's vow to share the good AND the bad with each other without losing who we are in the process. Agreed? Agreed.

ice, ice baby

I'm sorry about that title...I just couldn't resist.

A couple days ago Jack told me that his WOL youth group was coming to our town. ::gasp:: AND they were going ice skating ::double gasp:: His sis Hannah & I were JUST talking about how much we wanted to go wipo out  skate around the rink all graceful like. AND they were inviting our youth group to go as well. ::triple gasp:: OK, so at this point in the gasps I'm hyperventilating. But I'm pretty sure I was doing that in real life.

It was a looong two days, ya'll. Knowing that you're going to see some of your best friends whom you haven't seen in MONTHS in just 72 hours can make a person crazy...as if I wasn't already. HA.

Today was the day. And it was AWESOME. I had SO much fun I barely took any pictures. I kept coming out to give my ankles a break (thanks to Dylan's tying skills) so that's when I snapped all of these.

They were showoffs. 

Erika. I lub her. 

TOO MUCH PRETTY <3

They are SUCH goofballs. (L to R: Hannah, Jack, and Connor)

Random lady watching random people whiz by

 At some point, we were so frozen & so we decided to go thaw out in the snack bar, which then morphed into Sam, Connor, Erika, and Grace sitting with me & Hannah. In one booth. Yeah, it was cramped but so fun. The boys found out I laugh at guy (read: inappropriate) jokes. After much laughter and stealing of gloves (I'm lookin' at YOU, Sam), we went back out only to come back in and go back out when the lights dimmed.

photo FAIL. But it was SO awesome. 

I was still shaking once we left & had already gotten to McDonalds (which, funny enough, was the same one Sam works at. he can't escape that place) but warmed up by laughing at more stupid guy stuff that the other girls didn't get. Memories.

Gahhh. I love those WOL people SO much. I miss them already!