Happy New Year!!!

it's 2010!!!!
BIG year!!!
happy new year everybody!
thank you, Lord, for another year! help us live it for You!

Christmas, New Year, and Happy Birthday Isabella!!!

so, Christmas was awesome, as usual!! i LOVE Christmas!!!!!
We had a very special time on Christmas Eve singing carols with several families that are our closest friends...
Christmas morning we were forbidden to wake up our parents until NINE o'clock!! nine!! that was just torture! Then we had our traditional Christmas breakfast of sausage biscuits, yummm...Then Cole read the Christmas story from Luke to the whole family, that is always a special time that helps keep us focused on the real meaning of Christmas and this year was the first year Cole read :)
Then the opening of the presentssss!!! SO much fun! lots of laughing and hugging and surprised faces, and then everyone plugged into the various pieces of technology they had received! haha
which brings me to my most exciting Christmas present......my laptop!!! i'm updating my blog right now, for the first time, from my pink mini laptop!! which i LOVE! i'm SO thankful for this gift from my parents! i also got a pair of earrings and several scarfs from my brothers... :)
I also got to open up a package from my besties in America on Christmas Eve, on webcam with them, i LOVED every little thing in the package, it was SO thoughtful!! i love me some Sarah, Aubrey, Sami, and Kristina!!! :)
tomorrow is New Year's eve!!! we're gonna spend family time, making snack, playing games, watching movies, should be fun!!! :)
it's also Isabella Xing Hope Garland's 4th birthday tomorrow!!!!!! happy birthday you precious angel i will love you forever and ever, i can't believe you're such a big girl!!! <3

Senioritis, the power of prayer, Elf, and Christmas shopping...

so, i seem to have bitten by some sort of bug that many people seem to be bit by in their senior year of highschool...a bug that causes a state of being here referred to as "senioritis" which is basically extreme procrastination becoming a way of life and an atypical desire to just stay in bed all day every day...i've always been a very active, confident, out-going person, but this year i've just been feeling so blah...sluggish, bored, discontent, etc etc...you can blame it on whatever you want but I think it all boils down to both a spiritual battle and a struggle with the flesh...i have a lot of big things coming up in the next six months or so and i think there's spiritual warfare going on over what i've made up my mind to do with the rest of my life and whether i'm actually going to go through with it...and there's the fact that i KNOW my spirit is willing but the flesh is weak...
i've shared much of this frustration with a few close friends in the last few days and both have encouraged me to PRAY PRAy PRay Pray pray...thanks guys, you know who you are! :)
i hadn't been keeping in touch with my Father so much these days so when these friends reminded me that prayer is what keeps us "sane" it pierced my heart and i had to spend a little time talkin to my BEST friend...so that's what i'm gonna do, i'm prayin against this thing now, and i feel my strength being renewed already!
on a much lighter note, it's almost Christmas!!!!!!!! i'm so So SO excited!! i love christmas!!!
we watched "Elf" a few nights ago *sigh* that movie makes me smile! "smiling's my favorite!!"
"buddy the elf, what's your favorite color??" "i'm in love i'm in love and i don't CARE who knows it!!!" "i'm sorry i ruined your life and crammed 11 cookies in the VCR..."
did some christmas shopping today and going again tomorrow! SO fun!! this christmas season is bittersweet because it's my last christmas living at home...i'll surely come home for many more christmases down the road, but this is my last one spent as a full-time Monger house resident...
i LOVE this time of year...it's the time of year to appreciate all the simple things in life like baking cookies and playing games and drinking hot chocolate and trying in vain to keep a two year old from messing up the tree...haha...and also a time to be thankful for all the so-called "simple" things we take for granted that many people don't have...a happy home, a warm house, good food...
but the most important thing to be thankful for is the fact that God sent His son Jesus to come to earth to be born as a fragile human child in the poorest of conditions so that we could one day be saved through Him...i heard someone say last Sunday that Jesus' sacrifice did not begin when He hanging on the cross, it didn't begin when they began to beat Him, it didn't begin when He was betrayed, it began when He left Heaven's glory to come to earth and live life as a man...we sometimes forget about that and it's so true and it really stuck with me this week...