Christmas!

It's that time of year again! Thanksgiving time has passed, the Nutcracker ballet is over for this year, The pantry is full of tins of Christmas goodies, there's an air of secrecy about the house, and the snow if (finally!!) falling. Yes! We had a big snow storm yesterday, and into this afternoon, and the ground is covered with fluffy white stuff :) I'm baking carmel popcorn right now, (yes, I know it's 10:15, and yes, I know I have a science midterm tomorrow, but things happened, and I got delayed...) Anyways, mom asked me to write our annual Christmas letter this year, so I've been thinking about what I want to say about each of my siblings, and our family in general. It's a lot harder than I thought, to sum up each of my amazing/crazy family members in a paragraph, but I'm doing my best. :)

As I mentioned before, the pantry is filled with tubs of spritz and chocolate crinkle cookies, carmel popcorn, chocolate dipped pretzels, and lots of other yummies. We're getting ready to send our annual Christmas boxes out hopefully tomorrow, and mail out our Christmas cards, which is why mom asked me to write the letter. I'm finishing up with my Christmas gifts, and hopefully I won't be cramming on Christmas eve like I was last year. *cough cough*

Well I have a Christmas letter to write, so I'd better get to it!

~Hannah

The Return to the blog - a story of epicness

Okay, not really :P But I'll tell you how it happened. I just want to start by saying that I didn't really ever forget about this blog, I just "forgot" about it for a while.. Now I know that doesn't really make sense, but like I knew it was here, I would just forget to write posts every week, and then pretty soon it would slip off of my radar until it had been like 5 months since I last posted anything.

So, now for the story of epicness: I came home and was working on my project (something that I'll save for a later post) and I went to search online for a certain plug-in to use on my video-editing software (Final Cut Pro X if you're curious) and while I was downloading it, I decided to search for something, I typed in my key words and started scrolling through the results. And, about 3 results down, was a blog post written by none other than myself! Yep, I was searching for something, and my little blog popped up third. So, with my plugin still downloading, I decided to pop in and write a post, hopefully the first of many more to come, but we'll see.

Plug-in's done downloading now, so I will sign off now

~Hannah

Bible Bee!

I'm excited! We're doing the Bible Bee for the second year, it was lots of fun last year, and I'm super excited to do it again this year. It's cool for me, because I'm very competitive (I guess living with three brothers, and several competitive cousins does that for ya :P ) so I can compete, and at the same time commit portions of scripture to memory, It was very rewarding last year, and this year, I hope it will be just as much. We get our materials in just about two weeks :)

I'm sitting here, in our guest room/library/storage room, I put the iPod on the christian station on pandora, and started looking for a book, I ended up just sitting here, looking out the window at the mountains, watching the water in the pond sparkle as the sun hit it, and just enjoying the beauty of the afternoon. So as I was sitting here, the song East to West, by Casting Crowns came on, and I started listening to the lyrics.

After a minute I started crying, and realizing how badly I need Jesus, every day. I don't know why the song touched me so much, It's one of my moms favorites, so she plays it a lot, and I hear it probably every day. But It got to the part where it was talking about how I'm not holding on to you, but you're holding on to me, and I was crying.

These lyrics are so so good.

Jesus can you show me just how far the east is from the west?
I can't bear to see the man I've been, come rising up in me again
In the arms of your mercy I find rest
Cause you know just how far the east is from the west
From one scarred hand to the other

I know you've washed me white
Turned my darkness into light
I need your peace to get me through
To get me through this night!

Can't live by what I feel
But by the truth your word reveals
I'm not holding on to you
But you're holding onto me


Now I'm sitting here, surrounded by boxes, (courtesy of Caleb, we're holding his stuff here while he's in the process of moving down here -yes!-) books, and extra blankets, and Jesus. And I finally, after so many weeks, feel peaceful about this summer, and feel peace about what I'm going to do. And peace in my relationship with someone, that's been a big challenge this year. God works in mysterious ways, I never listen to Pandora, and it's a random order, but he used that song, and I'm so thankful that he did.

~Hannah

It's Amazing

Its amazing what starting out the day with a quick prayer, and short scripture passage can do. For the last few weeks I've been making a point to start the day with a prayer, and reading a chapter of the bible. Anyone who knows me well knows that this is probably hard for me, I'd way rather do my bible study at midnight, than at 6:00 am, but I've noticed that when I start the day out this way, it seems to go so much smoother.

What I've been doing is waking up 5 minutes earlier than I usually do, praying, spending a few minutes writing in my journal, and then read a chapter in my bible, sometimes while i'm brushing my teeth. It's really awesome how waking up 5 minutes earlier in the morning can make so much difference!

Now if I could crack the habit of staying up till 12:00+ and writing, because it's quiet and I'm "not tired" Yeah right Hannah.. :P

This week....

This past week or so has made me question my dream of adopting one or two special needs kids. In feel terrible about it, because I always thought it was a dream that the Lord put on my heart, but this week has been so rough that I'm questioning it. I think that Satan is trying to tempt me, and honestly, right now it's working. As much as I love the little girls, I'm not sure if I could do it.

Ive always believed that God gave me my little sisters to prepare me for adopting some special needs kids, or doing something along those lines. And to give me the heart to defend the special people that these kids are.

I've never felt like this, so unsure about my future and dreams. All I know, is that my parents are amazing. Amazing. To have been so successful in this situation. Amazing.

Bracing myself

Yeah, on Thursday I have to get braces. I am so looking forward to this. ...Not. Except for the fact that I will be able to speak normally after about 6-8 months, and that's a good thing. Other than that, blah.

Oh, and by the way, I know I haven't updated for a long time, aside from my random post a few weeks ago. Um, Texas was awesome! and warm :) The food was really good too. Fajitas are amazing. So we got back from Texas at 1:30 and decided to be at church at 5:00. by the time I got home and went to bed, I'd been up for 43 hours with three hours of sleep in there. ahh!

This week we've just been getting back to normal after such a crazy travel schedule over the past month. and Gearing up for the boys and daddys big trip.